This was the first major interview Marco did for an American drum magazine. It was published in MODERN DRUMMER back in 2001. Back then he was just starting to make a name for himself on this side if the Atlantic. Since then he has gone on to play all the major drum festivals multiple times, release well received books & DVDs, and continued to produce great music backed up by his fantastic drumming. He’s also a top draw on the clinic circuit.

The Many Sides of Marco Minnemann

words by Michael Bettine

photos by Crystal Trowbridge

In the past two years, drummer Marco Minnemann has been invited to the play at three biggest drum festivals in North America (the Modern Drummer Festival, the Montreal Drum Fest, and PASIC) where he has amazed the audiences with his astounding technique and musical abilities. While virtually unknown in America, this 29 year old German has made a lasting impression and created a buzz that is spreading by word of mouth. “It’s very important for people to listen to the music itself,” he says, “not just the technique. I’m a technical drummer of course, but in the past few years while writing music, I learned to be careful with the music itself. It’s very important. This was actually a huge step for me and my soloing, to try to compose on the drums.”

Like many drummers, Marco had the usual childhood aspirations. “At six I started organ lessons for about three or four years. Then I got bored and started to play guitar, which I still do on the records. I switched to the drum set at eleven years old. I always had the dream of being a drummer, playing along on pillows to Queen records, the old KISS records of course, and even Jethro Tull when I was very young. So my father bought me my first small size drum kit, one of the old Remo PTS kits where you didn’t need to tune the drum heads.”

From there, he studied with famed American jazz drummer Abby Rader, who lived in Germany for many years.  “He was very influential and taught me ‘Syncopation,’ ‘Stick Control,’ and of course his own book. That was very good, because I wanted to play what I was listening to, which was heavy metal. It was very important that I had him to show me the ‘real stuff.’ When I first worked out the double-stroke roll it was like the real thing for me and I wanted to go further with it. I bought several books, like Gary Chester’s ‘The New Breed,’ which became very important and influential for my independence.”

At thirteen years old, he played in his first band, a jazz trio. “We played just standards, like ‘Girl From Ipanema.’ Later on I joined a couple of bands doing hard rock things and some studio work. When I was sixteen or seventeen I transcribed all of Frank Zappa’s music. He was a big influence of mine, both composing and playing. Frank is still one of the musicians I really would have liked to play with. He’s very influential on my whole musical life, especially in my youth.”

Of course you can’t talk about Zappa without mentioning the great drummers who worked with him. “His drummers were a great influence too. Vinnie Colaiuta and Terry Bozzio were my biggest influences in those days. And also Chad Wackerman, I think he was with Frank the longest. You know, people always think of Vinnie or Terry first, but Chad is great because he did the job that Frank needed. He played everything exactly at the right time and played the right notes. It was pretty cool too. I like those records, like the last two live ones, ‘Make A Jazz Noise’ or ‘Broadway The Hard way.’ They were great, amazing.”

Zappa’s influence looms large over much of his early work. “What made me like Zappa’s music was his virtuosity. That was pretty cool because he mixed all styles of music and did it well. The complexity of the music itself , just to combine reggae and jazz, or Latin music in the same show was amazing. So I liked both the technical skills and the music. On my first records you can hear an influence.”

Marco is most well known for his band “Illegal Aliens,” which he has with his vocalist wife, Artemis. They have recorded four albums of very intense and demanding  music. The first two Illegal Aliens recordings, THICKNESS and RED ALIBIS feature many of the same musical techniques that Zappa favored. Meter and style changes abound, as well as unison sequenced vibe/marimba runs, combined with very intricate drum parts. With the vocals of Artemis, the music also resembles Bozzio’s 80’s band, Missing Persons. But it’s unfair to label Marco as a sort of Zappa clone, as his influences are varied, and he has come up with his own unique style.

“I was listening to very intense mood stuff like Peter Gabriel. Sting was a big influence too. In song writing, XTC is also a great band. These were all big influences on playing. Meanwhile, I think my last records don’t sound like Zappa too much anymore. I really have accomplished my own composition style. It’s exactly what I want. It’s very important to me, because I spend almost more time composing music and thinking about it than playing drums. Also, when I write songs, they usually don’t grow from the drums, but come from the thought itself or a mood I want to create.”

Illegal Aliens is very much a two person band, with Marco composing all the music, as well as programming the sequences and playing bass, guitar and drums; and Artemis providing vocals and lyrics. The last two records, INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE and TIME, show his growth as a composer and musician. “INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE, which I divided into two projects, was just an intense feeling. I started writing at the keyboards, the guitar, or even with the lyrics. I tried to get into the right mood. My favorite songs off these records are “Snowing” and “Fate,” and the whole smooth side of the record.”

