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"The Sum of All Wisdom: Conversations on Music, Makers & Meaning" is about adventure and discovery in music, musical lives, and musical worlds. The show is dedicated to the idea that music IS the sum of all wisdom.
Each episode is a guided exploration of musical lives and musical worlds, features long-form exploratory conversations with musicians, artists, and creative practitioners digging into sound, process, identity, and the work—and challenges—of building meaningful creative lives. We serve reflective musicians, thinkers, and culturally curious listeners seeking deeper conversations about art, memory, identity, meaning, and the wisdom embedded in creative lives. In other words, people just like you.
Our collaborations bring a fresh approach to talking about, discovering, and listening to music and musicians. Every artist--not just the legends--deserves a safe space to tell the stories behind their music, talk about their lives in their own creative ways, and touch listeners with their warmth, intelligence, and wisdom that's been hard-earned as a creative in sometimes chaotic world. The Sum of All Wisdom team is thrilled to partner with the incredible musical talent that is all around us, and bring inspiring and little-known stories to our growing, passionate, dedicated, thoughtful audience around the world.
The Sum of All Wisdom is a home for people who still believe music, conversation, and creative life can teach us how to live.
Scott Catey (00:01)
Welcome once again to the Sum of All Wisdom. I'm Scott Catey and I'm really glad you're here with us for this episode. Most musicians spend their lives trying to remove noise. They spend thousands of dollars on microphones, acoustic treatments, plug-ins, and software designed to eliminate unwanted sound, like a squeaky chair or a passing car, or a breath between phrases. The goal is usually clarity or purity or control, but what if noise is the point?
what if the washing machine in the room next door isn't a distraction? What if birds and frogs and wind are all part of the composition? What if dropped bells or footsteps or the sound of someone breathing in the room all belong in the music? My guest today is percussionist Jeff Tripoli from Syracuse, New York. Jeff and I met through Ted Gioia, author of The Honest Broker on Substack. It's a long story, but let me just say hat tip to Ted for the connection.
Jeff started in a world most musicians would recognize drum lessons, rock bands, touring, learning the craft. But somewhere along the way he crossed a threshold, and influenced by experimental composers and invented instruments, field recordings, and a growing willingness to trust accident over control, Jeff began to listen differently.
And once he started to listen differently, he started to make music differently. This conversation is about what happens when we stop treating the world as interference and start treating it as a collaborator. It's partly a story about drums, it's mostly a story about attention and what becomes possible when we allow the unexpected to teach us something. Let's get started, like always, with a taste of Jeff's music. This is called Something I Can't Explain from his new album called Natural Habitat.
Scott Catey (05:40)
Something I can't explain by Jeff Tripoli. We'll find out exactly whether Jeff can explain. And trust me, it's a pretty good answer. But let's get to it. Here's my conversation with Jeff Tripoli on the sum of all wisdom.
Scott Catey (05:52)
Okay, so let's slate the tape, Jeff. Just say your name for me and where you're calling in from.
JEFF TRIPOLI (05:59)
My name is Jeff Tripoli and I'm coming to you from Syracuse, New York.
Scott Catey (06:03)
Live and in color. All right. So I don't know if you've listened to any of the episodes of the show or if you've got a sense of where we are. This is basically just a conversation. I don't have a script. don't have planned out questions or an agenda to get to. So basically the idea, my idea for this podcast is music is the Sum of All Wisdom.
JEFF TRIPOLI (06:05)
That's right.
Awesome.
Scott Catey (06:28)
So I'm very excited to talk with you today, Yeah. Are there drummer jokes? Tell me one.
JEFF TRIPOLI (06:30)
Well thank you for having me Scott. Let the drummer jokes begin. ⁓
my god. ⁓ How do you get a drummer off your front porch? Pay him for the pizza. Here's a follow up. What's the difference between a pizza and a drummer? A pizza can feed a family of four. ⁓
Scott Catey (06:40)
Tell me. That's terrible.
Tell me.
my God, these are terrible,
Jeff.
JEFF TRIPOLI (06:55)
uh... and is repeating what i've heard but but but but but but but but but but but but but
Scott Catey (06:58)
I get it. get it. Yeah. I was in radio for a long
time and there was a lot of similar jokes floating around about DJs back in the day. So, you know.
JEFF TRIPOLI (07:06)
Yes, one of my
favorites is on Wayne's World, Wayne's World 2. They're going to meet handsome Dan to promote Wayne stock and they come in and the guy, you'd figure he'd be the beautiful guy, ⁓ but he's not. He's the ugly guy, handsome Dan. He's got a voice for radio, right? You heard that one before. Or a face for radio, I should say.
Scott Catey (07:25)
Yeah. You got a face for radio. Yeah. One of my liners back
in the day was a face only a mother could love. We hope we hope she could love it. I still would. The jury is still out on that one. But anyway, ⁓
JEFF TRIPOLI (07:33)
Right.
Yeah. And a happy bladed
Mother's Day to All the mothers out there. Yeah. My mom used to always say, because I've been drumming since I was 10 years old, and ⁓ the neighbors, they enjoyed it. But they're All like, how do you put up with the noise constantly? And her saying was always, at least I know where he is. At least I know he's not creating trouble right now. Yeah. Right.
Scott Catey (07:42)
Exactly.
Yeah, it's open. That's open to the thing. So when I first
I got into music when I was about the same age at my first thing was I wanted more than anything to be a drummer. And my mother said, No. And so I said, Okay, trumpet is my second instrument. She was like, Fuck no. And I got a clarinet and I played the clarinet for a while and that was not my favorite. Let me say it that way. But anyway,
JEFF TRIPOLI (08:18)
no.
That's
a hard instrument to play, I've heard. It's very difficult instrument.
Scott Catey (08:28)
⁓ I
still feel pity for my music teacher.
JEFF TRIPOLI (08:33)
Hahaha
Scott Catey (08:35)
I
must have broken her at one point. anyway, ⁓ you are Jeff, I've been looking at your bio and doing some show prep, just reading up on what you do, listen to some other ⁓ interviews you've done. You're out there, I think kind of All over the place. You're international in a sense, and you're highly collaborative. So I want to get to All of those things today. But what got me sort of started with you is your new record. I saw Natural Habitat. I think it's
JEFF TRIPOLI (08:37)
Right, yeah.
Scott Catey (09:04)
Is it this year, last year, when did that come out?
JEFF TRIPOLI (09:06)
They came out in October 2025 and I have a copy right here. You can see it. There you go. And my daughter Maddie did the cover and then Ava, she did the back. If you can kind of see here. And then on the inside, my fiance Justine did the photo and the CD here.
Scott Catey (09:09)
Okay. Yeah. There we go.
Nice.
JEFF TRIPOLI (09:35)
So I'm old school, I'm still doing CDs.
Scott Catey (09:37)
And
there's writing on that page to almost call that liner notes. Are those liner notes, Jeff?
JEFF TRIPOLI (09:45)
That's about one page of them. Yeah. And this record here, kind of, everything's backwards so can't read it. But yeah, I have a great time making my own percussion records. I learned a lot ⁓ about, right about when the pandemic was going on, I had a...
