Devin Gray: Most Definitely's solo drum universe

(This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)

LP: Where in Maine are you from?

Devin Gray: Just outside of Portland, like 15 minutes, which is really nice. It's a little town called Yarmouth. It's a coastal town.

LP: They have a great radio station there, kind of like an old-timey radio station.

Devin Gray: It's a jazz thing. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. It's like a ragtime thing.

LP: Yeah, I've spent a lot of time in Casco Bay at a little island called Chebeague.

Devin Gray: I grew up on boats. My dad is into the sailboat thing. We would boat between all the Casco Bay islands. So that was pretty cool.

LP: I know we're not supposed to talk about Chebeague publicly, lest anybody find out about it.

Devin Gray: What? [laughter] Oh, right, right, right. Well, but I mean, you know, you got Little Diamond. We used to sail to them and camp. Shark Cove comes to mind.

LP: Yeah, it's really neat. The Little Chebeague off of Great Chebeague used to be a resort island, but it burned down in the 1800s, and they never rebuilt it. So it's got a kind of a cool, creepy, overgrown, ruined vibe to it.

Devin Gray: So Chebeague is right off Little John's Island, a part of our town. Yarmouth, it's on the coast, which I grew up going to. Cousins Island is the bigger island. You go over the bridge to Cousins Island, then Little John's, and then take a ferry to Chebeague. I have friends who live in Cousins now. They took their parents' houses or whatever, which is such a magical place.

LP: Do you get back up that way?

Devin Gray: I try to as much as possible. It's been challenging, but I try to get up there once or twice a year. The more time, the better. And also, summertime is so nice.

LP: Are there gigs up there? Going there in the '80s and '90s is a much different experience than going to Portland now.

Devin Gray: Yeah, the economy in the state has changed, and Portland is just a bit further up from Boston. If you leave New York, you might as well—it's not far. I grew up with the jazz thing, obviously, driving down to the city. Boston was cool, and we did that, but then it was like, "Oh, you could keep going. There's New York."

Over the years of me going back to Maine, I was always like, "Oh yeah, it's still—well, beers are cheap." But now, it's not really the case with the tech stuff everywhere and everyone working at home. The prices have jumped. And also because it's such a beautiful place that people want to live there, which is what my family never did. They're born and raised Mainers, and that's their thing, you know?

LP: Yeah.

Devin Gray: But I did the opposite. I went as far away as I could. [laughter]

LP: I get the tug for the Northeast and New England around mid-September, early October because the Pacific Northwest—there's nowhere more beautiful to be during the summer. It's gorgeous here. But something about autumn in the Northeast is just so magical. People who have never experienced autumn in New York or New England don't know what they've missed.

Devin Gray: It's true. Especially upstate New York.

LP: I miss that actually. Growing up where you did, what was your on-ramp to music? What was your first exposure, both in terms of pedagogy as well as just what were you filling your head with?

Devin Gray: The quick story is music comes from my dad's side of the family, mostly his father. My grandfather was into music, mostly classical music, but as a profession was an accountant because he had a family and needed to make a living. But I think, secretly, he would have liked to have been a musician. That's kind of the street story, with connections to Boston in his younger days. So he was always playing piano, had two grand pianos at the farm up in the middle of nowhere in Maine, started writing music and played brass instruments, euphonium, trombones, and had this whole philosophy. He's a writer, researcher, and pretty deep dude.

So I was exposed to that kind of energy really young when suddenly it was like, "Oh, Devin's interested in music." And I was like, "Oh, you should talk to him." And that was really kind of an interesting collision. Mostly just because I was dealing with an older man when I was really young.

He was the first one to get me two CDs. This was the late '80s, early '90s when I was seven or eight, and our grandfather got a Gene Krupa and a Buddy Rich record and said, "Oh, he wants to play drums. Here—here's two records." And those were the first records I had, and I'm not making that up. And I was listening and I was very interested in sound anyway. So I really—I still know those records deeply to this day. So yeah, that's kind of how it started. It wasn't immediately in my family, but it passed through the family, which was very cool.

LP: What was the appeal of the drums? How did the family know you were into drums? Were you listening to pop music, or were you just like one of those kids who started banging on the Tupperware? Like, how did that manifest?

