At rehearsals, I began conducting the band, counting them in without thinking. I guess it came from watching salsa legends like my uncle and Tito Puente, who was very much the leader of his band on stage.
In my band, I'm the band leader. As a band leader, our job is to bring harmony to the voices we have on stage.
I think some of my inspiration came from just being around music. My family was into music. My uncle had his own band and my father use to sing in my uncle's band. If you want to go to the music influences we could be here all day. That's everybody from Michael Jackson all the way up to people in the game now that inspire me.
I'm very fast on teaching guys. Like, when I came over here, I only had two rehearsals with the band. I wondered when I first got here... but it sure came up great.
I was in a rock band; I was my own folk singer; I was in a death metal band for a very short time; I was in a cover band, a jazz band, a blues band. I was in a gospel choir.
If a band is really good and the chemistry is unique, it should continue. But I guess David is just very happy doing his solo career. He's got a different band every time he goes out.
The guys in my band are good friends on and off the stage. The band members that I have now is probably the best band that I have ever had.
Being a New Yorker, I used to dance to Latin music. There was a place called the Palladium on Broadway. And Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez used to play. So I still have that in my blood.
I grew up in the sixties watching B.B. King and Tito Puente and Miles Davis and Coltrane, everybody, Marvin Gaye, Jimi. And at the same time, with my left eye I was watching Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa.
When you are in a band for a number of years you loose your identity in a way. You become a part of that band and then all of a sudden you are not part of that band. You are still the band without the other two members.
There's always a Van der Graaf audience that wants to hear the band's sound. And totally fair enough. Why not? It's a band. You like the band, you like the band.
I never thought of us as a punk band, a metal band, or a new wave band. Just as a band band.
When you're in a band, you're just trying to do whatever you can to keep your band together. You're thinking very inwardly, very myopic.
I mean, I think I liked every band I ever played in because each band was different, each band had a different concept, and each band leader was different... different personalities and musical tastes.
I'm trying to be expressive on my instrument and conduct as I'm improvising. So I'm conducting with the melodies and the rhythms that I play. And so it's a very organic way. It's a lot like Charles Mingus played, cuing people in from what you play and how you play it rather than standing in front of a band, conducting and pointing.
It was my band. I organized the band and Dizzy was in the band. Dizzy was the first musical director with the band. Charlie Parker was in the band. But, no, no, that was my band.
James Brown came from that hard, rough life that I came from. He took the blues and added rhythm to it. And he always had the most funkiest band; I liked the way he took his words and mixed it in with the band.