Chords for Jerry Marotta On Why He Stopped Playing with Peter Gabriel

We asked Jerry Marotta how that Peter Gabriel gig ended.
I'm John Bowden from Rocky Stream Music.
_ _ I have to say as much as I love Manu Caché, I was disappointed and surprised because we
didn't have the internet back then when Peter Gabriel stopped using Jerry Marotta on drums.
I know you play with Hall & Oates and _ I'm a big member of the Elton John community because I've
interviewed a lot of people from his band, not him, I'll never get him, but I'm going to throw
this at you.
Roger Pope, who played before you did for Hall & Oates, he left Elton John,
played with and Roger is long dead now.
Roger was a very finesty kind of drummer.
He filled a lot of
space.
Meanwhile, Nigel Olson, as you know, Nigel is the king of less is more.
Like you said a while
ago, he gets it done, does get in the way, and there's always that fight between people.
I'm
going it's apples and oranges, but when Roger played, I like a lot of stuff going on, but it's
personal choice thing.
Do you ever get musicians who come up to you and say, no, fill it more,
I want more?
_ Yeah.
I _ mean, depending on the situation, it's not really my style to play
real busy like that.
I just don't play like that.
I mean, if [Gm] people want that, then they really need
to _ get a different [B] drummer. _
It's not my style to play like that.
How did that end?
How did
that work?
I mean, I asked you how it started.
How does a Gabriel, did they just say, we don't
need you?
Yeah.
He said, _ he picked me up.
We were in London, or I don't know where we were.
In Bath, and he was driving [Ab] into London.
He said, he had had that period of so where he was just
playing with a lot of different [Eb] drummers.
_ _ [B] _ _ He just said, I'm going to go for another field.
I'm just going for another field.
Which, _ I mean, to me, what was weird about that is
that field is where I come from.
_ [N] That R&B field, that's my wheelhouse.
I mean, you're going for another field.
_ I morphed my style of playing for you because that's where
you wanted it to go.
I did what you asked me to do.
Now, you want to go more R&B?
I'm all in.
That's what I grew up doing that.
_ _ _ There were _ _ _ _ numerous reasons, I think, that he had to make
some changes.
One of which was, I remember there was an interview he did with an English _ journalist,
and he was talking about that he was listening to shortwave radio and all this Middle Eastern
and African music.
The _ interviewer said, wow, he's pretty cheeky, an English guy.
He's like,
well, that's interesting.
Don't you feel _ strange that you're four _ _ wealthy white guys,
and you're _ exploiting the music of other cultures?
Something like that.
_ A bell went off in my head right there, and I knew, man, things are going to change.
He _ _ got a black drummer.
_ _ He got _ a girl singer, _ Paula Cole. _
_ He got various_ _ _
_ I don't know, there was a keyboard player, might have also been a black French guy.
He integrated
the band.
_ _ Peter and I always had a sibling rivalry with each other.
_ Because I was a drummer,
and he was a closet drummer.
I was single and a maniac, and he was married to his high school
girlfriend with children.
He was a repressed Englishman, and I'm a wild, crazy Italian in my
20s. _ _ _
I don't _ know. _
We got to a point where _ it was probably good that _ we_
I wasn't _ enjoying it.
Like, I was more upset when Norlees broke up than the Peter thing, [G] although it had been 10 years
with Peter, and it was like a family.
I mean, I think what he did was really wrong, because
[N] he didn't give me an opportunity to do what he wanted to do.
And I've heard Manu Caché play,
and I mean, _ I don't play quite that busy all over the place, but _ there's no
_ question in terms of pocket and that funky groove thing.
And then, of course, all the other stuff
that I've already done.
It's funny, too, because when I go back and listen,
when we're doing Security Project and we're working up a song, I would go back and I [E] would
look at _ a video of them doing it [N] now, _ and _ _ _ I would compare, and then us doing it back when
we did it.
And the Security Project always was as good, if not better, than any of it.
I mean, _ _ I didn't want to do anything that wasn't going to stand up.
But the point I'm trying to
make is when I would listen to his band that he had with Manu in the heyday, and they would play
some of that weird stuff, it didn't _ _ come across quite the same way as it did when [B] it was Tony and
me and Larry.
Because Larry was out, too, which I was very surprised.
[N] _ Larry ended up and I ended up
out around, when So came out, 86 or something like that.
And _ it's funny, I think back on that,
I sort of, I have to say, it occurred to me.
I remained very loyal to Peter,
but he didn't remain loyal to me.
And Hall & Oates wanted to change the name of the band
in an effort to keep me playing with them and not go back and play with Peter.
They said, well, we really want you to play with us.
And if it means, Daryl sat me down and said,
we don't have to call it Hall & Oates.
We can call it something else.
And I did not do that.
I turned that down.
Now, _ _ my fortune, _ as you can imagine, because you know where Hall & Oates went
in the 80s, in that period of time.
I mean, I would have been a very, very, very wealthy guy.
And to be very honest with you, the tour that I did with Hall & Oates, it _ was like my ultimate _ _ _ _
most satisfying _ _ gig I've ever done.
Why is that?
_ Because it's rock and soul.
That's what they do.
They're from Philly.
They do rock and soul.
And I came in with that background, but with like that Gabriel, that sort of strange approach,
not hitting a lot of cymbals, and, you know, like, you know, working out grooves on toms,
you know what I mean?
And I'm telling you, my brother, we played at the Roxy in LA.
And
my brother came to the, my older brother Rick came to the gig.
And _ we walked off stage and
_ he was in tears.
He was crying.
He was crying, _ crying.
He was like, so overwhelmed and emotionally
blown away by what we did.
It was, you know, it's funny.
I'm not very smart is what it boils down
to.
When it comes to business, I didn't work that angle, you know, and I stayed with Peter because
I had more fun playing with Hall & Oates musically.
It was more my kind of my thing.
But I've certainly loved playing with Peter.
_ But, you know, I didn't have like this thing like,
oh, I could never do, I will never do another gig.
It's just, this is it for me.
But it was
a big family [Em] thing.
And I was very close to Peter, his [B] family, Tony.
We were like a family.
It's [N] funny, only more recently, Elvis Costello, I did a record with Elvis Costello.
He wanted me
to go out and tour with him.
And I think once again, I just remained loyal to Peter.
You know, that's where my loyalty was.
More from Jerry Marotta coming up next week.
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I'm John Boden from Rocky Stream Music.
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