Beating the biscuit tins ends with a date at Sage
Aug 26 2010 by David Whetstone, The Journal
HE has come a long way from banging biscuit tins. DAVID WHETSTONE talks to celebrated drummer Asaf Sirkis ahead of a North East gig
THE percussionist Asaf Sirkis traces his musical interest back to when he was 12 years old and really, really wanted to play ... the bass guitar.
“But I was living in Israel at the time and it’s a very small place and there wasn’t a great awareness of bass guitar. I couldn’t find a teacher or even a place to buy one.
“I had a neighbour who was a drummer who lived a couple of floors beneath where we were living. I would go to look at his drums and play a little bit.
“It was great. Then I started to play all sorts of things, like biscuit tins.”
This conjures up a wonderful image of the noisiest block of flats in Israel, with some residents living with a drummer below and a rookie biscuit tin basher above.
But Asaf puts me straight. “When I started playing the drums we were living somewhere else.”
He went to a teacher in his home town for 18 months, at which point his father began to realise that his son was really serious about this.
The young Asaf graduated to one of the country’s best teachers and stayed with him for four or five years. But this new teacher took some winning over.
“He didn’t really believe that I was going to become a drummer but I was very persistent and really wanted it, obviously. I was ready to work hard and persuade him I was a much better drummer than I actually was.”
Persistence paid off. During his teacher’s regular telephone progress reports to Asaf’s father, the tone changed from sceptical to convinced.
“I loved the drums so much,” recalls Asaf.
“I didn’t care about anything else.”
Nowadays Asaf Sirkis is most closely associated in this region with jazz, having performed with North East jazz saxophonist Tim Garland and under the Schmazz label at The Cluny in Newcastle.
