Musically inclined: a Q&A with Drew Schiavi

By Adrian St.Onge on April 4, 2023

Most of us love major events. Whether it’s a sporting event like an Oilers game, or for Drew Schiavi, over 280 music concerts, there’s a certain sense of community that goes along with it. You would think that after blogging about music for nearly 20 years, across thousands of albums, the fire would extinguish, but for Drew, he says he’s only getting started.

Adrian St.Onge: Drew, thank you for taking the time to sit with me.

Drew Schiavi: No worries, man.

ASO: So, Drew, tell me what you do in relation to music.

DS: I am a semi-professional music blogger and if I dare to use the term “journalist”. I’m also a concert-goer extraordinaire.

ASO: And a novelist as well, having written two books.

DS: Eh, yeah but no. A novelist wouldn’t be accurate. That would imply fiction and, ridiculous as the stories may be, neither is fiction.

ASO: I don’t know man, I read about a couple of your concerts, and it got me thinking “hmmm, interesting.”

DS: All true. See, you got as far as Queens of the Stone Age, didn’t you?

ASO: I think, yeah, I think that was the first one that kinda made me go “woah”.

DS: That was a strange night.

ASO: Good times. Let’s jump right into it. How many concerts have you been to?

DS: Uh, I believe for factual accuracy, let me grab my concert book because it just got updated. I have been to 280 concerts.

ASO: Wow, you’re at 280 already? Last we talked, you were still in the 250 range. What is it about concerts that you love so much, outside of just going to the venues?

DS: There’s a sense of, it’s overblown to say that there’s a sense of community, but there’s a sense of community like “these are my people”. This is, even thought these aren’t a lot of people I would socialize with normally, like, these are my ilk. Everybody’s there for the same reason and it’s always a unique experience because I, you know, I love recorded music as much as the next person, and I do. But the live performance can often serve to add depth or context or entertainment to music. There’s plenty of artists whose show is entertaining whose music is not, and vice versa. There are a handful of artists I’ve seen whose music is very good and who’s live show is very bland. It’s all part of the experience. I don’t know if I have one definitive answer for what I like about concerts so much except that it’s that you’re never bored.

ASO: So at 280 concerts, you must’ve started when you were young.

DS: I actually started late relative to most people. I think everybody’s got a story about how their parents took them to see the Jonas Brothers or whatever, and I’m dating myself with that very reference, but I was already an adult by the time they came around. But everybody’s got that story about how they went to the Jonas Brothers or their parents took them to see the Spice Girls or whatever. That was never me. My first concert was Columbus Day weekend (over Canadian Thanksgiving) of 2001. That was my freshman year of college.

ASO: Wow. Who did you see?

DS: Blue Oyster Cult, long, long past the height of their power.

ASO: And how was it?

DS: It was fine. It was good, I mean, you walk into Blue Oyster Cult and how many songs do you really know? Like the average person probably knows two, maybe three Blue Oyster Cult songs. If you extend that out, if people realize “Burnin’ for You” is a Blue Oyster Cult song. So you know, for rolling in there, knowing like three songs, it was a good night out with some friends. It was kind of a “Hey, let’s go see this. It’s in town.”

ASO: Who are the top three that you’ve seen multiple times? I know you’ve seen GWAR a lot.

DS: I have. I’ve seen GWAR, I would have to count to know the exact number, but I believe it’s around 15 times. It might actually be more than that. I would have to look, but it’s certainly not less. I’m well over a baker’s dozen in GWAR at this point. It’s like seeing an old relative. I think, without looking, the only other bands I’ve seen double digit times is probably Clutch who I believe is right at 10. They’re coming around in May, so that may increase to 11 in short order. As strange as it sounds for 280, there’s nobody else that I’ve seen 10 times although it feels like I’ve seen Lamb of God 10 times because they’re always playing with someone I’d rather see, so I have to sit through Lamb of God. Number three was Slayer who I had see I think seven times. But the last time I saw them was the end of 2014 and they had turned into a traveling museum and their live show wasn’t very good at that point and I wasn’t interested in them anymore. So that number has not gone up, but if they’re not number three, they’re still close to it.

ASO: I’ve come to notice that a lot of bands when they tour will play a new album and then a couple hits. For you, are you mainly there for the hits? Are you there for the album? And I guess to build on that question, are you more interested in when, like, The Offspring did their 20th anniversary of “Americana” versus “oh look, they’re touring this new album they just released”?

