From Blue Bear to Wolf Bros, He’s an Animal on the Drums

By Josh Danson, BISS List Contributing Editor 
(Photo Credit: Ting Vogel)

Interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity

Like the Blue Bear School of Music, Jay Lane is a San Francisco product through and through. He attended public schools in San Francisco and was one of the earliest stand-outs at Blue Bears’ first space on Ocean Avenue. He has since gone on to play a pivotal role in the 90’s Bay Area Acid Jazz scene as a core member of the beloved jazz/hip-hop collective, Alphabet Soup, as well as a member of the Charlie Hunter Trio and others. He then went on to work with Les Claypool in the earliest incarnation of Primus before rejoining the groundbreaking, mind-bending bass player in the short-lived but influential band, Sausage. Lane has continued to be Claypool’s drummer of choice through a number of subsequent projects, including Col. Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade.

Next up, Lane began his ongoing relationship with Bob Weir, first as a member of Ratdog, then as a charter member of the post-Jerry Dead family project, Furthur. In 2018, Lane joined Weir and producer/bassist Don Was, to form Wolf Bros, with whom he continues to play and record as an equal among greats. To say that Jay has had an outsized impact on the Bay Area music scene (and beyond) for the past 30 years, would be a major understatement.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Jay as he prepared to go back on the road with Wolf Bros and found out that we live a few blocks apart in San Francisco’s Noe Valley. As a former student of Blue Bear’s founder, Dr. Steven Savage, Jay was kind enough to speak to us on the occasion of Blue Bear’s 50th anniversary and discuss what Blue Bear meant to him, while also bringing us up to speed on his latest and ongoing projects.

BISS List: From Blue Bear School of Music on Ocean Avenue, to the band room at Everett Middle School on Church Street, to the clubs of the Mission, to some of the biggest stages in North America – that’s quite a musical and professional journey you’ve been on!

Jay Lane: Yeah man, it sure has! [Laughs]

BISS List: Pretty wild. I loved reading about the fact that you were at Everett. My daughter went to Alvarado Elementary right here in the neighborhood.

Jay Lane: Oh wow.

BISS List: Yeah, so she’s a city kid as well.

Jay Lane: Yeah man.

BISS List: That’s great that you’re a local product, and that you’ve been able to take everything that San Francisco has given you and give it back, and then some.

Jay Lane: We almost sent our kids to Alvarado, but we ended up sending them to Creative Arts Charter School, over on Golden Gate.

BISS List: Yeah? My daughter went to Gateway Middle, right there next to Creative Arts.

Jay Lane: Yeah?

BISS List: Apparently we’ve been living parallel lives. [Laughs]

Jay Lane: Yeah. [Laughs] It’s ironic, because when I was in the fifth grade, I was actually in the same building. I think it was called… Community School? San Francisco Community School. It was a total hippie school, as I remember. I had a teacher where it was supposed to be poetry class, but we would just do Tai Chi in the yard. And there was a pool table and he let us play pool all day long. It was kind of a weird, “Look at these hippies,” kinda’ school. But yeah man, been in San Francisco a long time. I think when I was nine years old, almost 10, my mom took me around to see if I wanted to sign up for music lessons anywhere. She took me to a Yamaha piano school, you know, like a group class. And then another thing that was not that hip. Then she took me to this guy’s house, Bob Rose, who had a house over by Tower Market, up on…

BISS List: Portola?

Jay Lane: Yeah, off Portola. And he had like a rock and roll studio set-up, with a drum set and a recording studio and stuff. And I thought it was the coolest thing ever! I wanted to play drums right then and there. So, my mom bought me a little practice kit and I started taking lessons from him for a couple of years. But then I stopped practicing and kind of lost interest a little bit. And at some point he suggested that I take lessons from his good friend Steve Savage, who had started up a music school – Blue Bear School of Music – out on Ocean Avenue. It was in a little storefront out on Ocean. I’ll tell you what though, the whole thing about that, it started my whole experience with a “rehearsal room.” There was like a certain smell to the storefront that I can’t… When I think of Blue Bear School of Music, the first thing I think of is the smell of that storefront. It just smelled like a practice space. You know what I mean? There was just nothing to do in there except play music. It wasn’t like a musty smell or anything like that. It just smelled like a place that was… where there was no purpose other than to play music. And it started my experience of being in local bands and stuff.