Devin Gray: A little bit of banging on things, but also the really fun part about my town and also my neighborhood as I grew up on a little bit of a hill and down the hill, there was like a big barn where this older drummer would play, and he would have rehearsals and we could hear it from our house, which didn't bother me at all, but may have bothered the neighbors.

But there's a house above ours, and they could hear him. He went a lot of years, and then he eventually moved or whatever, and then I started playing drums, and then those neighbors heard all of that. So when I eventually moved out, and I don't have drums there, those neighbors were finally like, "Okay, now we can be friends with your parents," because all the drummers are gone.

But to answer the question more directly, I remember hearing that sound from outside the house and being like, "Wow, like music in the air." And also being in Maine, it's kind of quiet. So when one hears a melody or a sound growing up, it sticks out. I immediately gravitated to it.

Something with the sound of the drums coming out of that empty space—I was just like, that is what I feel. Like, I remember a couple of other occasions of friends of friends, and they had drum kits in the basement. Every time, I was just losing my mind. Because of the sound, it's the coolest thing. You can get your body to move and make cool sounds like this. I was like, "Yeah, I can do this for the rest of my life." And the answer is I'm trying to. [laughter]

LP: Are drums the only instrument you've taken formal lessons on? Or were you one of those kids that started with the piano and all that stuff?

Devin Gray: Because my grandfather had grand pianos and was playing and composing, we had a piano. And the grandfather would come over and play it and read sheet music, Christmas carols, and that whole thing. And the other grandfather would also come over and play some wartime pieces he learned from memory. The grandfather on my father's side had all these standards memorized and stuff too, which was also like—it took me years later to be like holy shit, you know, like this guy really was born in 1920. That's American history right there with this music.

To answer your question, no, it wasn't formal lessons with a piano teacher. I mean, I tried and then eventually it turned into drums. And then, eventually, it was just that my parents were chill. I was like, okay, well, whatever, we got the drums. And then eventually, I just voluntarily went up there, closing the door, working it out, figuring it out on my own for many years, mechanically listening to things, transcribing mentally without realizing it.

I was just like, I want to do this. So, I just put it together long before getting serious musical theory training. Then that led to, like, "Oh, I think I'm going to go study music at a classical conservatory," having serious teachers and being deep in academia in music.

So it was a weird path, but I feel lucky it happened that way. Very—not sensitive, but just lightly supporting, no agenda slamming from my parents. Just like, "Yeah, sure, you're not gonna do this." But then, over the years, they said, "Oh, actually he really—yeah, yeah, he really likes this." So yeah, it was more like that. And then of course I had to cram, cram, cram. Because I didn't know my major scales. I didn't know—so, especially as a drummer with the harmonic thing, it really took a lot of years of like, okay, I really had to catch up to the rest of the pedagogical pathways, normal pathways, I should say.

LP: What was the high school experience with music like? Did your school have a band, or did you play with kids outside of school? What was that all about for you?

Devin Gray: Yeah, the school system has music and it wasn't really super developed, but it was supportive. I had some great teachers who saw that we were interested in music. My peers—I had maybe four or five, six people around me that were pretty into music and we would play outside of school, in school in the jazz bands. We did state competitions, the whole thing. Outside of that, we were really trying to figure these things out, learning the history of jazz or whatever in the United States.

We had this camp called Maine Jazz Camp at the end of middle school and early high school, where all the teachers were New York jazz musicians, and they would come up to the middle of nowhere in Farmington, Maine. And there's this super cool crew of people. I'm sure you know them. I've seen some of the people on your list, and they are teaching.

And we were immediately watching these concerts when we were in eighth grade of like, I don't know, Tony Malaby shredding with Jeff Williams who played with everybody and we were like, "Whoa, wait, we like music." This exploded our brains. Buying their records and getting immediately into the New York sound when we were like 14, 15, 16—because that's the whole point.

Here's the camp. Do you want to go to a mountain biking camp, or do you want to go to a jazz camp? We went to the jazz camp, and then all of our peer group was just—so the school thing, like in the public school, was way behind that. I'm not sure what that level could be like in a public school system anyway.

LP: Outside of the university system?

