TG:  Actually, a few of the pieces date back as far as perhaps 2000. I know that the original lineup of my group Agent 22 had performed 77 Times and Jungle (pt 1) a few times back then. In fact, most of the material had been in my live solo repertoire for some time, and I think it benefited greatly from that. Performing it before recording it not only allowed me to get more comfortable playing it, but also gave the material a chance to grow and evolve in an almost organic way.

To give an example; the original live version of the piece "Jungle"  was just what I came to label on the CD as "part 1." Right where the track ID for part 2 comes in, the piece used to stop. But I always had a sense it should continue into something else. Live it used to fall into a moment of free improvisation, but eventually out of that something of a new structure started to evolve. It was a slow process, just slight changes and new ideas from time to time spread throughout performances, but eventually there was a "part 2."  Interestingly, the way I eventually recorded "part 2" was different than how I was and still am playing it live. Similar in feel and texture, but with different themes and form.

AV:   Do you have a routine or a process that you go through when you are composing music for a new project?

TG:  There is no real structured routine. I tend to just look for any new idea that captures my attention enough for me to spend time working with it. It could be a melodic fragment, a rhythmic pattern or chord progression or maybe a new sound. I think every piece I've ever written probably has at least one such "seed." Not every new idea is strong enough to hold my attention for long, but when one does, I usually try to listen internally and see how it wants to develop.  

This is where I think my musical training is a big help. If I hear or feel where an idea might go, usually I have an idea of how to take it there. It's almost as if the music itself knows where it wants to go, but is asking for directions. If its asking to go to a place I know how to get to, things can fall into place pretty easily. If instead it wants to go somewhere I've never heard of, things may be a bit more of an effort, but I still know how to at least find the right maps. Some pieces evolve more under the fingers, others more in the studio.

AV:  For the music on A Whisper in the Thunder did you have a theme that flows through the entire work and if so how does that effect the type of compositions that you write?

TG:  Actually, there is a conceptual theme that ties the album together but it came after most of the music was written. As I said, most of the material came from things I'd been playing live for awhile. I still have a big back log of material I play live that I haven't recorded yet. When I started getting serious about recording AWITT I probably had enough pieces for two or three albums. So it was first a question of "which pieces feel ready to record?" and then out of those "which fit together into a theme?"  From there I put together a few new pieces like Ahab, A Tiny Whispering Sound and The Frozen Ocean to kind of tie things together and solidify the idea. It's hidden among the song titles and moods, but I've actually never described it in print and have just kind of left it out in the world on its own to see what (if anything) people make of it.

AV:  You enlisted some strong collaborator instrumentalists for A Whisper in the Thunder in the persons of Jerry Marotta, Pat Mastelotto and The California Guitar Trio. Tell me about your relationships with these musicians before your project and about the music that they created on their own.

TG:  Jerry of course I have an ongoing project with. We tour regularly as a duo called simply "Marotta/Griesgraber." I've been a fan of his for some time, and met him when I got to open for Tony Levin's Band here in Southern California. We've actually done a whole album together as a group that will be released next year.

The California Guitar Trio are very good friends, and I'm a big fan of their music. I've been fortunate to get to open for several of their US tours and have done over 80 shows with them to date.

Pat Mastelotto I met through the California Guitar Trio. He like Jerry is someone I've been a fan of for awhile. They have fairly different musical personalities which was a great resource for me in shaping the music.

You asked about the "music they created on their own?" I'm guessing by that you mean their past histories? If so, that could fill volumes, but..

Jerry is best known for having played with Peter Gabriel for about 10 years. He kind of started his career as a pocket/groove player with bands like Orleans and then with Peter got more into orchestration, and unusual parts. Those two things to me are really his specialties.  

He has an incredible knack for thinking about drums almost like instruments in an orchestra. Every piece of the kit has a special part to play. No one is really on "auto pilot." Along the same lines, he's amazing at layering parts from Taos drums (native american drums), and all sorts of percussion. He's been incredibly in demand as a session player for decades having worked with a dizzying list of people like Paul McCartney, the Indigo Girls, Tears for Fears, Suzanne Vega, Sara McLachlan, Elvis Costello, Robert Fripp, David Sylvian and many others.