Scott Catey (09:47)
That's good.
JEFF TRIPOLI (10:03)
gone off tour. I was in a band called the Town Pants. Speaking of international touring, when the pandemic happened back in 2020, we were off the road. I was doing about 70 shows a year with the Town Pants. And of course, with the pandemic, you can't play, so I was starting to make my own percussion records. ⁓ I was bored and I was really into the artistic side of things. I'm really into bands like ⁓ Old Pink Floyd, Sid Barrett stuff, avant-garde music. ⁓
and be creative as possible. So at the time I decided to make a record and I put it out and I was wondering, know, what other drummers were putting out drum records besides the Tony Williams records and the Philly Joe Jones records, the Jazz Greats. But I wanted something that was like a little bit more avant-garde, something that was unconventional.
Scott Catey (10:43)
Hmm.
JEFF TRIPOLI (10:57)
So through my ⁓ explorations into independent psychedelic percussion music, I had found a composer named Harry Partch ⁓ If you're familiar with Harry Partch, you would... Yeah, his...
Scott Catey (11:08)
I am familiar area. Yeah. Great. And
stuff him and john cage, I think for me are like, interesting bookends with what the hell are you doing out there?
JEFF TRIPOLI (11:17)
Exactly, the limits of what's possible and what's acceptable. So Harry Partch for you viewers who don't know, ⁓ a composer that was inventing his own instruments really inspired a lot by ancient Greek theater. ⁓ Also, he was coming up as a young gentleman in his 20s during the Depression. So at that time he had become ⁓ jumping trains as a hobo.
Scott Catey (11:20)
Yeah, right on.
JEFF TRIPOLI (11:46)
Interesting story a whole bunch of stuff on that but ⁓ the point here I'm making is that when he would have to earn money He would do carpentry, know building decks working on houses and stuff like that between trains and so he had a really great carpentry skills and some of the inventions of instruments that he has are massive works of art craftsmanship wood wood craftsmanship and really interesting ways of looking at the instrument in microtonal scales
and it was All primarily percussion based so that was extremely influential to me. I've invented a couple of my own instruments as well. It's so much fun, know, seeing what I can get away with. It's like a mad laboratory down here. You can see I've got like a tape cassette recorder down here. So I've been doing a lot of stuff and getting back to my point of what started my whole percussion album journey.
After I discovered Harry Partch, I kept looking deeper and I found ⁓ through the assistance of a friend that I met on a drum forum, his name is Harry Conway, he had mentioned Butch Norton from a band that people would recognize called the Eels back in the 90s. And I actually didn't meet him through that connection. I met him through another connection he had ⁓ called AKA Butch Jerome.
Scott Catey (12:54)
Mm-hmm.
JEFF TRIPOLI (13:05)
And it's two guys, Michael Jerome from Better Than Ezra and Butch Norton from The Eels, also Lucinda Williams. They had gotten together and put together this really, really awesome percussion record called La Prima Lingua.
And once I discovered that, I reached out to the guys and Butch got back to me. Almost immediately, I got a phone call from an LA number on my phone and I was like looking at my fiance, Justine, and I'm saying, who is calling me from LA? And it's Butch. And I wasn't too familiar with him.
And after I hung up the phone, had a great conversation with him, and I looked at Justine and said, have you ever heard of the eels? And she goes, yeah, like why? And I'm like, because I just talked to the drummer. She's like, my God. So ⁓ after about.
Scott Catey (13:51)
my God.
JEFF TRIPOLI (13:56)
20 minutes of exploring more about this. I was really interested in learning more from Butch. So I sort of ⁓ assigned him the title of my mentor. And from there he begun sharing his Butch Bunker lessons. And right now I think I've got on my Google Drive about 138 different lessons.
and they're All video examples of him exploring, you know, sonic experimentation, you know, using unconventional instruments in an unconventional way. And also at the same time being very musical playing for the song. So I'd started to develop an ear for not only playing for a band, but also on the other side, seeing what's possible as a solo artist. And during the pandemic, this is great. This gives me tons of fuel to work with. So I've already made a couple
Records which I have some here. You've seen Natural Habitat. This is my other record called Perspectives And I have a bunch of guests on here including ⁓ Butch Kalani Das from World Drum Club ⁓ my buddy Rich Mangicaro who is the ⁓ A &R representative for Gong Bops percussion also from Syracuse so we have that connection
Scott Catey (15:11)
Hmm.
JEFF TRIPOLI (15:14)
and a host of other people, my friend Jason Schrippa from high school, the first kid I ever knew in drums is on my record. You know, we've known each other since grade three, so it's really interesting. Yeah, it's great. So like, along with that, All the collaborations that you spoke of earlier, All the collaboration from...
Scott Catey (15:25)
That's nice. Yeah.
JEFF TRIPOLI (15:33)
making my first percussion record to doing a couple tunes with Butch and now I've got 10 different guests. So working across platforms with people sending me video and audio stems of the recordings along with my improvised percussion and putting it All together on a record. So I called the record Perspectives and yeah. So a lot of the, sorry.
Scott Catey (15:54)
Nice
So you would sort of
plant an idea and let them run with it, your collaborators.
JEFF TRIPOLI (16:00)
Yes, that's the greatest part of it is giving them complete freedom to see what comes out the other end.
Scott Catey (16:05)
That's really interesting, isn't
JEFF TRIPOLI (16:07)
It's very interesting. A lot of it.
Scott Catey (16:08)
What did you, what
was the most surprising thing that came out of that? What was something that was like, my God, I can't believe it.
JEFF TRIPOLI (16:14)
I had actually got in touch with one of Harry Partch's ⁓ instrument curators named Charles Corey.
Charles I found him after researching Harry Partch on YouTube. There's many YouTube videos of Charles with Harry's instruments and he's explaining their origins their use and Demonstrating incredible work. So I had asked him to be on the record and he agreed and he came back with Playing like a guitar in his lap with sticks and three different slides on each finger so he could like
play chords with slides. really fun stuff. So that was a good surprise. That was really nice. Yeah, that's the point is just to like see how far we could take it outside of the box, but keeping it musical and having a lot of fun in the process.
Scott Catey (16:59)
of mind-blowing.
You said that, ⁓ parch was experimental microtonal playing. We get into any of that. Does that, is that where you're heading with any of that? That's hard to do.
JEFF TRIPOLI (17:18)
Yes.
⁓
I would say I am faking it until I make it when it comes to micrototal scales. ⁓ I'm a drummer so I'm not as nearly well versed in key signatures and chords and notes in that respect of melodies and stuff like that and
you know, knowing song arrangements in the sense of like, this is a G sharp and now we're going to F flat. And I'm like, okay, aren't those the two same chords, right? I don't know. But if you think about a scale has seven notes, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, All the sharps and flats that go along with that. You take microtonal scales and you're finding notes between the sharps and the flats.
