Music Forever Magazine’s Esteban sat down with Bay Area local musician Drew Moore after his show at Lounge 3411 to talk about musicianship, finding the right music teacher and of course…UFOs.
Esteban: Hey Drew, thanks for talking with us!
Drew: Oh yeah!
Where did you grow up?
Los Gatos, California.
Alright, and how do you think it influenced you? Do you find anything cool about the Bay or specific Bay Area bands, or people around there?
Los Gatos is a very unusual place. The time I grew up there, you could still be not wealthy and live there…so that was a very colorful and dynamic and crazy neighborhood that I lived in and I think all of the personalities that I encountered there influenced my art in a whole lot of different ways. I was this totally insane, out-of-control kid hanging out with all these other really weird kids in the neighborhood and yeah, anything we wanted to do, like any idea we had, we’d like, run with that. Like, if we wanted to fight each other, or do karate or like, hurt other kids, or like trespass and get into trouble, we would do that. Or like, if we wanted to pretend to be in a band, we would do that too. I was lucky to have grown up in a neighborhood with a lot of kids in it. I really was.
Did you have instruments? Did everyone have instruments?
No, we’d like make them out of sticks. But my dad had instruments and he actually built me my first guitar when I was six. He built an electric guitar out of wood, entirely himself and put it all together.
That’s actually my other question. Who are the musicians in the family?
All of us. So my mom, dad, younger sister, myself and older sister all do music.
Everything across the board? Guitar?
So mom sings and plays guitar. My dad sings, plays guitar, bass, drums and keyboards. Big sister plays guitar and sings. My younger sister sings and plays violin. And I play guitar and drums and sing.
Alright, so then musical influences—both musical influences you had as kid and then your first concert…
Ok, so the musical influences I had as a kid were…so my very first favorite band was Tears For Fears. My first favorite song I ever had was “Sowing The Seeds Of Love”, which came out in 1989. It was an incredible video. Favorite band as a child was Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Even though Nirvana hated Pearl Jam, I still loved both bands equally as much.
And this is Bleach? Or was this Nevermind-era?
Oh, yeah, Nevermind era. I was six when that album came out and it was…that was my favorite famous person at the time. That was who I wanted to meet more than anybody, Kurt Cobaine. And then on my ninth birthday I discovered that he died. That was a reality check. The first concert I ever went to was my dad’s band Even Steven in 1993. They played at a mental hospital called Agnews State Mental Hospital in San Jose and I was terrified because there were all these developmentally disabled adults with helmets on. My mom was telling me that they have to wear helmets in case they have siezures and fall on the ground and I was terrified throughout the whole concert. And my dad’s up there playing Stone Temple Pilots covers and original music of his own. So that was my first concert…
So then, what’s the first non-dad concert? The first one you paid for?
So the first one I had to pay for was Bjork in 2003 at the Shoreline Amphitheater…
That’s Medulla…? Vespertine…? I don’t remember…
Yeah, so that’s way after Homogenic…I don’t know, but it might have been Vespertine. [It was the Greatest Hits Tour]
So you said that this is kind of a comeback show for you. When was the last time you had played before this?
The last time I played a concert before this…? Well, I’ve been playing Farmer’s Market shows from 2017 until this year…but those aren’t really shows, those are just people walking by as you’re busking, so I don’t really consider those to be shows. The last show that I played was in 2012, I played at a friend’s wedding with my band at the time…let’s see…what was our name at that time? I believe we were still Captain Arab, but we’ve gone through many different name changes. I think now the name change that we want to re-release our material under is The Untundreds or possibly Dog Dirt. I think we’ve had like 50 different names.
Ok, so then I was going to ask, how many iterations of bands have there been? Did you start with a band? Were you starting solo?
Oh ok, so the first band I ever played in was a garage band with two other friends who were the sons of the drummer of my dad’s band. And we played together in their basement a few times. And I was really stoked—I thought the name of our band was Gum, and so I would tell everybody that, but I had misheard our drummer on the phone. He said, “no no no, Scum is the name of the band.” And was like, ‘what? I wanted it to be Gum. I made all these album covers!’ [laughter] We didn’t really last. After that, I had done performances at school and church and band at school for sure. I played jazz band at school, and then there was concert band where I just played the snare drum. Then it wasn’t until college again, where Captain Arab formed and that became the first like actual real band that I played in as a part of the Santa Cruz punk and psychedelic music scene.
That’s Captain Arab, pronounced “Ae-Rab”?
Yeah, named after a character in the Bob Dylan song “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream”.
Right. And goals for the future…what’s going on? Something planned?
