Ben Walsh is a name synonymous with drumming. Over his time, he has collaborated with various artists to bring his unique brand of percussion into Australia’s clubs, concert halls and greater consciousness. He’s had an extremely diverse career, one which began quite early. “I say that I’ve been drumming since the age of two because I’ve got this one photo and it kills me. I set up, like, all these cake tins and I’ve got these two sticks. It just obviously was something I was fascinated in since I was born.” Growing up in an artistic household meant that his obsession was well fed. “My father was a guitarist and my mum’s a painter. My dad had bands so I’d always be fascinated by the drummers coming over to the house to rehearse. When you see drums when you’re a little kid, they’re so loud and so amazing. I was just always encouraged too. I had my first kit at 10 and my first drums when I was 7. It all kind of snowballed.” Today he is perhaps best known for his work in left-of-centre collectives like The Bird, Japanese drumming group Taikoz and Indian percussion outfit Dha, but early on, Ben did his share of a rock gigs. “I started playing pub gigs when I was 13. Somehow I was always sneaking in and out backdoors. I played in a lot of experimental grunge/rock bands in the Jane’s Addiction period.” But there was a new threat to bands on the pub and club circuit back then – dance music. “As a live musician, I remember the transition. Suddenly, if you were into live music, you were struggling because DJs and dance music just hit like a boom. Very early on when I was about 17, 18, I was very anti-dance music as were a lot of live musos.” All it took was a little exposure, however, before Ben became a convert as well. “Being so interested in drums, drum’n’bass blew my mind. So I started to study all of the different dance music – drum’n’bass, house, trance, breakbeat – and learned all the genres. I started playing with a DJ in a bar in Oxford St (Sydney). Watching people on drugs, how they danced and how they connect and realising that it was all about rhythm, suddenly, as a drummer, I just wanted to make people dance.” This desire led to the formation of The Bird, the organic electronic duo Ben plays in with good friend Simon Durrington. What’s organic electronica? Imagine a mixture of furious live beats and keyboard effects with electronic production and sampling, and you’re getting the idea behind it. But for critics who argue that dance music seems like a strange genre for a keyboardist and drummer to specialise in, watch out, Ben’s done his research. “It wasn’t until I moved to London with Simon and listened to what was going round over there that we realised you can trace all those genres back to other forms of music. Lots of it has its roots in Jamaican stuff, like reggae and dancehall and dub. And trance has been around for years. Essentially it’s just percussion music but getting machine parts to play them. Lots of sounds you hear are actually live players cut up and sampled.” So what are the advantages of completely live drumming over electronically produced beats? “I love both equally and I think that they both have their place. But I think the main difference is that when you hear a live player play a groove, you can feel what the player’s feeling. That’s why we work so hard in The Bird to get live playing at the same level of intensity as electronic music. It’s challenging, but it’s worthwhile.” With an eye to inspiring other percussionists to rise to this challenge, Ben has recently created his own label, Groovelands, which will focus on drumming and percussion music. “Groovelands is really out there because there’s nowhere for me to release all these albums which I was creating – all these experimental percussion albums. I want to put stuff out there that hasn’t been made by computers.” The label takes in other artists such as Bobby Singh, the amazing tabla player from Dha, as well as 5-piece percussion group Skin. But the mulit-talented Walsh isn’t just limiting the label’s scope to live percussion. “I’m covering both sides. I do a lot of programming myself and work with computers. I respect the new school as much as I want people to listen to ancient tabla music of Bobby Singh and the organic percussion stuff I’m doing as well. From the total spiritually charged world stuff to the freshest electronic concepts, it’s all about rhythm and that’s what my life’s about.” One such concept is the Karma offshoot of Groovelands, which will provide backing beats royalty-free to producers and computer artists. “It gives them a chance to have a different palette of really fresh beats that I’m going to make with some of the best drummers in this country. When I program, I use a lot of the ancient rhythms that I’ve learnt and a lot of the depth of traditional music, which is just so powerful. That’s another way of getting my way into people’s music. I’m not really going to see heaps of money for it, but I know it’s going to help a lot of people. There’s really not a lot out there in terms of fresh loops.” Groovelands is being launched by Ben along with a new solo album through a series of club nights by the same name at Candy’s Apartment in King’s Cross. “The nights at Candy’s just rock. They’re somewhere between the human festival vibe and an electronic party. So there’s DJ culture and drumming culture coming together. It heavily emphasizes the live jams that go down, because when you’ve got six or seven percussionists on stage hammering out a groove for two hours, the dance floor just goes crazy. You’ve just got to experience it. I can’t even really explain what goes on. This is about dance music. We’ve been inspired by a lot of Cuban things, African things and Latin things, but we mix it up with a lot of breakbeat culture as well.” Groovelands the night will be touring capitals across Australia. For Ben, these nights are about more than just having a good time. “It’s really about bringing the rhythm into the club and showing that club culture in Australia is very strong. We’re a huge dance community. Being a part of the percussion community and the dance community, I can see the potential of both and I’m just trying to cross it over. There’s a form of fusion of drum music happening in Australia right now that is world-class. We’re very multiculturally charged. We have a way that is totally unique to the rest of the world of fusing things. You get an Egyptian player that’s playing African stuff, and mixing with an Indonesian percussionist and an Indian guy – and that’s one group! I’ve seen it and it’s at the level where I know it’s going to be incredible not just to me but to people all around the world, because it’s people bringing their histories and their ideals together really harmoniously.” Groovelands is a new record label set up by Ben Walsh totally dedicated to percussion music. To celebrate, a fortnightly Sunday residency at Candy’s Apartment in Kings Cross (Sydney) is warming up the dance floor throughout the cold winter months. The next party is Sunday July 19, check out ITM Whatson for more info.
