Hey, Banglefans!
You asked, Debbi answered! We cornered her in the middle of a recording session, and refused to leave until she told us what we wanted to know.
Brad eventually threw us out, but not before we got the Debbi dish!

Q: What was the first record you can remember playing drums along with?
Actually what comes to mind is Sgt. Pepper. There's that part in the reprise, the drum thing right before they kick in singing (sings) "…we're Sgt. Peppers' Lonely Hearts Club Band…" and I remember thinking, "wow, that's such a cool beat" and playing along to it on my brother's drum set (laughs) he had this whole set from Sears or something. I wasn't really very good at it, but I had a great time. I also remember about the same time, playing along to Linda Rondstadt's version of Heat Wave."

Q: Do you play any other instruments, aside from bass, guitar and drums?
I fiddle around on the keyboard sometimes, just for fun… when I was little, I took piano lessons…

Q: So, back at the start, why didn't you join as a keyboard player?
Well, drums seemed the right thing at the right time. You know - an opportunity presents itself, and I just took to drums naturally.

Q: Are you going to be playing guitar on any of the songs for the new album?
Yes - I'm playing acoustic on a few tracks which is exciting…

Q: Have you ever thought about playing lead guitar on any songs?
Oh, yes! Actually, I was the one who came up with the beginning riff for "Ride the Ride." It was before Vicki came in on the project, Susanna and I started working on it, and out of the blue this riff came to me. It's not exactly playing lead guitar…(laughs) but it kinda is.

Q: You reportedly once expressed interest in doing scores/soundtracks for movies. Is this something you would still like to do?
It's true that I love instrumental music and orchestrations. I think the idea of having this music behind something visual is really great. Back in the days when I had time (laughs), I'd get out my keyboard and play with my 8 track machine… I think it was more of a pipe dream… something fun and creative to do.

Q: Have you, as a band, ever tried alternative arrangements of duties within the band, and how did things go?
Well, we fool around at rehearsals sometimes. We have fun. I'll play bass (onstage sometimes). Susanna likes to get behind the drum set occasionally… it's mostly fooling around...

Q: With all the new songs the band has generated, how did you narrow down your choices? (Arm wrestle? Draw straws?)

Oh, arm wrestle of course! No, I'm kidding. We hit each other until someone passes out. No, I'm still kidding! We all sat down and made a master list of every song, went through it and evaluated each one. We discussed them, as far as where they were as individual songs, or how they fit in to the album, and through really democratic elimination, we got it down to 23. After that we did some group voting, and whittled that down to about 15 songs. Only a few of them have been heard before, and there are a couple songs from some of the different solo works we've done, but about half are completely new.

Q: Singing and playing drums is a hard task…
(interrupts laughing) YOU KNOW IT!..

Q:…I don't know which would be harder, lead or harmonies. What's the most difficult number for you to perform?
Well, it depends, usually the lead is a bit harder because sitting down cuts your breathing in half; it's really difficult to get the breath support you need. Plus all the legs and arms moving everywhere doesn't help the problem much. It's hard to find my breath sometimes!