The immediate future is open mics. Hopefully in San Francisco so my co-workers can attend. With the band that I’m currently in, Dusty & The Visions, we haven’t scheduled our next show yet, but probably won’t happen for at least another couple months. We’ve been rehearsing for well over a year and they all live out near Sacramento and for some reason it’s been really hard to get a show.
In Sacramento?
Yeah. In Sacramento and like Woodland Hills where some of the other band members live, they go to places and they just can’t get shows. I don’t get it, it doesn’t make any sense, but we’re trying.
And so covers…how do you pick what covers you’re doing, in addition to original songs, how do you pick? Obviously it’s personal preference, but are there stories behind any of the songs you’ve covered?
Yeah, so the songs that I’ve covered, a lot of them are songs that I’ve loved for years, that I still listen to today, even after like 20 years. And so, “Fake Plastic Trees” was played at the last show. But also there’s a song that I’ve loved since high school called “Jugband Blues” by Pink Floyd. That’s something I’ve played at the Farmer’s Markets a lot. Other than that, degree of difficulty plays a major role [laughter]. There are so many songs that I wanna play, but I can’t. So if it’s got a limited amount of chords, five at the most. I’ve covered a lot of songs by The Ramones.
There you go. So no “Freebird”?
Yeah, there will be no “Freebird” [laughter].
So, advice for new musicians. What do you think people should do to get started? Should you start just writing? Do you wait for a band? Do you hold on for an opportunity? Especially now with online programming?
Absolutely. Nowadays don’t wait. Get something and start moving it and moving in that space, pick something up and make some noise with it. And shop around! The thing is, start as young as you can, but that doesn’t mean don’t start. The thing is that a lot of people stop playing music because they think it’s something that they can’t do, but they don’t understand that music is set up the way it is so that anybody actually can approach it. You just have to find someone who knows what they’re talking about and a lot of music instructors out there don’t. And a lot of music instructors are the reason why so many people don’t play music. [People] take lessons and after spending money and months taking lessons with these certain music teachers—I’ve had so many music teachers like this, who just make you feel like ok I’m not going anywhere at all, I guess it’s something that I can’t do—that’s so completely untrue. You gotta switch teachers, you gotta shop around for teachers. Like, if you’re taking lessons and you feel like not getting to where you’re gonna be, you have to find another teacher. It’s like with doctors, like you ever get a doctor and they just want to get you out of their office and prescribe your meds? Then you have to look for another one. I’ve had to do that for 30 years because of health problems. But when it comes to music, yeah you gotta to dive right in. Whatever you can get your hands on that makes any kind of sound, try it. If it’s new and you’ve never done it before, that’s ideal. And if you have a passion and a preference for a particular instrument, shop around for teachers. Start looking! Craigslist, or want-ads, or go to a music store and ask, do they know anything about lessons? And then take lessons. And if you don’t like them, do not stop taking lessons! Just find different teachers until you finally find the teacher who knows what they’re talking about because that makes all the difference in the world. And that point it becomes easy. Music doesn’t have to be this strenuous thing. A lot of people think it is, it really isn’t. If you get someone who really knows what they’re talking about you actually can do it with ease. And then you can progress in a way that makes sense.
Do you think that [music] theory has to come first?
Absolutely not. You gotta just dive into it and making noise. Theory is kinda fun because you can learn so much from it. And music theory can give you a lot of ideas and it can really help you record and keep your ideas. Like, if you’re good at writing music—like I’ll get an idea for drums and I’ll write down some drum notation and then I’ll be able to play it later. And that’s definitely a very useful tool…but remember that’s just what theory is: it’s a tool, it’s not as important as the music itself. So you gotta just dive right in and start making noise and definitely take lessons.
And then is there something that you wish people would ask you? About music or just personally?
That is a very good question…[thinking]…you know you may have already asked it about getting started with music, because in my life I’ve noticed that so many people don’t play music because they simply think that they can’t do it. And I remember a specific point in my life where I thought that too, but that was just because I had a bad teacher. It’s just not true, anybody can do music. It’s a fact.
Ok, lastly, have you ever seen a UFO?
I don’t think so. Here’s what I saw: So I was camping at Lake Margaret in the Sierras with my dad in 2010 and I looked out into the stars and I saw one of the stars moving in kind of a straight line. I think it might have been a satellite. So like, that was a UFO.
It was unidentified to you. [laughing]
I couldn’t identify that flying object, but I think it was probably a satellite. So sadly no.
Thanks for talking with us! Appreciate it!
Alight, any time! A real interview!
Yeah! Music Forever Mag!
