Todd Sucherman (Styx)

Written By Ari Gold
 

INTERVIEW WITH TODD SUCHERMAN on Hot Sticks Drum Show, transcript below.
Plus, see more about Todd Sucherman on the “Adventures of Power” Official Site.

Ari Gold

Yeah, I mean, but it worked. You know, it's, it's, I mean, I, I love the feel of that even if it's, you know, some kind of soup of multiple takes.

Todd Sucherman

It's because he, he had a magic thing where, you know, there's certain drummers when, you know, Gad makes me feel that way, Steve Jordan, where they could be playing the simplest groove and I go, how are you doing? How are you making it feel like that? And like, Yes, I know. It's everyone's got their own heartbeat. And he's got, like, I, I can. I can intellectualize it and understand it like that. But still, like, Okay, now, sit down and make it feel like that you're like, how are they doing that? That's, that's the thing that I'm trying to really zero in now. And not like, you know, chops are trying to play you know, a difficult polyrhythms that you know, very few will understand or enjoy. I want to be able to to make something feel as great as I can make it feel. And that's something that I I always tried to do growing up as a kid but I was caught up in the hall. I love chops. I love playing. And almost to my detriment, I I gained a lot of facility, a lot of understanding to play a lot of stuff. And now it's it's, I just I just want to make it feel great. Yeah, I love it. When someone comes to me for a session. It's a ballot or something with brushes. I'm like, Oh, thank God, thank you. They always come to me with like, let's get Todd on. Oh, man, just God, it's my favorite thing in the world to do. Yeah, quite honestly.

Ari Gold

Yeah. Who would you love to have a collaboration with out there on planet Earth? That you haven't?

Todd Sucherman

Anybody that I haven't yet? You know? Yeah. Because

Ari Gold

the person there must be somebody out there you like, I'd love to do a track with.

Todd Sucherman

Oh, it's like, Oh, sure. You know, Peter Gabriel sting, Paul McCartney. You know, I mean, I you can check back and go down the line of all the greats. But I'm often surprised by a random phone call from someone or Hey, are you available? And it's something I don't know. I started to say I did this record two years ago for this guy in Germany. It's called finally George, because he he has been a music composer for jingles and film and corporate events and corporate film, stuff like that. But this is the first time that he's been able to do his own music without someone standing over his shoulder telling them yes or no or what to do. And, you know, very often I'll get sent stuff and I'll play something and my wife will kind of go you can't put your name on that. Or, in this case, who is this? And just three great progressive rock songs like if you if you dig, like the David Gilmore side of Pink Floyd or the mellower side of porcupine tree, little bits of genesis of Billy Joel Bowie, arsons,

Ari Gold

and Assistant Billy Joel together, right? Yeah,

Todd Sucherman

they're, they're all these little bits. So I did this record and I treated it like it was my own record. So I just finished his second one just last week. And he's become a friend in in Germany. I've done both his records and it's it's it with music that good all I can do is not screw it up. You know, so, you know, I'd love to play with more people like that. So someone that I've never heard of that comes out of the blue and becomes part of my life. That's that's the amazing thing about this. I could pontificate on the cheek. It'd be great to work with Sting. But then there's something like that comes in. It makes me almost weep on. This is why I want to want to be a musician.

Ari Gold

You would sound great with steam though. And they're saying the same thing by the way.

Todd Sucherman

Thank you. And that would be fun.

Ari Gold

And Ringo is all star band. Have you met rained up?

Todd Sucherman

Twice? Yes. Yes, twice.

Ari Gold

What Oh, sorry. What's that German record called?

Todd Sucherman

Finally, George life is a killer. That's the one that came out in 2018. And whatever his second one I just finished that should hopefully be out sometime later in the year. But it's on, you know, it's on the Amazon, Spotify or whatever you however you listen to music, it's there. It's really, really an amazing record.

Ari Gold

Okay, okay. What's the hardest stick song? That's a question I've gotten several times, so I'm going to throw it at you. What, what's something that makes you a little nervous when you're about to play live?