I have a good friend, my friend Dave Shul, a guitar player who was in Spearhead. We’ve been in bands on and off for years, including the first band we were ever in called Ice Age. His dad wrote the lyrics. Him and his dad’s friend Dan Cassidy. I think he had a hit back in the 70s or something. He was the vocalist, and they were like 40 years old, 40 or 50 years old. We were like 16. Anyway, Dave and I to this day still share a rehearsal space. And it’s like the thing that makes you feel like you’re still doing it, you’re like still in the trenches, you’re still practicing, you’re still working on your craft – you got somewhere to get out of the house. A lot of guys got a lot of space in their houses. It’s nice. They got their stuff in a separate little room. I’m very jealous. I don’t have that. So I have to have a little rehearsal spot. You know, I live right there [in Noe Valley], so my shit’s set up in the front of the house right there. I can’t do anything! [Laughs] I can’t make any noise at the house. So I got my little spot, you know, that I share with my buddy Dave and I got the drums set up. Mic’d up. Got Universal Audio preamps. Best company. Bill Putnam Jr.? Best guy ever. Shout out to him. So, I’m sitting here right now with my good partner, Mike McGinn – guitar player and sound mixer for Bob Weir for many years – sitting here working on some music. [Check out this great MixMag piece by Blair Jackson for some additional color on Jay, Mike, Bobby and others: Adventures in the Doghouse]

BISS List: Nice. Does it have that same smell, reminiscent of Blue Bear? The rehearsal room smell.

Jay Lane: You know, it did before I sprayed a bunch of like disinfectant spray. I got a bunch of flies coming in the window. I don’t know what the deal is, but these little flies are always getting in here every so often. I think it’s the rainy season or whatever, the cold weather, but I got these fucking flies coming in the window. They’re not big flies, they’re these tiny little things. They almost look like termites or something. I don’t know where they’re coming from, but I’m spraying the little fuckers. [laughs]

BISS List: Take care of them! [Laughing]

Jay Lane: Other than that, it’s killer man! I got a real studio. Drums are mic’d up. Like I said. Nice mics. UA stuff. Warm audio microphone. And I’ve been making sound absorption panels, low end absorption panels for my studio. Just been making them myself to make it sound better in here.

BISS List: Oh, that’s cool.

Jay Lane: Fiberglass and all that. Yeah, I do a lot of shit, man. [Laughs]

BISS List: Right on. So, what did Blue Bear mean to you when you think back on those early days when you first started taking lessons there?

Jay Lane: Thanks for bringing me back to that.

BISS List: No worries.

Jay Lane: So, the reason he [Bob Rose] wanted me to go experience Blue Bear was because, in addition to Steve teaching me personally, which was a treat, the school also offered ensemble play, you know? Where they team you up with different players and then they hosted – I think it was in the nighttime if I’m not mistaken – I think it was called the evening jam. Where it was like, four or five people all set up in a room, you know, in a circle kind of thing. And it was an ensemble thing. Somebody would bring in a song and we would all play together. Then the joint would come around, and I remember being too young to smoke weed back then, so I passed on the joints – probably the first and last time that ever happened. But it was definitely that first feeling of playing together as part of an ensemble, which was obviously the experience that I needed to have — that all great musicians need to have. That experience of playing with others, and knowing that, as amazing as you can become by yourself, in your room by yourself, it doesn’t really mean anything until you have the skills needed to play with others. Right?

BISS List: Yeah.

Jay Lane: And to recognize all the different facets of music, hear all the different instruments, and actually experience what it’s like playing in real-time with those things. So, I think my teacher Bob knew that Steve Savage was starting up Blue Bear with that in mind, the ensemble thing. So that was huge for me. That was the biggest thing that I needed, you know, to be able to play with other people.

BISS List: Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, he remembers you. He remembers you very fondly as a quiet kid, who’s not such a quiet kid anymore, but with remarkable talent. And he’s very proud of the career you’ve gone on to have.

Jay Lane: Aww man, yeah? Well, we’ve been keeping in touch over the years. You know?

BISS List: Yeah, that is really cool. He said that you guys have kept in touch. And I gather that now it’s kind of come full circle, in that you’re even doing some teaching there, or have done some teaching?

Jay Lane: Yeah, I know. It’s pretty cool. And you know who else is doing it? Raz Kennedy has done stuff with Blue Bear. You know about that?

BISS List: No, I’m actually not familiar. Who’s that?

Jay Lane: Raz Kennedy? Vocal coach to the stars and a famous vocal teacher.

BISS LIST: I’ll have to look him up.

Jay Lane: Yeah, I was also playing music with him at a very early age. Another Bay Area older guy who’s into teaching and mentoring young students. So, a lot of musicians like to give back.

