dg: When & why did you start playing drums?
Sharp: I started playing when I was in 9th grade, like 14 or 15, and I started going to a friend's house, and she had a drum kit, so we started playing. I always wanted to play because drummers are always the most interesting to watch. Her parents were away and I was hanging out there for 3 or 4 days, so we just hung out and played every day after school. I fell in love with drumming, and I bought that kit from her for $50 and started playing with her in a band at our high school. We covered "Should I Stay or Should I Go" and "Rebel, Rebel." Then I started playing in a hardcore band, and, when I first got to college, I played in this goth band just because they were going on tour. I wanted to go on tour -- so we went on tour. I was like 18 or something, and we went all the way across the country. Then when I got back, the bass player from that band and I started our own band, and that was New Radiant Storm King.
dg: On Ill-Ease you play all of the instruments, right?
S: Yeah. I started playing bass when I was like 20 or so, and I learned by playing with Andrew, who I play with in Skinner Pilot. I still don't really know how to play guitar. I basically just play guitar like bass. There's some piano on it and xylophone, and piano just kind of ... well, actually, I took keyboard lessons when I was in 8th grade for like 6 months, but I hated it, but so I learned some of the basic chords for piano from that. And there's a keyboard, a Rhodes on it -- a Fender Rhodes.
dg: How was the album recorded? What kind of equipment did you use in the studio?
S: In our practice space we have an 8-track half-inch machine, and it's all recorded with 2 microphones, pretty much -- PZMs and SM57s. But I was doing 4-track stuff for a while, and then my friend bought this 8-track, and so we decided to get a space together and try doing our own recording. But the new record I just finished, I went down and recorded the drums on 2-inch 16-track. It's all analog. I don't like digital.
dg: Do you make a living playing drums? Or do you foresee that happening?
S: No, not at all. [Laughs] It would be cool, but the problem is that, especially playing drums, people, to make a living, end up playing with really crappy major-label bands or something, just get a gig playing with them 'cause it's not as easy to get a publishing deal for a drummer. But I would have no interest in playing drums in a band I didn't like, but I think I can make a living just playing music or at least make enough of a living to support being on tour.
dg: Which you've done with both Skinner Pilot and New Radiant Storm King.
S: Yeah, I've been on 3 national tours with Storm King, and last summer I went on tour with Azalea Snail -- cross-country. The first Storm King tours I think we booked ourselves, and then this guy Tom Windish booked them. And the Skinner Pilot tour we just booked ourselves pretty much like a lot of all-ages shows. The Ill-Ease tour this woman from New Orleans is hopefully going to book.
dg: Are you going to have people playing with you?
S: Yeah. It's my friend Andy playing drums and Caleb plays guitar, Naomi plays guitar, and I play bass.
dg: Does New Radiant Storm King have anything to do with Storm King the park [in New York]?
S: No. It was cause when the guy who played bass in that goth band with me, we were on tour and we were just both totally saying how much we weren't into the band and we wanted to start our own band. So we were playing in Minneapolis and we were staying at this band The Bone Clubs' house, and we were down in the basement deciding to start our own band and we were like, "What should we call it?" And there was this furnace there that was called New Radiant Storm King, so we decided to name it after the furnace.
dg: I thought it would be something more deep than that.
S: No, not at all. [Laughs.] I love the name, but I realized there are so many bands with "New" in the title and they usually suck. The name Skinner Pilot Andrew pretty much came up with, and Ill-Ease is my initials -- EAS and ill is...
dg: I was going to ask you if that name described you. Do you feel ill-at-ease a lot?
S: Yeah. It's funny.
dg: On Ill-Ease there's a lot of heavy percussion. Do you use anything other than a regular drum set?
S: Yeah. There's a lot of shakers and cowbell and guerro and this great thing called a Vibraslap. That's the thing that goes [Sharp makes a blender, helicopter-ish sound] and a wood block. I like playing just, like, pots and pans and stuff like that. There's a lot of shit like that on it too.
dg: What's the songwriting process you go through?
S: All of the songs on the new album I started by recording a drum track and adding a bunch of percussion stuff and sort of mixing it a little bit in the back so it just adds sort of like a reverb, ambient sound to it, and then I write the other parts around that.
dg: The first song on the Ill-Ease album where you're just saying "fuck everyone" -- what's that about, other than the obvious?
S: Well, I was in a long-distance relationship at the time and was getting sick of it, so I was kind of like, "Fuck everyone who's not here," you know. It's supposed to be a double entendre, you know? Like fuck everyone that you're pissed off at and fuck everyone. Like I'm gonna fuck everyone 'cause I'm really pissed off.
dg: To get back at someone?
S: Yeah.
dg: Where did the person live?
