Gary, can you tell me about your background, how you got into music?

It came from the seventies, being at school and listening to people on the radio and local sound systems. You gravitate towards a sound and it’s quite infectious – you listen and it just sets off a spark. People are motivated by different things, and for me I was always intrigued how certain sounds and effects were made on records, and I used to go over them and listen and listen and listen. Because most of them were around the drums, I gravitated towards the drums, so by the time I was 13 or 14, I decided to get a kit because I had a natural ability to play, so with the help of my mum, 1980, I got my first drum kit. I was sixteen and I started to play. I’m a self-taught drummer. \zI got my kit up and running and then started looking for bands. By ’83 I was with a band called Majestic, which lasted for nine years. We toured England and supported Frankie Paul at International 2 and various other reggae artists all through the eighties. The printing firm that I was with with Larry Benjie printed all the posters, so that was a connection as well. We did the artwork and everything so I thought, “Well, combine both of them together and that’ll be my career” - printing, working in industry and try and get in the studios and try and do some engineering maybe. So by ’85 I was at a studio called ‘Spirit’. I did a year there, and it just opened me up to the whole side of producing and getting a sound, how to manipulate, create a variety of sounds. From there it was just a steady process of going to as many live shows as I could, working with as many people as I could to gain more knowledge of how I could try to perfect my style, try to give it identity and character. From that it’s brought me to today. I play with anybody, and different types of music, because I’m a versatile drummer. I like reggae, gospel, anything, I’m willing to take it on. As a session player I’ve worked with a lot of people – live, not many recordings over the years. Lots of session stuff, live stuff.

So when did you start Brownstown?

’99, going into 2000. That’s when I started to build the studio and decided, “Well, if you’ve got a studio you need something to release things on”. Once I’d got a label I had to get a stable of artists that I could release, work and tour with, so hence Brownstown with the studio – Front Room Studios.

What was your first release?

It was The General, the ‘First Stand’ album. That was the debut album for the label and the studio and the artist. It is being repromoted at the moment. One of the big record stores in Manchetser is stocking it now. I’m looking for any new artist that’s looking to really launch themselves, and that’s been a problem. In the inner-city areas, people who really believe in what they’re saying, with the writing, their whole career, their style and character. I’ve yet to come across a really out-and-out hard working musician, just dedicated to the life. Those are the type of people I am looking for. If we can get people that need slight training and still want to make a go of it and maybe put time and effort into it, then I’m willing to work with them

Who are some of the people who have used this studio?

Basically artists looking to launch themselves. Artists like Lucky, Kuntri Ranking, but he has now got a resident studio where he records. I tried to bring Kwabena. Two garage-y type artists Lucky is working with now, one’s called Golden and one’s called Hypa. Lucky has an album now called ‘Singing Black British’, I had a hand in that.  Jules Benjie, who is very well known as a Manchester reggae artist, I have helped out with his albums. The Twelve Tribes of Israel also come over here sometimes. I’m open to brand-new artists – preferably people I’ve never worked with before, with fresh ideas.

I have been impressed by the fact that all the Brownstown music that I have heard is very positive…

