by Bob Makin

    It's been a year since Rusted Root has been a viable entity. On the verge of a breakup and/or breakdown, the members of the tribal-sounding Pittsburgh-based jam outfit decided to go their separate ways after touring with singer-songwriter Jewel last summer. But upon playing a benefit concert for The Midwife Center in Pittsburgh this summer, they decided to give Rusted Root one more college try ... literally. The band is playing about two week's worth of colleges this month (see rustedroot.com for dates and other details).

    Formed in 1990 when the acoustic duo of high school friendly vocalist-guitarists Mike Glabicki and Liz Berlin banded together with University of Pittsburgh-trained drummer-percussionist Jim Donovan and guitarist-bassist Patrick Norman. The uniquely rhythmic band began performing around the Pittsburgh area, playing small clubs and many benefits. There the band's most devoted followers, the now 66,000-strong Rust Tribe, took seed.

    Later on that year vocalist Jenn Wertz (who departed in '95 but rejoined this summer) and multi-instrumentalist-visual artist John Buynak began playing with the group. John's signature penny-whistle melodies were featured on the bands first hit "Send Me On My Way." In 1993, the addition of percussionist- ethnomusicologist Jim DiSpirito brought a new level of musicianship and instrumental texture to the band.

    In response to growing public enthusiasm, Rusted Root released its first independently produced full-length CD, "Cruel Sun," which has sold more than 110,000 units to date. The album directed Rusted Root to the attention of Mercury Records who signed the band and released "When I Woke" in 1994. produced by Bill Botrell (Tom Petty, Sheryl Crowe), the platinum-selling "When I Woke" spawned the aforementioned hit, "Send Me On My Way," as well as other Rusted Root standards, such as "Ecstasy," "Martyr" and "Drum Trip."

    The more introspective album "Remember," released in 1996, was recorded at Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, Calif. Jerry Harrison, keyboardist of the Talking Heads, produced.  The disc contains the songs, "Heaven," "Who Do You Tell It To" and "Virtual Reality," which was featured in the 1997 summer movie "Twister," as well as its soundtrack. The "Twister" soundtrack was certified gold in 1998.

    Released that year was the band's third Mercury album, a self-titled effort featuring Rusted Root's most potent mixture of Latin, African, Eastern, Soul, Rock, and traditional American music. Produced by Susan Rogers (Barenaked Ladies, Prince, David Byrne, Nil Lara) and Pat Moran (Robert Plant, Iggy Pop, Edie Brickell), the disc featured the exuberant "Magenta Radio," the uplifting "Rising Sun," the beautiful "My Love," the rousing "She Roll Me Up," the signature drum piece "Agbadza," the ethereal "Moon" and a cover of the Stones classic "You Can't Always Get What You Want," featuring Hot Tuna, tourmates on the 1998 Further Festival. Hot Tuna keyboardist Pete Sears also played on several tracks adding piano, organ, and accordion to the mix.

    In addition to these recordings, Rusted Root has released three EPs: "Live," "Airplane" and "Evil Ways," featuring a cover of the classic by Santana, with whom Rusted Root has shared the stage. One of the acts featured on the HORDE Tour, the band also opened for such influences as: The Grateful Dead,  Jimmy Page and Robert Plant and The Allman Brothers Band.

    Dedicated to a myriad of environmental and social causes, Rusted Root regularly invites groups such as The Rainforest Action Network and Planned Parenthood to distribute information at their shows. That dedication to good causes led to the band's reunion and reformation.

    With Mercury gobbled up by Island/Def Jam, Rusted Root will record a disc for that label early next year. But this time, the band members will continue to pursue their individual projects, which are spelled out in the following interview with Donovan, along with a variety of healing and insightful thoughts.

    It's really good to hear that Rusted Root is not only back but back with Jenn, who hasn't played with the band in five years. Comment on why you took a hiatus and what brought you back together, particularly with Jenn.

    Well, we'd been working for 10 years pretty much straight through without ever really taking more than a couple of months off here and there. We got to a point where we sort of felt creatively spent. I know I felt that way. In my opinion, in creativity, if you don't have time for input, it's hard to put out high quality creativity. That was a big factor working against us is that we just never took the time to have life experience in 10 years. We were always working, making a record or out on the road or doing something. And so it took us to a point, where we were like, 'You know what? It isn't really working. It's feeling kind of stale. Let's just put it down.'