Devin Gray: Exactly. It was kind of like already university. So, when I realized I would go to college for it, it made total sense on many levels. So for me, the path into improvising and standards or in the history that we're teaching, talking to us about Duke Ellington and his orchestra and looking at all these things, you know, we were too young. Still, we were dealing with it because it was like, we love music and you guys love music. So we're just working on music. And that was very organic and beautiful.

LP: And where'd you study for college? Did you say you went to Curtis, or am I making that up?

Devin Gray: No, I went to Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland.

LP: Oh, so heavy conservatory, like not music school, like conservatory.

Devin Gray: Yeah. Which I was half looking at business schools cause that's my dad's kind of zone. And then also half music schools. When we linked the jazz camp teachers with some conservatory teachers, they were like, "You need to go there. The teachers that are teaching there are ridiculous."

Then, it became clear that I needed to continue studying music because I had so much passion for it already so early. I mean, my parents were a little bit worried because I was like, "No, you can't just do that, you know?" And I was like, "No, yes, I can. I'm ready. I'm just going to keep doing it."

LP: Did you like conservatory?

Devin Gray: No, but yes. It's weird because the school that I went to was just starting a jazz program. And so it was like a strange collision of pedagogical histories where the classical musicians, teachers, admin, and the whole thing were like, "We have no idea. We don't know anything about jazz." It kind of started to become very clear. And then of course they hired incredible jazz teachers that have been playing in Miles's band and people that really have street cred, you know, people that are full-time professional jazz musicians, very important in the history.

And those were our teachers. So it was this kind of weird collision. I didn't really have exposure to classical musicians or classical pedagogy, like the zone that these musicians were brought up in—that's just not where I was coming from. I was coming from improvising, building it up from the ground, listening, playing with people.

So it was a weird collision at that school. After that, I decided to go to a master's school. So I went to the Manhattan School of Music. And that was just like a whole other level of jazz education in academia, which had been around maybe since what, '80s or '90s, I think '80s, they started that. There, the classical and the jazz programs worked together.

LP: Yeah.

Devin Gray: Peabody was a little collision. New York was like, okay, we know that Miles Davis was in this building back in the day and then did some stuff. So, it's just a different feeling, and I got a lot out of both. It was a very different but good experience for me at the end of the day.

LP: I love talking to artists about that era in their lives and the different spectrum of undergrad and graduate experiences from whether it's classical or—what you articulated a lot of time, the classical programs, they struggle to understand the interface with jazz and creative music, or in some cases are hostile to it. The teachers don't want their students improvising; on the other hand, the schools have a tradition of leaning into modern and experimental music. And it's just so fascinating how it's so institution-specific.

Devin Gray: Well, it's been a minute since I've been in those situations, but I feel like it's probably progressed. A lot of things opening up. It's kind of like, what is American classical music? Where we start to have those types of conversations. For me, it's not European classical music, not that it really matters, but the more I think about the history of some of these musical developments. Improvising might be a little bit more in the American nature in the history for me.

So, studying European classical music in a school in America is like, that's cool. It's all cool. All information is good information. I personally don't care, but then on a certain level, it's like, okay, but maybe these places are starting to open up to the fact that all music is just music, right? So, does it really matter how we divide it? The first-chair violinist should be able to shred over some Coltrane changes at some point, just like the first-chair saxophonist can play all the Bach partitas or whatever. There shouldn't really be a division limiting knowledge of music. That's the only point I'm trying to make.

LP: So when you got to New York, what was the New York you arrived to? What was the state of the creative music scene at that point?

Devin Gray: I moved to New York City in 2006 from Baltimore and lived in a basement. There was a lot of music happening. Creative music, I mean, like with what I just said about having those school experiences, really influences the way I proceed with my directions within music, where I don't want to just limit to this or that. So what I mean by that is that I don't only like, like with a lot of free jazz players, especially in Europe, this happens a lot where they're like, "Oh, it's like free jazz." And I don't really like putting free jazz in a box.

LP: There's no room for composition or something like that.

Devin Gray: Exactly. Again, that's like, okay, we're putting borders around things, and I'm just not interested in that. But what I mean by that is that in New York, to answer your question, it's a magical place to experience many different types of music.