So his octave, a normal octave has eight notes. Harry Partch's octave had 47 tones. ⁓ And there's this interesting video on YouTube. I believe it's the chromolodian is the name of his instrument that he demonstrates to sound. But if you look up Harry Partch microtonal skills, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. And what was so interesting about this to me,
Making my percussion records, speaking about melody and that side of the dimensions that go into a recording, I didn't have a way to really sing at that time. So what I wanted to do was use Harry Partch's inspiration on the microtonal scales, uninvented instruments of my own to mimic the human voice. So it's sort of like a way for me to sing without actually singing because I don't have a good voice.
It's a great way to make the human voice come through an instrument as well with the phrasing that you're using. So many years I've spent playing Nirvana and that's the reason I'm here today is Nirvana 1993. But you can only do this for so long until you start going, okay, what else is out there?
That's what was out there for me on the other side. it's so much stuff out there. Like Glenn Kotche the drummer from Wilco, is another huge influence on me. ⁓ Using All sorts of additional things on drums that are unconventional. Also, know, inventions of instruments. And he takes it to his own level and I'm taking it to my own level. So it's really a great way with the inventing of instruments to keep my own identity and stay original and really know like that I have something unique because I'm the only one
has this instrument and that's what makes it really fun for me is seeing like what I can get away with. Some of good, some of it's not so good.
Scott Catey (19:52)
So, yeah, you're
finding instruments and you're finding sound, natural sound, natural habitat. So for me, when I listen to it, hear the first track, Here I Am, right? Starts with Birdsong. And it sounds a lot like Cirrus Minor from Floyd, off of More. When I listen to that, it's like, ooh, I'm in a lineage of really interesting stuff going on here. So tell me, did that come about?
JEFF TRIPOLI (20:16)
You said it, Cirrus Minor, that's the one. Absolutely, you're the only person that's gotten that so far, so good for you. ⁓
Scott Catey (20:24)
I'm a diehard Floyd fan, you know.
JEFF TRIPOLI (20:27)
Me too, absolutely. Actually I have, where is it? Right here. Can't let my Keith Moon drum kit fall over. I have this guy right here. Yes, you can see the bookmark is in here. Huge influence. So actually that's exactly what it was is I really love the intro of that record.
Scott Catey (20:39)
There you go. Nice. Well done.
JEFF TRIPOLI (20:52)
and I wanted to take that inspiration, steal it, and then see where goes from there. So at four o'clock in the morning out in the backyard, went and recorded the birds.
And from there, I started exploring a lot more. ⁓ Again, Butch Norton has exposed me to a lot of different concepts that I'm still using today and still exploring, still learning as I go. But the idea of field recording is really interesting to me as well. Like I said earlier with this ⁓ tape cassette down here, I began experimenting with like going out and recording ⁓ going through the car wash.
and the noise that makes going through the car wash. Using that as a sort of drone background and letting that influence the music. Another way...
Scott Catey (21:38)
And there's a rhythm to that, isn't there?
The way you move through the car wash and the way the, straps, right? The cleaning straps hit the car. All of that has a rhythm and a sound. Yeah. Interesting.
JEFF TRIPOLI (21:47)
Absolutely. Yeah.
Natural habitat literally turned into All of my surroundings in my real life. The frogs down the street. ⁓ The ⁓ dryer machine right next door here. The basement and the studio and the washing machine is right next door. So I heard this, my fiance came down, she's doing laundry. I'm like, what happens if we like take these bungee cords I have and just throw them in there and then record it.
and ⁓ you get the cycling of this randomness. another drummer that I was really influenced by still am. I love Billy Martin from Mideski Martin and Wood.
Scott Catey (22:26)
Martin
Wood, yeah, right.
JEFF TRIPOLI (22:28)
Yep, and I talked to him for a minute on a Zoom meeting and I told him about the washer or the dryer machine with the bungee cords and he said there's like a concept where you have an opposing rhythm and then another opposing world and they're kind of like doing their own thing, you know, one's going up and down, the other one's doing whatever it's doing over here and somehow they cross intersect in a very interesting way that's left up chance.
and it's an improvised way of looking at creating an atmosphere out of complete randomness, like a controlled chaos. He is much more well-versed in it than I am. I'm really new to All this stuff, so I'm always the student, and that's what really keeps me going.
Scott Catey (22:58)
Mm-hmm.
And it sounds like you're, must have read Rick Rubin as well, right? Creative Act is a lot of these kinds of ways of thinking about how do we, how do we make and find the sounds and any, any, any act of creation actually.
JEFF TRIPOLI (23:19)
That's exactly right. Are you sure we don't know each other from another life? Yeah.
Scott Catey (23:23)
We must, right? Yeah. In fact, I
know, I don't know ⁓ Billy, but I know the, the Modeski, Martin and Wood folks, the Wood brothers from Missoula, Montana. They were around there for a time when I was living there Interesting stuff. They do great work. I really love their sound.
JEFF TRIPOLI (23:40)
Yeah, I played a festival that they were sharing the bill with us. ⁓ Finger Lakes Grassroots Festival out here in Trumansburg, New York up by Ithaca. A really awesome show. Those guys are incredible. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Catey (23:49)
Yeah.
They really are, yeah, totally.
So Perspectives is actually it's a very drum oriented percussion oriented record and Natural Habitat Not that it's not drum oriented or percussion oriented, but it's a whole different sound. It's a very different sound and I know for me there's There's a couple of things like a there's the how the how did you make this not just the record? But for me, it's a world. It's an immersive world if you put on headphones and listen to the the tracks of that record, it's
JEFF TRIPOLI (24:02)
Yes.
Yeah.
Scott Catey (24:26)
It sort of takes you out of today and into, I think, a different place. So it's very immersive for me and which I love. And it creates a world, a sonic world, but also I think a felt and embodied world that I get to live in for a minute while I'm listening to that record. So I want to know not just the how you do that, right? It's not just going out and making the recordings and putting it together, but I want to know the why. What is it that this does for you ⁓ as a composer and as a
JEFF TRIPOLI (24:44)
Yeah.
Scott Catey (24:55)
a guy who puts sound together and who makes music.
JEFF TRIPOLI (24:59)
Yeah, well first thank you for checking out All my stuff and enjoying what I do. ⁓ I make this music for myself. I don't go out there with this particular kind of audience that I'm trying to please. I'm certainly not trying to keep up with today's standards of...
Scott Catey (25:08)
Mmm.
JEFF TRIPOLI (25:17)
⁓ drummers that have massive chops that go All over the kit and are so impressive like some of these really young kids have incredible chops that I just will never be able to keep up with but what I can do is offer an escape through the music for people people that have stress stressful times are going on for everybody these days so I want to offer an escape much like the Pink Floyd was an escape for me ⁓ I wanted to offer the same thing for people I wanted to give them something different
And how I put these things together is always a mystery to me because I always let things unfold in their own progression rather than trying to force them in a direction. Of course, I always have like a specific idea that I want to imply on a record. For instance, on perspectives, I used a lot of my contraption kit, which is many different pieces that don't usually go together.
