Photo by Dino Perrucci
It’s been an active year for Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeliste. He returned to the stage with the Meters, the legendary group he co-founded four decades ago, and performed a series of dates, including a performance at Bonnaroo backing Dr. John in an effort to recreate the classic release Desitively Bonnaroo. Beyond that he has been gigging in support of his latest record New Life. This follow up to 2004’s _ I’m on the Right Track_, emphasizes positivity despite the share of challenges that Modeliste has experienced over the years. In the following conversation the legendary drummer discusses his recent efforts, looks back his early days in New Orleans and shares his own perspective on the music business.
Dale: So I guess we can jump right into it. I’d like to talk about your new album, New Life. Could you describe the songwriting process? I’m wondering how much of it is collaborative and how much you did yourself.
Zig: Well most of it was done by me. There was a track that I had called “Tough Nuts”—an instrumental track—but it kept saying “You need something else in it, you need something else.” It’s about four or five years old. I try to use all of my music—salvage as many of the ideas that I come up with as I can. So I needed something, a melody line over the top of what was already goin’ on, and I asked Shane Theriot to come up with something and he did. It just so happens that what he came up with fit the instrumental part perfectly. Sometimes I have little problems trying to figure out where I want to go with lyrics and stuff of that nature. This was the first album where I actually reached out to people for their different expertise. A girl by the name of Leslie Smith helped me with some lyrics. I had this track for a long time and was trying to think of some lyrics to go to it—a song called “Was Not Meant To Be”—I called her up and in two weeks she had the lyrics all sorted out. Of course we had to revamp them and everything, but she had the general idea of what I was trying to say, which I thought was really cool…that she caught onto it like she did. The rest of the stuff I sat down at the piano to work on parts and stuff like that, but I had a lot of help from all of the people who were involved in the process of the production itself.
Dale: In terms of the recording process, would you say that New Life is much different than your last two solo albums, Zigaboo.com and I’m On The Right Track ?
Zig: Most definitely, because I had…I don’t want to say better help…but I had a while to sit on these tracks and really work on a plan. And I had some really talented people working with me. I had Shane Theriot, who used to be the guitar player with The Neville Brothers. Right now he’s with Madeline Peyroux but he’s been out with a bunch of different people.
When it all started, I was down in New Orleans. I had lived there for about two years after the big flood down there…and staying there, it was just kinda like…I think the only house down there…so I was getting bored. So I went into the studio. And it was an excellent time for me to get some of the New Orleans musicians to get in and play with, because I hadn’t recorded with New Orleans musicians in a while—not on my projects, at least.
Dale: I think it’s interesting that you mentioned the flood, because I think one of the most surprising things about New Life is the whole positive vibe of it. Every track has this great optimism to it, it’s so upbeat, and it’s thinking about the future in a positive way. And I thought that was surprising because so many other New Orleans musicians have used their music as a means to vent their frustrations and criticize the government following Hurricane Katrina and their handling of it. And I’m wondering whether or not you have some sort of personal philosophy or some message that you wanted to spread with your music that led to you creating such an upbeat record.
Zig: Well, when you’re communicating to other people, you have an option to either say something positive or not. I don’t think nobody really goes in and tries to put these productions together to try to be negative, however, that does occur. But that’s not me. I thought of it with The Meters trying to write some protest songs…but in a simple way, not in a way where we would incite people to do all kinds of crazy shit, you know? It’s not productive, and I don’t wanna be remembered for that. [laughs] I don’t wanna be associated with the negativity. I mean I’m just like everybody else—we vent our frustration at various times—but I try not to get too deep on the record with that.
I do have a philosophy. There are always other artists that are far greater than myself. I will never reach the heights that they have reached, because I don’t have a master, and I don’t have a Big Brother behind me. I’m an old mom n’ pop organization. We do what we can to sustain the art form that I have and the art that I try to distribute. So all these other people—and it would be unfair to say any name, because it would sound like I’m singling that particular person out—but you go through all the other artists that are out there right now, you go through the top ten, and they’re not sending any message to the people. Not on the CDs, nowhere. Nothing to give the people positive energy and positive information. It’s all about stuff that people fantasize about—you know, sex and drugs. Which, you know, I guess that has its place too, but I’m just sayin’…I don’t see the big artists given the opportunity to sing just one positive song on each project they do. One. The only way they can do that is if you get’ em in a commercial. If they get paid to do it. But they don’t do it on their own. If you could name me one, I’ll go buy their record right now. I’d love to hear it.
