Clutch drummer Jean-Paul Gaster describes seeing Bad Brains in concert as a "life-changing experience."
Gaster’s comments have been made available via an excerpt from new Bad Brains book Punk! Hardcore! Reggae! PMA! Bad Brains!
Written by Greg Prato, the book is described as “part traditional biography and part oral history” and is available now in paperback and digital formats.
The full excerpt also features quotes from Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil, former Nirvana drummer Chad Channing and Circle Jerks frontman Keith Morris. The excerpt is available via Alternative Nation.
Gaster says: “I saw the Bad Brains for the first time in 1989 at the old 9:30 Club, just a month after I graduated high school. And for me, that was a life-changing experience.
“I saw that band, and I knew exactly what it was I wanted to do for a living. I want to do that. I want to make music like those guys, and be those guys.
“These four guys just came walking up the steps. Just the coolest, slowest, most casual walk I’d ever seen. And they very deliberately got behind their instruments, plugged in, and then it was like someone just threw a switch. Bam. And that place became electric. That was church, for me. I had never had that feeling ever before that.
“But that feeling still stays with me, and sometimes when I’m needing inspiration, I think about that time and the energy that those guys were able to bring to this crowd and to that room.”
Bad Brains released their ninth album Into The Future in 2012. It is a tribute to late Beastie Boys member Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch.
