Charles Hayward is one of the most propulsive, resourceful and generative rock-plus drummers of the past half-century. An influential percussionist, keyboardist, songwriter, singer of songs, and forward thinker through sound, Charles spoke with Phantom Power about a 40thanniversary touring with a partly reformed and enlarged This Heat as This Is Not This Heat, and then opened into generous reflections on his solo works The Bell Agency and 30 Minute Snare Drum Roll.
Charles is founding member of the experimental rock groups This Heat and Camberwell Now. Since the late 1980s he has concentrated on solo projects and collaborations, including Massacre with Bill Laswell and Fred Frith. Most recently he released an album of improvised duets with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth.
This Is Not This Heat play their final concerts at EartH Hackney Arts Center in London March 1st , a two-day residency in Copenhagen March 5th-6th, Le Poisson Rouge in New York City March 18th, Zebulon in Los Angeles March 20-21, the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville TN on March 24th, the Albany in Deptford, London May 25th.
Live performances:
30 Minute Snare Drum Roll live at Café Oto, London Improvisations with Thurston Moore This Is Not This Heat Full albums: this heat Deceit Health and Efficiency Camberwell Now Images provided by Emma McNally and Fergus Kelly.
Transcript
[CHARLES HAYWARD]
Song is to be human..
[ethereal music plays in the background]
[CRIS CHEEK]
This…is…Phantom Power.
[radio or television static mixed with an orchestra]
[MALE ANNOUNCER]
The time now, very nearly three o’clock. The next program on BBC One: “Songs of Praise” follows at three fifteen…
[Funk/techno music suddenly cuts in]
[MACK HAYGOOD]
Episode nine.
[CRIS]
A drummer’s tale.
[music fades out]
[MACK]
So it’s great to be back. Phantom Power Season Two, and this episode is one that I have been waiting for with a certain fan-ish frenzy, because we’re going to talk about Charles Hayward; the drummer, keyboardist, vocalist, tape manipulator, pioneer of experimental rock and roll.
[CRIS]
Yeah, right. And still putting out albums. Still touring. This Heat, the band that you would just hearing, they’ve recently done a 40 year set of concerts under the name “This is not This Heat.”
[MACK]
It’s amazing to hear This Heat still making such an impact on music, because I remember playing music in Chicago in the late 90s and early 2000s and at that time post rock was a genre that was a pretty big deal. Those of us playing that sort of music were really inspired I would say by a few bands. There was Can. There was Lee Scratch Perry. There was This Heat. Talk Talk was another one.
[CRIS]
Interesting to hear that. I like them too, especially their later albums.
[MACK]
So, This Heat was just a group that once you heard them you’re like, I can’t believe this already existed so long ago.
[CRIS]
They they take a punk DIY aesthetic and then they retain some of the immediacy of the elements of that music. They were more involved with a very different kind of idea about the interrelationship between melody and rhythm and noise. Dirty sense and dirty samplers and expanded sense inside music making that leads into trance ambience, precise bursts of silence. I think all of that is part of what makes their music still sound fresh.
[ethereal music fades in]
[MACK]
Charles Hayward went on to play with so many interesting bands, including Massacre with the guitarist Fred Frith and the bass player Bill Laswell.
[CRIS]
They just put out an album this year of improvisations with [inaudible] from Sonic Youth.
[MACK]
By the way, how do you know Charles Hayward?
[CRIS]
Loosely rubbing shoulders on and off over the years. When I was playing music around various different scenes in London. This sort of person who I felt was part of a community of music makers and interested audiences over...