BAND PEOPLE: Janet Weiss

I’m using the opportunity of this newsletter to highlight expanded versions of selected interviews from my research for “Band People: Life and Work in Popular Music” (University of Texas Press); previously Nels Cline and Josh Freese. I spoke to Janet Weiss in 2016.

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My name is Janet Weiss, I’m fifty years old, and I play drums mostly. I have played harmonica in a paid situation, not sure if that counts as professional. I play a lot of instruments badly, but only the drums fairly well.

I have to hustle a lot; it’s not an easy thing to do to make money in music, but I have been hustling since 1997.

I wouldn’t say a college degree in photography is really training. I guess it has come in handy; my visual training has come in handy. I was all in as a musician. I think before I became a musician I really had no idea about a career or how I was going to make a living, or what my future would hold, which is probably why when music came along it wasn’t such a huge shift. I didn’t have to reroute some medical career, something I had been thinking about since I was a kid. I didn’t really have those dreams, like dreaming to be a landscape architect or astronaut or something like that. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, so music made sense sort of immediately, but I didn’t really make money in music right away.

I didn’t start playing until I was 22. As a teenager, I was a fan of music and I had an in-depth relationship with music, but it wasn’t as a player; it was as a listener. When I first started playing music, I never thought, “Well, this is going to be my job.” That was not the climate in that era that I started playing. The climate was that you had a day job and then you played music, you did the thing that you loved—which was music—in the hours that you were not doing the day job. The mindset was not like it is now, where people think of it as a profession; “I’ll just sell music to commercials and make a living that way.” It wasn’t like that then. The music I was into was not mainstream music. Another big difference was [that] there was a really healthy touring circuit. You could make a more steady living touring. You could tour all the time basically, whereas now it is diminishing returns if you keep going back to the same city. In the late ’80s or early ’90s, every time you would go back to a city, if you were a good band, there would be more people there, not less people there.

Do you feel like you are a drummer with an identifiable personal style?

I hope so. I mean, that’s sort of my goal. Since I’m not very technical—I mean it is obvious there are people who are really technical and can achieve things that are unattainable for someone like me. I think I knew that right from the beginning, and I just kept imagining that I could make some sort of difference by showing my personality, or having my own sound, or playing in a way that people related to. It was my choice of being relatable instead of being technical.

Starting at 22, you are way behind. Most people start drums when they are eight or nine, or when they are eleven they turn to the marching band in junior high and they play all throughout their young life, so I had a lot of catching up to do. So I think I just focused on making the music good, instead of making myself, like, the Guitar Center video drummer. 

I played mostly at the start with Sam Coomes, my Quasi bandmate, and he encouraged this very personal style and he always encouraged me to play more fills, longer fills—like if I would ask him, “what sounds better, this or this?” He will always push me toward the more adventurous playing. So I grew into my musical self with him as a co-pilot, really fostering this boisterous approach.

I did play on a Go-Betweens record and they were very much not into that. They would tell me where to put the crash, like very constructed and planned-out sound. No crashes over the vocals and, you know. People have so many different styles, but for the most part I get asked to be a part of something that is kind of in my vein. But I adjusted; I just want the music to sound good. It doesn’t have to be I’m playing fills all the time if that is not going to make it sound better. I just knew that as a permanent thing that wouldn’t be something I would want to do. It’s not necessarily difficult. It’s just fun to cut loose. I really enjoy that. I can’t really play very easily with a band that plays a lot of slow songs. That’s kind of hard for me. Or a band that is really quiet. It doesn’t mean I don’t like those bands. Let’s say a drummer like Jim White playing on that Cat Power record. It’s so beautiful and incredible and not something I could do very easily, that kind of slow music. I love Bill Callahan, but I can’t imagine playing with him. I just move much quicker than that.

Arrangement is my secret passion—you know, some bands more than others—but like Quasi, Sleater-Kinney, Wild Flag, those are bands that I definitely do a lot of arranging in and it’s like, no-one knows that. The band members know. It’s really appreciated in a band and something I take a lot of pride in.