So when I saw that that was happening like that, quite naturally it made me want to go the other way, of course. Maybe someday some other artist will have the muscle and money behind them and may wanna re-record my songs. So that was the energy behind all of that. When you record stuff and you put songs out there, you leave a trail. You could be dead and gone, but this is what people see. If you’re lucky enough to be able to leave work behind for people to enjoy, you’ve done your job. It’s for them to enjoy. I like for my music to have some kind of highpoint where people can say “I’m listening to this record because of this.” You know what I’m saying?
Dale: Yeah, I do. And that positive force behind the music that you want to be remembered for, in my eyes it seems common to The Meters too, of course, and funk in general, being “feel good” dance music. And New Orleans music in general. It seems the whole musical culture seems to be rooted in that energy—particularly Mardi Gras and the music that’s a part of that celebration—that spirit of the party and of having a good time and putting your troubles behind you. The reunion show that The Meters did at the New Orleans Jazz Fest back in 2005 right after the hurricane comes to mind because they held the festival anyway, despite the devastation caused by the hurricane. That whole festival was held in celebration of the healing powers of music and its ability to comfort people in the wake of Katrina, right?
Zig: Yeah, music is powerful. A lot of people don’t recognize how powerful it is. Bit it’s a tool that you have to use wisely. It transcends barriers. Music can go to some countries that you can’t even get in, you know? Music is really powerful. Myself, I try to stick to my art form—what got me here—my style, because I know that nobody in the world does it like me. There are a lot of imitators, but you know…this is the real being right here. So if that doesn’t belong to me, then I give the message that God gave me this talent to do this like this. If I’m successful or not, I still have this talent, and I’m gonna use it as wisely as I can use it…till I can’t do it no more.
Dale: Speaking of “doing it till you can’t do it no more,” I’m curious about these reunions that you’ve been doing with The Original Meters, particularly this year at Outside Lands and at Bonnaroo. I know you had done a few reunions in the past with The Original Meters, like the one I mentioned in 2005 and also the show at the Warfield in San Francisco back in 2000. How have these more recent reunions differed from the first few? How do you think they sounded compared to those? Have you enjoyed them more? How has the chemistry between the band been?
Zig: Well I have mixed emotions about it. I don’t wanna neg nobody out, but what I will say is this: it’s just like when you’re doing music in your ensemble. If you recorded the music, naturally, you know it. But…you know, people meet the music at a certain point, but after that, they lose interest. So these last couple of things that I’ve done with The Meters reminded me of the other reunions because The Meters don’t play enough together. I think that’s a damn shame that they don’t, but it’s obviously not the way they want it. So whenever somebody comes up and says “Okay, well look, we’ve got some money on the table for The Meters, we want you for this date to do this and do that,” and you can get one rehearsal or two rehearsals to jog your memory and get you back into where you wanna go as far as putting on the show goes. And that’s all good, but I would love to hear The Meters really play more often.
Dale: I’m sure we all would.
Zig: To play more often and to get together with that kinda thing that makes it great. I just think that people like short order. This is not actually as good as The Meters could be. I think The Meters could be much better. I enjoy myself every time I play with them, and I have to because that’s what’s required. You’ve gotta enjoy yourself, or you get turned off, you know?
Dale: I was watching some videos of your performance at Outside Lands and I thought it was interesting that while you were having those technical difficulties when Leo Nocentelli’s amp stack cut out and you had to do an improvised jam with just you, Art and George, you really did seem to be enjoying yourself, despite the frustrating sound problems. And you three were really doing well together, still connecting musically. It seemed that The Meters’ creative energy is still there. Would you agree with that?
Zig: The show must go on. And if somebody drops off, the rest of the band needs to get together and keep it happening, because it’s not for us—it’s for the people. And you do what you can. I’ve never been what you’d call a “slacker.” I never went to a gig and tried to play only a little bit because I was angry with somebody and didn’t want to be there, or whatever. Or if the crowd wasn’t big enough, or they weren’t cheering, or nothing. All of that stuff is on the back burner. What’s most important is that you give your best performance to people any time that you can do it. So that if you lose anything, it won’t be very much.
Dale: So what was it like performing Desitively Bonnaroo with Dr. John this year at the Bonnaroo festival?