If you're crazy enough, like I think I might be, to try and play all that music, you know, where it's like not limiting yourself to just the uptown, Smoke, straight-ahead jazzy, which I love and is beautiful. But then, we also go down to the downtown scene, and there are all these different histories. And it's all cool.

And for me, especially back then, it was like trying to absorb and learn more. So I—it's not that I had some teacher saying, "This is what you're going to do," or "You're going to be successful if you do this." And no one ever did that with me, so I think it's been hard. But also I pride myself in that because it's like, yeah, I am open to all these things.

I mean, going to all of those different scenes and learning from them, I think, is the answer to your question, where there's so much. You can go to the orchestra or punk bars in Williamsburg or do whatever you want. There are so many directions, such as Greenpoint or Saint Vitus. Did they just close? I'm not sure, but that's a whole other conversation.

LP: Yeah, I think they did. Something happened there with their permit or something.

Devin Gray: Yeah. I saw that, and my heart sank a bit, but anyway, I think for me with New York, especially at that time was like the exposure to the level of—wow, people are so good and serious about this. Like, I'm very serious about music, but here's this awesome community that's so committed to all of these different things. So, I am just learning and learning from them. Do you mean more like venue-specific in terms of…

LP: Just in general, you know, because having been there, I got there in the mid-'90s, and as I said, I left there in 2016, and everybody has their New York, right? Everybody, and that's been going on for hundreds of years, and there was always a sentimentality to, like, their New York. But, from where I'm sitting a couple of thousand miles away right now, it looks like it's a very interesting time in terms of lots of venues and stuff going on in the boroughs, just if you want to play and if you want to gig. You're not like, you know if every gig doesn't need to be Carnegie Hall, there's a lot of places to play and a lot of opportunity to play. And I talk to a lot of musicians here who might play a bar in Gowanus on a Monday and then play a slightly bigger gig in town on the weekend, and it's all good. It's just so many opportunities to be on stage.

Devin Gray: That is the vibe where it is still happening because it has to because that, to me, is like the power of music where it's just swarming around. And if you're open to that, you can experience all these different things. If I were slightly nostalgic for something in New York, it would be like Cornelia Street Cafe in West Village.

That was a very important place for me, right when I moved to New York during most of the years I was in New York until it closed at the end of '18 or something like that. And that was very sad for me. It is still kind of because that was such a community of people, not just the music, but the poets, and also not just the poets, but some of the actors were there.

And it had that vibe where people were coming out to stuff in the city. And that I really was attracted, still am, where I was attracted to that energy of like, okay, it's not just these five other improv musicians or straight ahead musicians or whatever. Classical, whatever you want. So it was more like a community I'm drawn to with those New York things. I'm playing in Manhattan tomorrow, which is fun at a small place that is as dear to my heart as many other improvising musicians.

LP: Since you brought it up, talk to me briefly about your relationship with Berlin. Is it personal, or is it because I know there's a vibrant, interesting scene in Berlin? I talked to a lot of artists that are straddling; I clumsily call it an electroacoustic realm of improvised music meets electronics, like really interesting stuff.

Devin Gray: Yeah, I first went to Berlin in 2006 on tour, which was also right when I moved to New York. So that was also kind of a crazy time to be in Berlin. And I remember we played one gig at a venue still there. That's super cool. And I remember walking around before the gig and being like, "What is going on here?" especially coming from New York, where everything's kind of blah, blah, blah.

And it was just like, okay, this is insane. I'm going to remember this. And so that was 2006, and then around 2011, I got that itch from New York. It's like, okay, it's kind of hard. It's really hot in the summer. I just need to go somewhere else. I think in 2012, I started subletting in Berlin. I was like, oh, cool. I can sublet my room in New York and somebody else's in Berlin. Let me just dive in and see what, whatever, go over there for a month just to check it out and dig it. It's really a lot of energy, very different, but cool energy still is. That just fast-forwarded to going more and more and more.