The California Guitar Trio formed out of the League of Crafty Guitarists and Robert Fripp's "Guitar Craft" courses. Even from their inception they had a wild set of influences, including Bert Lams'  love of classical guitar, Hideyo Moriya's passion for surf guitar and Paul Richard's interest in rock and jazz. They tour relentlessly around the globe and have released many great albums. They play with an unusual tuning that greatly expands the guitar's range and have the ability to really make three guitars sound like one big "super- guitar." In their own shows, they do mainly original music, but it's probably best described by mentioning the range of material they play as covers. It can include surf guitar, spaghetti westerns, King Crimson, Yes and Queen covers, traditional Japanese music and Beethoven symphonies.

Pat is probably best known for having worked with King Crimson for over ten years now. He like Jerry also has a very hefty discography which also includes people like Mr Mister, The Rembrandts and XTC.  

Pat to my ears anyways has a little bit of a different feel than Jerry. He's maybe a little more aggressive, though still way in a pocket. He also has a great sense of orchestration with percussion but has a different set of instruments he uses. One of his real specialties is electronic drums and percussion. He actually sent me a list by e-mail of everything he played on the tracks he played on. It was such an amazing list we printed the whole thing in the CD booklet.

AV:   How did you communicate your ideas for this new CD to your collaborators and what kinds of input did they have to the finished  product?

TG:  I really just let them do what they do best. With musicians this good, I think it's always best to at least listen to what their initial ideas are. Maybe I would start them off with a rough form of when to play and when not to play as well as a feel suggestion. In some cases, like with Pat they gave me a host of ideas and options to choose from. Some pieces like Ahab and Jungle could literally be re- orchestrated and re-mixed several different ways, probably enough to have a whole album of just variations of those two pieces.  In the end though, it was left to me to sort out exact arrangements and how things would be mixed together.

AV:  Once things got under way in the studio how did you and your collaborators mesh musically? Any problems or surprises that had to be worked out?

TG:  The blending was very natural. As I said, they are all amazing musicians and have made careers out of playing the right parts for a given piece. Some small things did change on my end though, but that too was fairly easy since aside from drums, I was covering almost all the other parts. There were no egos to bruise if a certain part needed to change to better fit what the drums were adding.

One thing I did learn was that it was best for the feel of the rhythmic pieces if I actually went back in and re-recorded everything once the drums were in place. That made for a long process, because essentially it meant I had to record the album twice. The first time through was just myself and a click track. So essentially Pat and Jerry would wind up playing to the complete album, minus the drums. Pat's engineer found it amusing that we were "overdubbing" drums, but also said they enjoyed the process. In a more traditional setup, drummers often get little or nothing to play to. Things usually start with their parts. In this case though I was giving them almost the finished product to work with. So to them it was fun I think to really hear where the piece was going. All drummers have different time feels though, and guys like Pat and Jerry are masters of establishing grooves that may be intentionally off the click a bit in a subtle way. Jerry especially likes to play pretty laid back sometimes. It's an incredible feel, but since I'd been playing to the harsher feel of the straight on click, it meant I either had to edit my parts to the drums or replay things to them instead of the click. I chose the later to try to give things the most natural "real" feel possible, even though as I said it meant basically re-recording the entire album.

Having CGT involved was great too. They really work as one unit. The three of them have played together for so long that as soon as one person would get a good idea going, the other two would just naturally fill in around it. It was wonderful to hear. Bert Lams especially came up with some great contrapuntal lines to the melodies I was playing. They also surprised me a little by doing one of their "trademarked" circulations at the end of the track Victor's Chase too. Circulations come from Guitar Craft, and it's where each guitar player only plays one note at a time, and they pass a melody around the group in succession. Sometimes they're written and sometimes they're improvised. At the end of Victor's Chase, the Trio improvised a melody over the bass groove and wall of drums and percussion supplied by both Jerry and drummer Darren DeBree (Agent 22).  Since three people were improvising one melody, it tends to leap and turn in ways one person would probably never come up with. It has a real searching quality to it which was perfect for the end of that piece.  We also did some interesting panning of their three guitars for it that make for an interesting listen on headphones.