BISS List: Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, you’re definitely one of the mainstays of the music scene here in the Bay Area; between Golden Gate Wingmen, Wolf Brothers, and occasional one-off gigs like your recent stand-ins with Dead and Co. while Billy was under the weather, you’re definitely keeping yourself busy. What’s your primary focus right now? Wolf Brothers, I assume?

Jay Lane: Yeah, tours come and they go, and I got to be ready for that. We got a Wolf Bros tour coming up. I’m a little nervous to see if I still remember how to play the drums [laughs], so I’m gonna’ sit here and jam along with some Grateful Dead or whatever, and try to get my little choppies back and all that. But other than that, I try to compose music of my own and experiment and record. A lot of what I do in my studio is record drums for other people. But I try to write my own music as well. Because you can sometimes lose the sense of relevance of what you’re doing when you’re always playing other people’s music. So, It’s good to have your own music that you play, you know? Even if it doesn’t “do” anything, you know? I had to get over that, “Aww man, maybe I’m not good enough because my stuff’s never going to make it,” or whatever. It doesn’t matter. As long as you write stuff. You gotta’ spend that time to create, so you don’t go nuts because you’re always playing other people’s shit. You forget who you are, you know? You gotta’ remember who you are, even on other people’s stuff. That’s really important.

BISS List: Right on. I think I can take that to heart as a writer as well.

Jay Lane: Yeah. And what I really want to offer in teaching for Blue Bear, there’s a lot of tips and tricks that you might not get from those internet drum videos where they’re going on about playing fast and playing certain chops. Sure, you’ll learn a bunch of techniques. But when I teach lessons, I give advice on how to like, keep gigs, you know? [Laughs] Stuff like, how to not piss off your lead singer. You know? Stuff like that, that they might not teach you on the fancy drum channels or whatever.

BISS List: Haha, that’s awesome. Knowledge born of real experience.

Jay Lane: Yeah man.

BISS List: I remember when I first moved out here in ’95, I was living in Berkeley, and I remember seeing Alphabet Soup, among others, over at Jupiter. And then coming into the city and going to places like Bruno’s and the Elbo Room. But I didn’t connect the dots until I was researching this piece that you were the drummer for Alphabet Soup!

Jay Lane: Yeah, yeah, Alphabet Soup was great.

BISS List: Right? What a great band. And what an epic scene that was, the whole Acid Jazz thing.

Jay Lane: The beautiful thing about that band was that it sprung up really naturally. Kenny Brooks, who pretty much founded the band, was roommates with Gary Jones who was involved in a lot of nightlife stuff. You know, putting together parties and whatnot? And he had the ins on a lot of the parties as they were just sprouting up in the early 90s, the raves and the multilevel parties that went all night.

BISS List: Uh huh.

Jay Lane: Different kinds of things like that, and a little jazz. There were a lot of things popping up where they wanted a little jazz group in the corner or whatever, you know, an ambient kind of thing. That’s how, all of a sudden, we started getting booked. A little Monday night gig, or a Tuesday night, Wednesday night… before you know it, we’re working all the time with all these little gigs. Then, we started bringing in, like rappers would show up, as well as other horn players, and it just became like a community sit-in vibe. And then, it was really cool because the music transferred. It started out with the music being a background ambient experience and then at some point it transfers to, “Oh, now we’re paying attention to this.” Or, “Do we want to pay attention to this?” Or, “Oh my God, I was just having a drink and now these guys are getting loud. I’m outta here.” [Laughs] So it became a really interesting exercise in trying to win over your audience wherever you were at, because every now and then that would happen. You know, we would start to get louder and then people would be like, “Oh, we’re going to go over here where the deejay is. We just want loud fuckin beats.” But we had some really talented rappers in the band. Zachariah Mose, rest in peace, sadly he passed away. And then Chris Burger and Michael Blake from the East Bay – they were really able to grab the crowd, and more times than not, turn it into a really festive thing where everybody’s paying attention to us and the whole thing was about the band. Especially at Cafe du Nord on Thursday nights, we had really good thing going there on Thursday night. I mean, really amazing freestyle nights that were just unbelievable. But the funny thing was, it wasn’t always the merriest fusion of hip hop and jazz. It was more like a battle, with some guys wanting to play jazz, and some guys wanting to play hip hop. So, it was kind of a battle for what the music was going to be. And that provided the perfect amount of tension for it, you know?

BISS List: Ahh, interesting.