DS: It totally depends on the band and the circumstances. For the most part, like anybody who’s promoting a greatest hits album, that the time to go see them because that’s when you’re going to hear like all the songs you would want to hear. There’s almost this pattern where you see a band and you know there’s, even among their hits, there’s a couple that are gonna get left off the table because all of the artists are contractually obligated to play ‘x’ number of selections from their new album before they do anything. I remember one of the times I saw Clutch, they were touring “Strange Cousins From the West” which is not a very good Clutch album, but that’s what they were touring at the time. That was the new record. They were also touring, whatever it was, the 25th anniversary or 20th anniversary of their self-titled album which is a much better album. So when they came on stage kind of without saying anything, the first thing they did was play five cuts off of “Strange Cousins From the West” and then sort of stopped and reset and started the self-titled album and played it start to finish. It’s because they have it in their contracts with various record labels and promoters and managers and that sort of thing that if you have a new album, you have to play ‘x’ number of selections from that album. So they came out, got that out of the way, and then played they set they intended to play. But more often than not, I’m there for the hits. Part of the complication is I’ve seen a lot of bands when they are sort of first starting out, so they have maybe one album or maybe a second album. A lot of them may not last longer than that. As you go through the notebook, there’s a lot of bands that are no longer together. So it gets into this gray area where it’s like the hits are sort of the album because it’s their entire catalogue. I remember specifically seeing Boston, and they played every hit you could possibly imagine over their 40 year catalogue which was great. That’s what everybody was there to see. I remember at one point, Tom Scholz who’s the only remaining original member of the band asked if they wanted to hear new music and the crowd was virtually silent. Like, that’s not what anybody was there to see. Then he was like “How about we play more old songs?” and everybody cheered. So like, it’s totally depends on the album and the artist. If I’m seeing Iron Maiden, I wanna see their old stuff. If I’m seeing Ghost, I wanna see their new stuff because their new stuff is still pretty new. It’s pretty cool and they haven’t run their course yet. But I would rather see a band play the favourites than play the one particular album.

ASO: This isn’t exclusive to metal either because you’ve been to a lot of rock concerts but also punk and rap as well, right?

DS: Yeah. Not as much punk shows as I use to in my early days. Punk has gone in a way that doesn’t appeal to me so much and that’s not good or bad, that’s just the it is. I’ve been to my fair number of rap shows and they’re a complete dice roll. The past few years it’s gotten a little better, but there was a time where a rap show was like is the performer going to be on time? How many hours late are they going to be? Are they going to perform the duration of the set or are they just gonna do a few songs and call it a night? You could really get burned by a rap show badly back in the day. I don’t know if that’s the case any longer, but there are some bad one’s out there.

ASO: What has been one the more shocking discoveries as far as bands for you where you, you know, went to see Slayer and you’re like “Oh wow, they were way better than I thought.”? Or you went to go see Clutch and somehow the opening act was way better?

DS: Way early in the concert going life, I went to see Les Claypool’s Frog Brigade. And I wasn’t a jam guy, but like Primus wasn’t touring and the time and I wanted to see Les Claypool. And the bands that opened for them was a band called Deadweight which was a three-piece band, drummer, electric violin and electric cello. They were unbelievable. They were so much better than what happened after them. I saw a double bill, but it was technically The Voodoo Glow Skulls were opening for The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Voodoo Glow Skulls were so much better than the Bosstones that it was laughable. Most famously, the one I referenced earlier was when Turbonegro opened for Queens of the Stone Age. It wasn’t that Queens of the Stone Age was bad, it’s just that I can’t begin to describe what Turbonegro was. Just know that it was beyond description, so occasionally you catch surprises like that. One of the first shows I ever got comped to go see was Cradle of Filth, and I think Arch Enemy. I went after work and by the time I got to Worcester (the venue), I was there a little bit late and missed the first band. This band called us which I didn’t think anything about because I’d never heard of them. And as I walk into the photo pit, I was just hanging out in the corner with my camera and these two dudes came out backstage and walked by me to the merch table or bar or whatever and were totally painted in like red and black wearing fake Viking fur clothing. I was like “okay, if that was this band, I need to go find out what this band is.” and I looked them up the next day after I got home and it turned out that for like the next 10 years, Turisas was my favourite band, like they were unbelievable. I sort of stumbled accidentally into this great band who recently shut down their social media account so everyone believe they may well and truly be done. They haven’t released an album in 10 years, so it’s kinda leaning that way. But yeah, you constantly go back and forth because 95 times out of 100, and I know because I’ve been to nearly 300, you go there and you get there and you’re like “I’m gonna see every band because there might be some jewel there”. And more often than not, it’s not. But like every now and again, you’ll at least catch a name on the bill that you’re like “I know that name, but I haven’t seen them. I should get there early and see what it’s about” and occasionally you catch a gem.