Barry van Zyl: MBA Muso on Johnny Clegg; unlocking creative juices

LONDON ā€” Barry van Zyl, who for 19 years has been the drummer for South Africa’s most successful musical export Johnny Clegg, is not your typical musician. An extremely well read, deeply thoughtful brainiac, he is in the final stages of a Henley MBA, adding to impressive academic credentials within the music business. I caught up with him in London this week after Clegg’s last two appearances in the city as part of a Final Tour. Clegg’s pancreatic cancer is in remission, providing him the opportunity to say farewell to his fans around the world. This is a riveting interview, highlighted by Van Zyl’s insights into how to overcome creative blockages and his devotion to lifelong learning. Inspirational on so many fronts. – Alec Hogg

Iā€™m with Barry van Zyl and youā€™ve had a very interesting weekend with the Johnny Clegg band. How long have you been performing with him?

Yes indeed. Weā€™ve just done 2 shows in London, as you know, and Iā€™ve been with the band for 19 years so, I started in 1999. My first gig was in Frankfurt at a basketball arena. It was kind of a last-minute thing. I had 2 days to rehearse the whole repertoire. We flew to Frankfurt. We were supposed to have a rehearsal the afternoon we arrived but the sound company was late so we ended up having no rehearsal. Going up on stage and kind of cold. I think there were 15 thousand people and just before I went on stage the manager said to me, ā€œPlease donā€™t mess it up because itā€™s getting recorded live for German TV.ā€

No pressure.

No, no pressure at all and then as I was going on stage, on a stool in the wings was Madiba so, I couldnā€™t believe my eyes. I thought I was seeing things. It turned out that he was in Germany to give a keynote address at a dinner and heā€™d come to see our show before he went to dinner, he delayed his dinner, and he asked us to play Asimbonanga, which is about him and his favourite song. Normally we end with that, thatā€™s our encore. For that night, we started with it so, the very first shot you see on TV you see me, like a rabbit in the headlights, taking my last piece of music and putting it in the front in a panic. For some reason, they filmed me doing that. I still donā€™t know why.

Then we played Asimbonanga then Madiba came on and he made that beautiful speech that went viral on YouTube after he died about music being the thing kept him centred. Music and dance makes him at peace with the world. He did that and then he said, ā€œCan you play it again?ā€ So, we played the encore twice before we started the show. It was amazing.

Barry van Zyl, who for 19 years has been the drummer for South Africa's most popular successful musical export Johnny Clegg, is not your typical musician.
Barry van Zyl, who for 19 years has been the drummer for South Africa’s most popular successful musical export Johnny Clegg, is not your typical musician.

How do you prepare for something like that? Did you know all of Johnny Cleggā€™s music? Had you drummed to it before in practice?

No, to be honest, I didnā€™t know the music. I didnā€™t own any of his CDs or anything. I was a fan I just didnā€™t own any of his stuff so, what happened was the music director of the band called me. He sent me a tape of a live show and heā€™d written all the music out. I then listened to the tapes, looked at the music and thatā€™s a pre-production way of getting through a rehearsal in a short amount of time. Then I had 2 days to run it. There were 22 songs and none of them are simple forms. Theyā€™ve all got intricate arrangements so, we then ran the forms for 2 days and then jumped on the plane.

What happens now, 19 years later, is it very easy for you or do you practice at all with him?

Yes, we do. Weā€™ll rehearse for a week before we go on tour so, before this current and last tour, itā€™s called the ā€˜Final Journey Tour.ā€™ We rehearsed for a week in Johannesburg about 2 months ago, just before the first show in CT. What will happen is weā€™ll play the old catalogue but weā€™ll sort of rejig some of the arrangements to make them more interesting or to make them more fun. For this tour, weā€™ve got the Soweto Gospel Choir onboard, weā€™ve got Sipho Mchunu coming on. Jesse comes on, Johnnyā€™s son, so we had to rehearse all their parts, even though itā€™s music we know. Then thereā€™s normally one or two new songs as well, itā€™s kind of a workshop process. Itā€™s editing and streamlining old catalogue and then maybe doing one or two new pieces. Thatā€™s normally the process.