And now I'm commuting between New York and Berlin. I started playing there in 2012 on tour from New York and then would go back and hang out. Then I started playing there and playing the gigs with the scenes and meeting all the people, Germans, Europeans, just everybody from everywhere, which was like, "Oh, this kind of feels like New York," like where everyone's just from everywhere, and this is not a big party, but just like an awesome family of artists and musicians and, you know, just tons of stuff going on. Also, they fund things, and that keeps the movement going. And I'm not talking about just getting paid. I'm just talking about like every other scene too, where it's like, there's a lot of activity, which is beautiful to see the arts being supported in these kind of societal governmental ways, which yeah, full disclosure, I'd like to see more of that in the United States.

LP: Yeah, it's interesting because I do speak to a lot of artists, both from the states and obviously outside of it's so stark, the ways that even if you wanted to just, you know, apply for a grant to make an album like you can do that in certain places. And I know there are pockets around the country with private funding or regional arts groups, but it's the exception to the rule here. And it's really tragic.

It was interesting, though; someone that you played with, who I just recently spoke with was Satoko Fujii. And she was telling me that it's even worse in Japan. There's no support for the arts there. And there's very little commercial opportunity right now. Her personality was not like that, and she wasn't a defeatist. It's tough to be a working artist like you must, even more so here. You have to make your own universe. You must constantly work and create your own thing because it's not there. It's not sitting there waiting for you.

Devin Gray: Yeah, you know, keeping an eye on the European side of things, I must say that I first went to Europe in general, was 20 years ago. So 2004 was the first time I left the US to go specifically to Europe for music because I met a Swedish friend in Baltimore when we were studying, he's like, "Yeah, come over to Stockholm and check it out." And I was like, "Mom, dad, should I?" They're like, "Yeah, go, whatever." And that immediately started changing.

Oh, we need a bass amp for the band. Okay. Just write a little letter; a week later, you got a bass amp. And I was like, wait, what, what is this? Like, my brain is upside down, you know? Here I am like raking blueberries at my grandfather's farm to buy a cymbal in Maine, you know, that is true, you know, and then these guys are just like, "Yeah, that's what that money is for. That's why we're paying taxes because that money goes back to the people and does something for them, and they see it, and that's why they're cool with it. Because it helps them." I don't want to get too deep into that, but Satoko is awesome. We played in Berlin, the three of us, Natsuki and, and then they were in Berlin for a while.

LP: Oh, that's right. They were in Berlin for a while. I forgot about that.

Devin Gray: They were, I don't know when that was, maybe 2014, '16, something like this. I mean, again, a lot of those, yeah, early Berlin years are kind of a little bit wobbly for me, but in the greatest ways, but I don't know so much about the Japan thing. I've only been there to play and tour. And that's a little, that's a little bit different. Usually, it's hooked up, but the European support starts in academia, even speaking of Sweden. They were in school, getting help making recordings as a part of their learning. I realized these places are really like trying to teach them what they actually are going to do anyway.

And then I see a big disconnect within the US way of thinking about learning where it's like, but we're learning all this stuff that isn't functional by the time you finish. I mean, it's not always like that. I'd say it's probably changed. I know Manhattan School of Music specifically started as an entrepreneurial class thing. And they got a teacher to start talking about, like, "Hey, wait, you know, this is how you open up an Instagram profile. You know, you might need to learn how to do that in a weird way." It's behind in one way and in other ways with the music. Every place is a little bit different.

LP: Let's talk about Most Definitely. In addition to the music, one of the things that really struck me was how much supplemental material there is. You wrote a fair bit in terms of liner notes and artist statement. As part of preparing for our time together, I was given a bunch of stuff, some videos and other material. The footage was illuminating to watch because when you're listening to the music, I have many questions, like, how many limbs does Devin have? And how many does he use at any given time? [laughter] I'm sort of like a process nerd anyway, so I was just curious about what this looks like. What's happening right now? And if anything, I thought the videos made compelling advertisements for the live performance. To see you playing and standing up and manipulating the electronics—it's hard to imagine what you're getting when you think, "I'm going to go see a drummer in a solo performance." And I don't know what it conjures for people, but seeing the video was really fun and neat. So I very much enjoyed that.

But there's a bunch of stuff that stood out for me in some of the things you wrote or things I read that you said in other places. One of the things I wanted to ask you about, it comes up a lot, is the notion of sincerity. I've seen you often use that word in response to interview questions and your approach. What does sincerity mean to you? And like, is that in opposition to irony? Could you unpack sincerity for me?