Sleater-Kinney is just the three of us and we split [songwriting credit]. Sam [in Quasi] writes all the lyrics, so he gets, as far as publishing goes, more of the publishing; but we do a percentage split. Sleater-Kinney is a very collaborative band. It’s part of the reason it’s so rewarding to be in. It’s challenging and so much fun that I get to have a lot of input as far as arranging. And there are certain parts, I don’t have a lot of freedom, to participate in the songwriting, not the lyrics but the music writing.

The Jicks are a definite hierarchy. I, as a new person, have less of a—Steve [Malkmus] is definitely the number one and writes the music and writes the lyrics and has a lot of ideas and sometimes even makes demos, you know, with everything on there. His ideas are really good, and Joanna [Bolme] has been in the band since the beginning, and that was a band where I was more of a player; and live we would do a lot of improvising. [Steve] has a lot of ideas and he likes things the way he likes things and that’s how that band works. A band like Bright Eyes…I did get to play on an album and sort of participate on my drum part and maybe a few arranging ideas, but not many. And then I did a tour where I was the hired gun, which I enjoy in a way, but I’m a little high-powered for that. I want the setlist to be good. I’m always the set-list writer; I want the setlist to be good; I want the show . . .I’m not laid back when it comes to the music being good or the show being good. I push, push, push, always.

It depends on what makes the music the best. If you are in a band with great musicians who have great ideas and make good decisions, I think democracy works. But I think usually even in a democracy one person pushes his/her ideas. I think watering down ideas is not a good idea, so you pick your battles. You have to be able to acknowledge when someone else’s idea is better than yours. I like to try a lot of things and in some bands that’s just not the vibe, like to try this, try that. With some that just doesn’t fly. People don’t enjoy that. But I guess the two bands that I’ve been in the longest, Sleater-Kinney and Quasi are both bands where I have a lot of input. I really enjoy that. If someone just told me everything to play, I’m not sure that would be that fulfilling for me.

I write the set list and I am usually the person who more actively handles the merchandise. That’s something I have been doing for so many years, that I am a merchandise person. I have learned a lot of tricks and a lot of things about what you are going to sell, what your audience is. I feel like it is important to make yourself valuable besides just showing up. It has been proven that anybody can be fired from a band, so it’s a good idea not to think you are so valuable that you can’t get fired, so helping out is important.

The Jicks kind of fired me. They let me go, but I joined Wild Flag, or started Wild Flag. We started that band together and they didn’t want to share. But we also weren’t the best fit, and they have a person now who fits a lot better, and that’s important. They didn’t kick me out because of disagreements. They didn’t want to have to share with another band. We had made a record and they wanted to put it out at a certain time, and that’s when the Wild Flag record was coming out, and they didn’t want to have to be flexible about that. They wanted to do that, which I understand, but in the end the record didn’t come out anyway. I don’t think it was disagreements, it was just a basic personality thing. I am a push, push, push, want to play; let’s play more; let’s play faster; let’s get it as crazy as we can get it, and I don’t think they liked it like that. It’s like when you break up with someone. They are a great person but there is someone else that’s gonna be more compatible. It’s a compatibility issue.

I want to be a good hang, but I can’t say I’m necessarily easy to—I would like to be seen as someone who is really helpful in making the band better. I love touring and I love playing music, so there’s that. I know a lot of moderate people who wouldn’t think I was very easy! I’m very forward. I don’t like to keep things in. If something is bothering me, I want to talk about it. I get riled up; I’m emotional. It’s something I’ve worked on over the years, but it’s also like, you are banging on something. I’m so primal when I’m playing and it’s very emotional, and I’m expected to—I expect myself to have it be real, and to have it be about something that’s personal. And sometimes it’s hard to just turn that off and be mellow about touring, or things you’re uncomfortable with, or how you want the band, what direction you want the band to go in. It’s an easy thing to get emotional about.

I think that aspect of being a musician [budgeting and scheduling] is what breaks many people. That aspect is what causes many a musician to hang it up and just get a job because there is no security. In some bands—in Sleater-Kinney, Carrie [Brownstein] has three careers, Corin [Tucker] has two kids, and then I don’t have any kids; I have one sort of other thing that I do on the side, but I’m the one who has to be the most flexible, because they have a lot going on. So it’s difficult; you are on two other people’s schedule, and then yeah, what do you do, if you really want to be a musician,  how do you fit in something in three months that is going to be satisfying and make money? It’s really tough.