    We left it open that maybe someday we'd come back to it. It could be next year or it could be in 10 years. None of us, including myself, really expected it to come back around for a while if at all simply because it felt like it had run its course. Then in April, I got a phone call my The Midwife Center where my wife and I had just had a baby. They delivered our child.

What's your baby's name?

    Her name is Tupelo, like 'Tupelo Honey.' She's the best thing that's ever happened in my life by a long shot. So these folks called. They were in dire need of funding. They were like, 'The hospital had cut our funding and there's all these women who are due. We don't have any money to provide them with the services. Could you help us out? Do you think Rusted Root could do a benefit for us?' And I was like, 'Oh, man. You really called at a bad time. We're not playing right now. I really doubt it's going to happen.' I made very excuse I could think of to let them down easy, but then at the end of our conversation, I told the woman, 'You know what? If it was anyone else in the world, I would tell them no outright, but since I really feel close to what you're doing because you delivered my baby in March, at least I'll go ask everybody. I'll ask the question and we can know for sure. And I won't be the bad guy.' I just couldn't say no. So I called the other five folks and one by one each said, 'Yeah, I'll do it. Sure. No sweat.' There was no resistance. It was just, 'Yeah, of course.'

    In one way, I was really surprised that we were going to be playing again, but on the full opposite end, I wasn't surprised at all because these folks I had been working with, there was a reason I had stayed around them so long. They're just generally very good people and when they see something that is close to someone's heart or really means something to a member, they've always stepped forward to help out. If playing a show is going to help out that many people, then why wouldn't we do it? That's the attitude.

    When I spoke to Mike that day, he mentioned the fact that he had been hanging out with Jenn and they had been talking the last couple of months. What about maybe bringing her in for the show and just have it be a special thing, like a reunion of everybody. I was like, 'Wow, that's really interesting. We really don't have anything to lose. Why not. It might be a nice spark for us and who knows what that will lead to.' Just kind of thinking out loud and not really expecting anything. We proceeded to have rehearsals and have her come down. And from the second she started singing again in the different  harmonies -- I think we played 'Send Me on My Way' and 'Martyr' in rehearsal -- as soon as we heard her voice, it was like, 'Oh my God, this is what's been missing for five years.' That other energy, that other voice and the mix of everything that made it whole musically. It's like getting back on a bike again and riding it. It just fell into place naturally.

    And so we had such a good time with the benefit, we decided to do a couple of more dates. We got offered a couple of Allman Brothers opening slots, so we did those. And we did a couple of college dates in September. We're just getting our feet wet again and making sure we're actually excited about doing it.

    Now this next tour that we're doing is just the next step in the process of working again together. For the last three weeks now, we've been rehearsing four to five days a week, playing tons of new material, throwing a whole bunch of stuff out on the table with the thought that I think we're going to go into the studio and make another record, which is really exciting and also a daunting task. There's a lot of work to do, but it's great work. It's great work if you can get (laughs).

As they say. Now while Rusted Root is together, you're all still very much involved in various individual projects. Comment on each one of them.

    I can speak most accurately about myself. I'll do my best for the other ones. I've been playing with a band called Mama Tongue a lot this year. We recorded a record here in Pittsburgh that we're still working on. Hopefully we'll have that out sometime soon. It's world dance music. It draws a lot from traditional African music, but it's a pretty eclectic mix of different world stuff.

    I've been teaching a lot of Rhythm and Drumming workshops. Basically they're hand drumming workshops. I've been traveling around the East Coast and Midwest getting with people in smaller groups and talking about rhythms and different experiences musically and how to integrate rhythm into your life and use it for different means of self expression. I've had a website now for a couple of years. I keep revamping that. The new incarnation is just out. It's jimdonovanmusic.com. I've got not only information about me and my music, but I have e-commerce as well. I sell different drums and all kinds of fun stuff. It's a side business. I also have an instructional drumming CD on the site.

    I do these altered-state ambient music recordings. I just finished my latest one. It's called "Pulse." I have one other one called 'Indigo.' That came out in 1998 on a label called Triloka. This new one is called 'Pulse.' It's an hour-long piece of music that consists of very organic drums, very repetitive trance-oriented stuff but no loops. I play for an hour straight. It's a collaboration with a duo called Life in Balance who play Shakuhaci flute, which is a Japanese bamboo flute, and quartz crystal bowls.

Do you play it live?

    Yeah, I play it a lot.

