Drum! -Which drummers influenced you the most?
Sexton -When I was growing up I listened mostly to Dennis Chambers, and I listened to Vinnie Colaiuta and Dave Weckl and Terry Bozzio a lot.
Drum! -Those guys are primarily fusion players. Was that the style you listened to when you were a kid?
Sexton -Yeah, pretty much. In junior high I was more into Missing Persons and Frank Zappa. The basic rock music is boring to me-with the eigth notes everywhere. I know rock has progressed since I was in high school. But I didn't list any rock drummers as influences, because I was playing that stuff in junior high school and it got kind of boring. I liked the more challenging stuff that Weckl would play or Bozzio.
Drum! -Since your original influences were fusion drummers, have you ever been interested in doing occasional jazz gigs on the side?
Sexton -Yeah, I would be interested. But I don't know, maybe I'm a little different type of a drummer. I don't like to be drumming all the time. I enjoy my time off. I enjoy working for four hours a day on drums, and that's basically it. But you know, on tour and stuff when we have free time at soundchecks, we like to jam with people from different bands, and sometimes you can find a guy who can play straight ahead, and I've had a lot of fun just jamming with that. But, yeah, one day I might have a lot of time off, and would love to go play jazz gigs. I haven't played it in so long. It takes a little bit of time to get back in shape.
Drum! -What do you like to do when the band is off the road?
Sexton -My hobby is mostly just making music. So far I haven't really messed with any drums when I'm not on tour, except when we're recording. But I like to put loops together and songs electronically. That's really my hobby. I just relax a lot and write music and put it together, mix it, and make little demos. When I'm done with one song I just want to do another one, so it's just a never-ending hobby.
Drum! -How does the band normally write songs?
Sexton -We write songs different ways. Sometimes I'll have a finished song and bring it to the band, and teach them the guitar licks and what have you, and they'll go write lyrics for it. Or somebody else else will write a song and bring it to the band, we put it together and they write lyrics to it and it's done. Or we'll collaborate on songs. One person will write the first verse and someone will write the chorus or combinations of different riffs that might fit together. So we write it all different ways. Some songs come out of jams. Most of them don't, but some have. Lots of different ways.
Drum! -When the band writes material, what do you focus on for your drum part? Do you listen to the guitar or bass or vocals?
Sexton -Well, I guess I try not to think about it. I try to just let the drum lines come to me as they want to. I don't try to listen to anything. I just sit down and make sure I don't have one thought before I play it-this probably sounds weird. I just try out different things as everybody's rehearsing the song together. I'll try entirely different drumbeats for different sections and pick one of them. Sometimes it's good and sometimes I put a drum line on the album that I wish I would have spent more time writing, definitely.
Drum! -So do the songs evolve organically as you play them on stage?
Sexton -They really do. If you heard us play the songs from Grassroots live, I would say it's 50 times better than the album. It's just way better, and that's just because we keep evolving the songs. We never stop. After the album's released I keep changing the drum parts, and we even do entire different sections in songs. So we always keep it fresh.
Drum! -Does that occur because the band writes new arrangements over time, or does it happen through improvisation on stage?
Sexton -Both. Definitely. And then there's another issue, too. You're on the road and you're playing these songs for months, and it just seems a little stale at times to just play the same things over and over, even though that's what tons of bands do. So we like to do different solos and do different drum fills, and even change entire grooves. If it feels good to develop it that way, and it's getting stale in its original form, then we change it, but not so drastically that you can't recognize what it is.
Drum! -In concert you play a solo on the song "Applied Science". That makes you one of the few rock drummers who currently plays a solo every night.
Sexton -Yeah, I know. I run into that. People are like, "God, man, I haven't seen drum solos since Kiss!"
Drum! -And even then they didn't see a drum solo...just kidding!
Sexton -[laughs] I know.
Drum! -Do you keep a pulse going through the solo?
Sexton -For some of the solo I do, and then I just kind of go free-form, and do different things. I make it up off the tope of my head until I do the signal for the band to come back in, which is just a fill. There's a general outline but I try to keep it fresh every night, and do different things all the time.
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