The Jicks weren’t on salary, but when I first joined, I think they were paid for a tour just by the week for musicians, which I had never done before. I have never been on salary. None of my bands make that much money. None of them make enough money and do enough touring to really—I have never been in a band that played a lot of festivals except when I was in Bright Eyes for a year. This last year I made more money than any other year in my life, and even that was, surprisingly, not that much money. Definitely not enough to, like, “Okay, now I have made this much money; I can pay off my house.” I’m not complaining about money, but it is stressful. There is never a month where I’m just, like, “Okay, I can cruise now.” I’m always thinking ahead; you’re always thinking freelance and other jobs, you are just always a little stressed out. You are never sure where the next check is going to come from. I have a lot of little revenue sources, I call it mail money, like you get something in the mail you weren’t expecting and you’re psyched, like oh, a 800 dollar check. That’s good because I had to take the dog to the vet and it was 400 dollars. But I think it is definitely not for the faint of heart at my age. I’m not a kid and it’s a little bit harder to make money touring now, so you know, everybody [is saying] “how do we make money in music?” But I think that’s secondary to “how do we make good music.” I would rather just work a job and make good music.

Really the Jicks was the only band I was in where there was a band leader. At Bright Eyes I was just paid a weekly salary. It was incredibly generous, and it was really fun and very stress-free in that situation, but that’s not my usual scene.

I don’t find [talking about money within bands] very easy. I’m not really in that situation very often. No, I’m really bad at talking about that stuff. If it’s a project that I want to be in, I probably wouldn’t talk about it at all until it was too late to do anything about it. But like I say, the priority is the music. I expect people to be fair, especially someone I’m going to be in a band with, and that usually is the case, I’ve found.

There have been a few tours I’ve done where two of my bands will be playing—Quasi opening for Sleater-Kinney, we did a West Coast tour once, and at the end of the night I was just so sick of my fills, sick of my—I just overdid it. Sometimes I wish I could reimagine how I feel when I play—just tired of my limitations, sometimes. But usually that leads that dissatisfaction, and the feeling of sort of being uncomfortable can lead to exploring new things, pushing yourself to practice more, listening to music to try to be inspired and searching around for something, some direction you hadn’t imagined before.

I like to play. I love playing and I love playing by myself, which I thought everyone did, but I was on this drum panel recently, and a friend of mine who is a drummer said, “Oh, I never practice by myself.” That just blew my mind. It blows my mind. I spend so much time in there by myself. I feel like every time I go to the practice space in the day there’s three drummers in there just playing alone. And I really get that.

I practice a lot in my head sometimes, I play along with things. It’s kind of like, oh this is an area where I need to practice, but I enjoy that.  Especially if I join a band and I have to learn their material, then I practice a lot, like every day, hours a day. I would never show up ill-prepared for something like that.

I never tour enough to where I get really actually bored. I have been lucky to have been in bands that improvise on stage, whether it’s interludes or certain sections of songs that we leave open and that helps to alleviate any boredom. If you kind of have to stay on your toes, stay engaged because there’s a part coming up for you, you get to really stretch out, and I think that’s very helpful. I try to play different fills in some songs. I don’t script everything out. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to play. I think the element of surprise is important in keeping yourself from getting tired of it.

I appreciate when there is flexibility in the editing process, the other writers are willing to look at what they wrote and make sure it as good as it can be, and that involves a lot of self-confidence to do that. And that’s something that you can always do, but there are times when the song is not working that you need to step back and look at it objectively. Sometimes you have to throw things away. Songwriters who are willing to throw things away are really valuable. It’s not all great, and knowing what the great stuff is, is important. That makes your band better, makes your music better.

Some people in the band are often called on to act as spokespeople for the band as a whole. I wonder if you have ever been in a situation where you heard someone in that role and thought actually that doesn’t represent my opinion.