All put together like a drum set. And if you think about the origin of the drums themselves, they're a contraption. It's many different things that don't belong together just put together. So I took that to the next level, much to do with Butch's recommendations and his example. And I'm not sure if you can see it from here, but I have my father's kitchen sink right here. If you check that out here.
Scott Catey (26:37)
Nice.
Yeah,
I see it.
JEFF TRIPOLI (26:42)
And I've got All sorts of different things, like invention here. This is the Wasabi hammer slide, which has bass strings on it. And I strike it like a hammer dulcimer. So I used a lot of, a lot of what I did on perspectives was from that contraption kit. And then the next record, I didn't want to use the contraption kit one bit. I had already been there. So I'm already starting at A. I've gone to B. Let's not go back to A. Let's go to F.
Scott Catey (26:52)
Hmm.
JEFF TRIPOLI (27:12)
And then next we'll go to twcny.rr.com. You know, and we're never going back to the same spot. So with Natural Habitat, going along with the theme of my surroundings, Natural Habitat, I wanted to keep it natural sounding. So I used a lot of things like bodhrans and hand percussion, ⁓ anything besides a drum set or a contraption kit. So it was very much more into the hands for percussion, which was another learning experience for me altogether.
and a lot of the influence from that came from the people that influenced Kalani Das and John, or I'm sorry, Kalani Das and Butch Norton were influenced by a drummer named John Bergamo. John Bergamo was another guy that was, he was coming up around the time of the 60s and he was one of the first musicians to really go out to the East in India, study tabla and bring that back to the West and sort of...
you know, immerse us in that culture. So if you look up John Bergamo, he's very well known amongst like the Percussive Arts Society. And he was also a professor at Cal Arts. That's how Butch Norton had gotten to know him. John Bergamo was Butch's professor. And so of course, I do my homework and I love history about drums and where it comes from and where it's going. So I looked up Butch's influences, John Bergamo.
and it's just a whole new world of hand percussion, incredible virtuoso experiences, and very, at the same time, a little avant-garde outside the box and using unconventional instruments. So I've got a lot of inspiration with the hand drumming experience from John Bergamo.
And then also with my friend Jim Donovan. People would know Jim Donovan as the drummer for Rusted Root. He's been a huge influence on me as well with just djembe drumming, African inspired stuff. And I wanted to take that side of me and develop it more. I've done the rock drumming. I've done the contraption stuff. Now I want it to be a little bit more world influenced. Yeah. And my next record.
Scott Catey (29:24)
Afro can't
sorry to interrupt you Jeff Afro can't on your on your unnatural habitat is pretty heavily percussive right so what's the origin for that one?
JEFF TRIPOLI (29:32)
Yes.
I can show you right now. You guys remember tape cassettes right? Yeah. Sorry it's not mirrored but this is Damaru and that's Butch and Ray McNamara. Now Butch sent me this.
Scott Catey (29:41)
Oh, back in the day. Nice.
JEFF TRIPOLI (29:57)
That was a huge influence as well for Natural Habitat. Afro Cant is a drum cover from that tape that was released in 19...
Scott Catey (30:03)
I
JEFF TRIPOLI (30:11)
Sorry, 1995 was when that tape was made. All this...
Scott Catey (30:17)
was the year before CDs
were even a thing, right? Yeah.
JEFF TRIPOLI (30:20)
Yeah,
I'd been playing drums for two years at that point. ⁓ You know, I've always found that inspiration comes from everywhere, especially ⁓ something underground. Like I said, I'm really a big fan of Syd Barrett and the avant-garde side of things. So when Butch turned me on to his project from the past with Damaru with himself and Ray McNamara I heard Afro-cant on there and I was floored.
⁓ Again, I'm always a student, always learning. So this was my first real diving in to experience hand drumming percussion world type stuff. So when I first heard that, it was a great diving board to like, okay, I'm going to like attempt to recreate this. And when I did that, I loved it so much. I was like, I'm just going to use this as a springboard for the rest of the record. So when I created Here I Am with the Birds in the Background from Cirrus Minor, I kind of was like, okay, where is this going now?
And then I heard AfroCant and I'm like, that's where it's going. So AfroCant comes directly from Damaru, Butch Norton and Ray McNamara.
Scott Catey (31:25)
Let's step out of that conversation for just a bit and listen to that track. This is Afrocant from Jeff's album Natural Habitat.
Scott Catey (34:37)
So before there were guitars or woodwinds or brass or even keys, there was rhythm, the source code that connects the past to the future and to the present, but without chronology. And Afrocant I think gives us a pretty good understanding of that primordial thing. But let's get back to the conversation with Jeff.
Scott Catey (34:56)
on that record. It's not just found music. It's not just natural habitat, but there's so much like the walking and the breathing. at one point I think you drop a cluster of bells. There's the sonic universe that you're creating that I think is really interesting. where did, was that experimental? How did you come to the idea that I'm just gonna record myself walking and include that on my record?
JEFF TRIPOLI (35:08)
Yeah
Well, amongst, and I always bring him back to Butch. mean, he's such a huge influence on me for the last four years. It's hard to really get away from talking about him, but I'm trying to keep my own voice intact here while I do this, but he's always influencing me to do things besides what my instincts are when it comes to producing, because I had never recorded myself before. I was coming from a land where I was like, I heard a click on the mic.
I better erase that or ⁓ I can hear somebody, like the TV's on in the background, you can hear that, I better get rid of that. ⁓ So I was sterilizing the tracks and he said, you know what I love about what you're doing, Jeff, is I can hear you breathing. And I can hear you pick up the sticks. ⁓ that sort of like...
Scott Catey (35:56)
Mm-hmm.
JEFF TRIPOLI (36:15)
sound in the background of, you know, everyday life happening around me and not taking it out, leaving it in there, letting it just be, accepting it for what it is. So I had to learn really a lot of acceptance in what it was. And from that, you know, I would hear things like I heard before I hit stop on the record button, I took off my headphones and dropped the jingle bells, got up, went to hit stop. And then I was like, well, let me just keep that on.
And you know, it's one of my favorite parts of the record. Yeah, so from that.
Scott Catey (36:47)
I agree. It's like The
Beatles or Johnny Cash. You can hear the creaks and the groans in the studio, but you can also get ambient noise talking and buttons being pushed and that sort of thing. I think that's a really interesting way to sort of make the world bigger that you've created.
JEFF TRIPOLI (36:57)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it really adds dimension to the music. ⁓ Actually, my next record, have ⁓ my fiance's mother, she came down to get me for something and ⁓ I was still recording. So I have a conversation that I haven't quite decided yet whether I'm gonna keep it on, but I think I'll probably take it off just to save her. It's stuff like that that I really love.
Scott Catey (37:08)
Yeah.
Very enticing that, isn't it?