Barry, it is called the ā€˜Final Tourā€™ itā€™s well-known that Johnny Clegg has got cancer but itā€™s in remission. Is this the reason why the tour has gone ahead at this point?

Yes, I think Johnny decided to just bookmark his career with some mega shows and really make a big powerful statement to end off his career and then retire. I have no doubt that he will still do occasional shows. Probably not public shows but Iā€™m sure heā€™ll do shows going into 2018, but in terms of the big productions, after this tour, I donā€™t believe heā€™ll play anymore.

What happens, from a music perspective, for an artist like yourself? Youā€™ve been with him for 19 years. You have played though with other artists would you now find someone else to play with?

Yes, possibly. Iā€™ve got associations and obviously, a large network of singer, songwriters, band, and producers around the world. I think in 2018 I might pursue that angle of looking for touring work with other artists. That is something that appeals to me but Iā€™m feeling like Iā€™ll probably start cutting down on my performing work and Iā€™ll probably get into the music business from another angle more than I have been.

Thatā€™s what makes you unusual. Have you completed your MBA now? Last time we spoke you were acing it, I remember, getting very good marks for it. Is it through?

I finished all the modules. The Henley MBA is modular so Iā€™ve just finished my last one, which was leadership and change, and Iā€™m now steering down the 6-month dissertation, which Iā€™ll hopefully submit before Christmas.

It seems to be the fashion nowadays in SA, a very good fashion, for people to educate themselves more. Lifelong learning, weā€™ve seen some politicians, very famous ones getting degrees recently and being very proud of it. Is that something that drove you towards it or where did the spark come from to better your education?

I think you nailed it on the head with lifelong learning. Iā€™m a big fan of lifelong learning. My learning has just taken an adjacent twist because all my learning was very much music business focussed and when I found out about the toolkit of skills you could get from a MBA program it wasnā€™t what I expected, to be honest. For me the image I had of a MBA was a very stuffy, elitist qualification to rise in the ranks of the corporate world, which I suppose it still is used for. But I didnā€™t realise it was also a very powerful toolkit for self-development or putting ideas into practice successfully so, that excited me. When I cottoned on the fact that this toolkit would enable me to have the ideas, of which I have many, Iā€™ve got too many for one lifetime. If I could make some of my ideas into successes with a bit more strategy than just shooting pellets into the sky and hoping one falls in the right place, which has been my strategy in the past, then it was very well worth doing and thatā€™s what triggered me to do it. So, to your point of lifelong learning, yes, Iā€™m a fan of that theory and Iā€™m going to carry on. The MBA is definitely not the end of the road. Iā€™m just going to roll one into the next now.

You would have thought through, with your very deep roots in music and the profile that you have in the international music community that thereā€™d be a glittering path for you there into the future, if you decided to pursue that.

Yes, definitely. This is a conscious repositioning on my part. Iā€™m not tired of the music industry and my appetite is probably keener for music than it has been for the last 10 years and Iā€™m enjoying playing in the shows and playing drums more than ever. I think a lot of that excitement is driven by the fact that non-music business dimensions are exciting me more than music right now.

What about the music industry itself? Weā€™ve seen Apple music, thereā€™s Spotify thatā€™s quite big there. Other players coming into that fold. In the 19 years that youā€™ve been with Johnny Clegg alone, let alone the time before that, you must have seen huge developments and huge changes when you now look at it, as a MBA ā€“ looking back at that industry.

