Latest / The Scene Projects / Clementine Moss on Drumming, Creativity, and the Spirit of Led Zeppelin

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Clementine Moss on Drumming, Creativity, and the Spirit of Led Zeppelin · The Scene Projects

• 0:02
  Welcome in to another exciting episode of the scene.
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  I'm your host, Bubba Starts, and with me today is singer songwriter and drummer Clementine
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  Moss.
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  Welcome to the show, Clementine.
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  Thank you so much.
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  Thanks for having me.
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  Well, I'm sure you live an exciting life just being in the Bay Area and playing music.
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  But before we get into all of that, give us a little bit of your back story.
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  Okay.
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  Yeah.
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  My, back story is, I am the drummer for the Led Zeppelin band, Zepperella, which has been
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  together for almost a couple decades now.
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  And, I travel all over The United States, playing drums, but playing John Bonham's parts.
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  And then in in my downtime, I'm also a a singer songwriter.
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  I have several albums out, and I'm also a writer.
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  I have a book out about my music career.
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  I'm also a spiritual counselor, a nondenominational spiritual counselor, which is
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  what kind of what my book is about, how my music career is kind of a metaphor for some of
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  the contemplative practices that I do.
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  So, yeah, that I think that's as quick as I could say my life right now.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, it's pretty awesome.
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  Incredible.
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  What a joy to make a living playing some of the greatest songs ever written and then getting to
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  kind of tag along your own songs and career with that, I'm sure.
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  I'm sure fans of the band are also fans of of your career as well.
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  So very cool.
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  What what a challenge.
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  Talk I mean, we gotta start off with, you know, how challenging is it to to play for a living,
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  right, the some of the most iconic drum parts in rock and roll history.
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  Do you feel the pressure on a nightly basis?
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  It definitely keeps you humble.
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  Yeah.
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  It definitely keeps you humble, to play, you know, the greatest, you know, rock drum parts,
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  you know, some of the greatest rock drum parts.
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  But, you know, it also you really have to give over to the fact that, you know, I'm never
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  gonna be John Bottom.
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  Right?
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  No matter how much I try, I will never accomplish what he accomplished on the drums.
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  And that my job though is to do it justice as best that I can, to show up as best I can, to
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  be able to convey the magic that I felt, you know, from the time that I first heard those
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  songs.
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  And then, you know, convey that to people who love this music the way that I do.
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  And recognizing that these are songs that accompany people through their lives.
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  You know, they hear them when we're teenagers, and then some people say, oh, that was my
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  wedding song.
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  You know, they that was my wedding song.
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  That, that music was there at the birth of my children.
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  That was, like, the happiest times, the saddest times.
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  This music accompanies people.
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  So I take it really seriously that I really do need to do my very best to, to bring across the
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  music that people love that way.
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  Yeah.
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  And I think it's even more important because, you know, losing John, you know, thirty, forty
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  years ago now.
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  Right?
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  Forty five 1980, I believe 8081.
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  Right?
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  '80.
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  Mhmm.
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  Right.
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  So, you know, people can't go out and, well, she's not as good as him.
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  Right?
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  Like, you are you are where the people are hearing these songs live, and especially
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  because of the reputation of Zapparella that you you've established that you may be the
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  only, you know, the only chance that some of these people have to hear these songs played
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  live.
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  Not a whole lot of, you know, rock and roll cover bands, have the ability even to cover Led
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  Zeppelin songs, whether it's the vocal range or it's the musicality.
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  The all of it coming together is very difficult.
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  So I I kind of understand where you're coming from.
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  It's a duty almost and and an honor to do so, but, yeah, it comes with a little bit of
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  pressure, I'm sure.
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  Yeah.
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  It is it is an honor, but it also, you know, that that's kind of, you know, at one point, we
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  have to give over to the way that we wish things would be to the way things are.
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  Right?
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  And, that's a big lesson for me is to, you know, to really just realize, okay.
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  This is where I am, and this is all I can do.
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  And I'm giving this as a gift, you know, in a way.
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  And if people wanna accept it, they can.
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  If they don't like it and it doesn't speak to them, that's okay.
