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" I was a jazz drummer, and it was my life for a while: what I lived and breathed every day. "

Damien Chazelle

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" People like Art Blakey and Buddy Rich, you look at them playing music, and it's just like looking at a heavy metal drummer. I mean, they're playing with the same amount of ferocity. It's not to say all jazz is like that. "

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" By the end of high school, I had this fork-in-the-road moment where part of me considered going to vocational music school to really pursue it. "

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" There are a lot of musicians in my life. But movies came first for me. That was my original passion. "

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" My motivation for being a good drummer was born out of fear, which, in a way, seems so antithetical to what art should be. "

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" I was a kid living in New Jersey, who - I'd wanted to make movies since I was a little kid, so that came before music for me. But I started playing drums just as a hobby, and I wasn't even really into jazz that much. "

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" As a drummer, you're always fighting for a level that you never quite attain. "

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