Wow. You're so into world music. Now we know where the world music element comes from in Rusted Root.

    Yeah, I love the stuff. This music is the kind of music that's very interactive. You can listen to it, but it actually takes you in and helps alter your whole body system to get into super deep relaxation or if you actually like to work with that kind of stuff, it helps you achieve altered states of consciousness, ways to get further into yourself and learn more about yourself.

    Jenn had a band called Lovechild for a while. They had to change the name because there's some other band called Lovechild. I think it's just called the Jenn Wertz Band. She still rehearses with them and they do dates here in Pittsburgh. It's a group she reassembled here in Pittsburgh. She was living in the Carolinas for a while and she just moved back not too long ago. So she does that. And she's been writing a lot.

    She's grown tremendously in five years. It's really nice to see someone break out and be able to hold her own in the music world because when she started with us was when she started to sing. She hadn't really sung before us and she didn't  play an instrument.

    Mike went out on a short run last fall. He did some isolated dates this year. I know he's been working on some material, making some demos. He's the consummate player. He's always doing something. He's always writing. He loves to write. He's got lots of stuff.

    Jim got nominated for an Emmy Award. He composed the music for a PBS TV show here in Pittsburgh called 'On Cue Magazine.' It's like a talk show. He composed the music for it and recorded it. It got nominated for an Emmy this year so he's doing a lot of that kind of composing work.

    Johnny has been doing a ton of artwork. He designed the front cover of my 'Pulse' CD, and I'm sure he'll be doing the next Rusted Root one. He's an incredibly gifted visual artist. I know he's been playing a lot too, doing a lot of guitar stuff and he loves to drum. He's been with me to a couple of workshops. We have a lot of fun.

    Patrick made a record with this band Too Tall Jones, like the football player in Dallas' hey day. They play considerably harder music. It's great.      Liz has been doing pretty much the same as Mike: isolated dates, working on demos, writing, getting her skills up just like the rest of us. Everyone took the time to have some input and just do something completely different. As a result, now that we're back doing it, I've noticed how much everyone has grown. It's going to be nothing but good for Rusted Root. I'm hoping that people just continue on doing these things so that they can feel fulfilled on a much larger scale than just being able to do Rusted Root, which in and of itself is wonderful but there's much more to life than just one thing.

As parenthood will show you.

    Absolutely. That's been my biggest thing, just realizing that being in a band is a wonderful thing and I love it. I love playing for people, but when I put my child side by side, it's so much more real. Music is very real, but when you have a child, it puts everything into perspective. It makes me realize every choice I make is going to affect my kid and so, by gosh, I better do right, making the best choices I can. It really cuts a lot of the bullshit out. You don't really have time to mess around.

Why colleges? What is it about the college venues that is good for right now?

    We want to go out and try a lot of new music. We don't have a new record. I don't know if the fans can relate to this, but we like to save all the major markets for when we're going to be out doing a much grander tour. That's our plan. We try to plan ahead and look at our entire scope of a year and how it's going to flow. Right now, what we need to do is get out in front of people and play some new material. We didn't want to go out for a very long time. We wanted to make it financially viable and colleges are wonderful for that. It gets you in front of a lot of brand new people. The students don't have to pay much to get into the shows. As a result, we'll get tons of new folks coming in. We've been around 10 years and every four years these colleges turn over so it's always good for us to get back in and develop new folks, get a new fanbase and add to the existing one. But we are doing a couple of theaters.

Right. The show in Jersey is in a theater, The Community Theatre in Morristown. That's my next question for you. Why there?

    I think our management (John Scher's Metropolitan Entertainment) has a lot to do with that one. They're based in New York City and also Montclair, N.J., so I think they must have known some folks there and set it up. I think it's a venue that they book often. We needed a place close to that area and they thought that would be a good one. I don't think we've been there before. I just talked to our manager and he said it's just about sold out.

Other than Jen being back in the band, how is the live set different from when you toured in the summer of '99 with Jewel.

    The great thing about this run, it's going to be long. It's not going to be 45 minutes. It's going to be two hours. We're going to play a lot of new stuff. One thing we've integrated is having folks do songs that don't involve everybody in the band. One song, Jen and Liz do by themselves as a duo. Mike does a song just by himself. We're working on some drum pieces that are purely on hand drums, no drumset. They're just some things to really switch it up, make it different and fun for us and the audience who comes to see us all the time.