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  But as long as I know that I'm in my own integrity doing the best I can, I feel, you
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  know, I feel okay with it showing it that way?
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  Yeah.
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  Nice.
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  You got any videos on YouTube of you doing Moby Dick?
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  Oh god.
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  Moby Dick is it it really is so brutal because, you know, here's this piece of music that, you
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  know, somebody wrote for, you know, twenty, thirty minutes, and I have to stand I have to
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  get up there and and do, you know, my little five minute deal.
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  And, you know, when I was approaching Moby Dick, I was thinking, you know, a drum solo to
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  me is the most personal thing a drummer can do.
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  And, so I just I couldn't get my head around copying his drum solo.
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  Like, I all the other songs, really try to copy what he's playing so that, you know, it really
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  fits in well with what people expect.
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  But for the drum solo, I just it had to be my own.
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  You know?
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  It's like I play Moby Dick at the beginning and the end of it, and then I have to go into my
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  own drum solo, and that's where I see all of my limitations, all of the ways that I wish that I
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  was a better drummer, all of the ways that I, I've been working on things that just never I
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  can never actually make happen.
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  And so Moby Dick, it's like I could never watch a video of myself doing it, even though it
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  probably would improve it, for myself.
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  I just I can't bear it.
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  I like to just kinda give myself open over to what happens in the moment, you know, and try
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  to play as freely as possible, and I feel like it never is what I want it to be.
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  So, there are videos out there of me doing it that I have never seen.
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  Well and I think that really speaks to the the artist that John was, but also the freedom that
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  it gave.
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  And inside of that band, is such a I mean, underrated.
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  Everybody talks about Page and Plant, obviously, but John Paul Jones is one of the
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  greatest musicians, baby Oh, man.
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  That ever lived.
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  Right?
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  Agreed.
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  Agreed.
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  I I don't know that that band is ever what it is without him, but it it spoke to the creative
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  freedom that the band kinda let each other have that, you know, obviously, the the thirty
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  minute drum solo that's on the song remains the same, that they didn't play it that way live.
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  And you're talking about a band that necessarily didn't make a living.
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  They weren't the Grateful Dead.
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  Right?
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  They weren't on the road for forty years.
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  I mean, the members of the dead are still on the road.
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  Playing close in the Bay Area, I know, for a big sixtieth anniversary here soon, but that
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  there was that freedom.
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  It was always gonna be a journey, and each show would have been its own journey.
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  And I feel like that you kind of adopt that that spiritual nature of it.
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  Right?
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  That, yeah, here's the kind of the the the bookends of it.
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  But in between there, Clementine has a story to tell.
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  And and and you're given that freedom in Zebarella to do that too.
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  That's just incredible where you're not always gonna get that in a cover kinda and especially
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  a tribute band like you guys are.
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  I don't know if you would call yourself that.
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  But
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  Yeah.
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  No.
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  It is.
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  And and I think that, I think that's why we've been able to do it for so long is because, you
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  know, we we we want people to be able to sing the riffs, to sing the song, to get you know,
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  have all of the words, have all of the pieces in place that you want to hear.
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  But then for a live show, there are places in the song, say, in Whole Lot of Love or even
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  Immigrant Song.
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  Like, the there are these places that we get to stretch out as a band.
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  You know?
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  And we're not, there are bands that will copy the live versions of Zeppelin.
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  You know?
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  Okay.
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  This is the concert from this year.
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  You know?
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  But we've never done that.
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  We've listened to the live stuff, and then, you know, we allude to things that they did live,
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  but then we really make it our own.
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  And I think that's why I've been able to do the same music for so long is because it does keep
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  changing and morphing, and we become a tighter and tighter and tighter band within the
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  structure of this other band.
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  So it's kind of like I feel like we're a band within a band.
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  Like, I I understand my who I am as a drummer, like, more within this structure of somebody
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  else's parts.
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  So it's a really interesting an an interesting thing, and I think that's why this music has
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  carried me along for so long because it keeps being interesting.
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  You know?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Just touching on so many things.
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  I mean, I've been playing a lot of the same cover songs for, you know, twenty five years of
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  my career.