Devin Gray: Well, so many things come to mind with what you just said. It's overwhelming. I think I will link the sincerity thing to the title Most Definitely, which has a lot of different implications. People are like, how did you come up with this name?

The truth is, I think in some sense, I can be a very dry person where I don't like, I don't want to say bullshit or whatever, but I don't, I really want to try to be as honest, and pure as possible about getting to the thing that I am most honest and pure about, which sounds kind of silly. And I very much mean this where artistically I'm searching for a sound and a feeling that is not easy to find.

And it's not easy to grab. It's not easy to replicate. It's not easy to make. It's very slippery. The goal of Most Definitely is to play that unknown with the most definitive form of commitment possible in the moment. I don't know what it will be, but I do know that when it's happening, there's—that is most definitely the thing that I want to be happening and that I most definitely mean it.

And I'm sorry to say it, frame it like that, but it's very serious where I'm like, it really needs to be at the standard that is above my standard, which I am pushing myself to be higher than what myself is. I have been using a little bit of a religious, musical, religious connection these days, where music is basically my religion, whatever that means to you. Still, the music needs to be on that level. That's just beyond what I'm able to do. I just have to be so in there. And in order to do that, a place of sincerity has to come from a place of love. It has to come from a place of compassion. It has to come from a place of understanding.

A place of awareness comes to mind, global awareness. And so all of these, I don't, maybe challenges, I guess you could say, you know, people are looking at my tours and why are you doing so many eights in a row? I mean, that's insane. And I'm like, yeah, but I can allow myself that space to try and dig deeper into what I just described, which is the core of the purest artistic expression I can personally come up with. And I know, I know this is kind of getting into the heady stuff, but it's, it's really the way I'm thinking about it truthfully. So yeah, it's a big challenge, and I like it. And that's one of the reasons why I'm doing this project.

That's one of the reasons why I still practice all the time. I'm still working on all these things because I'm trying to get to something. I have something I haven't been able to express yet in all of these other projects I've done. I love them all, the people, everything's great. But this one is also very, it's very personal in a new way and challenging. And I want to accept, allow myself to accept that challenge to keep going into this, to the unknown.

LP: It's interesting to hear you. Thank you for being willing to meet me here during this conversation. Reading the material you wrote, the liner notes, and the artist's statement, I was struck that it comes back to sincerity because you can't necessarily read tone in the written word. You overlay tone. Maybe I'd left feeling like an adamant, or I felt a real need on the part of you who was writing that material like you were looking for a connection. You were looking to be heard. You hoped the listener would somehow understand at least a bit of what you were trying to convey. It was really interesting.

Devin Gray: Thank you. I mean, I think anybody willing to take this music, and not just music, but art and expression and truths in these human expressions this seriously, says that by doing all these things, it's very valuable that people take them seriously. Every listener is very valuable.

And I think it's a very delicate process to make art. And I think maybe some of the things that you were reading were probably me being very vulnerable to the fact that it's like I'm putting out a solo drum record. It's like even last night, I played in Brooklyn last night, and I overheard as I was setting up, "Oh, it was like a drum solo," you know?

And it was funny because, in the back of my mind, I was thinking, oh yeah, it kind of is what I'm doing.

LP: It's a little absurd.

Devin Gray: It is. Now, I want to go back to something you said before because I wanted to comment on it. It's funny. I'm also with a lot of other influences, especially in a live setting, which gives me a lot of fuel every day to continue doing a solo drum performance. I'm not just playing acoustic drums.

I have samples. I also want to share these things and statements. I have an activist, from the '70s, '80s, and '90s—interviews. I have Sun Ra clips, but these are all things that I want people to hear in addition to this whole process. So it's, you know, it's not just me playing drums.

That's totally cool. It's a beautiful art form, but what about Berlin and the techno club, and what that means from a political left-of-center activist standpoint? So you can't really just exclude modern things that are happening. And with technology and the little setup that I've been working on designing, I'm kind of like, no, I'm just DJing. Like, here's the DJ part. And here are some different things I'm broadcasting that I can't do with just the drums. I mean, I can imagine them. I can think of them and transmit them in a metaphysical way, but I feel really good about actually performing them and just delivering them.