One of the things that I've always really liked about Rusted Root is that most of the players constantly try to learn new styles and instruments. What new styles and instruments have the members learned since last summer?

    There has to be 20 songs we've played, just throwing them out on the table and messing with them, which is a world record for us. One of the things that happened is that we've really opened up the forum for any member to bring in a song. Up until now, it's been mostly Mike's material, which turned into a really high pressure situation for him because he was responsible for so much. And so one of the things we talked about to help make this work better and help everyone else feel fulfilled is to open wide open and allow the songs to dictate what we do and not one configuration that we've done for years, not limit ourselves to any one thing, which is how we started. That's how our sound developed. We decided not to be any one certain but just let the music dictate what we became. Leave it in the hands of the music because the music knows best. As a result, there's just this tremendous influx of new material. Some of it is fantastic. Some of it needs more development. Most of it, we've only played once or twice. As far as styles go, it sounds different because there's different people singing, but it sounds like us. It's just a different extension of us. It's really exciting. 

Any new instruments? I remember the last time I talked to Liz, she was learning the violin.

    There's always different drums. I've got some new West African drums. My drumset is including a lot hand drums. In rehearsals, I've been playing some bass and Patrick's been playing electric guitar.

That growth that I mentioned is what made Rusted Root go from being an acoustic duo with Mike and Liz to a very eclectic, tribal-sounding band. Comment on how that growth not only is rooted in musical awareness but also political, environmental and spiritual awareness.

    When we started, we were all around 20, 21, around that age. Just out of college. Liz was just in college. I think she was 19 when we started. So we were all spring chickens. Not that we know so much now, but we knew a whole lot less then. One of the things we did from the get go was benefits. Anyone's and everyone's benefits. Our first three years, we must have done 50 or 60 different causes and attracted the kind of people who were into different political things. We did benefits for El Salvador, the rainforest, Clean Water Action, just zillions of benefits. Those folks that were coming to those different rallies and different things were our early base of fans based in colleges. Those folks typically have very good networking skills so they started spreading the word about what we were doing. So our circle would start to get bigger from Pittsburgh to the surrounding three states.

    That kind of awareness of things that are happening in the world correlates -- to me anyway -- with spiritual stuff and trying to get to know ourselves better. What are we doing? Why are we here? Questions that you constantly ask yourself in college especially at that age. What's my purpose here? How can I make better my own thing and better the world at the same time? Some of it was innocently naive, thinking what you're doing is saving the world. That's a highly naive thing to think. Out of that whole experience, coming to the awareness that the first thing that you need to do if you want to help the world is try to fix what's wrong about yourself. Everyone's got their own bunch of baggage. To get into that kind of stuff and figure out what it is that makes you tick, what makes you do what you do. That process in and of itself, in my opinion, is a lifetime process, continually figuring that out and hopefully progressing.

The beautiful thing about Rusted Root is that you have a forum to turn folks onto what you've found out. You go to your website and there's paths to everything from yoga and shamanism to Sierra Club and Milrapa Fund. Somebody who didn't have a clue, might look at that and say, 'Ah, these guys are a bunch of hippies.' But someone who is maybe not so aware of spiritual means but is interested could really get something out of it, more than just your music.

    That's what we try to do. But coming into the self-awareness thing, we try not to come off as preachy. Nobody wants to be preached at. But instead, working under the assumption that every human being is going at their own pace. Some are at the point where they're ready to be introduced to new things and so they've started to look for them. Some folks would look at us and say, 'Oh, look at these self-righteous hippies' and automatically put us in a box and whatever. Not having any judgement on either kind of person because everyone's where they are and that's perfect. Wherever you are is perfect and you're going to figure it out at your own pace. For those folks who are starting to look around, especially the younger folks but not limited to them, we start to put little things like that out there, whether it's a quote on the website or link to another website or whether it's in an interview like this, talking like we're talking, and just kind of using it as a forum to subconsciously introduce things. We put them out there for someone to go, 'You know, I heard about that. I thought that might be interesting and now he's saying this. You know, I really like his drumming so I'm going to go look at this. Because he's into it, maybe I'll be into it. Maybe it's not all a crock. Here's somebody I look up to that's into this.' And maybe just by virtue of my actions or anyone's actions, you teach somebody.