Zig: Well, it’s hard to really remember when it was that we first recorded that record with John. Because the way it was recording—you know, they had The Meters in there with Dr. John recording—but then they had horns and vocals…All those people came and overdubbed in parts. We never got a chance to play like we did at Bonnaroo. That was a first for all of us, with the horns and everything. The whole ensemble. Everything that was on the record—even Allen Toussaint. So I thought it went off pretty damn good since we hadn’t visited that music in so long. I got a kick out of doing it, I think all The Meters got a kick out of doing it as well, and I was so thankful that these guys at Bonnaroo were able to think up this whole imagery. And you know they got their name from that album? You know that?
Dale: Yep.
Zig: But for them to come down and ask us to do it like that for their 10 year anniversary, that was real classy. That’s a first class organization.
*Dale: I was going to ask this before when we were talking about your reunions in general: is there any possibility of you guys writing new material, maybe recording again? I know you said you have mixed feelings about playing with The Meters, but since these reunions seem to have been going so well and since you said you hope that something will happen, I was curious if there’s any chance that you’ll write some new material. *
hopeful, but it really doesn’t look like that. I’ve really been trying to do my diligence to get these guys to see that it’s maybe something we should be thinking about doing. But again, there are just so many other different dynamics going on. I’m not a betting man, and I wouldn’t bet that that would happen. I would hope that it would happen, but I’m not gonna bet on something like that.
Dale: Yeah, that’s understandable. So this is unrelated, but I was reading that back in 1977 when The Meters originally broke up, first you toured briefly with Keith Richards and Ron Wood, but then after that you quit playing drums altogether because you were disappointed how some legal issues with Allen Toussaint and Marshall Sehorn turned out. And as a musician myself I know that it must take a lot to upset you to the point where you want to give up your passion. I’m wondering how long you kept the drums in the closet, and what you did in your time. I’m also curious if when you returned to playing it was with a newfound energy and love for the music, and whether or not you approached music in a new way.
Zig: Well there were several different things going on. I was really upset that The Meters split up on their decision to sue management. They all settled out of court, and I was the only one trying to fight for the rights to the music with the thought that we all got really shafted. But I met a gentleman that I knew for a long time. He was a—I don’t want to say a genius—but very, very intelligent, and he was the only person that I had met that had that approach to music. He was teaching me a lot about the music business, you know, and the bottom lines…and he showed me all of that, so he helped me with my case a little bit, giving me some advice here and there, and keeping it real for me. I wanted to move to California because I wasn’t really motivated by what was going on in New Orleans. There were very few outlets for you to really take off and be successful. I wanted to move to California because my friend lived in California, and I wanted to be close by him so that I could get more knowledge about the business that I thought I knew about, but didn’t really know as much as I should’ve. Which is the reason why groups like The Meters have problems…because they don’t get the proper advice, and they don’t get the people that they should, and they don’t know what they should know. You can sign their contracts, you can get into all these situations that are irreversible, and you lose your property, you lose everything, you know? And when your career’s over, you don’t have nothing to look forward to.
thoseallDale: Yeah, that’s really discouraging.
Zig: It just made me want to stop…Nowadays music is even more complicated, because the whole business model that I grew up trying to learn has changed. I don’t know what young musicians are gonna do. You know, there are no more record stores, the record labels are biting it hard right now, distribution is down—a lot of the distributors are closing down—you see a lot of trimming down now. It’s all about downloads. So how do you get seen? How do you get heard? The window of opportunity is closing…unless you’re owned by some big conglomerate. That’s the only way you get on TV, that’s the only way you get heard. You have to be owned by somebody else.
Dale: But there’s another interesting side to the whole internet revolution and how it’s changed music, which is that music can be shared so much more easily now. Your music, for instance, has been spread throughout the world, and there have been all these bands in Europe—the first one that comes to mind is The New Mastersounds, these guys in England—that have modeled their sound directly after The Meters, and I can’t help but think that that’s due in part to how accessible music has become because of the internet. And how it puts music—especially from new, up-and-coming bands—in full circulation. Now I remember before you mentioned that there are “a lot of imitators,” but that you’re the real deal, and I’m curious what your opinion of these guys is—not The New Mastersounds in particular—but all of these funk bands that have followed in your footsteps in an effort to continue your legacy.