Jay Lane: Yeah, I think in all the great bands, you’ve gotta have some sort of tension in there that makes it so it’s like…

BISS List: Everybody’s gotta’ be on their toes, giving their best?

Jay Lane: Yeah. And sometimes what puts you on your toes is you may not like somebody else in the band. Like, “Fuck this guy. This guy’s always trying to play jazz. I want to fuckin make hip hop and people are not dancing to this shit, dude.” Oh whoops, I guess I just gave away who I was. That was me. [Laughs]

BISS List: That’s funny. Yeah that was a great scene. I remember the Broun Fellinis. They’re still going. James T. Kirk. There were a bunch of great bands in that scene. That was a good time.

Jay Lane: Yeah man.

BISS List: So, what’s on your calendar for the rest of 2022? I know you got Wolf Bros tour coming up.

Jay Lane: Wolf Bros tour and I got a lot of recording that I did over the pandemic that I got to sift through. The last couple of years have not been a very joyous time to create music. So, to be honest with you, I actually didn’t create a lot of shit, but what I have to sift through is everything I set up to create music. Now I have to start creating some music with it. Because it just has not been a joyous time to celebrate life and create music, it’s been kind of a bummer, dark fucking time. I’ve not been inspired to make much damn music, you know? And I don’t think I’m alone. A lot of people have been experiencing the same thing. But now things are starting to open up, right? So I’m starting to get pumped. I’m in my studio right now. Getting pumped with my buddy Mike. Ready to make some music, and hope there’s some young hippie girls who are going to be out there dancing to it.

BISS List: Haha, yes. I know I’m ready to go back to the way it was. I don’t know if it’ll ever really get back to the way it was, but I’m ready. I’m definitely ready.

Jay Lane: Yeah brother.

BISS List: So, any plans to work with Les Claypool again anytime soon?

Jay Lane: Yeah, actually. Todd Huth just left my studio. I should’ve mentioned that. Todd came over today and we were working on some new stuff. Todd was the original guitar player for Primus. He and Les go back all the way to junior high together. He wrote a lot of the early Primus tunes with Les. And we were just working on some new stuff. We’ve done some stuff before with this guy, Eugene, who’s in a band called Oxbow. It’s kind of a heavier, guttural kind of music. Heavy shit.

BISS List: Nice. It’s good to have a range, right? You got the Dead stuff, the Wolf Bros stuff. You got the Primus, kind of heavier stuff. And then I’m sure your own stuff has another element to it.

Jay Lane: Oh, my stuff sounds like Mac DeMarco. Mine’s like soft, little synthy, bright hip hop sounding stuff like, “What the hell is wrong with this guy?” [Laughs]

BISS List: Hey, I dig it. My daughter, who’s 14, she actually just turned me on to Mac DeMarco recently. I’m like, “OK, cool. My daughter’s actually turning me on to some cool music!”

Jay Lane: I’m trying to think of what my stuff sounds like, that’s contemporary. It’s probably more like that, Mac DeMarco kind of stuff, but instrumental. I don’t have a lot of vocals.

BISS List: Well, I’m psyched to check it out. And I’ll let you go and get back to your creative process shortly, but I figured I would just ask one more question relating to Blue Bear and being a student, or being a teacher. Is there’s anything you’d say to a kid who’s just starting out playing the drums, or to the parent of a kid who’s asking for their first drum set?

Jay Lane: I would say. Try to play with your friends, you know, try to start playing with friends because playing alone is fun, but playing with your friends is much more fun. So, if the parents can facilitate two or more to get together, that’s all the better.

BISS List: Yep, right on. Awesome, man. Well, it was great chatting with you. I really appreciate you taking some time out to talk about Blue Bear and what you’ve been up to – and cool to find out that we’re practically neighbors.

Jay Lane: Yeah, I’ve been taking walks up to Twin Peaks. I just found out you can actually walk straight up there. You just walk up 23rd St. and then go over that footbridge.

BISS List: Yeah, it’s a great little walk. And then you wind your way up those stairs. My wife and daughter and I do that all the time, so maybe I’ll run into you on the stairs, or on the trails up there sometime.

Jay Lane: Sounds good brother.

BISS List: Alright man. Thanks again and good luck with everything. Stay healthy, and hopefully I’ll get a chance to meet you in person sometime soon.

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Jay Lane is kicking off a spring tour with Bobby Weir and Wolf Bros this coming Sunday and Monday (02/27-02/28) with sold-out shows at The Sweetwater, but you can catch him playing with an all-star ensemble at The Boom Boom Room this Friday and Saturday (02/25-02/26).