Behind The Scenes From A Memory – Interview With Jose Baraquio

When and how did you first get hooked up with DT and can you give us a bit of the background to the early days? I remember seeing you at the Marquee Club in London in March ‘93.

Actually, it was January of ‘93 that I first started tech’ing for Mike, the beginning of the Images and Words tour. I was working for a local band and pretty much doing bar bands and stuff and I’d been with them for a real long time, but the tour manager of that band, wound up being Dream Theater’s tour manager. Jim Pitulski hired this guy, Mark O’Toole to be the band’s tour manager and he was pretty much brought in to “clean house” and their crew at that point was pretty much their friends, but when Mark came in he pretty much one by one fired everybody and he brought in a whole crew from Baltimore which was where I was living at the time, working for him and we pretty much did the rest of the tour from there, and from that point on from that whole crew, I was pretty much the only one left!

The time before DT – had you been doing drum tech work specifically?

Not to a point where we were travelling all over the world, but a lot of the same venues we were doing in the States.

You were tech’ing for MP right up until the “Fix for ‘96” shows but took a break between then and this album/tour, was there a particular reason?

Well, Mike gave me a sendoff in South America. We did a South American run right before I guess at that point the new album came out, but I was pretty much given an ultimatum as I was married at the time – I had a wife and two kids, and tried to make that work and make her happy. And a couple of years went by and we ended up splitting up anyway, and at that point I’d kept in touch with Mike, and he asked me if l wanted to come back out and I said “sure!”

There are a lot of new faces in the M2000 crew; I know John Petrucci has a new tech for this tour.

Yeah that’s “Weazel” – he’s done tours with Judas Priest and The Who amongst many others. He’s a great tech; he’s had a lot of problems here in Europe with the gear though.

When did you all meet up for the first time?

Actually January this year, but I met Maddi (bass/keyboard tech) when we did the one festival in Korea as he was working with Deep Purple.

Did you meet up for M2000 rehearsals?

We did three days in LA, just setting up and rehearsals, and then the first show was in Phoenix.

Had you hooked up with MP by January 1999 for the LTE dates?

At that point I was pretty much out of the loop as far as all that went.

Do you have any other tasks within the crew setup?

Well, I usually have a lot of free time prior to the show and what with the guitar and bass techs changing strings or doing tuning or set-ups. Once I’m up and running, there’s nothing more that I need to do, so I can do towels and water and stuff.

Are you usually the last to finish at the end of a show?

It’s the lighting and sound guys that get up early, and they’re the first ones in and last ones out, whereas for us, we’re usually the last ones in and the first ones out!

One thing I don’t think is always realized is that at some of these venues the stage has to be constructed first.

That’s usually the promoters that take care of the stage aspect of it – at some venues they do have to build it.

How long does it take you to fire up the kit?

Well to set up the kit and clean it can take me most of the day. I usually don’t want to have to rely on the stage hands too much – by the time I have to explain what I need done, I might as well just do it myself. But I mean actually getting the kit up really doesn’t take that long, but miking it and cleaning... I mean you’ve seen Mike play and it’s not a pretty sight! By the end of the night, there’s spit everywhere and water, blood and stuff! Also I have the same space every night – my riser never changes and I feel sorry for the other guys ‘cos some of the stages we play are so small and they have to cut back on gear or improvise on setting it up, but I’m the same every night’ so it’s sorta good for me!

I know how important it is to get everything tight during kit setup, do you go into auto-pilot when you’re setting it up – do you have a set routine?

Yeah I’ve had pretty good luck with Tama. Their hardware’s great as far as memory-locks and everything goes. I’ve had really no problems and once I’m set up, it’s kind of dead right on. I have a little advantage because I built the American and [the] Japan kit’s straight out of the box, but this one Magee did, and it’s pretty much dead on also. Everything’s labelled and it’s easy to put together.

How often do you change heads?

Snare drum I can usually get away with three shows, depending on water damage! Gerry’s a good judge and has a real good ear – he can usually hear when heads need changing by their sound, but it depends. The rack toms I can maybe get a week out of them and the floor toms maybe a week and a half. A couple of days after that, I can wind up changing those, but I can pretty much keep the kick drums a whole leg. We’ll probably go through this whole whatever we’re doing – 15 shows or something no problems. The Octobans – I’ve put on some Pin-Stripes this time but we just usually play it by ear. I can tell if it’s lost its sound.

Do you take care of all of the company contact e.g. ordering sticks/heads/cymbals etc.?

Yeah, I’m still getting back in the swing of it since I’ve been out of the loop for whatever – the whole last tour I didn’t do. I’m pretty tight with the guys from Sabian and I’m just getting to know the guys from Tama; they’ve been pretty cool.