For example, gun violence. I have some segments talking about statistics of gun violence in the United States in the last couple of years. And I'm just, well, pressing play and improvising with it. It's not that I'm playing the rhythms of the guy talking about it. That's cool. People do that. But I'm sitting there on a sociological level, saying, "This is not Fox News, but this is my news that I truly, sincerely believe in and can broadcast."

For example, if we start talking about Gaza and all that stuff, I don't want to go too crazy into it. Still, I decided I needed to have a statement in there, and then performing that in different countries at different times since October 7th has had some very interesting performance dynamics with festivals with audiences.

That's been very interesting. And that's not just, okay, now I'm playing drums. It's kind of like one show, but it's not just a DJ; but it's not just a drummer. It's actually like a package that I feel really good about. It's just a very honest expression that I want to deliver to audiences, which is another reason I'm doing this like I'm doing it now with this project.

So… [laughter]

LP: That helps me understand something else I wanted to ask you about. You made another statement about why now to make a solo drum recording and do this work live. And regarding the quote, you said something to the effect of it taking you all this time to face the situation truthfully.

That was a real humdinger of a statement to me, and I wasn't sure how to contextualize it. Still, at the risk of speaking for you, I think I understand the statement more now in terms of the vulnerability you needed to bring and to say some of those things from the stage or through the recordings or, you know, you have to, you have to buck up to be able to do that.

Devin Gray: Without a doubt. I think for me, especially being so obsessed with music, I was pretty in the academic thing. I probably could have continued into a PhD, but I really wanted to move on to playing, which is where it's at for me. But yeah, humdinger, I think, I think to me, it's about responsibility and being me.

Like, I don't think I was mature enough ten years ago to be able to do what I'm doing now. And I'll probably say that 10 years from now, but I really believe that where it's like, yeah, I just didn't, I didn't have enough stuff together. Maybe not musically, but maybe not socially, maybe not historically, perhaps not globally historically, or just more perspectives.

So, I feel like I wasn't able to make statements in the way that I needed to outside of what I was doing. This is a broader way of expressing more. I don't think I could have done it if I hadn't done what I've done so far, of course. So, it is just an ongoing part of the process. But yeah, it seems like more and more people have solo recordings and releases.

And many people asked, especially with this record specifically, they were like, where are the other instruments? And it's a solo record. Shouldn't you be singing and playing bass and everything? And I'm…

LP: Like, you're Stevie Wonder. You have to play it all. [laughter]

Devin Gray: Exactly. And it's funny because I think I wrote a lot of these things with that in mind where I'm like, look, this is really not that—this is not about that. I'm very confident that I can write melodies. Well, I've done much of that in the way that I like and got those arranged for my solo record. This is not that type of solo record. So, I want to identify, more specifically, what type of expression I'm trying to transmit. And it's just a little bit clearer that it's like, okay, this is that type of recording.

Also, on the vinyl, specifically the A side, there are many short tracks produced in electronics. And then the B side is just pure, just solo 18 minutes, solo drum, acoustic drums, not like just me in the zone going for it. But I didn't want the whole record to be that—different ways of expressing myself. That's what I'm going for still. Like, I'm not just sitting on one way of doing things. That leads me back to academia, surrounded by all these incredible teachers and different influences that were so valuable to me saying that I probably should just do one thing. Then that would probably work, and instead, I've tried to do a little bit of everything, and none of it works, but now it's working differently for me.

LP: There are a few other things I wanted to ask you about and one, specifically about the record, could you indulge the sort of, like I said, the process nerd in me a little bit, and can you tell me about the editing that was done to the tracks, or, I don't want to ask you to peel back the curtain too much on your finished product, but I'm really curious because so many of the pieces are under three minutes. Were they excerpts from longer improvisations, and how did you approach them?

Devin Gray: There's no hiding in music for me, where it's all just music, it's all cool. So, is whatever you hear at the end whatever it is? So basically, long story short, I probably recorded, I don't know, four or six hours of just improvisations with little or no ideas in mind and tried to get to some specific little goals.

And then basically just mine all of those recordings for the most powerful, like what I was speaking about earlier, where I was like, these are actually, these are the gems to my ears, where I'm like, whatever that was that happened. And that moment is the thing that I'm going for. Or I think that's interesting.