      I try to play with people who I am not going to get in that kind of jam with. I think the lyricists, in a big way, are shaping the band. Lyrics are extremely important most of the time, and hopefully really good. I try to play with people who write lyrics I can relate to, and support, and feel a part of. Sometimes, with the music, I’m trying to interpret the lyrics so that the music makes sense. I want to know what the song is about most of the time. Sleater-Kinney, they write the lyrics sometimes after we have already written the music, and that usually works out. I’ve got to say, the only band I have ever been in with a front person is the Jicks, where it’s an actual this guy is the leader, Stephen Malkmus, his name is on it. I played with Elliott Smith, and in his band you’re the drummer. That was another situation where you are the drummer, you know, I am the drummer. And in the Jicks, I’m the drummer. That’s not, like, an equalthing. He built the thing, and it’s his and it has his name on it, and he says a lot of crazy stuff in interviews. That was a situation where nobody thought that was the band, the four of us as one speaking through the singer—it’s Steve’s band; it’s his name; he is what people want, and my job was to be myself but to just try to make that music fly. So that’s what I did. But yeah, I would read his interviews, like—it definitely wasn’t me, those weren’t my ideas. It was never anything I disagreed with, but he says crazy stuff! Wild Flag was very collaborative, Sleater-Kinney very collaborative, Quasi very collaborative; we are all kind of on the same page.

Sometimes people, whether it’s press or business or fans, are so focused on a songwriter or a front person that the rest of the band comes to seem a little bit residual.

Yeah, that’s probably the case now in Sleater-Kinney since Carrie is so famous. [But] that’s part of the deal. I think sometimes it bothers me like at shows when all the photographers and people are looking at Carrie and not looking at Corin. Corin is blasting out this amazing lyric and amazing vocal and it’s very much like—the three of us are important. But the two singers, I feel like their thing is the thing. Their connection and their history, and the way they write together. You can’t pull one person away and have it be as good. I’m in the back; I’m important, but I understand the thing in front and the singers, the chemistry, it’s really important. So I think when people are focusing too much on Carrie—and I can see why they do, she is an incredible performer and she’s got a lot of moves and she is really, really fun to watch. I like it to be equal between those two ‘cause I think they’re both so good and they’re both so important. But we’ve have always split up interviews equally. I think now that she is on television that it has finally tipped. But also, a lot of new people come to the shows because of it. It’s part of the deal. It’s definitely not a negative thing.

I have not been in that many bands with managers. Sleater-Kinney has a manager now for the most recent record, and that’s the first time we ever had a manager, so it works both ways I think. I would prefer to talk among band members first. That’s my preference, but it doesn’t always happen. 

I don’t have any rules about [telling stories]. Carrie just wrote a book about our band; that’s definitely not something I would ever do. I don’t feel the need to share that much with fans. I try to be open and communicative with fans at shows, at the merchandise table, and sometimes on social media, but some things I feel are just too personal or people would just not understand; it’s like boring a lot of people. What goes on in the band, there are certain things I just wouldn’t want to talk about in an interview.  But I just take that as it comes along. I don’t have any rules about it. I try not to talk about my friends who have passed away; that is something I don’t like to do. But it is not a hard and fast rule.

Recording is the time when I feel the most creative. But I guess my creativity and fulfillment in that is definitely tied to how I’m feeling in my life. Or if I feel what I’m doing makes a difference to anybody. Those are very connected I think, how fulfilled I am. If I feel, “Oh, this isn’t really making a difference to anyone,” that’s not a good feeling for me. That’s not a good feeling for anyone. 

But music is not a thing you can put your finger on, like, oh, this is helping people, or this is important in the scheme of the world. It’s hard to know things like that, so you just have to meet people—and music was so important to me that I just hope that I’m like contributing in some way to some sort of sense being made, or some feeling of relief for someone somewhere.

I can’t say I relate to [those] labels [artist or craftsperson] completely. A craftsman implies a technical ability that has been honed over the years. I have been playing for thirty years and I do feel it is something I work at, and work at regularly, I practice, I try to gain more tools to my trade so that I can communicate better. But in the end for me the focus is always the emotion of the thing, the feeling, the vibe, the music. How good is the music? How well did you communicate the emotions and the ideas? Someone who plays very little, has very little craft and skill, I still think can be very communicative and very artistic. I think someone being an artist is something I still have very positive connotations of, something I would really strive for, to be an artist, you know, it seems like something that’s so cool! A craftsman sounds like, with enough work and enough practice anyone can do that, but not anyone can be an artist. I strive to be an artist, but I’m not sure I would call myself an artist.