JEFF TRIPOLI (37:35)
It is, it is. you know, at the end of, think it's ⁓ Pink Floyd's Division Bell album, you hear a phone conversation ⁓ and then they hang up the phone and that's end of the record. So it's just really interesting to like, accept, you know, that the universe has opened up this world for you. Like we're talking about the Rick Rubin book, ⁓ being an antenna to the world around you and being receptive of the influence it's trying to send you. And if you recognize that, take it.
use it for something and then craft something from that inspiration. from that when you start accepting like the blemishes, warts and All, no quantizing, no cleaning, no sterilization, you start to hear things that influence you that you didn't expect and you have these happy accidents that start to unfold and you follow this trail of happy accidents. You're like, wow, somehow we've wound up here. This is not exactly what I was had in mind when I started this track, but this is better than what I had in mind, you know?
Scott Catey (38:32)
Yeah, right.
JEFF TRIPOLI (38:33)
Letting the universe work for
Scott Catey (38:35)
something very human about it, right? That you can't recreate
those kinds of happy accidents, as you say, through AI. That's the quintessence of cleaning shit up and making it sterile. Right? The perfect sound, so to speak, but it's not perfect. It's horrifying in its way.
JEFF TRIPOLI (38:43)
right.
Yeah.
There is no perfect at any time. There's no perfection at any time whatsoever. And that's what makes it fun. That's what keeps it interesting. Yeah.
Scott Catey (38:56)
Yeah.
Yeah, totally agree. Tell me
where you're going for your next record a little bit more, Jeff. When's it coming out? You're working on it now. You've got some recordings. What shape is it taking?
JEFF TRIPOLI (39:14)
Right now, ⁓ it's just really early in the process. I have about 19 separate tracks that have All been just improvised. ⁓ I still don't know really what it's gonna be, but there's gonna be a lot of tape experimentation. ⁓ My current influence on this doesn't actually come from anybody in the percussion world. It comes from David Bowie. So...
Scott Catey (39:39)
Really?
JEFF TRIPOLI (39:41)
To digress here for a minute, on the side for my projects, you know, to make ends meet, this is what I do for a living. On the side I had begun through my friend Jeff Molesky. He owns a studio here in Syracuse called Moll Tracks. He has a lot of clients that come in.
that want to start doing video production, like let's shoot a music video at his studio. He is for certain the best sound engineer I've ever worked with in Syracuse when it comes to traditional analog, great microphones, great board, great room, great atmosphere, great vibes, great jokes. Also, he's a drummer. So he hired me and my fiance, Justine, to start doing videography.
Scott Catey (40:01)
Mm.
JEFF TRIPOLI (40:24)
Which is another practice I'm still learning, but getting better. One of my current clients ⁓ is a guitar player named Earl Slick, played with David Bowie. And so he and I, yeah, Earl Slick is the man. I love a man. He is the best. And he and I have been talking for a couple months on and off, really good stuff. ⁓
Scott Catey (40:33)
I know Earl Slick like, yeah, he's something.
That's a, that's a good client to have, man.
JEFF TRIPOLI (40:50)
And to get back to my story here, one of the things he told me about that I heard of before but wasn't really familiar with was David Bowie's lyric writing process of cutting up newspapers, taking random phrases, putting them together, and that's the lyrics. Sort of again, letting the universe take over, not getting in the way of the process. ⁓ so I took that theory to heart, not for lyrics, but for rhythmic phrases.
Scott Catey (41:05)
Thanks.
JEFF TRIPOLI (41:20)
So, ⁓ you know, this is something that I'm going to be experimenting with a lot more here until I'm ready to release the record, but the concept right now is to call it beat poetry. Take All these clippings and put them together, whatever it says, play that rhythm on the drums. ⁓ then going back to the packaging of the CDs and All that stuff, hopefully vinyl this time. ⁓
Scott Catey (41:31)
like it.
JEFF TRIPOLI (41:46)
I'll have the lyrics and people can read the rhythmic lyrics as they go through the record.
Scott Catey (41:52)
So you're the,
there's a, what am I trying to say? There's another lineage here that I want to hear from you about. So from Butch and his mentor through that sort of carnatic sound and microtones and Harry Partch. And now you're moving into beat poetry and doing this Bowie approach to things. It sounds really like ⁓ stitching things together. I'm sort of thinking about Takitina
JEFF TRIPOLI (42:13)
you
Scott Catey (42:22)
one of the tracks that's on natural habitat and how you do rhythmic scale. So "beat poetry" for me feels like you're exploring that in a little bit wider sense with All of these influences kind of coming together.
JEFF TRIPOLI (42:30)
Yes.
Again, you're like in my head. That's exactly what we're talking about here. Another John Bergamo lesson ⁓ is the Bergamo rhythm scale. So you have the pulse and the rhythm scale is just a way to dissect that pulse just like we would one and two and three and a four and a one, two, three and a four, right? We have that scale.
Scott Catey (42:46)
Mm.
JEFF TRIPOLI (43:08)
What the rhythm of scale does is it replaces the numbers with phrases. Ta, ta, ta, ki, ta, ki, ta, ki, te, ta, ki, te, ta, teena, ta, ka, teena, ta, ka, teena, ge, ta, ka, teena, ge, and so on and so forth. So what it does for me is it opens up a way to not only come up with new phrases and also a way to do different divisions like fives.
or sevens. And there's again a whole bunch book or lesson on the John Bergamo rhythm scale and how to use it. And you can line up, know, like threes and fours, or you could do sevens, or you can make All these different combinations. Again, coming back from John Bergamo's experience with tabla playing, it's not so much, okay, one, two, three, four. It's how you doing today? Today we're going to have a good time and we're some drumming.
Scott Catey (43:38)
Mm.
JEFF TRIPOLI (44:05)
You know, it's like, it's speaking, it's having a conversation. And for me, that's where Taki Tina came from, was that experience. So I'm trying to take that.
to my own personal level, crossing that with some influence from David Bowie. just recently last night, now your listeners who know about Bauhaus are going to say, Jeff, where you been for the last so many years? At least that's what Justine said to me. ⁓ So we watched a little bit of Billy Corrigan has a podcast and he just recently had a member of Bauhaus on there. So.
Scott Catey (44:30)
You
JEFF TRIPOLI (44:41)
We watched it last night and I just learned about a track from Bauhaus called Exquisite Corpse. And this is actually a game that you could play like with my daughters we would play this game. Where you fold up a piece of paper, you don't let the person who's next see what you draw.
but they take the paper on the next side, have the blank side, they draw something nobody saw, then they hand it to the next person. And then when you unfold it, you have this like, whatever that is, it's an exquisite corpse. It's a Frankenstein, yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, again, my head is, you know, somewhere else and I'm trying to like ground it into a way that I can, you know, put something musical together, not just put together some experimental.
Scott Catey (45:11)
Frankenstein kind of picture. Yeah, nice.
JEFF TRIPOLI (45:28)
Nonsense right now is kind of what it is, but trying to boil it down, sculpt it, chip away at it, take away pieces, ⁓ and you know, seeing what emerges, letting the universe come through in a different form is what it's about for me right now. And the other side of that is using the tapes, using lo-fi sound on a really inexpensive, crappy tape cassette recorder microphone, and using that as
a sort of texture to go along with the record as well. So there's a lot of experimenting still and I'm always the student, so I'm always trying to boil it down, make it musical and see what comes from that. So that's what's the next record, hopefully.