Johnny Clegg

Yes, definitely. Just the fact that Iā€™ve been through ownership of music via CDs and then MP3 downloads to non-ownership. The model right now is streaming and thatā€™s where the market is going. The business model has changed seismically. When we started a band would travel or tour to promote a product or a CD. Now, a band tour as their primary revenue source and the CDs are just a value-add that theyā€™ll sell at gigs. The age of the recording artist has ended. Itā€™s gone back to performance, which I think is a very good thing. It used to be that bands would tour and they would break even or even tour at a loss in order to promote the recorded product. Now, the margins are from the touring and the CD sales are a little bit of cream in the budget that you sell at shows. People donā€™t go to CD stores anymore because they donā€™t exist, so Iā€™ve seen a radical shift and a radical change. Iā€™m positive about the music though. Thereā€™s some dents that have to be addressed because the revenue stream, well, thereā€™s more money being generated by music now than in the last 15 years.

I think I was reading last week that the Universal Group boasted something like $900m in revenue in the first quarter of this year and that was up something like 26% on last year. That was largely driven by streaming. The amount of money that people are prepared to spend in America, which is the biggest market, is going upwards. The music business is not in trouble, which people seem to, for some reason, think. The trouble is that the revenue that is coming in is not getting distributed to the owners of the IP so, the songwriters are getting less money but thereā€™s more money being generated and that model has to be addressed. I think thereā€™s high-level talks going on to try and address this but the royalty collection network or net is based on an old model and they canā€™t capture revenue from streaming yet and theyā€™re no agile enough to shift. When that shifts I think music and music content producers are going to be in a sweet spot.

So, the whole creative economy is now starting, well it hasnā€™t yet been given the due that it deserves but itā€™s coming?

I believe so, yes.

Just getting back to the fact that money is made out of events. Whatā€™s the biggest event that youā€™ve played too?

You mean the biggest audience. I believe the biggest was we did the opening of the Montreal Jazz. Weā€™ve done the Montreal Jazz Festival a bunch of times but one year we did the opening ceremony and that was 150 000 people in the centre of Montreal and that was pretty mega. Although you canā€™tā€¦ Anything above 20.000 you canā€™t actually see. I saw the enormity of it from helicopter shots afterwards on TV and it was just enormous.

And nerves?

No.

Do you get into some kind of a zone when youā€™re playing?

I get into a flow and into a zone and I definitely channel the nervous energy in the right direction. When we started the interview and I was talking about the Madiba gig, there I was nervous but I managed to channel my nerves into the right places. Instead of getting frazzled I actually focussed more. My belief is that itā€™s the rule of the harder your work, the luckier you get or the 10.000 hours. So, if youā€™ve got that bed to rest on then you can channel the nervous energy in the right place because you have the confidence that you can do the job. Whereas, if youā€™re not prepared and youā€™re nervous then itā€™s game over.

And thatā€™s applicable throughout life, isnā€™t it?

In any sector, yes.

How big is the band internationally? People in SA knows that Johnny Clegg is a mega star but how big internationally?

Johnnyā€™s biggest market is in France by a mile. Thatā€™s his number one market and thatā€™s where he did most of his business. In the early 90ā€™s with a band called Savuka. That was his big footprint internationally. That translated into French-Canada, and then French-Canada spread into America. Heā€™s a niche artist in America but a niche artist ā€“ heā€™s still big enough to do a 40 ā€“ 50 show tour. In France, he was very much a very mainstream artist. Heā€™s now, I guess, more of a legacy artist there but heā€™s a household name. The biggest markets are France, Canada, the USA, Germany, Switzerland and then the expat communities in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. That, I would say, would be his global demographic.

From your perspective other artists that you have played with?

Weā€™ve interacted with a bunch of amazing artists over the years from being in festivals and meeting various people. Weā€™ve done wonderful things. We did a festival in Norway a few years back, in Tromso. Peter Gabriel was there and he came and sang Asimbonanga with us and he didnā€™t bring his band so, we backed him which was amazing. That was just fantastic. Just a little note on the side there, is that Iā€™m a huge Led Zeppelin fan and Robert Plantā€™s band was playing just after us and he was hanging out backstage the whole time so, I got to shake his hand, have a chat, and have a picture taken. Iā€™m probably his biggest fan so, that was great for me.