Most of it is my own arrangements. I work on my own. I would like more musicians to work with to create a different style. In a world with the new technology, with the advent of the PC and the programmer, everybody has turned into a producer. Everybody has got their own studio, whether it’s a full studio or PC based. They more want to work on their own projects rather than help you get started and come together as a unit. That’s where the segregation comes in because everybody now feels that it is within their grasp of power to be able to put something out and become a producer in their own right. Therefore it gets really oversubscribed – there’s a mass of inner-city artists all coming up trying to do the same thing. It becomes awash with youths not saying anything, you get bogged down as to which direction to go in. You hear 15 albums and it’s the same stuff, and they’re all competing. You’ve got to take another direction in order to separate yourself from a barrage of artists trying to come out with the same thing. This is what we’re facing now. Too many artists sounding samey-samey, a lot of band-wagon jumping instead of original compositions and creations. It’s follow the leader sort of thing which I’m not really into. I’m trying to come out with an identity which can be heard from afar and they know, “That sounds like a Brownstown record”. If we can do that, people will hear of Brownstown in the future and it will stand out in the crowd. I’d like to do that. You see thousands and thousands of albums, and if you sound like everybody else, you’re a drop in the ocean. Brownstown, it’s all about brand-new sounds that nobody has heard before. I’m always on the net to see who’s out there. Warner Brothers, Greensleeves, Xterminator - he’s throwing them out at unbelievable speed. That’s another thing with the reggae business – not that it’s oversubscribed but they cater for mass supply on demand. One thing with Bob Marley, he’d stay in the studio and use everything in there. When the album come, it’s more likely to sell a million than if you try to make 20 tunes an hour and those songs are not finished. That’s one inspiration I will take from Bob is that he just stayed there and worked with the producer until it was right. He didn’t just put stuff out to get his name out there – what he put out has stood the test of time. 30 years on you can see his work still lives, you can hear what he is trying to say and it plays like it came out yesterday, because it has that timeless element to it. That is all due to the fact that he took time to record it, he thought it through, arranged it, rehearsed - which a lot of people are not doing. I think a lot of artists will have a better result if they did that. All this rush, record it and get it out now, flood the market – in the long run it doesn’t work. You end up with a legacy of albums that you can’t really present to anybody. In a couple of years they sound juvenile or like a demo, trying to pass off as the real thing. I don’t want to be tarred with that brush. The General’s album, it’s his first so I reckon that will be the only album that will sound that way. I don’t think you will get another album that sounds anything like that from Brownstown now. I want to record a brand new album, I want to record some brand new artists nobody has heard before, and I am just looking for them. There are musical pockets with people hidden and waiting to launch, but they just need a platform. I’ll try to give them that platform.

Do you think you will always have that reggae element in the music?

I do want to release a kind of jazz/ fusion-esque type of album, coming from my eighties youth days, when I first got into this jazz-fusion thing. A lot of artists who inspired me are people like Earth, Wind & Fire, Maurice White, Phillip Bailey, Bob James, Kenny G., Jamiroquai even, they were just so influential. They bring alive something to me. I’m in reggae, but when it comes to actually layering chords and the virtuosity of it, those kind of guys really get to me.

Yes, there is a definite jazz influence in some of your music…

Yes, this is where it’s coming from – drumming to Billy Cobham type jazz drumming, or Art Blakey. I’ve studied all that stuff, it’s really get down to the raw essence of where the music’s coming from and what blends everything together. Even in the modern age I can still hear reggae influences under that – Lee Ritenour, Larry Carlton have both got tributes to Bob Marley out there. I’m into all of that style, there’s no stone that I leave unturned. There’s something there for me and it grabs my ear and I think, “There’s some science behind that”, which makes me look into that, the arrangement, what sound they have used, how they have meshed it together, and even the recording process. That can have a great bearing on the overall sound, how it is portrayed on record. King Tubby is one of my heroes too, and Karl Pitterson who did a lot of Bob’s material.

Even going back to the Skatalites, a lot of them were jazz musicians…

Jamaican jazz, you have Ernest Ranglin, who I listen to a lot, he’s a great guitarist, and Monty Alexander too. Past the present, Don Drummond who is no longer with us, Tommy McCook, fantastic sax player, Jah Jerry, a great acoustic guitar player. People like that inspire me no end, it makes you just want to keep on. With the advent of technology it seems people have lost the ability to want to play a live instrument. They don’t see themselves as live players. I have always been fundamentally a live player and I always will be. The day when you can record something, the work of your own hands that you have played and it sounds the way you want to play it, then I class you as a musician. Anybody can press a button or set a tempo or take thirty seconds of something and use a tool to make a line… you should play it then sample it., at least if you play it then it is you. A lot of people are saying, “this is my track”. I say, “In reality it’s not you though, is it?” They say, “Well, no, I just put that together”. Look at the person you took the sound from, they’re the one that should get the recognition. I have also been playing other instruments for writing purposes, because you can’t play drums for chords and things, it’s hard to write.

 Anything else you want to say?

I’d just like to say to the youths, look inside yourself, recognise and realise what direction you want to go in in your life. If it’s music, go all out for that and believe in yourself. Take it one stage at a time, perfect each stage and then move on to the next stage. Confidence alone won’t carry you through but don’t be put off by doubting Thomases or people who would like to be in your position but haven’t got the ability. Go for it! It’s good for character building, it’s good for confidence, it’s good for life skills. It will help you as a person, it will make you grow spiritually. Even if it does end up as a pastime, it still gives you confidence and structure in your life, to be disciplined into picking something up and mastering it, and not just saying, “Oh, I can’t be bothered”, going through your life half doing this, half doing that. Looking back and everything is half done – don’t be one of those, try and finish what you started.

-- Norman Darwen