    I can sit here and blow all kinds of smoke up your ass and say all these really cool things, but at the end of the day, people will watch what you do over and over again, and that's how they learn. That's how little kids learn. They listen to their parents, they look at what you do and they do what you do. That's always the biggest reinforcement. So the bottom line is consistency whether we're doing it as a group or I'm doing it as a person.

What was the best thing about the Pittsburgh reunion show?

    The nicest moment for me was at the very end of the show, I had this impulse to go up to the front of the stage with everybody. I gathered everybody up at the front and said to them, 'Let's take a bow together. We've never done this before.' So we all put our arms around each other and took a bow. I almost broke down in tears. It was an emotionally touching thing, like, 'Here we are again. They're putting us back together for some reason. Let's give it another shot.' All these things were going through my head in a matter of a second. Looking at all the people's faces and just seeing the happiness. It was like, 'Wow, you're going to try again, and we support you.' All of our friends and families were there and longtime fans who had traveled that we recognized. It just felt very satisfying. If we never played again after that day, I'd still feel great about that because that moment was beautiful. Those are the kind of moments that in 10 years, you'll think back and go, 'Wow, that was a moment.'

What plans do you have as far as recording together, especially with this Mama Tongue record coming up?

    My work with that is finished. We're going to make a record for Island/Def Jam. Right now, we're in the process of throwing stuff on the table and seeing what we all have. It's turning out that there's a wealth of material. We're not going to have any shortage of that. That's the first step. We're taking it slowly and trying to make sure we do each step well and not neglect anything. We're also talking a lot, sitting around and talking, reacquainting, being friends again. That's at the heart of where the good juju is in music. The music is a direct reflection of your relationships with everybody. If you are able to get on a much deeper level in a conversation, it reflects back in the music. We're trying to make that base, that core of what we are strong and healthy like it should be.

    As far as future promotional efforts, when we do a record, every record is full tilt. We're going to go out and tour and do all the stuff. We're going to try it out and see how it goes. And if it goes great, then wonderful, and if it doesn't, then no harm done.

Was there ever a time when you weren't getting along?

    Well, think about it this way. A band is very much like a family with all the great stuff about having a family and all the really nit-picky, aggravating things about having a family. So just imagine being with your family on a bus for months at a time. Think about that? Think about what that would do? And that's exactly what happens with us and I'm sure with a lot of bands. Whenever you're with people all the time, you get to know them. You get to know all their shit and experience it first hand and right back at the em with their own. It can be hard, but at the same time, the other side exists. It's a family and you have all the hard stuff, but all the great stuff is there too. And that's part of being human, having relationships. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a relationship and you wouldn't get that incredible energy.

When will you enter the studio?

    Early next year.

From now till then, will there be additional Rusted Root tours?

    I imagine -- and there's no plans to do it -- but I wouldn't be surprised if there was another week. Traditionally, we've done the week before New Year's, and I wouldn't be surprised if we did that this year. What are your favorite new Rusted Root songs? Something that you know is going to CD the light of day.

    I don't know. I couldn't say at this point because we've played so many but we've only played them once. There's some songs that Jenn has worked on and there's some jams that we've all come up with together -- which is also a new thing -- that are really exciting and sound like us but are very much showing off everyone's new-found skills. It's just beautiful.

Last time I interviewed the band, there wasn't the technology to ask this question, but will there be any MP3s folks can check out before the record drops?

    If I anything to do with it there will be. I love that stuff. I'm a computer geek. I think it would be foolish to not do something like that.

How do you feel about the whole Napster thing?

    At risk of pissing the record company off, I think that the whole industry needs a big shakeup, something to get them honest again, get the industry refocused on music and not the hyper-millions of dollars. I don't know if Napster's doing that or not. The press says so. I don't know if in a year what will shake out to be, but I think anything that puts the consumer first and the music first is a good thing. I do think that there's going to be people that Napster's going to hurt, particularly songwriters who don't make a living off touring income. That's the downside of it. I definitely see that. I don't really have a solution to it, but I think the essence of it is the industry itself has become very greedy. It's always been money-motivated but now more so than ever. If I was king of world (laughs), I would love to see an industry that helps foster more kinds of music and more openness to different things instead of spoon-fed pop, instead of the industry dictating what you're going to like. I think that's the reason Napster's so popular. Not only is it free, but it's such a huge, diverse cross section of stuff that you would never hear because the radio stations aren't going to play because they're controlled by the record companies. They're paid by them. That's the sad truth of it.