Do you carry spare set of cymbals and how often do they get cleaned?

Talking of cymbals, I need to get on the horn and get a hold of Sabian! Mike has his own line of cymbals out now and I STILL haven’t got a set of those for here – he’s actually using the prototypes on this kit. Sabian is really good about having spares and backup, but with this run I haven’t been able to get a hold of them. As far as cleaning them go, I usually use regular cymbal cleaner – any brand and it really eats away at the finish. With the way Mike plays, I tried NOT using any cymbal cleaner on the US leg. I just used plain old Windex glass cleaner and actually those cymbals held up pretty good. But once you start cleaning them, a drop of water on it and it’s history..... especially with the water. Mike’s cymbals are so water damaged and there’s nothing you can do about it, except get some new cymbals. I can get all the spit and fingerprints off, but it’s the water damage I can’t get rid of!

How are you getting on with the swinging in of the vocal mic?

Fairly good! I haven’t had any major catastrophes or anything, I have to make sure I don’t hit him in the nose or mouth when he’s not looking, I have to peak around to make sure he knows it’s coming!

How much input did you have in the spec’ing of the Mapex and the latest Starclassic kits? I think you went to the Mapex factory with MP.

The Mapex kit I built straight out of the box too, but it’s pretty much me and Mike have to be there – he’ll sit down and I pretty much know the basics for racks and floors and stuff, but we usually try to streamline it to cut all the excesses off so it looks pretty much custom. I was never too happy with the Mapex hardware, but I mean Nick from Spock’s Beard has a nice kit – it looks like they’re sinking some money into their stuff. But when Mike was doing clinics for them and none of the stores had Mapex kits, which he wasn’t too happy with, but he’s happy now!

I noticed the mics were different than of previous tours (esp. the tom and kick mics) – do you get involved in the mic setup?

That’s the sound man’s thing – Gerry is real particular with mics. I guess Vinnie (Kowalski) was the same way, but he just wasn’t happy with the way the smaller mics sounded.

Do most of the ideas for kit changes (e.g. the addition of Sabian Radia Cup Chimes) come from MP or do you make suggestions during discussions?

Well it’s sort of new to me too, but I’m sure Sabian’s always saying “hey why don’t you try this out...” I’m sure that’s where he’s getting [them] from.

I noticed the gong changed sides in some of the US dates and the percussion rack got pensioned off!

The gong thing came about... was we were playing a real small stage and the intelligent lighting was so close to the riser that the gong would pretty much have blocked all the light, so I said “why don’t we just get rid of the percussion stuff? It’s not really not getting used much on this leg” and we wound up scratching the whole table and moving the gong from one side to another – it’s one less thing to set up too!

Have you had any major equipment failures on the live shows?

Nothing major – I always have backup springs and kick pedals and stuff, but one time we had a hi-hat problem and even Mike was impressed, where a bolt fell off or something, and I noticed it right away and got it fixed fairly quick. And Mike said “wow how’d you stay on top of that!?” and I was like “yeah it was pretty good wasn’t it?!”

I saw you sneaking M&M’s on the MP website video – is it hard to keep yourself well fed when on the road?

Not this time – we’re carrying our own catering company this time – I’m scared to step on a scale! We have all meals and after show food too – I eat better on the road than l do at home! In Germany we had a catering company with the German promoter and it’s all usually pre-agreed so we know what we’re going to get, but with this company now, it’s all top notch every day – TOO much!

What form did rehearsals for the M2000 tour take? Were you present?

I think the early part of January – I guess everybody met in LA. The band really didn’t have any kind of rehearsals ‘cos they were off doing their own thing, but we had three days in LA to get the lights set up and stuff so they could program part of the sound set-up, and the video imaging.

In the past, have you been around for pre-production or writing sessions with the band, so that you get to hear new material very early on in its life?

Well this time around no, but in past albums I have – actually I did get some of the new stuff before it actually officially came out, but for the “Awake” album. I was pretty much there for the entire process. For this album, I was around for some of the mastering and stuff after pretty much it was all done.

When Awake was recorded, did you go to LA with the band?

Yes, I was there for most of it. I was there pretty much until Mike’s part of it was done at least.

What do you like to do on your days off?

As Gerry would put it, it’s not a day off, it’s a day without a show! Like yesterday, we didn’t get to the UK until 6:30pm or something! Right now though I’m trying to learn how to use my computer, just learning the ins and outs of getting online and stuff. Shopping is a bad habit for me – I always have a hole burning in my pocket! I’m trying not to spend as much this time around, but I’ve been using my credit card which isn’t always a good idea. But as far money is concerned we get paid in American dollars and we just change what we think we’ll need to go out and get a meal or something.

Do you live local to any of the band?

No – I live in Washington DC

What are your likes and dislikes about touring?

