Jerome Deupree might be most known for his time in the jazz-rock fusion band Morphine (1989–1991, 1991–1993, 1998–1999) but underneath his swinging drum patterns that defined the band, there is so much more. Deupree never seems to put his drumsticks down, switching from one stage to the next and intertwining styles in an awe-inspiring way. His passion for music surpasses the sonic realm, he spiritually approaches his drum kit and sacrifices it all for the sake of the track. He continues to show improvement in his artistry like with Effects of the Sun, his improvisational three-piece who put out their first project last year. While Morphine might have been your introduction to the uniqueness of Deupree’s drumming, you have only scratched the surface of a legendary catalog.
Glide had the absolute pleasure of speaking with Jerome Deupree at the end of last year to discuss his storied career, the early days of Morphine, and everything he has been up to since. Check out our full conversation below.
What have you been up to over the past few years creatively that you would like to share with our readers and where are you residing?
I’m primarily a freelance player since I stopped doing Vapors of Morphine, which was back before COVID. In the last couple of years, I’ve started up a Miles Davis tribute band that focuses on early electric Miles Davis, stuff like Bitches Brew, and up to the mid-70s. I’ve always enjoyed that period of jazz, I call it early electric. You had an upright bass pairing with a Fender Rhodes, that combination of sounds has always interested me. I’ve been playing with Joe Morris who works in more improvised jazz, I’ve done some recording with him. I’ve been recording with Lester St. Louis and Matthew Shipp as well. Those should all be coming out in the future. I’ve been busy with live shows as well, I’ve been playing with David Champagne and we go between his solo stuff and the Treat Her Right stuff. I like playing a wide variety of music, I’ve been busy all year and every week is something different.
Did you grow up listening to jazz? How did the nuances of the genre make their way into Morphine and the music you’re working on now?
Not necessarily, I grew up more with the British Invasion and what was typical A.M. radio at the time. There was such an amazing selection of music on A.M. radio at the time the local station in Cincinnati had everything from British Invasion to the American bands on the West Coast, Motown, Stax, all the way to Frank Sinatra. It was all coming out of the same radio, eventually, F.M. came in and it all spread out which was cool but kind of narrowing if you will. As far as Jazz, someone bought me the single to “Take 5” and it was the song without the drum solo and that was a hit! I was dancing around the dining room and dancing to this cool melody and I had no idea what the song was. Later on, there was a crossover with Charles Lloyd and that was the first time I heard Jack DeJohnette play; he’s still one of my favorite drummers to this day. I would hear little bits of Jazz in Sinatra’s arrangements and cartoons so I was always sort of aware of it, I just didn’t get into it as a style until the end of high school. In the mid-70s, I felt rock was going backward so I started to get into Frank Zappa and Weather Report and that fusion kind of style. I worked my way back to the exclusive stuff from there, so jazz was a later development.
In terms of Morphine, I think that was one of the cooler things about the band. It had such a variety, it rocked pretty hard but it wasn’t just rock. It had blues and jazz influences but it wasn’t just those things. For me, it was kind of the perfect band outside of the eventual problems we had. I could play all these different styles I like. In the beginning, the band was much quieter, I would use brushes a lot, and Mark [Sandman] wasn’t using as big an amp so it was more like a jazz trio than a rock trio. I was playing with Joe Morris around the time too, when I first got to Boston, so jazz is just another venue for me now.
Of all the styles you play they all rely heavily on collaboration. What draws you to that process and how has your collaboration approach evolved over the years?
Growing up as a drummer, you were always at the mercy of other people to play with. I’ve messed around on piano but never really learned how to play and I don’t compose. I’ve always had fun arranging in a way like playing covers and coming up with my own ending. I’ve always been able to suggest things in that way but I’ve never composed anything necessarily. For the most part, especially in pop music, you need other people to provide the music. The collaboration can run everywhere from hitting the charts to “Oh I have this riff, what can we do with it.” That can cause some tension when you provide a part that sparks a successful song and, even though I’m not a songwriter per se, maybe some cut of that might be appropriate. I’m not just speaking for myself, I have plenty of friends that went through that. It’s a tough thing, people always say Clyde Stubblefield was never paid for all the time “Funky Drummer” was sampled and it’s hard to say if James Brown even got paid that much. In the early days, there wasn’t that idea of “Oh we’re going to use this music, we should pay someone for it.”
I played a gig the other night and Duke Levine was sitting in, who is a great guitar player. We’re playing some of his original music and someone took a video of it. He tried to put it up on social media and he got a copyright warning, for his own music!
What attracts you to live performance so much? Are there more freedoms compared to a studio setting?
It depends on what you’re recording. I’m not in the studio much anymore but I’ve done things like jingles or working with a singer/songwriter who has very specific ideas. In that case, I have a part and have to deliver it on every single take perfectly. I just don’t play like that anymore but obviously, that’s just another skill, the guys that can do that have my respect. I saw a video of Andy Newmark getting to watch Jim Gordon record “You’re So Vain” with Carly Simon. Andy remarks about how Jim came over to England for the sessions and the producer wanted him on one song. Andy got to watch him play and this was before drum machines but he said Jim Gordon was basically programmable. He came up with the part and any direction he got he would alter the part accordingly and always deliver a performance with feel and intention. There’s that mode and then there is live performance. With Morphine, it was much more free, even with the recordings. I always had an approach to the songs but I never had that set part, the fills were up for grabs.