The Rust Tribe is 66,000 strong. They chatted about the band the whole time you were on hiatus and now are really excited that you're back together. Comment on how that following is very positive and more supportive and reliable than such aspects of the music industry as radio and label support.

    One of the benefits of the spiritual and political consciousness in our music and the ways we try to carry ourselves is that you end up attracting people that are either like that or working towards that. In the big picture, we're all working towards that. None of us are perfect, especially us (laughs). When I've read the Rust Tribe I've noticed that they are sensitive and conscious about communications and being clear with each other. If someone's out of line, instead of slamming them, they talk it out in a more civil, human way than just violently shooting words at each other. It's a little society that seems to work really well.  A lot of the folks that have been there for a while I've seen take the time to educate the ones that are new about different etiquette and things that are cool and things aren't so cool to do, like offering to purchase bootlegs. Things like that.

    Over the years, we've spent a lot of time on the road. When you put yourself and your work in front of people and give them an experience, they become attached to it. That's how they come to relate to the music they hear on a CD to an experience. The reason anytime we go out we've always got a place to play and we've always got a lot of people showing up is that we've always worked to give people an experience, something they can actually feel and take with them. Humans by nature I think, when they get something good, first they take it for themselves, but then once they realize there's so much of it, they want to spread it around. That's the advantage that we have with this community. They want to turn other people onto it.

    There's always those folks who want to keep you small. You know, 'Oh, you're selling out. You're big time. You don't play the clubs anymore.' But I think those people are a minority and are on a different wavelength.

The first time you were on the HORDE Tour was the third HORDE with The Allman Brothers Band in 1994. Comment on how since then, the jam scene has exploded, what you think the main reason is for that explosion and how you feel about that explosion.

    It's so funny that folks think of us as a jam band because we're so not solo-oriented. It's not improvisation except for the drumming, which is why I think we get classified in that because we do long, extended improvisational things (with the drums). But as far as a band like The Allman Brothers, who have three guys that can solo their asses off, we don't have that. It's never been what we've done. But it's an energy. I think the reason that we get put in there, like Dave Matthews or Phish or the Dead, is we give people an experience. Jerry Garcia said something like, ' We create this sonic backdrop for the community that's out there.' And that's powerful. 

    So much of music today or yesterday is based on numbers and getting people buying all the records and not really fostering any sense of community. This is just my editorial, but in today's world, people are starved for that kind of togetherness. We're creating a place where people can come together and dance and have a good time, meet each other and make friends and all that stuff. That's like a service within a band. We're providing this thing for people to experience. That's at the heart of the jam band phenomenon's success. All these guys are creating a similar kind of energy. Sonically it's different. We sound different than Widespread Panic and all these people and they all sound different from each other, but there's a similar cross-section of folks that come to see all of us. And there's a lot of them.  The bottom line is that people are looking for something real, something that's not prefabricated, something that's changeable, something that's sometimes on the edge and maybe makes a mistake once in a while. It becomes more real to them. Sometimes when you make a mistake on stage, that's the fans' favorite moment because it was special and it's real.

And it's rare.

    Well, I won't comment on that (laughs).  

My last question for you, you pretty much answered as far as the moment. But should Rusted Root not stay together, what is it about having been involved with the band that has satisfied you most?

    I don't know about the most. There are just so many things that are satisfying. The first thing is the relationships with the people, the different members and the friendships and getting into each other's lives and having an effect on each other. I value that the most. And then right beside that is the music that's happened. There's a kind of music that's never been heard before on this planet and we made it. I'm really proud of that. I've seen it affect people. We've gotten letters telling us that we've saved lives or whatever crazy things that get written that people write to us about. But just knowing that you're having some kind of positive effect on a person's life and remembering how I, personally, was affected by music when I was a kid. I know that music saved my life. I know what that feels like and I can relate to that, and I'm glad to be of service and at the same time, just getting to meet people. I really like people. It's one of the reasons why I teach. I like to get with people and look at their faces and play drums with them and create an experience. It's the same thing.

    And obviously there's all the opportunities I've been afforded and all the side projects. I'm happy to have made a living. We're not millionaires, but I've made a nice, comfortable living. I've got a beautiful family. I'm glad to not be flipping burgers. I'm not really sure what else I would do in life if I wasn't doing some kind of music.

Bob Makin is the entertainment writer for the Courier News. Jam bands can send him information at makinclan@aol.com and material to the Courier News, P.O. Box 6600, Bridgewater, NJ 08807.