When you’re home you want to be back out on the road, and when you’re out on the road you want to be back home! Travel’s not that bad for me; usually you’re in a different city every day, which, sometimes you don’t really have time to do any sightseeing or anything – it’s OK the first time you come over; you go and do all the sightseeing, but you get used to it.

Do the band have their own bus for this leg?

In past tours we’ve always had to share a bus, so we’d be around the band 24/7, but this time we have a separate crew bus and it’s a little more relaxing and the band is on their own schedule.

How many of the clinic appearances in the US did you do with MP in 1995?

I did the Modern Drummer festival and I did the Montreal Drum Fest. And later me and Mike did a Japan clinic tour and I actually got to go to the Tama factory, and it was nice ‘cos it was around my birthday when we did that, and Mike had signed I think a couple of hundred “Mike Portnoy Commemorative snare drums” and I got one for my birthday – signed on the inside, which was great! We’re going to be doing a clinic tour after the dates in the Orient are done.

I guess having been with MP for so long you know each other pretty well! Is he a good boss?

He’s great – he’s one of the most giving guys. I’m rather lucky when it comes to cool gifts and trinkets and stuff – he’s the most generous guy. He’s always taken care of me.

Festivals are a whole different ball game for DT – what are the pros and cons?

Well as long as I have enough time to set up, I’m happy and I’m all set – rolling risers are a big help!

Are you actually a fan of DT and do you collect any of the bootleg stuff like MP?

Oh yeah! When I was first asked to tech for Mike I’d never even heard of them. I listened to the “Images and Words” CD and thought it was pretty cool. I just wish they could bump up to the next level. When I go home, people say “you work for a band? Who?” and I say “Dream Theater” and they go “who?!!” I now rephrase it and say I work FOR a band called Dream Theater and it’s not so pompous! As regards CDs, I like to collect but I’m not really out to get stuff like that!

What other bands do you like to listen to?

Well, Mike always makes fun of me ‘cos I grew up listening to the ‘80s “big hair” bands, but it was pretty much what I grew up on. Stuff like Van Halen – I guess they would be my favourite band back in the Dave Lee Roth era. Other than that, you know, Mike will make fun of the “Monsters of Rock” commercials on TV where they have all the “hair” bands and he’ll say “... hey, it’s ‘Ho Rock’!” – anything from the ‘80s. Actually, the first band I ever saw in concert was Van Halen and it was funny ‘cos a while back we were in Japan and Mike’s really into bootlegs, and usually when we walk into the stores in Japan it’s pretty much like “take whatever you want!” and he’ll throw me a bone once in a while and like say “can my tech get a couple things?” and they’ll say “sure!”, and I found the concert that I was at near where I live and it was the first concert I ever went to, and I got it on video.

Do you have any other favourite drummers or favourite musicians in general that might be considered heroes?

Well I’m not really into hero worship or anything like that! I never was and probably never will be a musician, but I can appreciate guitar players and drummers and stuff and I can tell by watching them play that this guy’s really good, but I never really had an interest in particular musicians – it was more the whole band sound.

Your job carries a lot of responsibility – does it ever annoy you that for the most part people perhaps don’t understand the amount of work involved?

Well I don’t really think about it – the only thing that really annoys me is people that come up to me and think that I’m John Myung and I even get asked for autographs!

I think it was your birthday just after you got to Europe on this leg, did the band do anything special for you?

Yeah – mine was the first date on this tour and Mike’s is the last date! Mike brought me out from behind the kit on my birthday and I got a cake and they had a regular toast. We got pictures too – Maddi’s got a digital camera and we’ve got SO many photos now.

What do you do during DT down time when they’re not on tour?

Working! I have a lot of bills to pay. Pretty much like the local crew guys, I’m pretty much freelance and I work for different production companies doing lights and sound and stuff. Luckily Mike has the clinic thing which I get involved with and video shoots like the last instructional video. I didn’t do the Liquid Tension stuff, but we went back to BearTracks and I set up his kit for that and the video shoot.

How do you think Jordan has settled into DT?

I can remember when they first approached him to join the band, but I’m sure they’re glad that Jordan’s aboard now – I got along with Derek, too. He was a great source of entertainment!

What plans for the rest of 2000 for you and the band?

Mike said to me the other day that we might go as long as November. We have the rest of this European tour, then Japan, and me and Mike do the clinics in the Orient. That takes us to summer time and they have plans to come back here for festivals, and in June there’s the chance of a “Transatlantic” tour over here in Europe for that month. Then I’m sure there will be more dates for this tour.

So there we have it!

My thanks to Ho for his time during the interview and also his totally relaxed approach when we were loitering around the stage watching him working – he really is a supercool guy! Also thanks to Robbie for the photos and video work!