And then most of it is deleted because it's just not really that interesting. And so, by putting out a lot of music I've done or been around for many years, I want people to hear the idea directly. It doesn't need to be like with pop music. It's like pretty obvious immediately. And with improvised music, I don't think it necessarily has to be hidden. Still, you could just express the idea immediately, even if it's in whatever shape or form of improvisational.

So, that being said, I think editing has to be a bit glitchy, which has to do with many of the electronics I'm using live. And mostly just like a sound of feeling that I was interested in that I'm still interested in, you know? And it's funny because some promoters and folks are like, well, is this what it sounds like live? Are they one-minute tracks? And I was like, yes, no, but you know, it could be—

LP: You'll see when I get there. [laughter]

Devin Gray: Yeah, totally. At the end of the day, I'm an improviser. And that's, like I said, that's what makes it really hard. Where it's like, I don't, I mean, I have some goals and stuff, and it's not like a starting from nowhere, but…

LP: By the way, what's the right answer? Like you were going to show like, we're the promoter saying to Coltrane, are you really going to come play a 30-minute version of "My Favorite Things" with a 12-minute bass solo to open it? I don't know if I'm going to book that. [laughter]

Devin Gray: I know, right? Yeah. So then that's a slippery slope when we start talking about dividing, and I mean, it also gets really weird where it's like, well, send a video of the performance. And I don't know which video you were specifically talking about, but there's a couple…

LP: I watched a few.

Devin Gray: Yeah. Cool. I think it's really cool that you did, that those influenced you because I only want to share the videos that are doing what I was just talking about with the record, where it's like, yeah, I still stand by these ideas. And there are a couple of things on YouTube, and I like those videos. So I'm happy to share those, but everything else doesn't need to be there. Yeah, anyway.

LP: Because you talk about listening so much and the importance of listening to you and just, you know, there seems to be like this real practical and philosophical milieu for you around listening. I wanted to share an anecdote with you: I listened to the album. I've only listened to it digitally. I have access to it on Bandcamp, like everyone else. And I was, my most recent listening through before our call this morning, I was where I'm sitting now and you could probably tell by the way the light's hitting me, I have a window right off to my side.

I had been taking some notes and doing some prep work, but I sat back, and the volume was such that the music was very much mixed with the ambient sounds of the world around me. I was sitting here, living near the airport, and I could hear an airplane. And then, a little bit further away, there's a daycare center, and I could hear kids running around, and it was all mixed in with the music.

And then, very subtly, the sound of bells or chimes came through. It was the track "Case by Case." And there was a moment, like a 30 or 60-second moment, where it was all happening at the same time, and it all mixed very organically. It was, as a listener, a very magical moment. I'm not fishing for a reaction or anything. I wanted to share that with you because, again, I know how important the act of listening is to you. And so I had a very, very special moment.

Devin Gray: Thank you for sharing that. That's basically everything right there. That is everything where it's, you experienced music and had an incredible moment with it. It doesn't matter if it's my music or Coltrane's music or whatever. That's how I feel when trying to feel that with music, like living with music. That relationship with music. And the experience you had is so beautiful. I really like that sound. And like the feeling the sound gives you, no matter how it comes at you or where.

Especially with the New Yorkness. It's like, yeah, it's all mixed. Like everything should be mixed, everybody should just be cool with everybody. And we're all one. I don't want to get into that too much, but let's be real. We're all just humans. So sound is sound. And then you can kind of decide to control it in whatever way you want. Yeah. But that's beautiful. Case by case.

LP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was really incredible. And by the way, that's something I loved about New York: keeping the volume on the earbuds such that you could still hear the outside world.

Devin Gray: Yeah. Yeah.

LP: I never wanted to tune out New York. Why would you spend all that money on rent just to tune it out? [laughter]

Devin Gray: I wear these a lot with them on, but no sound. And I'm just chilling around hearing different things. Different.

LP: Yeah. It's amazing. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Devin Gray: Thank you. It was incredible to chat with you. I really appreciate your work and thank you for taking the time to listen not just to me right now, but also and all the artists that you're supporting. So thank you.