I understand that you’re also a big fan of Phil Collins, as a drummer.

I love his drumming and I’m not afraid to admit that I like those first few [post Peter Gabriel] Genesis albums that he put out, even Abacab! As Genesis’ drummer I think he’s phenomenal and not really talked about enough. He’s just such a great, well-rounded drummer.

I think you also said that a lot of people only think of him as "the guy that ruined Genesis," or know him as a jacket-and-tie lounge singer rather than a great, innovative drummer.

Absolutely. When I go out and talk to people about Phil Collins and Stevie Wonder being my two favorite drummers, their mouths pretty much hit the floor.

So many people don’t even know that Stevie Wonder played drums on his own albums.

Yeah, I know. That was the fist instrument that he picked up. When his mother took him to Barry Gordy’s office, he had a set of drums and he just started playing them. He’s probably my top favorite musician along with Peter Gabriel and David Bowie.

There’s so much jazz influence in your playing, and I know your primary jazz influences are guys like Elvin, Billy Cobham and Tony Williams.

Those are the top three, yeah. I like how they move around the kit.

Do you think it’s important for metal players to also study jazz?

I never studied it, but I think as a musician you should listen to everything, in general. If you play jazz, you should listen to metal. If you play metal you should listen to jazz. If you play country you should listen to classical, you know what I mean? If you’re playing music at all you should know what you’re talking about when you go into any situation or setting that’s musical, so you know what people are throwing at you if you go to play with somebody. Then you have it in the back of your head of what goes with what. You should have a general knowledge of all different kinds of music. There’s a gem in every genre that’s out there. You’ve just got to look for it. Usually if a lot of people talk about it and it’s a classic artist, like Willie Nelson, then something Willie did is going to be awesome. You never know: it might not speak to you now but it will probably speak to you later.

I just think that when you’re younger you may have a tendency to be a bit more closed-minded, but [you should] never say never to a certain style of music. Even if you don’t like it, you should know something about it. I don’t get many opportunities to get deeply into conversation with younger kids [who are players], but I wish I could. When I was thirteen or fourteen, I listened to a lot of thrash and I wasn’t able at that point to admit that I was listening to other stuff at home. I was, but I was just trying to be cool.