EAST COAST OVERTURE Music from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and PEI rock indie folk alternative acoustic garage new wave emo ska shoegaze jazz and experiMENTAL

Drumming is Almost Spiritual: Allen
By Jaclyn Crawford
(12/04/08)

Thomas Allen has been playing drums since he was 14.

Well, according to him, he has been banging on the drums since he was 14 and didn’t start actually playing until about two years after.

Allen said his first drum kit was a Christmas present from his parents.

“Years later, my mom told me they were torn between the drum kit and a unicycle. No joke.”

A few months after Christmas, they bought him the cymbols. He had to wait until his parents could afford them.

His family didn’t have a lot of money. Yet looking back, he said he never wanted for anything. His parents somehow just made it work.

“Now that I think about it, those lessons would have been a strain on my family. I am going to have call my mom and thank her later.”

He said most of his drum teachers weren’t very interested in teaching him and ran out of things to teach quite quickly, except for Burce Aitken, who came later and was “an excellent teacher," said Allen.

Now that he teaches drum lessons he doesn’t just focus on teaching the technical aspects like different beats or theory, but how to really love playing the instrument.

“I am not so much teaching them how to drum, I am teaching them why to drum.”

Fourteen years after he started taking lessons, Allen currently plays in multiple bands, including The Tom Fun Orchestra, Carmen Townsend and the Shakey Deals, and 3 Piece Suit. He plays in as many as he can.

With this many bands, Allen has had to learn how to balance his time touring, with his life at home, however it hasn’t been a very successful.

He said his music never suffers. He always gives 100 per cent, and tries to upstage himself very night.

“I never get on stage and half-ass it,” he said.

He also hates playing with people who do. They should just get off stage. They are wasting their time and the audience’s, he said.

Allen said life on the road is very different than his time at home.

“Imagine a chicken scratching around in the backyard,” he said. “That’s my life when I am not on tour.”

He said he enjoys hiking and camping with his girlfriend- and even takes epsom salt baths after a long day of painting. (He took the opportunity to do so during our interview.)

He likes traveling and recommends doing something or going somewhere people don’t normally go. He said if you are going somewhere foreign, just go down and feel it out.

“All hotels and resorts are the same. If you are going to travel, emmerse yourself up to your neck in the culture.”

When Allen is touring, he said life is very inconsistent.

“Sometimes life on the road is wicked, and sometimes it is horrible. It is hard to explain,” he said.

It can be extremely emotionally trying at times because you are dragged into the maturity of the situation, he said.

He said there are a lot of “fake-os” out there, and sometimes it is hard to take.

But life on the road can be fun, he said.

“A lot of it has to do with how you feel about yourself.”

(Photo courtesy of CarmenTownsend.ca.)

Related links:
+ Carmen Townsend & the Shakey Deals (website)
+ Carmen Townsend & the Shakey Deals (MySpace)
+ Tom Fun Orchestra (website)
+ Tom Fun Orchestra (MySpace)

Go back to Intervenus Interviews.
Go back to Reading Material.

* * * * *
Jaclyn Crawford likes robots.