Some of the stuff I’ve been doing lately, you just roll tape. It’s a conversation between the four players, total freedom. That can be nerve-wracking in its own way because it’s constant decision-making and trusting your instincts. For me, sometimes it’s hard when you can’t hear things like in an acoustic situation, the dynamics kind of go away. In terms of what you’re playing, it’s completely wide open. I enjoy all of it, I feel like I can get together with any other musician and just play, it doesn’t have to be one particular thing. A lot of people can’t do that, it gets competitive even between drummers.
You mentioned Vapors of Morphine before, what were some of your favorite Morphine songs to play with them? Why did you find it important to keep the live performances of these songs alive?
The main thing for me was that I left Morphine before they did a lot of touring. When the idea came up to do the tribute after Mark passed, Orchestra Morphine was the first but it was a different kind of thing. When we started what became Vapors, we didn’t have the name right away, but when we all started playing together it was important to me because I didn’t get to play those songs a lot. Of course, you ran up against the idea of recreating the record which we felt was a no, Jeremy Lyons is not Mark Sandman and we didn’t want to put him in that situation. The fact that he was playing with us is close enough, we had the two-string slide but we were open to interpretation. When we were touring a lot and we would play “Buena”, that was a very special performance to me because I was so in the zone. As I recall, it was theoretically a soundcheck and they said just play something to see how it sounds. I wasn’t concerned about the tape rolling or making it perfect but I was just in the zone creatively. I came up with a few things I’ve never done before and that ended up being the record. When you play it in front of people, you worry about having to do those things again. They’re not easy to do because it wasn’t a composed part. As a fan I get caught in those crosshairs too, sometimes I want to hear what’s on the record, and sometimes a variation is great. I would often make that decision in the middle of performing the tune. Being able to perform those songs live was important to me.
I don’t know if I have a favorite though. “Buena” is a high point, “All Wrong” is another one. Even the songs I didn’t record, there were songs I really liked. “Cure for Pain”, the title track is one, and some other ones from Yes and Like Swimming that we would do. It never had to be something I worked on. For a while, it was a chance for me to get out there and play those songs in my style. I had to leave because of my terrible hearing. I was using severe hearing protection during the shows and it made everything sound awful. I could play and react to what I was hearing but after a while, it became not a whole lot of fun. I’m glad they’re still going and they sound great, Tom Arey is a great drummer, but I felt I had done enough.
What were some of your favorite memories from those early Morphine days?
Good was done in pieces. We had done some tunes like “Claire”, the title track, and maybe one of the two “I Know You”. Some of them were done in the original downtown location of Q Division, I think the credits on the album are correct for the most part in terms of what was done and where. It was pieced over two or three sessions, we went in for a few hours at night and got what we could. Later, sometime in 1990, we went into this place called The Outpost and did another two or three days, that’s when we got most of the record. We did “Shoot’m Down” and “The Saddest Song” there. Those were the two major recording sessions, it was always relatively loose. There was never a feeling of “I need to get this part perfect” it was more “Let’s just play the song and see what happens”. Mark was sort of like that with all the aspects of recording, he would do a whole bunch of mixes and each one would be sort of a different performance within the mix. A lot of times, mixing is constantly refining something and working toward an end product. Mark didn’t really do that, he would make each one different and pick the one he liked.
With Cure for Pain, I did all my parts in about two or three days. I had technically already left the band but Mark called me up and asked me to do him a favor by recording these songs. He made it sound like it was going to be a demo tape, I should’ve realized you don’t go to Fort Apache Studios for a demo. Somewhat begrudgingly I went in and did those tracks and we didn’t labor over it much at all. I would record two or three takes and that would be it. I don’t remember going to take 17 or anything, that would be the antithesis of what this band is about. If you’re focusing too much on getting the right take it could be an unproductive way to make music. It gets to a point where you can’t get anything right. To me, it’s much better to play it a few times, and if you don’t like it just come back later. The band was firing on all cylinders at that point, it was relatively easy to go in and get stuff down. Going into those sessions, I remember thinking “You’re going to get what you’re going to get”, I didn’t want to be held under a microscope. Maybe there was a certain energy from my performance that made it as good as it is.
Those Cure for Pain sessions are a funny thing to look back on. At the time, I was there begrudgingly and things weren’t great. We weren’t arguing or anything but it just wasn’t that fun for me. At the same time, this really great record came out of it and a lot of people know me from that record. I remember they sent me rough mixes of those sessions afterward and I didn’t even really listen to them, it was just too raw. I would love to hear those rough tracks now, I don’t know how much different they would be from the finished record.
What sort of stuff are you listening to now?
If there’s new music that I like it’s probably in the form of improv. I’ve been enjoying a lot of North African music, stuff from Mali. A lot of different bands from there, Tinariwen is one people know. I’ve got a couple of samplers and there is some stuff from various parts of North Africa that is all very intriguing to me. There is one record with these tiny string instruments and they end up quoting Peter Frampton which is a total hoot to me. I get intrigued because it’s an older style of music. I tend to listen to records from bands that no longer exist.
What would you say is the quintessential song or moment for people to listen to and understand who you are as a musician?
I would say “Buena” for Morphine. It is just such a special performance for me. For anything else, the third Either/Orchestra record The Half-Life Of Desire. We do a version of King Crimson’s “Red” which I was lucky enough to hear that both Bill Bruford and Robert Fripp both liked it when they heard it. That blows me away when I think about it. There is a record called Sweatshop with Joe Morris, Sebastian Steinberg, and myself and that’s pretty wild stuff.
What is the best way for people to keep up with what you’re working on?
I am on Instagram and I tend to keep that up. My website has an email that you could reach out to but Instagram is the best way.
1 Response
What an interesting insight into the man who lives and breathes his music. I am honored.