Zig: Well, The Meters didn’t need to record with that in mind. We just thought we would record an album and that would be it. You know, get a few more gigs, or whatever. But the music stood the test of time. It stayed around, it was perpetuated by whatever—radio, whatever you want—before the internet, The Meters had a history. That’s like all the other groups: Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney, anybody. If you had a lot of history and a lot of people have heard your music—if they knew who you were or not…Like I said, music does things that are so incredible. As far as the bands go, you know there’s another band called The Killer Meters?
Dale: Oh really? [laughs]
Zig: Yeah. There’s a band that records from England that call themselves The Killer Meters. They have an album out now, and they play The Meters’ music—all The Meters’ songs—just like they go. I don’t promote them but…I got the album. So that’s how I know. They call themselves The Killer Meters. I think they might be a little bit better than The [New] Mastersounds, who I’ve heard, but I can’t hear the similarity between The Meters and The [New] Mastersounds.
Dale: Well they’re writing originals and they have contributed their own thing to it, but…
Zig: But I wish them all the luck in the world, and hopefully they’ll still have their chance to do their thing. But I remain nothing but flattered to know that other young groups—although bad enough for the group that I play in—to wanna be like The Meters, to wanna sound like The Meters, or do anything that would have any reference to The Meters’ music. That’s quite an achievement to look back at it and see other people wanting to do what you do because they admire what you do. So I remain very flattered about that, and I wish’em well. I wish they could keep on going. You know—like that.
Dale: And it’s true that you were visiting Europe recently to play at some Scandinavian festivals, right? With some New Orleans-themed or New Orleans-influenced bands from out there…
Zig: Well those I did to promote Zig, you know. I got away from traveling overseas, being involved down here in the United States doing different things. I decided I wanted to start traveling again. I found that the people over there in those countries…they very much appreciate R&B, retro…they love it. And I’m at the top of my game with that. [laughs]
Dale: So you don’t think that bands like that who come from those countries way over there and play New Orleans music lack any sort of authenticity?
Zig: I’ll be honest with you. The two bands that I worked with over there—which were pick-up bands—I had never seen them before. I just went and said “hey, let’s go do it.” I had a day or two of rehearsing with them. Those musicians over there can’t wait to get out the starting block. They’re very studious and they do their homework. So that was the bright spot I saw, and everywhere I played I had a beautiful crowd. The crowd response was excellent. I just enjoyed the whole thing, from the traveling aspect to the people being really, really nice…it was just an eye-opening experience. I’m really sorry that I haven’t spent enough time in those countries abroad. Because they love music to death.
Dale: And I guess since people travel from all over the world to participate in Mardi Gras and to experience New Orleans music, it makes sense that you would want to bring it to them as well. It’s sort of universal.
Zig: Well they have that as well, and a lot of people from New Orleans have been continuously going to these festivals. You know—some brass bands from New Orleans, some R&B, some blues, some Zydeco—all those people, they go overseas too. In a lot of those countries, the festivals are actually funded by the government, so they pay you decently and they treat you like kings. So any musician that wants to have the chance to experience it all should try to get a piece of all that action too. I was in England and we got back about a week before all of that rioting started happening. It was really peaceful, there wasn’t nobody doing nothing crazy. As soon as I got on the plane and got back over here—that’s when all that stuff kicked off. I don’t know where it’s at right now.
Same thing with Norway. I went over there a couple of times, and I love Norway, man. That’s a really, really beautiful place, man. All of the people are so nice…and for that guy to pull that issue that he pulled, you know…he was just insane though. Insanity. It doesn’t represent where the people are coming from. He was just insane. It won’t ever be the same because they didn’t have violence like that. They didn’t have that kind of stuff before. So that was just an insane young man—or whatever he was—and he left the country with a black eye. Two black eyes. The people there are really sweet. Their system is beautiful…this don’t have nothing to do with the interview, but it opened my eyes when I saw that all the citizens there have free healthcare and they have free education from 8 to 28. You can be whatever you want to be, and you can make the kind of money you need to make. You pay a little more in taxes, but it doesn’t really matter because you’re making money, you’re gainfully employed, and you get all these amenities, and for the most part, anybody who wants to be educated gets an education. They can be what they wanna be. And they’re not being robbed by the AMA. You know, whenever you go to the hospital you spend an exorbitant amount of money for healthcare…and my visit there showed me that that could work, man. That changes society tremendously.