What other cool stuff? I played on an Annie Lennox album in CT not too long ago. She came out and used a kidā€™s choir and wanted some African infused drumming and she knew Johnny and the band from the 46664 shows and so, I got the gig and I ended up in the studio with her for a day, which was magnificent as well. Thereā€™s been all those kinds of really great ones. We also guested with Carlos Santana on his tour, we played at the Joā€™burg Stadium with him so, thereā€™s been all kinds of really great experiences.

Now, youā€™ve got the qualification. Are you going to go into the corporate world?

Iā€™m going to put a foot into the corporate world, I think, thatā€™s my aim but I want to stay in the space of creativity and helping people to unleash ideas. If I can coach people to lose the fear of creating and lose the fear of judgement in coming up with ideas and throwing things out in a chaotic manner then Iā€™ll be very happy. Iā€™d do that for the rest of my life happily, and play drums for a hobby.

Talk to us about how you get those creative juices going?

I believe that as musicians we have a few dimensions we tap into and I donā€™t think they happen in an orderly manner. They happen in a chaotic manner so, itā€™s very much a process of divergence and convergence so, you throw out bunches of ideas without judgement, and no ownership and no pressurises and then you choose the best ones and then you eventually hone in on the best for that particular occasion.

Using that metaphor in commercial life it would be things like listening properly or focussed listening so, youā€™re actually really hearing what somebody is saying and youā€™re able to listen not just through words, but through watching somebody and looking at body language and everything. As a musician, you have to do that all the time so, thatā€™s one thing. Another one is collaborating with the right people. Youā€™re as good as the 5 people in the room with you so, I think thatā€™s a very powerful dimension. Being in flow and getting in flow where 10 minutes feels like one minute. Music is a very powerful portal to get into that but I believe thereā€™s various ways you can get into that state. Then just retaining a childlike nativity, the Ken Robinson approach of not letting your creativity get educated out of you and retain a sense of playfulness.

Peter Gabriel and Robert Plant, who are over 70, have the twinkle in their eyes and the playfulness of 10-year olds ā€“ itā€™s quite amazing. Itā€™s incredible to me. It was a huge learning curve just having those conversations with them so, I believe retaining your inner child, getting into flow, removing filters, because we filter stuff away where we donā€™t see things for what they could be. So, Iā€™m trying to think of an example. So, if you drive to work every day your route to work becomes invisible because your brain tells you itā€™s not a threat, so you donā€™t see anything. Whereas, you could be, and if you practice to remove those filters, you can see things like youā€™ve never seen them before and thatā€™s the route of great inventions and great innovation.

Youā€™ve mentioned Peter Gabriel and Iā€™ve met him in Davos 2 or 3 years ago, and being a big fan of his music right from the early days of Genesis. I asked him this question about creativity. He said, when he gets a block he gets on a train and watches the train rushing by, almost like a primordial thought of you were running through the forest thousands of years ago. Do you have something similar for yourself, if you get a creative block that you can shatter that?

I do. I go running. Iā€™ve been running all my life so, thatā€™s my unblocking mechanism.

And it works?

Yes, it works for sure. Yes, Iā€™ve recently started boxing. Iā€™ve been boxing for the last 2 years and thatā€™s probably the most powerful way of getting into a zoned-out state for me, where my mind just releases all the frustrations and all the worries and I come out the other side after an hour, like Iā€™ve had a factory reset. Iā€™m finding boxing even more powerful than running but those 2 things. So, physical exercise, for me, does the trick.

Youā€™re also a composer? Do you believe in muses? Do you believe that you have a connection when youā€™re composing music?

Yes, I think so. I think you connect to the same space that you do when you go into a state of flow or a state of grace so, thatā€™s the muse for me. Johnny Clegg talks about the Zulu walking song where you get these repetitive rhythms and notes that go round and round, like a Zulu street guitar. Itā€™s the same cord for 2 hours and you can either see those as repetitive or you can see it as a big cyclical wheel to jump into. It takes you somewhere, it transports you so, Iā€™m a believer in those kinds of muses. When Iā€™m coming up with ideas Iā€™ll often just sit in a room with instruments with a drum set for 30 minutes, Iā€™d play the same thing for 30 minutes, and out of that zen simplicity all kinds of things emerge. Thatā€™s my best route.