Todd Sucherman

Well, I never get nervous. But I always hope that I have gas in the tank for renegade at the end. Because we'd be on the show with that. fooling yourself is deceptively hard. It seems kind of like a happy song. But there's, there's a lot. There's a lot going on up here because it's 12 82442274. And then

Ari Gold

that's a frog.

Todd Sucherman

But it's got it's got it's got the Peter Gabriel Salisbury Hill seven, four, where you don't realize it's in southern four unless you go, Hey, wait a second.

Ari Gold

It's gonna grew.

Todd Sucherman

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I I'd say I'd say those. Sometimes Miss America would kick my ass a little bit just because it's like, you know, it's like, it's like this, this big, big bone bone head. Straight ahead, rocker. And depending on where that is in the set, or if it's 100 degrees and 100% humidity outside we were to in the show, that can can wreck me a little bit sometimes. Hey, I want to I want to ask you if I could, because I only got to meet Neil pure once. And I had a beautiful experience with him. And it's very cool that that, you know, obviously it was it was it was in the film, but you you obviously connected with him enough to have a friendship. And, you know, I'm curious if any, anything you'd like to share about your experience with him.

Ari Gold

I mean, you know, he he was a book I didn't he I consider him more like a mentor that you know, he was someone I always looked up to who would you know, send me funny notes. Sometimes we exchanged books. You know, he was going to maybe teach me to ride a motorcycle, which never happened we we had some plans amazing plans that he wanted me to air drum with the the keyboard. It's called the hockey thing that Canada hockey theme, or Canada Day Hockey night in Canada. Hockey night. Yeah. So he has this big thing that he would do. And he wanted me to air drum along with it. And but you know, I think we connected. When we first met on the set of adventures of power, I never spoken to him. I sent this letter to his management saying that I wanted him to be in this crazy independent movie about air drumming. And everyone said, Oh, he's a recluse, you know, he, he just went through all this crazy stuff. He doesn't do public stuff. He doesn't appear on camera. And then word came through that. He wanted to do it. And so I was totally flattered and, and intimidated. And and then he actually couldn't make it to set the day we shot his scene at the end of the movie, when he ends up to anyone, for anyone who's seen it. There's a big competition, he shows up. So he wasn't there when we shot the competition. So we we built a special day where we like went to his studio and put a bunch of people to make the crowd so he could do his scene. And I thought, Oh, this is so rinky dink, you know, it just like it looks so silly, you know, because when you're shooting a crowd scene in like a room, and you're faking it. And the fact that it was so rinky dink, I think really charmed him. And so he immediately kind of warmed to the film and to us when he realized we were, you know, scrappy, independent filmmakers. And he told him, we had a burrito back, you know, when we were waiting to shoot and he said, you know, this reminds me of, you know, when, when we were when I was starting out as a musician, and it's so it's so great. He kept saying it's, you know, it's an honor to be working on something like this and then and then when the movie you know, we finished the movie went to Sundance and God kind of ignored slash attacked at Sundance, it was a kind of like, really open hearted comedy that at the time, I think people didn't want they wanted something really cynical and mean and so it was not well received, actually. And he immediately contacted me and said, Don't believe anything anyone says about you good or bad? Because if you believe the good ones are gonna believe the bad ones, you just ignore it. And then he did these did an interview with me at drum channel and then to this drum off where he played Tom Sawyer and I buy air drum right next to him while he's playing. And I mean, it's like the life lifelong dream of like millions of air drummers around the world but his generosity, I think he had this generosity mixed with obviously like a heavy brain like he was super intellectual, a big reader, big thinker. Actually challenged him a little bit about the, about the objectivism. You know that it was so influential to his early lyrics. He said, You know, what's your feeling about, you know, Ayn Rand now, and he kind of gave me a funny look like, he that he was over it, that he, I think he became a bit more open to spiritual ideas and open to certainly ideas about did I get it cut off there for a second?

Todd Sucherman

Yeah, you in just froze for just a second?