Scott Catey (46:12)
Do you plan to use your kit and your contraption kit or are you sort of doing something more like natural habitat in your development process?
JEFF TRIPOLI (46:23)
That's the level I'm on right now. I'm still deciding that. ⁓ I've actually gone back to drum set a little bit for this. So I'm taking that platform. I got these Ludwigs here. I'm not sure how well you could see them, but this Ludwig kit right here, you see better this way. These drums are absolutely fantastic. It's a 58 WFL, 1960.
Scott Catey (46:30)
Mm.
Nice
JEFF TRIPOLI (46:49)
rat tom trying to take right here and the snare drum and the floor tom are absolutely gorgeous and I have yet to really take a full advantage of having this beautiful drum set on a record so I want to get some of those sounds on there and ⁓
Scott Catey (47:04)
I hate to ask you this,
Jeff, but any chance you'd play something for us?
JEFF TRIPOLI (47:09)
Try. Let's see. think my mics are hooked up to the contraption kit right now. Let me, ⁓ you know, I'm on a leash right now because my in-ears won't reach that far, but if I switch to headphones, I could do that. How much time do we have? Yeah.
Scott Catey (47:26)
As much time as you need,
Take your time. Yeah, I'd love to hear you drumming.
JEFF TRIPOLI (47:31)
Okay, let's see how we do because I'm gonna have to do some kind of sound check for you. Okay, bear with me, I'm gonna switch over. Okay.
Scott Catey (47:36)
Yeah, no problem.
Sure thing.
Thanks for this, by the way.
JEFF TRIPOLI (47:53)
Take out the big old headphones here.
This one's got a longer leash on it.
Scott Catey (48:01)
Good. Yeah.
JEFF TRIPOLI (48:05)
Okay you can still hear me right? Okay I can still hear you too. Let's see how we do.
Scott Catey (48:06)
can still hear you.
I can hear that.
JEFF TRIPOLI (48:24)
Yeah, let me get this out of the way. See if I can get you on the kit. Here we go.
the wonders of technology here we go
Scott Catey (48:38)
amazing, isn't it? I love it.
JEFF TRIPOLI (48:42)
So, contraption kit. One of my favorite pieces is this guy. ⁓
depot.
you ⁓
Scott Catey (49:26)
It's coming through, yeah.
JEFF TRIPOLI (50:14)
⁓ you
also got...
can't see it as well because it's actually my seat on here is the gong bops El Maestro Cajon
Scott Catey (50:49)
far out man. That contraption with the bass strings, what do you call that again?
JEFF TRIPOLI (50:55)
That's the Wasabi Hammerslide and that one in particular is the Bass Hammerslide. ⁓
Scott Catey (51:00)
That thing has,
when you were playing, it's got such a nice drone that underlays. That's a beautiful thing, man. I really like that sound.
JEFF TRIPOLI (51:08)
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you so much. That's the Harry Partch coming through. I did. I did. It's a... Sorry, I'm gonna switch back to my in-ears here so I can't hear you, but I'll keep talking about the Wasabi bass hammer slide. It's a piece of oak wood, which was attached to two bass strings.
Scott Catey (51:14)
Amazing. Yeah. you built that yourself? That's cool.
Yeah, no problem.
JEFF TRIPOLI (51:37)
And those two bass strings are strung across a Wasabi Peas can. And I'll go over and grab this and pick it up and show your viewers real quick.
This guy right here.
this was a really fun instrument to
I tell you what, I'm really good at the drumming but not so much with keeping up with All the technology. Anyway, this guy here.
Scott Catey (52:03)
I get it. I totally get it.
JEFF TRIPOLI (52:12)
Wasabi peas. ⁓
and
Scott Catey (52:15)
How did
this idea come to you to put this contraption together?
JEFF TRIPOLI (52:20)
Harry Partch. Harry Partch was a huge influence on this. not many drummers have been using strings in their setups. So I figured that's another unique way to incorporate something that's not usually found on a drum set.
Scott Catey (52:36)
It's crazy that isn't it like Eddie Van Halen did such percussive work on his on his guitar. It's crazy that more drummers don't sort of go that direction, right?
JEFF TRIPOLI (52:45)
Yeah,
I think a lot of what happens with drummers is we come, you know, victims of habit. You know, the boom, ka, boom, boom, ka, boom, ka, boom, boom, ka is something that every drummer plays for their entire life. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's the bread and butter. But after a while, you know, bread and butter gets boring. So put some cinnamon on it, put some sugar on it.
Scott Catey (53:00)
Attack on the one and then the downbeat two and four, right? Gets to be a cage.
JEFF TRIPOLI (53:15)
Put it in the toaster.
Scott Catey (53:16)
So let's talk a little bit about your collaborations, like the Town Pants, Celtic Roots music that you guys play. Tell me, are you touring with them still?
JEFF TRIPOLI (53:24)
Yeah.
I am not. ⁓ I toured with those guys for about 10 years. ⁓ Really close friends of mine who I've known for years and years and years. ⁓ Town Pants are a Celtic folk rock band from Vancouver by way of Ottawa, Canada. Right over the border here from upstate New York. And I met those guys at a festival called the Great Blue Heron Festival. And at the time I was in a Zydeco band so we were like doing kind of the same shows.
Scott Catey (53:32)
Hmm.
Yeah.
JEFF TRIPOLI (53:55)
similar festivals and we've become really good friends. ⁓ So at the time I lived in Ithaca, New York and my first daughter was born, Ava was born, desire to be back closer with family after my first daughter was born, ⁓ we moved back to Syracuse.
And at that time I had left the Zydeco band and I needed a new project to be in. So I got in contact with the Town Pants and started playing with those guys immediately. I played with them for 10 years, a 10 year run, you know, All the way from Ireland to Hawaii, Canada and the States everywhere between. So it was really like a huge learning experience for me. It was a door that had opened that offered exactly what I want to do for my life, which is make a living playing drums and playing music, really good music.
Scott Catey (54:42)
Mm. Mm.
JEFF TRIPOLI (54:46)
The music is Irish traditional in the sense that that's the roots of it, but ⁓ The nature of the Town Pants is a little bit more gypsy klezmer ⁓ Again the hand drumming thing was coming in to play ⁓ but in the sense of more like a Eastern style of hand drumming on a dumbeck or a darbuka which I actually mounted on a drum set and ⁓ using that
with the snare drum with the snares off and tuning the darbuka and the snare drum relative to each other and pitch so that I can have this sort of like hand drumming experience from a drum set.