I know youā€™re a big reader so, youā€™ll appreciate this little story. Iā€™m reading Isaacsonā€™s biography on Einstein at the moment and Einstein loved Mozart and the reason he loved Mozart was because of simplicity. Youā€™ve actually just identified that as well, with the Zulu street guitar and the simplicity of your own processes. Isaacson says that simplicity is genius, or that was what Einstein was trying to get across. Does that resonate with you?

Yes, it does. Simplicity ā€“ the way I see it is this. Simplicity backed up by huge complexity or huge gravitas is genius. When you see a sketch by Picasso or a composition by Philip Glass, or Elon Musk talking about SpaceX ā€“ he talks about it in a very simple language but itā€™s backed by such depth. For me that defines genius so, yes, I would agree. For me, if I hear somebody talking about a subject that they can explain very simply in very few words and you understand it completely ā€“ it means theyā€™re a master of that. When somebody over-complicates an explanation, it means they donā€™t quite know what theyā€™re talking about. Thatā€™s my observation.

I think Warren Buffett is probably another very good example for you. Just to close off with, before we finish off, where your tour is going to be going to. Classical music ā€“ do you ever listen to that?

Yes, I do a lot. Mainly because it doesnā€™t have drums. My ears are tired of drums so, I love Mozart, I love Chopin, I love Stockhausen, I love Stravinsky ā€“ Iā€™ve got a wide appreciation of classical music.

Whatā€™s on your phone, the music that you have on your phone? What would your most played be?

I go through phases where I listen to an artist a lot. Right now, Iā€™m listening to Bob Dylan a whole lot. Just a whole array of all his albums and Iā€™m just loving it. Then Iā€™ll move from that to Nine Inch Nails or David Bowie or Fela Kuti, or Salif Keita. I like any music as long as itā€™s good. I love the new Justin Bieber album. Itā€™s unbelievable. Itā€™s genius ā€“ thatā€™s genius.

From Barry van Zyl’s seat. Johnny Clegg playing at Hammersmith as part of his final tour.

Thereā€™s a lot of new music for me to listen to but just to finish off with. Your next leg of the tour. Youā€™ve finished here in London, sell-out houses. Were you surprised at the enthusiasm?

No, I wasnā€™t surprised because weā€™ve done 12 shows back home. We did 2 in CT, one in Durban, 4 in Johannesburg and then we went back to Johannesburg and did 3 more, which became 5 more. So, the demand has been growing. As Johnnyā€™s fans realise theyā€™re not going to see him again they went crazy to buying tickets. I expected London to sell-out and be robust. The one interesting thing for me was that the SA crowds in London are normally very noisy and very boisterous. Itā€™s lovely but itā€™s like being in a rugby match ā€“ theyā€™re very much in your face. For these 2 shows, they were comparatively subdued. It was almost like they were taking in the emotion of the event and not being as vocal as they had been in the past.

It was respectfulness?

Yes, respectful and wanting to retain every single word. It was very interesting.

So, from here youā€™ve got a show in Dubai and then off to the United States to close, well just about, Johnnyā€™s career.

Yes, weā€™re doing shows around America and Canada, just the big cities. Then I believe thereā€™s Australia, France, Germany, and Switzerland still on the cards. Then weā€™ll close off in Johannesburg, I believe. Thereā€™s also a very exciting show, Iā€™m not sure if Iā€™m supposed to talk about it, but itā€™s the 11th November thereā€™s going to be a big show in Johannesburg. I donā€™t think itā€™s confirmed yet but itā€™s looking like itā€™s going to be an event not to be missed.

11/11/17.

Exactly.

Barry, itā€™s been great talking.

Thanks, Alec. Thanks for having me.

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