These moodier tracks show a real depth to the compositions.“Oh thanks. It’s really great to hear that. The next record is going to be more like this, a real moody kind of thing. These songs are really the favorites of what I did for a time and are very, very precious to me. I’m trying to get this moving forward, but still do my solo records so I have some complicated stuff together to satisfy the drummer’s world. (laughs)”

“Talking about my solo recordings, COMFORTABLY HOMELESS and THE GREEN MIND BOMB, these are the things I write from the drum set. I have a book at home, which when I practice, I write down my ideas. My everyday practice routine is three hours drums, and three or four hours composing music. I don’t practice the same things everyday. I try to take it further. If you make one single step each day that is new for you, then it gives you a good feeling to go on. Just be constant. I tell myself this everyday. So maybe if there is an ostinato, or a lick, or a groove that really catches me, I try to keep it in the book or I record it with a stereo microphone on a mini disc player. A couple of songs from the last solo records were from the drum set itself. I compose and put the music on top.”

These are the two sides of his composing, the song oriented music of Illegal Aliens, and the technical music of his solo recordings. “I try to divide it, but you can hear these smooth songs on INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE sound a lot different than COMFORTABLY HOMELESS does. But it makes me proud that I have the ability in this production to do it in a way that I liked. It didn’t happen very often in the days of the record RED ALIBIS, which was a little Zappa, a little this, a little that, and maybe some kind of pop thing, and then I tried to play very complicated things that the drummers would like it. And it’s actually not one of my favorite records. Although there’s some good stuff, but I think the last two are the right way I want to do it.”

As his music has matured, he has been able to keep the same intensity while not playing as many notes or being so forceful. “That’s true. It’s really nice, but to be honest, not many people see that. It’s like, “Yeah, the songs are slick and that’s great. What you do is amazing, but...” To be honest, “Snowing” and “Fate” are my favorites because I like the songs themselves. The mood is really great to hear as well. So I want to be transparent in the music, this is what my next project is going to be about. I started it and the songs are already written. I just have to record them. I’m looking forward to this project very much. This is my next step. Although I will also record some flashy stuff next year. (laughs)”

Being a “one-man-band” of sorts has Marco recording most of the parts and then having a few guest musicians play the rest. “I start writing the music on a sequencer program, but the ideas may come from a guitar lick, or the lyrics where I have a melody in my head and put it down on the sequencer. I get a whole arrangement together which sometimes contains more than 24 tracks - later in the production, like on INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE, we used 56 tracks -so this is the first step, writing on a sequencer. Then I pass the tracks forward to musicians like (bassist) T.M. Stevens who played a couple of tunes on the last records, Italian bass player Fabio Tretini, and guitarist Peter Wölpl. They get the score, learn it, and then have to play it. Some of the songs were very complicated, so it was a little hard for them, as well as for me too, because it’s not like an improvised thing, it’s very written out music. Most of the time at the very end we lay down the vocals on top. I write the songs and sometimes Artemis does the lyrics and the vocal melodies. It’s pretty much us two. The compositions are kept very personal, not many people have any influence on the compositions. I also think it’s very important to make the feeling that intense.”

“With the keyboards it’s pretty much all programmed stuff and I try to choose very good keyboard sounds. I’ve been aware of this because on TIME and GREEN MINDBOMB they were Roland sounds and some people recognized it and said it sounded cheap or something. (laughs) Now I have a sound guy in the studio, Mario Brinkmann, who’s very talented. He’s into this old stuff like “Kraftwerk” did, he builds his own instruments and he replaced my sounds and gave me some additional sound ideas. That was great on INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE, it’s so intense because the sounds are really great.”

Marco’s newest recording is an intense hardcore project dubbed, “Braindead.” “It’s different, isn’t it? I was in a band in the early 90s called ‘Freaky Fukin Weirdoz’ which was pretty hardcore. Braindead is me, the guitar player from the Weirdoz (Werner “Riff Kiff” Zeigten), and Artemis. This is a side of music I love because most of the people in the U.S. just know me from Illegal Aliens or the more complicated stuff. What I actually did before was hardcore music. I love to listen to it. I still like songs like “Battery” form Metallica’s MASTER OF PUPPETS, or the Deaftones. Back then a big influence was also Led Zepplin and Jimmy Page, things like this, good rock music. I like to not only be a good technical player all the time, but to also be aggressive, but with the right feeling, an intense feeling. So this band is just a very in your face hardcore project. It’s one of my dreams to just create good hardcore music. The idea was also to do it but not be too rude, to have a melodic kind of style too. Like when you listen to Pantera, they don’t have a singer, it’s just shouting - a scream. So I try to combine very hardcore music with - OK, Artemis is screaming too - the music just comes out and it’s hard to compare it”

With the Weirdoz, Marco played a heavy, forceful style, yet he brought in his technical ability. If you can imagine Vinnie Colaiuta playing in a punk band you will get the idea. “The Weirdoz, we still exist and did a record that’s coming out in December. We started in 1990. The band was quite a big success all over Europe and pretty influential on the whole European hardcore scene. In the last four years it became sort of a hobby project for me. We just meet every two years to make a record. We were a bit sloppy on this project because I had my Illegal Aliens thing and my workshops going on. They were very precious to me, so I didn’t spend too much time on the Weirdoz. But it’s a good recording again.”