Ari Gold

Yeah, he kind of he became more intrigued by stuff of the Spirit and stuff of, you know, Mother Earth, which can hear in some of the later Russia albums in the lyrics. And so we connected on that and but, you know, mainly, I would say, he was someone who made me feel I think, made everyone who made him feel welcome and protected and warm. You know, for someone who was known as being a reckless or more distant, you know, you can never get to him. He was extremely warm, but he just, you know, he didn't like dealing with like, massive people coming at him at once. So, like, you know, I, I got to get backstage passes to rush shows, and, you know, but he never showed up backstage, you know, he was, he was out, you know, he would, he would finish the show and, and go Yeah, he wanted to be with his, you know, his wife. And so, you know, I mean, I have his book, you know, he sent me his books whenever they came out, and it's just relentless creativity. I don't know. It's I it's very hard to hear

Todd Sucherman

from, from where I am, I know so many people that were in that circle, or that orbit, our guitar tech of 20 years who died about six months before Neil did Jimmy Johnson was Neil's boyhood friend. And he was part of the deal when Neil got the rush gig Jimmy comes with So Jimmy was with with him all the way. Lawrence Gowan, when he was gone and ADC was Ray Daniels was the manager with Libby gray are lighting designer her husband's brand Carpenter has been doing monitors for rush for the last 10 years. So through like Lawrence, like, you know, I know all these people and Howard Ungerleider, the lighting director. And everything I've ever heard about any of those guys is that they're just exemplary human beings. It's just as a wonderful organization of wonderful human beings. Never heard one at this one time never heard one negative story or anything like just exemplary human beings.

Ari Gold

Yeah, Rush and anthem. They didn't tolerate. They didn't tolerate assholes. I don't think they wouldn't have let anyone who was a douche bag into their world. And I think they had a sense for a too and that's where as I was sort of flat flattered that they could have the door opened for me to hang out a little bit and, and it was it was yeah, it was special. And you felt that from everyone there. There was a kind of like, a sense of like, everyone respected everyone else. And it was kind it wasn't like rock and roll BS ever.

Todd Sucherman

Right? When I My my, my one meeting with him revolves around the Hockey Night theme. I had flown to Los Angeles to record with Brian Wilson. He was doing his Gershwin record, reimagined Gershman

Ari Gold

every time every time you say oh, and I went to record with Brian Wilson and his right is amazing.

Todd Sucherman

I'm not perfect. Okay. Did I mentioned some central pain and so I fly out there, and I'm I'm staying at the Sportsman's lodge in a studio city. Right. And I get an email from Jimmie Johnson or guitar tech and said hey, look what Neil sent me and there's a picture of the hockey drum set right with all the you know, the the white with the ice blue hardware and all the emblem of all the NFL teams on all the drums. So I'm gonna go I was doing it was cool, went to bed woke up, went into the studio to actually this was the second day because my stuff is already set up. It was the second day I walked in and I see Chris Dankey from Sabian CBR district in the foyer at ocean wave. And like Chris, what do you do on here he goes, Todd, I saw Brian's name on the door. I wondered if you were gonna be here. I like what are you doing here? It's good Neil's recording now the Hockey Night theme in the next studio over because now's a good time to say hi, I'm like, let me drop off my stuff and a starving. So I dropped off my stuff. And I went and grabbed a bagel from the kitchen, took a bite. And then all of a sudden Chris pulls me in. And in his studio, there's the kit. The friggin Stanley Cup trophy, in 18 piece, big band, you know, all the texts in a film crew filming this thing. And Chris introduces me and just a warm handshake and a smile because we both know, we have so many mutual people in our lives. And he was just warm, engaging, lovely. He was asking me all the questions he wanted to know about the Brian Wilson record and what's it like working with Brian and you know, tell me some Brian stuff. And, you know, I'm looking around and I'm basically see that there's 27 people in this room all waiting for him to be done talking to me so they can get to work. But Neil seems to be quite happy to be chatting. But now I'm starting to feel a little bit like I should probably let you get back to work here. So Chris is Oh, we got to get a picture. So we snapped a couple pictures of Neil and I are in the Stanley Cup and I'm holding that friggin bagel and a big crescent bite out of it. And that was my one meeting. I'm like, Hey, let's you get to work and I got work to do too. So it was great. And I always hoped that there would be some other meeting with him but it was not meant to be but I'm very happy that I privileged and grateful and thankful that I had one and that it was so lovely that it's a warm fuzzy every time I think of it.