S: California.
dg: Also there's an answering machine message on the album from some guy at work -- your manager or something? What was that job?
S: Oh yeah! I was working as a security guard, and I had been working there for, like, 6 months, and I hadn't called in sick once. And this one day I was just totally fried and couldn't go into work, so I called in and told him, and he got really pissed off and was like, "We need you today." It was a ridiculous job. I was sitting at the entrance to an insurance building, basically just like waving to people as they walked in … The manager who was the manager of the guy who yelled at me made him call back and apologize to me, but I didn't pick it up because I was so pissed off and I knew he was just going to say, "You have to come in." [long discussion of shitty jobs]
dg: Have you ever had any issues being a woman and a drummer?
S: I don't know. This is a hard question. I mean, it's the same kind of thing, like people say "You're the best woman drummer I've ever seen." It's like, yeah, I'm the best fucking drummer you've ever seen. And the whole thing with soundmen… But I would say, not really. Although with Storm King, we played this show once in Boston and it was like Boston College opening weekend or something. So they had this huge festival where they had, like, all these corporations come in and set up booths to sell shit and they had these porn stars in there, and I just thought it was totally offensive the way they did it. I mean, I think pornography is cool, but it was basically set up for all of these jock guys next to the Budweiser booth. And so when we played, I said something about it and then I played with my shirt off and just kind of like was making a statement of some kind. And after we played it was actually funny because this comedian came on, and he was making jokes about my tits -- that they were too small. [Laughs] But I've never felt discriminated against. I guess it always annoys me when people all the time are like "Oh, you sound just like Moe Tucker" or something, and my style sounds nothing like Moe Tucker. Her style is cool, but the reason it's cool is because it's so minimal and stripped down. It's all about simple fills and the way she plays the kit. That's not at all my style. People always say that. Basically what they're saying is, like, "Oh you sound like the only other woman drummer I know." Actually, this is a reverse discrimination kind of thing happening. When I was playing with Storm King there was this girl who lived in Northampton also. She used to play in that band, I probably shouldn't say what band, she used to play in this all-girls band. She became this, like, hardcore leather butch dyke type, and she like cornered me at this party and was like, "What are you doing playing in a band with guys? You don't think women are cool enough musicians? Blah blah blah." And she was giving me all of this shit about it. So Liz in Skinner Pilot and Naomi are the only women I've played in band with, but that's not, like, a conscious decision. I like playing with really talented musicians. It can be really bad in some ways that, like, there's so many girl bands, not so much now as a few years ago when the whole thing was really big, and how much attention these girl bands would get that couldn't really play their instruments at all. But they just got attention just because they're girls.
dg: So it's basically like little annoyances more than anything?
S: Yeah, but the drummer's the least appreciated member of the band anyway. Or it's considered the least creative or imaginative. To me, drums is what makes the whole sound because it sets the whole dynamic and groove. It's like what the band is all about.
dg: Who are your drumming influences?
S: The guy from Jimmy Hendrix and Keith Moon, but, in terms of learning drums, the first drummer that I really liked was this guy who played in the D.C. band Soul Side. He plays in Girls vs. Boys now, which I don't like very much, but Soul Side was great. So, he was a big influence and this other band King Face. Pretty much D.C. hardcore bands, cause that was what I would go watch, and that's how I learned how to play. Then I had this big revelation listening to Grant Hart, the drummer for Husker Du. Basically, if you're playing drums you play 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. [She demonstrates by drumming on the bar.] He would play like 1-2-3-4 [drumming on the bar faster], playing half-time. He's known as "Grant Too Fat to Hit the High Hat" 'cause he's pretty fat and he'd just play the ride different, which really makes his style.
dg: You were just in Athens recording. Was it another Ill-Ease record?
S: Yeah. This is going to be the second record. It's called "Circle Line Tours." It's all stuff that we recorded in the practice space, but then I went down there and re-recorded the drums and transferred it to 2-inch tape and it sounds a lot fuller, and we did some percussion stuff and re-recorded some piano.
dg: That's on Swampy Records?
S: Yeah, well it's going to be a split with Swampy and Brian from Smilex. The first one was on Smilex and this other label called Lever Records.
dg: When's the album coming out?
S: February or March. The tour is set for November. The dates will be on the Web somewhere.
dg: Heidi of the Drennons wants to know: If you had sex with Clinton, would you keep the dress?
S: Um, yeah. If I had sex with Hillary, too.
dg: What's your advice to other drummers?
S: Hit hard. No. [Laughs] Develop your own style, because I think that's the most important thing, as opposed to just learning technique. Don't sweat the technique, and don't take lessons. The best way to learn is just by playing with people you want to be in a band with and just practicing. You have to make it your love.