And from there, ⁓ we had a lot of fun. The music is really passionate and our fiddle player Johanna So is incredible. She's out of Alaska. And then you had David and Dwayne Keough who are brothers. One of them's a guitar and the lead singer. The other one is Banjo, Mandolin and the other lead singer. And we had Blake Propes also from Syracuse on the upright bass. So it's more like a bluegrass.
infused Celtic music with some hints of klezmer, and ⁓ of course the Pogues. You know the Pogues are an absolutely stellar influential band from Ireland that everybody should know about. ⁓ So you kind of get this infusion of bluegrass and traditional Irish music with elements of Americana.
and of course the Pogues punk rock Irish kind of acoustic approach with everything as well
but we're more like, you know, I guess we're more in the style of like, ⁓
In particular, for me, what really did it was the lyrics of Dave Keough, which were really more in the vein of like Bob Dylan in the sense of telling a ghost story or telling stories, a real story of a fan of the band, one of their family members from Corning, New York back in the Prohibition times had ⁓ tried to cross a creek after a private party.
with a crate of rum in his hands, but got stuck in the creek, so the cops had to come and bail him out,
At the time it helped him out because he paid him off. They paid off the cops with a crate of rum. But they left him one behind to keep him warm as the lyrics say. So the Town Pants was ⁓ a beautiful thing that happened to me and I love those guys still and will always always deeply appreciate the experiences we had together. ⁓ so now what I'm doing and again I am scattered because ⁓
Scott Catey (57:13)
That's good. Yeah, that's good.
JEFF TRIPOLI (57:32)
As a drummer I gotta keep the ball rolling, I gotta keep the road paved ahead of me so when I'm not making my own records and being a freak in the basement I'm now playing with
some groups like I'm doing actually a couple cover bands which I wouldn't expect to be for me to be doing now but that's what my scene offers here in Syracuse right now. One of them is called Sons of Grunge which is with my old friend Shane Stillman who's a fantastic lead singer also a drummer and our buddies in that are Sons of Grunge. We're doing like Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Pearl Jam ⁓
my god, what else? ⁓ Dinosaur Jr. we're doing Foo Fighters, ⁓ the Pixies, we're doing Mud Honey, All that really good stuff from the grunge era which is where I came from with Nirvana back in 93. Yeah, it's fun. And then the other project that I'm currently in is with, yeah.
Scott Catey (58:21)
Right. That's great. Good sound.
Wait, you're
both drummers. Do you have two kits up there? What else? What's going on with with sound?
JEFF TRIPOLI (58:33)
He's more lead singer than man now To quote Star Wars He's just the lead singer now, but sometimes like it cuz he's known for like being like the real deal So we'll play like a three-hour show with no breaks You know straight All night. So in order for me to keep the show going I have to take like maybe one or two songs
Scott Catey (58:36)
I see. That's hardcore.
JEFF TRIPOLI (58:57)
where they'll do like an acoustic just a voice and a guitar or Shane will actually play drums and I'll get to you know go to the bathroom for a song and come back so it's really helpful but we should and we're gonna start doing the unplug side of things with the grunge movement we're gonna start doing the unplug side of things so hopefully with my contraption kit and of course Shane will have some percussion as well while he's singing
Scott Catey (59:18)
That'll be interesting
that contraption kit contributing to that sound. think that'll be really cool marriage.
JEFF TRIPOLI (59:24)
Yeah, I'm gonna try to make it work. Hopefully it works. So my other project is called Optimistic and that's a project that's a tribute to Radiohead. So yes, this is a project that started with ⁓ a kid, 15 years old, is a stellar guitar player here in Syracuse. And I've known his father, Mike Spadaro,
Scott Catey (59:27)
Yeah.
really? Tell me more. Yeah.
JEFF TRIPOLI (59:50)
for pretty much my whole life. A bass player, a little bit older than like two years older than me, so we were in the same scene, hanging out at Sterling's stage up at the Campa Theater All night with All the hippies around the campfires and everything that goes with that. he's somebody I've known for a long time and at one point I was like looking for new drum students. So I sent Mike a message.
And he said, you know, Dylan doesn't need a drum set teacher, he needs a drummer. Why don't you guys get together and we'll do some of Dylan's music. So he's actually writing his own music. He's original. Yeah, now he's 16.
Scott Catey (1:00:26)
He's 15? That's awesome.
What a start in life, right?
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:00:32)
Yes, it's really, really, ⁓ it gives me hope for the future because I don't know a lot of kids. I have a few drum students that are like, you know, 10, 12, 13, 14 years old, but they're kind of lost these days. There's not as many kids playing instruments and they're not All getting together after school. They're All, you know, on the phones. It's true. It's true. But, ⁓
Scott Catey (1:00:51)
Mm.
Fucking tragic, isn't it? Ay yi yi.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:01:01)
think it's inspiring to have this kid who's 15, 16 that I'm in a band with. And it's really, it's a great sort of retirement plan because I know that I'll be dying before he does, I hope.
So hopefully I can last and not be the weird old guy Luckily Mike is in the band too. Also going back to Optimistic, the Radiohead tribute, our good friend Corey Page and Dylan's good friend are also in the band. So going back to Mike Spadaro, the bass player, his band back in the day was a band called Candid. And...
Corey Page was the singer and songwriter candid so those guys got together and Corey's doing the lead vocals for radiohead and yet the backup guitar he's absolutely fantastic he's the the best most humble guy in the world and he's a trooper he'll he'll he'll work his ass off
⁓ And then Braylon is Dylan's friend from high school. Another 15 year old kid. Really influenced a lot by Guns N' Roses, Metallica, and Van Halen, you know, the good stuff. ⁓ another little interesting story here. ⁓ I was at my daughter's school concert and chorus.
Scott Catey (1:02:10)
Yeah.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:02:22)
And they had All the schools there. So everybody got together at the high school and I'm waiting, you know, I'm watching the whole thing and next thing I know the next class comes out and Braylon's on stage. So I'm at my daughter's school concert watching one of my band members on stage. It was kind of like, what's going on here? ⁓ Yeah, but you know, music is something that brings people together regardless of age and ⁓
Scott Catey (1:02:44)
little surreal.
That's right.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:02:52)
Yeah, it's really fantastic. So I've been really busy and you know on top of drum lessons with my students and trying to you know produce records and keep things rolling. It's really been a fun journey so far and I have no plans of stopping ever.
Scott Catey (1:03:10)
⁓
I think the drum is the oldest instrument, right? And probably modeled on the heart or the way we walk something.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:03:13)
Yes.
Yes, this is the first drum. Yes.
Scott Catey (1:03:18)
Yeah, right. What
happens? What happens next with drumming? What's the what's the future look like?
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:03:26)
Well, that's a great question. It's sort of gone into the direction that it's been mostly that I've noticed is Instagram has a lot of great, fantastic players releasing stuff. There's a lot of chops. There's a lot of people at home, not really playing for an audience, but playing for themselves, which is great. Only goes so far in my world.
But in that world, it's fantastic to see these virtuosic players come through, including bass players, keyboard players, guitar players. The whole gamut of instruments are represented by these stellar musicians that have superhuman chops, stuff that I can't do. You I came up with Neil Peart. I love my Neil Peart. I still got to play the Rush, but...
That's not so much my world, my world is different. But I think what's happening now is a lot of kids are getting into that sort of, guess you'd call it insta-drumming. And I mean that in the most respectful way, it's like its own genre. And I, very technical drumming, super technical. Some would argue not so musical, but that's relative. That's, you know, just because
Scott Catey (1:04:26)
very technical drumming though, right?