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  And I I don't there's some that, you know, have gone in the set list and out, but there's so
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  many that still mean, just as much to me now as the first time I heard them before I ever
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  learned them on a guitar or maybe some that mean even more to me now because of the life
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  that I've lived with them.
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  And and, obviously, with twenty years of playing these these songs all over the world,
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  right, that, you know, now they're bringing up your own memories, not just those those old
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  tunes, but newer ones too.
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  How cool.
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  Just love it.
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  Yeah.
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  And isn't it a trip to and so you know this this phenomenon, which is that you learn a song
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  at the beginning, And maybe it's a song where you're making a little bit of adjustments for,
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  like, oh, that player played it like this, but that's not really comfortable for me or I can't
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  quite accomplish that, so I'm gonna play it like this.
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  And then over time, over the years, you know, you get better as a drummer or you you start
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  hearing it differently, and then you reapproach a song that you learned ten years ago.
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  And suddenly, it's like the song feels brand new, and it's like now it's like the song that
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  has all this energy in the set because you've reapproach you're reapproaching it to a way
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  that is even deeper than the original way that you learned it.
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  You know?
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  It's like that's kind of what happens to us is especially because sometimes we kick songs out
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  of the set because we only have a two hour set, and that's like, Seflon songs are fifteen
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  minutes long.
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  Right?
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  So, you know, every now and then we do a big change up of bringing other songs in or putting
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  them out.
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  And then if we bring back another song, it's like I have to completely relearn it because
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  now my ability is different than it was when I originally learned it.
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  And and same with the women and the other women who are playing the song.
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  So we go through this big kind of adjustment.
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  We just did that with, we're gonna groove, the song we're gonna groove where it was like, oh,
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  okay.
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  This now I can play it like this, which is the way that it was it's more true to how he played
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  it than at the beginning when I was playing it.
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  So, yeah, it's it just keeps it keeps us on it on our toes, definitely.
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  God, I love talking about this band.
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  So when I was a kid, grew up around the Chicago area before we moved to South Dakota, and there
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  was a station there, one hundred point three, and they would get the lead out every night at
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  nine.
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  So about bedtime, that's kinda what the, you know, not the snooze, but the the sleep would
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  would go off to.
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  I'd get twenty minutes of Led Zeppelin every single night as a, you know, seven, eight, nine
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  year old.
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  I see.
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  Songs are just ingrained, and I've obviously been such a huge fan, but probably know a
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  little bit more of the discography.
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  I don't know just the hits.
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  Right?
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  I I've listened to a lot of these albums and and going deeper.
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  And then there's, you know, still songs that I'm like, wow.
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  How?
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  Right?
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  And that's a reason why a lot of them don't make it into my set list.
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  I'm more of a a barroom kinda strummer.
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  And so, you know, songs like, hey.
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  Hey.
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  What can I do?
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  Or, you know, just songs that are easy to strum to and play and sing because I'm also the
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  singer, which put a lot of Led Zeppelin songs just out of the vocal range completely.
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  Right?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  How exciting to just spend a career, you know, playing this music and and reintroducing
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  yourself to it over time and just sounds like it's been such a blessing for you.
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  How has that part of your career now informed your original music?
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  Is there a crossover in the style?
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  Is there, you know, similarities between what you do for a living with Zapparella as compared
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  to, you know, what what you kinda do for yourself with your music?
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  Yeah.
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  That's a really interesting question because, you know, I I don't you know, the kind of music
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  that really inspires me to write, you know, ultimately, I'm a I'm a songwriter, you know, a
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  lyricist, a songwriter.
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  Right?
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  And that's kinda I first started with lyrics because I always saw myself as a writer before
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  I even played music.
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  And so the the music that I a lot of the music that I really love is very lyrically driven.
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  And so and I don't see I mean, I love the lyrics of Led Zeppelin, but I don't see that as
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  lyrically driven music.
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  Right?
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  It's, you know, it's, like, it's rock and roll.
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  Right?
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  It's it's the whole band, the whole the whole piece.
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  And I think as a as an original musician, when I'm writing, you know, it first comes from the
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  drums, right?
