Musician/ Drummer
Freelance

Nathan ‘Tuggy’ Curran

00:00:02 (BEATS DRUM STICKS)

00:00:07 My name’s Nathan Curran, aka Tugg, a lot of people know me as Tugg as well, and I’m a professional session drummer. My main band’s Basement Jaxx, I’ve worked with Lady Sovereign, KLO, James Morrison, lots of different bands, but the main one is definitely Basement Jaxx.

00:00:24 (BEATS DRUMSTICKS)

00:00:30 Glastonbury 2005, when Basement Jaxx head-lined the main stage on the closing night, that was definitely a glory point. It’s like 80,000 people just going absolutely mental. Because it was the last day as well, and it was just such a buzz.

00:00:48 When Basement Jaxx was just finishing their tour in 2004, I walked up to Lady Sovereign’s dressing room, because she was supporting us. And I knew she didn’t have a drummer, but I knew that I had to get some more work in for next year. So I just cheekily knocked on her door, said – you guys are brilliant, but you really need a live drummer in your band. Gave them my phone number, got the phone call two weeks later, and then got the tour with her. So it’s having the confidence to go and do that, knocking on the dressing room door thing, you know.

00:01:17 Well when I was very, very young I loved my football and I loved, you know, I loved BMXing and break dancing and all that kind of thing. And then got a drum kit and that was it. That was all I wanted to do, was play the drums, and that’s all I could envision myself doing. Basically I’d been listening to some Cream records and I’d been playing along on cases with knitting needles. And I was like – then my Mum and Dad was just like – we’ve got to get him a drum kit. And my Dad was like, well we need to get him better drum lessons, so that’s when he started to drive me down from Norfolk to Acton, once a fortnight, to have lessons for two hours.

00:01:54 I wasn’t really like bright at school, I just liked sort of drums, so that was kind of the story with the school. I hated the music, there because it was all classical music. I didn’t feel it was, you know, suited to me. I used to go home and do two hours of practice, and that was the thing, I always used to wait and you know look forward to getting home to do it, you know, instead of my homework I’d do two hours’ drumming instead.

00:02:20 My Dad used to take me all round doing talent shows, when I was about 11, 12 years old, doing 15 minute drum solos. It sounds terrible now, but they used to have all these talent shows. Well I used to win quite a few prizes, and used to spend the money on buying new drum kits and stuff, so the house – at one point we had like 5 drum kits in the house.

00:02:42 There was a great opportunity for me to go and study at the West London Institute. It was weird, I left school at 15, so I had to like make the decision to move down to London, and that was quite, you know, severe going from Norwich – to go into this big college where they, you know, where they were doing music for two years. So I did that

00:03:02 Basically I answered this advert in Melody Maker for a band – this band called Beautiful People. And they had a tour all booked, they had – and they were looking for a drummer, and I was like – I’m gonna ring them and see what’s going to happen. And I got into the band, and I went off on tour while everyone was sort of at college, finishing their exams. And that was it really, I kind of left college before I even finished my exams.

00:03:30 It was a great band, I was with them for six years. We managed to do quite some good stuff, we supported Oasis on their first major tour, the Definitely Maybe album. I mean we got slated every night, I mean we were a support band, the kids were throwing cans of Stella at us, they weren’t interested. But they actually personally – Noel Gallagher personally asked for us to do the gig.

00:03:51 I think I could see myself doing some teaching actually. I’ve just kind of got to a certain stage where I’m like – I know what’s the good – the good gig is, and I don’t want to go back to doing the really bad gigs. And I love teaching as well, I like – I teach children as well how to play the drums, and that’s a great vibe. ‘Cause I kind of see a little bit of myself being a child growing up playing drums. I think I’d get a vibe off of doing that, definitely.

00:04:18 My family really, you know, encouraged me, they didn’t push me. I owe a lot to my Mum and Dad, definitely. Unfortunately my Dad’s not here anymore, so – but yeah, he’d like it seeing this interview I suppose.

00:04:32 ENDS