AV:  How long did it take for you to put the finishing touches on this CD and were all of you that were involved with this project happy with the final results?

TG:  Once all the tracking was done, the mixing and mastering were a pretty quick process. I think it all happened in about 4 weeks. I generally set up each piece and set the levels how I heard them, and then Howard Givens (Spotted Peccary engineer) came in and did all kinds of fine tuning to them. Everyone was definitely happy with it.  As I described though, usually when people were contributing to it, they were already hearing more or less the final product so there weren't many surprises for them after the fact.

AV:  O3E is a subsidiary imprint of Spotted Peccary Music and is the label that A Whisper in the Thunder was released on. How did it come about that your CD was the first on this new imprint of Spotted Peccary and is your music a new direction for Spotted Peccary or an expanding of its vision?

TG:  I think they had been toying with the idea of branching out for some time. The idea behind O3E is that it will encompass many other types of instrumental music, from progressive rock, to unusual modern classical music, but always with I think the same awareness of space and orchestration that typifies the normal Spotted Peccary offerings.

I've actually been involved with Spotted Peccary in various ways for a few years now, starting back around the time they released the Martin/Klamt/Rownd album "Convergence." I didn't play on the album, but once they released it, the trio started doing some shows regionally and invited me to play with them. It was a lot of fun being (if you will) something of a "5th Beatle" and just kind of adding parts and textures to what they were doing. I think from that point on, the idea of me doing an album for Spotted Peccary was in everyone's minds, but since my music is naturally a bit different than most of their offerings, they felt it would be a good launching point for the new imprint.

AV:  I'm sure this is a standard question but how has the new CD been doing for you since its release last October? What kind of feedback from listeners, reviewers and broadcasters have you been getting?

TG:  Actually I don't think that's a very standard question at all! It's a funny thing, but as the artist, it seems like all I ever hear is good reviews and feedback. I'm sure like anything in life what I do is not for everyone, but the only people who seem to write about it or especially write to me about it  are the ones who really enjoy it.  

One of the interesting things has been to see it get accepted by people in many different walks of life and reviewers and broadcasters in several genres. To date I know its been played by a range of stations that includes ambient, progressive rock, traditional jazz and even talk radio.  My fan base is likewise all over the map. I can see a lot of middle aged people at shows, some senior citizens, but then also college age and even high school kids sometimes.

Emmett Chapman (inventor of the Stick) told me once he's found that the Stick is such a new instrument, first time listeners usually approach it free of any preconceptions.  If you were to pull out something more conventional, like a violin at a high school, or a bright red electric guitar at a retirement home people may shy away without even listening because they may assume the music will be something they don't like. The Stick is free from all that because nobody knows what to expect. And fortunately for me, what I do with it seems to keep most new listeners interested.

As far as hard sales data, the only thing I've seen to date from Spotted Peccary has been digital download numbers from iTunes. So far, in everything I've seen its been Spotted Peccary's top album there since its release.

AV:  You have taken this music on the road quite a bit. Tell me about some of your more successful performances of this new music and how far and wide you've traveled to perform it.

TG:  Since the album was released about eleven months ago, I've actually done probably about 150 or more shows. Last fall I did about 40 dates as opener and guest with the California Guitar Trio. We put about 15,000 miles on a rental van, heading through about 37 states. Since then Jerry Marotta and I have done several short tours as a duo including two trips up the west coast from San Diego to Vancouver, a few dates on the east coast and a trip to Italy and France.  In between all of that I've kept pretty busy doing solo shows regionally in Southern California and duo shows with drummer Darren DeBree.

It's always a thrill for me to do the tours with Jerry. The two of us give probably the best rendition of this music live that can be given. On a few occasions, we've managed to line up our schedule with CGT's and do shows together as well. Jerry and I usually sit in with them then and Bert Lams from the trio has sat in with us as well.  

