The majority of my training was as a drummer, and drummers are basically accompanists.

Every once in a while I'll find a new way of playing something, it will suggest itself. But generally speaking, there's a set sonic potential, and that's in concert with a set instrumental technique.

Some of the stainless steel discs that I play, I cut myself from pieces of stainless steel that I found. I don't make as many as I used to, because you can't get into surplus and scrap yards as easily anymore.

I really like accompanying. I like working with vocalists, I've worked with a lot of poets.

I've always been interested in finding out more about the properties of acoustics.

I started working with synthesizer players, and I had to find new instruments. I needed a more complex sound, so I went to a surplus place and got a bunch of hard plastic stuff and stainless steel stuff, and that stuff worked. So from that point on, from the 70s on, I've made instruments.

In L.A., I called every scrap yard and surplus place that was listed, about 50 or 60 places, and only at one of them did the owner get intrigued and let me go around the yard to find stuff. Because the insurance regulations are such that you can't go into the places anymore.