What do you think of
it, how's it for you? When you think about it?
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:04:43)
humbling. I think it's fantastic. ⁓ Sometimes it's a little overwhelming. Sometimes I'm like, okay, that's enough killing the mosquito with a bazooka. Now play a song, you know.
Scott Catey (1:05:00)
It's
like Yngwie Malmsteen, right? I mean, that guy can play, but you know, it's a little bit flat for me. Hollow.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:05:03)
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah, I think a really good example of how to cross the virtuosic with the musical would be Jeff Beck. Yeah, really, really inspirational stuff from guitar player nonetheless, of course, but that guy's like Steve Vai. ⁓ Absolutely, he's out there with, I think they're called Beat with Danny Carey on drums and Adrian Belew
Scott Catey (1:05:15)
Mm.
Right. He's still out there killing it too. my God.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:05:37)
from King Crimson and yeah.
Scott Catey (1:05:37)
Love Adrian Blue. my god, that guy.
Talk about experimental music. He just takes you elsewhere.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:05:42)
Yeah,
absolutely. I'm a huge Frank Zappa fan as well. But yeah, I think the music is going in a direction that's very ⁓ indulgent. And I mean that in good way. ⁓ But I think now that people have gone through this for a couple of years now, it's the pendulum swinging back, I think, to more of where I'm at, which is
Scott Catey (1:05:47)
Yeah, right.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:06:12)
Getting away from the computer. Get away from quantizing. Don't sterilize. Don't overthink. Just play. And have fun and do something different. And you know, it comes back and forth All the time. The response to Nirvana was the Backstreet Boys. So it's always going back and forth. And I believe that's something true with everything in life. Politics, you know.
Scott Catey (1:06:36)
Yeah, I would agree.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:06:39)
I don't want to get into politics of course, but yeah, the pendulum always swings and I think what's gonna happen in the next couple years are people are gonna be like, okay, we're sick of the norm. Let's go back and see what else is out there. And my hope is that I can inspire the next generation. Another good reason to be playing with kids 15, 16 years old is that I can sort of, you know, pass on a little bit to them and...
Scott Catey (1:07:03)
Right? Yeah.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:07:08)
keep that torch going, keep the torch lit for the next generation. ⁓
Scott Catey (1:07:14)
model the ethos too
that you have. You know, one of the things I really like about your music, Jeff, is you seem to me to be a storyteller. So distinct from the very technical approach, which to me doesn't tell a story. It tells me you can play really well, but I don't, I don't feel it. But with your, what I've heard from you, it's, it, it definitely has feeling and it feels like there's a world that you're trying to show me. And take that seriously. I think if that's what you pass along, that's a good thing to pass along.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:07:38)
Yeah.
Yeah, I really hope that's the impression I'm giving. ⁓ Sometimes even I can be self-indulgent and just be like, my God, I'm having so much fun here on this weird thing I've never done before. And that was awesome. And I go back and listen, I'm like, no. So you gotta live and learn. You gotta let the universe talk to you. You gotta let it come and get out of its way, let it do its thing. ⁓
And I wish nothing but the best for every young musician out there. ⁓ And it's been a passion of mine my whole life. So I really hope that the future of drumming is gonna embrace whatever comes next. And I really hope, and I'm not even gonna say the cursed words AI for what's coming next, but it's out there. And the pendulum, yeah.
Scott Catey (1:08:34)
It's a pendulum, know, everybody's happy with
it. Corporations, so when it first hit in 22, corporations were All like, let's just jump on this bandwagon. And then they did. And then a year and a half later, they were like, that bandwagon ain't taking us where we need to go. So they started piling off. And I think music could do the same thing. It's harder with the industry, right? I mean, the labels and that sort of thing, investing in Suno and whatever else. But, you know, there will be...
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:08:51)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Scott Catey (1:09:02)
either it will be organic and the labels will say, we don't really want to do that because it's not serving us anymore. And it's expensive and the return ain't great. Or it will be, know, listeners don't want to hear that. I think listeners are much more savvy than we often give them credit for. And they can say, I don't want to hear that and go, I want to hear the guy who actually composes his own stuff, puts together his own stuff, finds sounds and creates these contraptions. That's going to be more interesting, I think.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:09:18)
Yeah.
I hope so. I know that the AI can't create its own instruments. They can only work with what they've got from prior history. But my fear is that...
Scott Catey (1:09:35)
Yeah, ever.
And they can't even do things
like ethnic instruments, Like they just, they can't reproduce it. If you ask an AI LLM to do something that is not based in guitar, drums, piano, they really have a hard time generating it, which is great.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:09:47)
I've never heard of that before.
Scott Catey (1:10:05)
More of that, please. More of not that.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:10:05)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. ⁓ But again, ⁓ you know, time moves forward regardless of...
what we've got going on in our own personal world. I think that what we'll learn eventually with AI, hope, is that it's a tool. And just like the internet can be used for good or evil, we can cure cancer or we can kill the human race. And so I think the balance is going to be understanding the responsibility that humanity has in taking care of ourselves, keeping this world healthy, keeping this world clean and happy, you know, and hopefully my music does that for people. ⁓
simply by, you know, something different, taking you into my natural habitat and taking you out of this crazy mixed up world for just 30 minutes at a time.
Scott Catey (1:10:57)
I think you're really effective with that, Jeff. It's a great record. I want to thank you for being on the show today. Before we ⁓ close it out, tell me one thing, one piece of advice for somebody who's coming up trying to figure their way out to do music as a livelihood. What's your advice?
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:11:00)
Thank you. Thank you.
Listen and serve the music. Nothing more, nothing less. And always be the student, always learn. And you'd be surprised if you push yourself what comes out. feel from your heart. Don't think too much.
Scott Catey (1:11:31)
I like that, Jeff. Thanks a million. I appreciate you being on the show. When you get the new record out, let me know. We'll come back and we'll revisit what you're doing now.
JEFF TRIPOLI (1:11:34)
Thank you, Scott.
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Scott. I really appreciate it. You too. Take care. Bye-bye.
Scott Catey (1:11:42)
Yeah, I love it. Take care, Jeff. See you soon.
Scott Catey (1:13:25)
That piece is called A Stone From Your Heart, another excellent soundscape from Jeff Tripoli, my guest today on the episode. Thanks again to Jeff for joining me for such a wonderful conversation, and check out the companion essay on our Sum of All Wisdom Substack.
And if you'd like to explore Jeff's work further, including the recordings featured in this episode, you can find links in the show notes, along with information on most of the other folks we talked about. Thank you for turning us on. If this conversation resonated with you, I'd appreciate it if you'd like, follow, comment, subscribe, or share the episode, or just tell somebody else who loves adventurous music, deep listening, and discovering something new. I'm Scott Catey and this is the Sum of All Wisdom. Until next time.
Keep listening, keep exploring, and keep searching for the sounds that change the way you hear the world.