That combination of CGT plus Jerry and myself is easily some of the most fun I've ever had being a musician. Actually on a few occasions, Tony Levin was also touring with the trio so we had a sextet on stage of CGT, Jerry, Tony and Tom. Totally amazing. I walk away from shows like that just thinking.. "This is why I'm in music... I wish every show was like this!"

AV:  I've noticed that many of your live performances listed on your website is as an opening act for quite a number of well known jazz acts. Do you see your music falling more in line with that genre of music or does it have some cross genre appeal to it?

TG:  Actually the opening act spots have been a sort of microcosm of where my music lands stylistically and also in a sense where it comes from.  

I probably get paired up mainly with progressive rock people, but also jazz acts and even some jam band groups. I've been quite fortunate to be able to share the stage with almost a who's who of each genre. On the progressive rock side, that's included people like CGT, The Tony Levin Band, Bill Bruford's Earthworks, Asia, Adrian Belew, Steve Hackett and the Dixie Dregs. More on the jazz side it's included people like Al Dimeola, Stanley Jordan, Larry Carlton and Steve Lukather, Tower of Power and Jazz Mandolin Project.  All of those shows were great and I usually seemed to find something a little similar to what I do in all of them, and always come away from them feeling re-inspired in some way.

AV:  Is it difficult to reproduce the sound that you create in the studio out on the road? Do you believe in the exact reproduction of a recorded piece of music while you are on the road or do you have more of an improvisational jazz mentality about the music that it becomes a unique performance each time you play it live?

TG:  I definitely don't try for exact reproductions. To me as a listener, I can actually get a bit bored if things are exactly like an album I know well. But having said that, I also don't feel every piece needs to be completely different every time either. I think as I described earlier I seem to have an approach whereby pieces are just allowed to evolve over time. Sometimes I may get them to a point where it feels like the initial ideas have been flushed out about as well as they can be. At that point, a piece might stay largely the same from night to night while at the same time other pieces are continuing to change and grow from show to show.

I also feel like recording is just a very different art form than live performance. A live audience has the benefit of seeing how the music is made which in the case of a Chapman Stick is a bit interesting all on its own. There can be so much coming from a Stick with bass lines, chords and melodies happening simultaneously that there really is something of a "show" to it, almost like watching some sort of Cirque De Soleil (sp?) performer. On an album though you loose that element, not to mention things like the ambient sounds in the venue, direct contact with a performer, the group dynamic of the crowd and so on.  A recording studio is a much more sterile environment than a venue. A piece that may feel full and complete in a live setting can sometimes feel empty if it's recorded exactly as it's performed. Likewise something that has been worked with extensively in a studio and has a lot of nuances and depth to it in a recording can sometimes sound overproduced or contrived live. So to me it's always a goal try to listen anew to the music I'm making and to be aware of how it's interacting with whatever environment it's in.  From there I just try to make it the best it can be for that setting.

One great example from the album is the middle section of Victor's Chase. There is a key change where the piece goes from minor to major. Live, my left hand plays a low bass pattern and a chord above it, while the right plays some melodic figures. Victor's is a very long piece though. I realized when it came to this section that for the sake of the recorded version, it might be nice to really get away from the Stick for awhile, so.. the low bass and chord pattern my left hand does on Stick, got broken out into parts, with myself playing the bass notes on a fretless bass and one of the guitarists in CGT playing the chord part. Likewise when the piece returns to the "A" section I substituted the fretless bass for the Stick on part of the theme.  Little ideas like this throughout the album really helped add a nice extra "layer" to it I think, but live I don't miss those instruments because the parts are all present anyways and with a "show" going on, I don't think there is as much of a need for that type of variety.

AV:  Do you ever miss playing the guitar? Have you completely replaced the guitar with the Chapman Stick in your performances and in your recordings or do you still plan on including the guitar in your line up from time to time?

TG:  I do miss the guitar, but I also still play it some. My shows to date have revolved around the Stick though for some time, simply because it's such a great instrument for creating a full sounding piece live.  

