Recently, I spent a windy Saturday morning with Kenny D and Pat Lydon on a photo shoot for their new band, CRASH CART. Afterwards, I sat down with Kenny to learn a little bit more about their collaboration.
CRASH CART are, left to right, Kenny D and Pat Lydon.
How did you meet?
We met in the San Fernando Valley growing up as kids in junior high. Pat built a recording studio, and so that is where I and others hung out after school & sometimes even during school..haha! Pat recorded the very 1st session of me in the studio playing right-handed drums. I was a left-handed drummer all my life and switched to right-handed, cause every kit I got on was right-handed, even when attending music school at Dick Grove School of Music, which is where I officially switched to playing right-handed.
What made you decide to start a band?
Well we we’re not getting any younger, so now was a better time if any to start. We wanted to have a place for our music to be heard besides ourselves, cause we’ve been making music since 2009, mostly doing it for fun and we really never thought once about calling ourselves a real band until now. Cause when you see a band, it’s usually not 2 dudes.
Previously, I’ve played independently, and with a couple of other bands. I toured the world w/Snoop Dogg as the band’s drum technician, and also drum teched for Enrique Iglesias, and many others.
Pat has been in a zillion bands, and has recorded, engineered, and produced tons of bands, as well as music for TV. At one time, Pat was consumed playing in 5 different L.A. bands at the same time, a couple of noteworthy ones being “Kiss The Monkey” and “Lost Breed”. Pat was also 1st asked to play bass for Rage Against The Machine, but turned them down.
Who are your influences?
We both have a lot of different influences. Pat’s are Led Zeppelin, Talking Heads, Primus, Elvis Costello, Opeth, and Mastodon.
Mine are a variety of Metal, Funk, R&B, Jazz, Rock, Hip Hop, Gospel, Afro-Beat, Punk, Latin, or anything new or that hasn’t been heard.
My 1st influence was The Jackson 5. That’s where I used to grab my dad’s tambourine and started shaking it to “ABC” at 5 yrs old. In the 70’s, my parents had a lot of parties and I was exposed to a lot of R&B, Motown, Santana, Bob Dylan, The Beatles. As a kid, I grew up in the house where Iron Butterfly lived in, and had Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna as our next store neighbors, so I was always surrounded by great music. There isn’t really anything I won’t listen to, I always like to keep my ears open and never hold back to music, even if it’s not good, I still learn new “do’s” and “dont’s” about it. I’m generally influenced by artists that can change the world, give social awareness, and uplift the human spirit. Artists like Speech & Arrested Development, Kirk Franklin, Bob Marley, Fela Kuti and son Seun Kuti. I also respect artists that represent the working class, like Bruce Springsteen, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger just to name a few. I also dig what Tom Morello was doing with The Nightwatchman & now Springsteen.
How did the name CRASH CART come about?
By flook all of the sudden! Just recently Pat says to me, “Hey, I got a cool name for a band, CRASH CART. We should start a band”. I asked him, what the heck is a crash cart? When he told me, I found myself staring at one for the very 1st time the following day while my mother was hospitalized and all most died. So when I saw that, it made sense, it was a sign from above that it was meant to be.
What comes next?
We will be working on more music in the studio and hope maybe to play a few shows. It would be great to play & meet some new CRASH CART fans!
Cool! Sounds great!