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  I start with drum beats and then I hear vocal melodies and lyrics within the drums, right?
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  And then kind of work with other people to kind of get the music written.
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  And and so when it comes down to it, none of the music that I play is sounds like Led
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  Zeppelin.
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  You know, it really is I think it's quite different than than that genre.
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  I mean, it's still in the rock singer songwriting genre, but it's not like I'm, you
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  know, that I'm really drawn to writing.
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  A lot of that is because, you know, Led Zeppelin was a band.
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  I think it's the input of four people, you know, and I'm a soloist.
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  Right?
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  And I think there's I think there's something to writing from behind the drums.
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  I mean, one of the greatest lyricists of rock and roll music, I would say that nobody knows
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  was writing the lyrics, is Neil Pert.
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  Neil Pert.
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  Yeah.
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  I mean
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  That's right.
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  That's right.
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  It makes for a much different, a much different writing process.
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  It's completely removed kind of, not necessarily from melody, but I imagine that
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  you're going to hear syncopations, you know, almost before you're hearing melodies.
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  You're hearing kind of how things should go in a cadence almost more than the melodies are,
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  which can it's just coming from a totally different place.
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  I'm a guitar player and a lyricist as well, songwriter, but most of my songs kind of are
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  are always written around the melodies of the guitar lines and the lick that I'm hearing in
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  my head and not from another place.
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  I did play drums for a few years back in middle school and high school.
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  I loved the concert band, but marching band was my favorite.
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  So I love playing drum cadence on the snare drum.
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  That's great.
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  That's great.
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  Yeah.
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  I love it.
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  Yeah.
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  It's interesting.
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  It's it's, it's an interesting thing about, you know, the way that the way that we write and
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  kind of where we where we come from in our songwriting process.
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  So, yeah, I think that, you know, rhythm is important to me even in writing prose, you
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  know, even when I'm writing anything, I think that my my writing always has, you know, rhythm
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  is important.
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  It's I wanna hear how it sounds when I it's read out loud that it flows and and it works
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  well.
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  So I think that that has a lot to do with the the songwriting that I do.
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  I guess if I were to think about one thing that Zeppelin really taught me is that as far as
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  song structure goes, you know, it's okay for it to be unusual.
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  You know?
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  I mean, when you're you know, you take a song like like cashmere, you know, it's like, okay.
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  Those you know, it's like everything happens in, you know, seven.
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  It's not like, okay.
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  You know, two bars of two measures of four.
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  It's like, okay.
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  This this course, it goes for seven.
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  It's like, they really love seven.
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  You know?
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  They love that, you know, the number where you just don't expect that that's what okay.
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  This one's gonna be 14.
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  I count to 14, and then we go.
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  You know?
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  Or, like in the levy, yeah, I'm playing.
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  You know?
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  You at 18, I go.
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  Right?
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  And, so it's it's just it's okay for things to take a little longer or to be a little a little
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  wacky.
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  You know?
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  And, I think that's the best lesson you can learn from, you know, when you really parse a
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  Led Zeppelin song.
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  It's like, yeah.
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  Things are not normal, you know, a lot of the times, and that's what kinda makes them great.
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  Yeah.
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  Exactly.
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  Well, Clementine, I wanna thank you so much for coming on the show today.
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  I'll give you an opportunity here to plug anything you want, the your originals, the
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  band, all of it.
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  Give us the links and and tell people where to find you.
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  Thank you so much.
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  I honestly, if you just go to clemthegreat.com, everything is there.
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  Links to Zipparella and our upcoming shows.
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  We just played in South Dakota, actually.
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  So, unfortunately, I can't plug that song, but, that date.
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  But, you know, we're always playing around the country, so there's that.
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  My book is there.
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  My music is there.
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  My writing, everything is there.
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  So yeah.
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  Well, I'm very sorry I missed you on this trip, but I will make sure to catch you the next time
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  you're coming back through our beautiful state.
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  Clementine, Clem the Great, thank you so much for for joining us today, and thanks for being
• 18:36
  part of the scene.
• 18:37
  Thank you so much, Bubba.
• 18:39
  Thanks for having me.