Even Marco’s hardcore playing is very subtle and tasteful. “I always try to play as musically as I can. It’s not like just bashing the hell out of the drums. I try to put something musical, like a composition into it. Drums for me are like composing music. Actually, the band in those days were complaining about that. It was like, “Hey, I don’t know what you are playing. I cannot count that.” or “Please don’t play that fill because it destroys the music.” Yeah, we had our fights about these things.”

Marco was also a member of one of Germany’s most popular hardcore bands, H-BLOCKX. He recorded their FLY EYES CD and toured over 200 gigs with them. “This was the most successful production I did. I wrote the songs and some stuff, and it sold almost gold in Germany. They’re a very successful band in Europe. But to be honest, it was not one of my favorite projects. We had so much trouble in the band. H-Blockx was a big fight all the way. I was invited to play the Modern Drummer festival last year, and they didn’t want me to do this because, “You have to be a 100% dedicated punk drummer to our band.” Or with the Illegal Aliens records it was like, “What are you, sort of a jazz guy?” I didn’t like this because there’s so much more I want to show people. This is what I don’t understand or like. I love to play with everyone, but they have to leave me a little space to do my own thing. This was blocking me a little. So I quit them last year.”

With all the time spent working in another band, it’s amazing Marco would find the time to work on his own projects. “I wrote some very important songs from the last records on the road. I always have my sequencer with me and if I find time in the hotel room I start composing music. Songs from INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE were written on tour with H-BLOCKX at sound check or the hotel room.”

One of his other activities is doing drum clinics. He is becoming more in demand around Europe to demonstrate his technical virtuosity. “I start off playing a couple of tunes, also some soloing. Then I try to break it down, explaining my concept of independence. It’s a side independence where you learn to play like paradiddles on the left side against reverse paradiddles with the right side. I give examples and tell how they can learn it. Also the finger control and foot technique I learned. It’s a very loose conversation thing where I try to get people to understand what I’m doing. Maybe I’m not the typical sort of clinician who talks a lot, because I really like to play and it is sort of a mini concert. But I do questions and answers, explaining things. I try to have as much fun as I can, that’s what I’m here for.” For those up to the challenge, Marco has a book and video coming out, explaining his various techniques and exercises.

For equipment, Marco plays a Starclassic drum set and Meinl cymbals. “I use three hi-hats, with one foot pedal on the right and the other cable hi-hat on the left side of my main one. Then what I do is play rudiments, maybe ratamacues between the hi-hats and play accents with the left hand while keeping a groove on the ride cymbal. It works out pretty well. I also do some combinations on the foot pedals that’s like tap dancing,. It’s an interesting technique. I use combinations switching the feet, it’s like playing on the tom toms with the hands. This creates some interesting grooves, and with the hi-hats in a stereo kind of way, it sounds very interesting. The cable hi-hats are 10” and 13”, the one with jingles on the bottom, so it’s a different effect. The main hi-hat is a 12” Amun series that sounds very crisp. I like it very much. For me, I like hi-hats and ride cymbals when they sound short and crisp. I put the little bell cymbals on top of my others so I can form a melody with it. It’s sort of a thing I learned watching Terry Bozzio play in those days. This is his influence on me. But I think my style is very different from his. There’s some things like the ostinatos I do, but also there’s a lot I learned from ‘The New Breed’ in those days. Terry is working like an orchestra and me, I try to be sort of a groove drummer.”

Trying to find Marco’s recordings can be a challenge. Unless you are at one of his clinics, you won’t find them in stores here in the States. “I sell my recordings on the internet. That’s what I do. I can do whatever I want to with my songs. So if I want to do a video or a tour, I have no problems doing this. It’s like my own record company. It’s good for me because I own my rights and didn’t give them away.” Check out Marco and his recordings at: www.marcominneman.de.

Discography

 

Freaky Fukin´ Weirdoz 

Senseless Wonder - 1992

Mao Mak Maa - 1994

Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick - 1994

Culture Shock - 1995

Hula - 1998

H-Blockx

Fly Eyes - 1998

ILLEGAL ALIENS

Thickness - 1996

Red Alibis - 1997

Time - 1998

International Telephone - 2000

Marco Minnemann

The Green Mindbomb - 1998

Comfortably Homeless - 2000

The Ilegal Aliens and Marco’s solo recordings are available on his web site at: www.marcominneman.de.