Drumheller consist of Nick Fraser on the drums, Brodie West on the upside-down-mouthpiece alto sax, Doug Tielli on trombone, Rob Clutton on bass and Eric Chenaux on el guitare. They're barnstorming Wavelength with a healthy dose of stern musicianship on March 27th, so please remain respectfully quiet and try to look thoughtful during their performance.

Bunk Bedouin and Nick Fraser met up to engage in some free-improv interviewing, and not unlike jazz, when it worked, man, it worked. But also not unlike smooth jazz, it was mostly just annoying to all parties involved.

I know this isn't a self-help group, but what do you do when it feels like the inspiration well has dried up? Binge drinking isn't working anymore.
Lately I've been realizing that if I just make myself do something, like write music or practice, the results are encouraging. It's kind of like the saying "you make your own luck": I find the harder I work at something, the more inspired I am.

I guess what I'm saying is that Live and Let Die is the best James Bond movie ever.
I've never seen Live and Let Die.

Ever since I saw it, I've been afraid of feather fedoras. ' 
Eric Chenaux is one of my favorite guitar players. There is a solo that he
plays on our forthcoming debut album that I think might be one of the
greatest guitar solos ever recorded. The record should be out on the
rat-drifting label sometime this spring/summer.

What music is currently exploding your head right now?
I've been listening a lot to Anthony Braxton's Dortmund 1976 with George
Lewis. A Ken Vandermark large ensemble record and the new ICP album are also in steady rotation.

You clownin' on the ICP? As in the Insane Clown Posse?
I meant the new album by Misha Mengleberg's Instant Composer's Pool Orchestra. They're a Dutch 10-12 piece big band. Beautiful stuff. I believe the record is called "Aan & Uit".

What would you say if I told you that I thought anyone who says writing music isn't just a series of pleasant accidents was a filthy liar?
Sorry? Brodie West plays alto sax in the group, and I love his sound.
Sometimes I think that he could put the mouthpiece on upside-down and still
sound great. I play with him in a few different contexts, and his playing is
so consistent. He always sounds like himself.

Is it possible to consistently get into a creative frame of mind, without ritualistically destroying a part of yourself in the process, even if that means just smoking a cigarette?
I saw a clinic by drummer Elvin Jones once (RIP), and someone asked him if
drugs had influenced his music. He refused to answer the question, saying
only "That's stupid. Next question". I thought what he might have said was
that OF COURSE his music was influenced by drugs, given that he was a heroin
addict for years, spent a fair bit of time in jail and almost got fired from
Coltrane's band because of it. I enjoy a drink, but it has nothing to do
with the "creative process".

Salvador Dali felt that music was the lowest art. ' But then again, he also saw fit to give a blow-by-blow description of sodomy as an award acceptance speech, so feel free to launch into a diatribe here debunking (or supporting) this.
Music is definitely the most abstract of all the arts, and the most open to
interpretation.

I could say my name 300 times and tell you it was
ultra-minimalist techno, but you could in return wave your hands in
the air and call it reductionist finger-painting. I don't know if any medium is more or less abstract than another. Except maybe architecture.
A canvas is something you can hold in your hand. A Beethoven sonata is more abstract than that because the score is the only existing record of the work, it is only representational, it can be played an infinite number of ways, and when it is performed it is intangible.

Do you envy architects? I sure do.
Doug Tielli and Rob Clutton are musical architects. Even their simplest
pieces have vast structural implications, and many of their pieces aren't simple at all. As an improviser, Rob maintains a quiet control of every situation he's in.

By Bunk Bedouin