Unlike a lot of artists in the ambient or "new age" genre, I don't do any sequencing live or use any backing tracks, other than loops I record on the fly. The day may come when the music I create will require me to go down that path in shows, but so far I haven't needed to, and I'm a bit glad for it. I've seen a few Stick players play with backing tracks, and it always seems to diminish the show somewhat even if it adds to the overall orchestration. A Stick player could be playing three parts simultaneously, but if there is a fourth part that's sequenced I find myself feeling sometimes like maybe some of the other parts aren't live either and somehow it can take away from the impressiveness of the performance, even though it's maybe making the music richer.

That said, the guitar is still a great instrument to me. In many ways it's more expressive than the Stick. There are many times I wish I could so something as simple as a palm mute on the Stick live, but when both hands are tapping away, there are no free palms!  But on recordings, including AWITT I did use guitars for a few parts, and some 5 string basses as well which I've been playing more and more of these days.

AV:  Do you still get some strange looks when you start to play the Chapman Stick in concert from those in the audience who haven't seen  it played before or has it become just a little more commonplace in the last few years?

TG:  You "always" get looks and questions as a Stick player. It's kind of a running joke in the Stick community. What amazes me most is that in my hometown of San Diego, there is an event here I've played at literally 200 times now, with hundreds if not thousands of people passing by each time. Incredible exposure, and I would like to think that after all of that in one city, the majority of the people in that area might know what it is. But.. not so.. I'd guess that maybe only one in ten people who go to that event now know what it is.

AV:  A Whisper in the Thunder came out in October of last year, have you been working on a follow up to this CD? Any hints on the direction it will take you or when you are thinking of releasing it?

TG:  I actually have another release in "the can" so to speak. Jerry Marotta and I have recorded a "band" album that will be out sometime next year. It's called Waking the Day by Marotta/Griesgraber and as the name implies shares the title track in common with AWITT but a new recording and arrangement of it. We're still talking to labels at this poing, but I think we've got it figured out as to what we're going to do now.

Overall the Marotta/Griesgraber album is a bit denser in orchestration than AWITT. On AWITT you get some flavor of what Jerry is all about, but on the MG CD its really more of an even partnership between us. Drums play a major role in it, and frankly though I've probably listened to all of the major recordings Jerry is best known for, I've never heard him do anything quite like this before. There are a few tracks where we both went pretty wild adding different parts. I think the most extreme example finds Jerry doing interlocking parts on two or three full drum kits, some hand percussion, an electronic drum kit and a few passes with his Taos drum kit. I wound up using the Stick in a similar fashion, really exploring it as if it were multiple single instruments rather than one multi-instrument.  Once we had most of our parts together we also invited a great keyboard player named Harvey Jones (Chris Botti) to add some tracks as well as bassist Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel, King Crimson).

AV:  For the rest of this year and into 2006 where can folks catch you  live in concert? Do you have a place on your website that lists your concert appearances?

TG:  In Southern California, I've got shows coming up in October with Adrian Belew and Steve Hackett. Sandwiched between those, Marotta/ Griesgraber will be opening for the Tony Levin Band in Italy and Switzerland. In November, Marotta/Griesgraber goes back to Italy, Switzerland and possibly France on our own headlining trip.

My website has a page with all the updated info (http://www.thossounds.com/schedules.html )  I also keep an e-mail list and send out updates maybe twice a month as to what's going on. There is a subscription page on the website as well.

AV:  Finally to finish things up, is there anything else that you would like to share with the readers of Ambient Visions about your music and where you would like to see it take you in the coming years?

TG:  I would love to share exactly where I see my music taking me, but frankly I can't really say where that will be!  The thing that keeps me in the game of music is really writing.  

That's the most fascinating part to me, and I always feel a need to keep looking for things I haven't done yet. New rhythms, new chords, new sounds and so on. I have several new concepts for albums in mind and frankly I hope to get to them all as soon as humanly (or otherwise) possible.

AV:  Tom, it has been a pleasure talking to you about your music and especially your new CD A Whisper in the Thunder. You have created some wonderful compositions on this CD and has been gracing my sound system quite a bit as of late. I wish you much success with your music and I am looking forward to whatever you release over the coming years. I'm sure it will be great. Thanks again for letting Ambient Visions be a small part of it.