Joey Baron has been one of my biggest heroes since my teenage years. I saw him live for the first time in 2004 with John Abercrombie’s quartet at the Domicil in Dortmund and I’ll never forget this concert! During that time I was listening a lot to Abercrombie’s quartet album “Class Trip” and John Taylor’s record “Rosslyn” (my favorite JT album). There are so many records I love that feature his infectious drumming… too many to name them all. Also, I went to see Joey’s fantastic band “Killer Joey” lots of times when they came to play in Cologne, which was always a memorable experience, to say the least. He’s one of my all time favorite musicians for sure!!

I was amazed of how open Joey was to share all of his memories and to give insights into his process. And he was so generous with this time: After two hours of talking to him I said: “I hope you know that you don’t HAVE to keep talking to me! We can stop if you like, OK?” He just smiled and see “No it’s fine, I made time for this” – we kept on talking for another two hours!!