Dale: Yeah, I totally agree with you.
Zig: Those two things. And we haven’t seen that over here. We don’t even know what that’s like over here, man. And the last thing is all that oil stuff off their coastline that they’re drilling for—half of the proceeds go to the government. And the government puts that in for the people. And you look at the Gulf…down there we’ve got 3300 oil wells. And all of that we’ve got to buy. We’ve gotta buy gas and oil. We don’t own nothing. And all the other countries are drilling around here down in the States. It’s just a few people that actually own these oil rigs.
Dale: Well I think it’s all the more incredible that you focused on such a positive energy in your most recent album despite the fact that you seem to have all of these strong opinions. As we said earlier, you could have written a very critical record as other musicians have.
Zig: Well all I’m saying is that it’s there. You could ignore it, you could get on the phone and start screaming about it—that really don’t help—but I think that if I have any way to get any public listener or somebody who wants to say “well what’s Zigaboo all about?” Well Zigaboo plays the drums, that’s what he do. That’s what he does. And we can almost count on him, that he’s gonna say something positive on at least one of the records. With this one [ New Life ] most of it happens to be about positivity, and that’s all that we’ll ever be writing about. I ain’t gonna be singin’ about nothing negative. Everybody loses when nobody don’t have good ideas.
Dale: Yeah, I agree. So for my last question, I’m curious about the influences on your solo career. I know that each of the members of The Meters has done their own thing—George [Porter] with The Runnin’ Pardners, Art with The Neville Brothers—and I’m wondering what sort of music you’ve listened to throughout the years since The Meters originally disbanded and how it influenced your decisions while writing your own solo material.
Zig: Well I like a lot of artists that come out here and play. It would take too much time for me to tell you all of them now…But I try to find things that we did in the past and then work on those rhythms. My inspiration comes from the fact that I really want to do something good. If I had to pay for all of these records to be produced, to pay all these musicians and do the whole production, I’d do it all out of my pocket. I wanted to at least have the option to say that for every album that I do, the next one I’ll try to do better. I felt like this album was an upgrade because it has a lot more things for you to focus on. I got different things from different artists, some of them you may know, some of them you may not. But the point of it is that I tried to remain as original as I could, and I tried to stay true to my art form. It’s what I enjoy immensely.
But I have plenty of heroes…You know, everybody loves Sly [Stone], everybody loves James Brown. I love all of the ones that were really doing something to get the people emotionally charged. Those types of people were my heroes. I had a lot of local heroes. A lot of local drummers…I loved their style and what they did: Al Jackson, Joseph “Smokey” Johnson, Clarence Brown…you know, I love so many drummers that some people have never even heard of…I like other drummers, I like Phil Collins, I like a lot of drummers…Jack DeJohnette…I love all of the drummers. So I don’t have a short list—I like all the drummers. Rodney Holmes—I love his playing—you know, there are a lot of bad drummers out there.
Dale: Yeah. And I’m sure you’ve influenced a fair share of them.
Zig: Well, you know. I’ve got a bunch of drummer friends. It would be impossible for me to tell you about all of the ones I admire. All these guys, man. They’re all phenomenal. They all do what they do very well.
Dale: Yeah, it’s important to listen to a lot of music and have a lot of influences.
Zig: Yeah, I got some people that I really like. I saw Narada Michael Walden…he had a hit record back in the day. And when it first came out, he was the first drummer I saw playing drums and singing.
Dale: I’ve always been very impressed that you can do that, too. Not many drummers can. Does it come easily to you? Is it something that you had to practice a lot?
Zig: You’ve gotta take reps, you know. It takes a whole lotta reps, and the more you do it, it’s like anything else. The more you do it, you find your comfort zone and you can work on your components—what I’m going to play as opposed to what I’m going to sing, what I’m gonna sing as opposed to what I’m gonna play…they are different, but you know. I try to do what’s within my little scope of talent. I figure I get it done. It’s interesting, and I still enjoy it. But like I said, Narada Michael Walden is the guy that really had me convinced it could be done like that. I hadn’t seen many drummers sing and play…there was Ringo Starr, but he wasn’t a lead singer. I thought that that was what I wanted to end at—to do that. I get a chance to play my own music, I get a chance to hang out, meet interesting people, and most of all, meet interesting musicians and play the kind of music that I love to play.