Ari Gold

Did you keep the bagel? No, I

Todd Sucherman

ate a bagel I was hungry.

Ari Gold

means that you get bronze bronze, the big

Todd Sucherman

brass, bronze bangles.

Ari Gold

So maybe we'll we'll wrap up. I don't maybe I'll look at whatever the next question is. We'll do one question. Now everyone's gonna type at once and someone's gonna feel cheated, but people are just so bronze the bagel. Okay, then maybe we'll wrap up. So anyone who wants to watch Adventures of power, it is on amazon prime all the time. And if you want to buy Adventures of power on Vimeo, all of the money that we make on Vimeo goes to support MusiCares which has a COVID COVID special program to support musicians in need and for gigging musicians and support crews. It's a really great charity. So where you can go to music Harrison just donate. But if you watch Adventures of power, either on Amazon for free, you know, we get paid a couple pennies every time someone watches it. So we send it to MusiCares Vimeo, we get a little bit more we send it to MusiCares on Vimeo you get all the bonuses, including my interviews with Neil Pierre and stuff like that. And yeah, adventures the power is that's the movie. aerodrome or.com has some video. Actually, if you go there, if you go to advance your power.com backslash sticks, you can see me punking Todd the day that that video is is on your page on on the air drummer.com website so appalling. 2006 2006 It's crazy.

Todd Sucherman

I can hardly remember 2006

Ari Gold

I can't I mean, I remember that day, but I wouldn't have thought it was that long ago. But you know, time Time flies as as the movie starts with the line of thinking when you're talking about every drummer has their own heartbeat. The first line of the movie is the first sound we hear is the beat of our Mama's heart. And so maybe every drummer is different because in the womb, every drummer has heard a different kind of heartbeat. So and your mother was an actress, actor,

Todd Sucherman

actress, part time singer could play the piano. That was That's how my parents met. My father is playing a show and she was it.

Ari Gold

Okay, so you heard you heard the heartbeat of an artist when you were in the womb? And you You probably air drumming along.

Todd Sucherman

Yeah, it certainly didn't seem to hurt

Ari Gold

Okay, so thank you so much, Todd. It's a it's a real honor to, to hang out with you. Thanks, man.

Todd Sucherman

A pleasure. And we're able to do we're able to do this.

Ari Gold

Yeah, and thank you to Modern Drummer for hosting this. We weren't going to be on all the channels at once. And we will restream this to all channels later, we had a power outage at our streamers place. But thank you so much. And anyone who wants to watch Adventures of power right now with me with me online. You if you go to air drummer.com and then click the the, you know, the show link in the middle was where Todd's name is, you'll go to a watch party on Amazon and I'll click Start at the same time in like five minutes. And then if anyone wants to say anything to me during during the movie, you can save it there. But if you watch it another time, feel free to contact me at Ari Gold. That's where I am on on Instagram. And remember, it all supports MusiCares that's my spiel spiel. I said my spiel part. Todd, anything else you want to say about your life or advice?

Todd Sucherman

Yeah, like Stay, stay safe, stay smart. Do the right things everybody and keep playing music. If you if we can all do that we can get back to the live music experience.

Ari Gold

Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. I'm gonna remember remember, remember when I click the button to stop to not to hit save. So we can rebroadcast. It's got a lot of compliments on the interview, so I don't want to lose it because I remember, I've done this before.

Todd Sucherman

I won't say anything. I won't distract you. It's okay.

Ari Gold

I'm going to say goodbye. I'm going to press the button. I'm going to hit Save, save. Okay. Good luck. Thank you, Todd.

 
Ari Gold
Previous

John Humphrey (Seether) + Ethan Gold
Next

Scott Reeder (Fu Manchu)