Jonathan 'Sugarfoot' Moffett interview for BeatIt, pt. 3

Drums Fusion is a festival with a long history, which (during over a dozen editions) has hosted such great artists as Urszula Dudziak, Cindy Blackman Santana, John H. Beck, John R. Beck, Richard Bona, Stewart Copeland, David Friedman, Benny Greb, Skip Hadden, Claus Hessler, Marcin Jahr, Manu Katché, Pete Lockett, Dave Lombardo, Bernard Maseli, Ian Paice, Jacek Pelc, Michał Urbaniak, Pat Metheny featuring drummer Joe Dyson, Jeff Balard, UB40 feat. Ali Campbell, Fun Lovin’ Criminals, or Senri Kawaguchi.

During last year’s edition, Jonathan ‘Sugarfoot’ Moffett gave a special performance (you can read our account of the show HERE). Of course, we could not and did not pass on the opportunity to have a chat with the man, so watch the second installment of that interview.

beatit.tv: Now, we’ve got to mention that you’re a DW artist.

Jonathan Moffett: Yes, that’s right.

beatit.tv: But do you remember that first kit, the first one you played or the first one you owned?

Jonathan Moffett: That was interesting because I was with Yamaha for about five years. The interesting fact is that vice president of DW, John Good, was my drum tech on the ‘84 ‘Victory’ tour.

beatit.tv: Amazing.

Jonathan Moffett: He was my drum tech. And then he toured with me the next year. When Madonna grabbed us from the ‘Victory’ tour, I did her ‘Virgin’ tour, and he was my drum tech. Then, Jermaine Jackson pulled me to do his tour in ‘86, and John Good was my drum tech. He was still with Don Lombardi and the company and they were trying to build it up. Then, in ‘87 Madonna grabbed me back, and John came with me and we did the ‘Who’s That Girl’ tour together. That’s when Don said: ‘Look, you gotta make up your mind. Do you wanna be on the road chasing or are you gonna be at this company? You gotta take a business course’. I remember that exactly. ‘You gotta make a decision’. And John decided to go this pathway, to get off the road and invest in the company, take a business class, learn it. And now, look what they’ve done! Built an icon of a company. With that being said, I was still with Yamaha in ‘87. But he had been playing on me all those years, trying to pull into DW, which was a fledgling company at the time – ‘84, ‘85 – ‘87. [He was] trying to get it together. So I knew about the drums, I knew they were based on Camco, and stuff like that, but I loved my Yamaha drums at the time. But he kept working me, so I wound up taking on the pedals – DW 5000. Then, he wound up gradually feeding me stuff and pulling me in. And then, I did two tours with Elton John in ‘88 and ‘89. John wasn’t my tech then. That’s when I decided: ‘You know what? I think I wanna try John’s drums out’. Because we were still in communication. So in ‘89, I called him and said: ‘Look, I wanna try the drums out. I’m thinking about coming over to you’. Because he was my friend besides my tech all those years, 5 years. He said: ‘Oh, great! We’ll get you a set!’ I said: ‘I don’t want a set. I don’t wanna be committed because if I don’t like them, it’s gonna be kinda ugly if I say I don’t like your drums’. So I said: ‘I’ll buy a kit’. He kept trying to give it to me, but I said: ‘No, no. I’m gonna buy a kit’. So he gave me a half off discount. I gladly paid for it.

On top of that, when you change companies, every company has a sound. So I had to get used to the DW sound as opposed to my Yamaha sound, which I loved. So I bought it, I lived with it secretly at home for 6 months, and my ear tuned from the Yamaha sound to that sound. I called John in ‘89 and said: ‘OK, let’s do this. I’m ready’. And, of course, they were really happy. I was one of the first big artists on their roster. Me and Tommy Lee joined at the same time, and we did some ads and stuff like that. That was ‘89. I wound up loving the drums, and every kit after that was wonderful, and I’ve been with them since then. I’m loyal to them. Other companies tried to pull, and there’s interest there. I had no contract, so I was free to do what I wanted. I looked at other companies but I wanna play my DWs, and I said: ‘No, I think I’ll stay here’. So I’ve been with them and that’s what’s upstairs [a DW Collector’s kit was set up on stage, and we did the interview in a room below stage level].

beatit.tv: You’ve got your own sticks. Maybe you’d like to tell our viewers about that?

Jonathan Moffett: Yes. I’m an artist as well, a multi-faceted creative person. I was drawing at the age of four before I was drumming at the age of six. So I was always drawing designs and things. It was on Elton’s tour in ‘88… Not tour, I should say. We finished the first tour, we were in Randers, Denmark, working on the ‘Sleeping with the Past’ album. TV goes off at 9 o’clock and I was bored. So I’d always bring my drawing tablets and draw and do something creative. So I got this vision of a stick – the double-ended stick. It was invented because I chose to play with the butt end of the stick for more power and volume. Of course, I used the natural tip for the cymbals. So sometimes, you do a ballad and you gotta flip the stick over and do bells and stuff like that. So I said: ‘What if I had a tip on the other end of it? Still keep it voluminous, but with a nylon tip, cause I use nylon. So I drew it out, as an artist, and it came out really nice. I sat on it for a long time. That was in ‘88 and it wasn’t till ‘94 that I showed it at the Nashville NAMM Show. Promark was my endorsement company. They said: ‘Yeah, we can make this’. So they started making it, and they introduced it to the world in ‘95.

They called it the ‘Duo’, Jonathan Moffett model 722. It was sold till they sold out to D’Addario. D’Addario took over and the quality went down. I was on the Michael Jackson ‘Immortal’ tour. The quality wasn’t the same, so I said: ‘Man, I can’t use this stick ‘cause one hit and they break or the tip flies off’. I don’t mean to bad rap people but… And then someone would roll them and one was heavier than the other. Things like that. So I wondered: ‘How am I gonna get sticks ‘cause this is my stick I’m used to playing with?’ It wasn’t till years later, like four years ago, I decided the only way I could do this… I had spares saved up from Pomark, so I was using those in the meantime, but I said: ‘What am I gonna do when I run out? It’s my design, so I should try to make my own stick. So I started raising money, my wife and I. She’s very instrumental in helping me get organized to find a company that can make it, and talked to some other endorsement companies to help me with that, and get connected with people. Found companies that made it. Some made bad ones and we didn’t go with that company. We found a company that makes great ones, and that’s who’s been making it for us for the last three or three and a half years. They’re called Sweet Beats. You know why? ‘Cause my nickname is ‘Sugarfoot’! Sugar’s sweet, right? Sweet Beats.

beatit.tv: Makes perfect sense.

Jonathan Moffett: Yes. So I call them Sweet Beats. A pretty marketing catchphrase. We’re doing very well now on our own. We’re talking to some people about distribution now. We’ll see how that turns out. We make that happen, then we could spread wider, but we’ve got that in mind. Also, my jewellery drum key.