>>JAMES GAITERS: My name is James W. Gaiters Jr. I was born in December 28, 1968 Columbus Ohio – Grand Hospital – At the age of one my family moved to Zanesville, OH and I was raised in Zanesville. I went to Zainesville High School, graduated from Zanesville High School and moved back to Columbus to go to Ohio State in 1987. I've been here ever since. The memories I have of early education, my mom was a stay-at-home mom and she was very, very educated. She studied here at Ohio State and I have a kind of a bragging story on my mom. She was a gifted student and she came to Ohio State as a gifted student for high school. She went to Ohio State for high school at Ramseyer Hall. Yeah, and she graduated when she was 16. She skipped two grades. She was always into you know keeping ABCs around the house. We grew up on Sesame Street and Electric Company and things like that you know. There wasn't a lot of – you know -- I don't want to sound like I'm old but there wasn't a lot of fluff back then like there is on T.V. now But if the T.V. was on, it was either Electric company of Sesame Street that I can remember. Of course on Sundays it was the Christian programming. That's pretty much. My father's a big proponent for Sunday school. And so I was talking to my daughter on the way over here and we were laughing about falling asleep in class. In school class. Okay? And she was laughing a story about how I used to sleep in Sunday School. They were calling me and I would wake up and I would have the answer to the question. For some reason, I just knew all of the answers to all of the questions. You talk about Bible reading, Bible memorization. That was a big part of our education even to the point where I would come here, I would come to Columbus in the summer time and my Grandfather was a pastor of a big church here in town – Church of Christ Apostolic Faith – it was one of the major churches here. This one particular summer I came to Sunday School and for some reason I ended up on the High School class. I wasn't supposed to. I was a little guy and I was answering all the questions in the Sunday School class. You know that goes to show you I mean it wasn't so much that it good. It was just a way of life. We were at the Bible and whatever answer come out, you know. What I have my favorite now is Philippians 2:13 "but it is God who worketh in you to do his good pleasure" and I take that scripture personally for myself as well as loved ones that even in our worst state we have the Holy spirit living on the inside of us and there is hope that he can change us because as a person I can't change you at all but that's why He gave us the Holy Spirit so we could be where we need to be. When I was younger Psalm 23 we had to memorize that. That's one of the chapters that come to mind. And then a constant favorite of mine is what is called the Pentateuch the first five books of the Bible I'm crazy about Genesis through Joshua. I'm a structure kind of a person. You know when I came to Ohio State I studied architecture. >>INTERVIEWER: Oh, Okay. >>JAMES GAITERS: I've always been fascinated with structure and boundaries, skeletons, you know why do things operate the way they do? You know why does the building stand up? You know you tell me something – why you tellin me that. You understand what I mean. My mom used to get upset with me because I would take things apart all the time you know when I was little and never put em back together. >>INTERVIEWER: [Laughs] >>JAMES GAITERS: So yeah that's I'd agree. My mom studied piano at Capital Conservatory and she was a concert pianist. She studied from very little and so music has always been around the house. Always. When we were little she was constantly practicing, constantly readin, doing her exercises stay tuned, you know. Being a pastor's wife there was a lot of gospel tunes around the house. So along with the classical influence there was the back beat influence. I just found myself ..I don't remember but they say like 5 years old I was playin the drums. You know they bought me a set for Christmas and I've been that way ever since, you know, I just played. She insisted on formal training for myself as well as the other siblings. So well my brother and my two sisters we all had to take piano lessons. I had to study drums. I couldn't just play. You know I had to get some structure. That's pretty much it. I've been playin ever since. In grade school it was band but they didn't call it band. It was just people playin together. I studied snare drum. Junior High I got into marching band and high school I thought I was an athlete and I stopped playin in the band. I was in choir number one because of pretty girls because I thought that it's an easy A. I've been a musician all my life. I'm just now in the last two or three years beginning to appreciate the value of even my gift. I play all the time, right? And so, Okay you know I play drums. I play music. Okay I play this gig. I'll do that. No I don't want to do that. But I'm now in a position of minister of music at our church. It's an awesome opportunity to teach. I know music makes people feel good. You know what I mean? I don't know the clinical benefits of music. I know that there are therapeutic methods and things like that. I've had friends who studied music therapy. I used to clown my music teacher just so bad in high school. You know because the structure is so boring and I used to think aww I can do that you know. And I would do it, and whatever but its ÑI would look at it like this. If I were a music teacher its an awesome opportunity to impact a person's life because so many people appreciate music and that's an inward into a lot you know. I believe that if there's one thing that is a mission of mineÑmy mission is to help people. I'm working on focusing thatÑ you know that's a broad thought. But I know I play well. I have something to say. I recognize the positive influence and I think that I'm shooting in the right direction when it comes to the benefit of the music education. You know everybody's not gonna get to go out on the road and not everybody's gonna get to make a record or even teach music class, but at least its an opportunity to connect with other people, you know. You know I'm still learning. I guess my wake up call came kind of late. Maybe I'm a late bloomer. Maybe that's why I look so young, I don't know. Could be. >>INTERVIEWER: [Laughs] Could be! >>JAMES GAITERS: you know I'm coming off of you know a music sabbatical. I was burned out and I stopped playing for about 6 years. Yeah. And I believe I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I was doing it just because. I thought I wanted to be a music star. I wanted to be a rock star and the whole shebang. And that's obviously not my lot in life because the more I play the more I didn't want to play. I got tired of the pats on the back and running here, running there. You know it some people like that but it gets old. You know what purposeÑpurpose is paramount. Whatever it is we do. I look at music as life and if there's one thing I did do as a musician I played like it was my last time I was gonna play. And I think that's how we should approach anything that we do. You know so my second chance or my third chance to do whatever I missed the first time I have a totally different perspective. I think my home base I'm blessed to have that appreciation for what I do have. The music would get and the means of expression so it look different the second time around. I play drums and you know what's great? My parents made me playÑpiano. They didn't make me play drums. Its just that for whatever reason they bought me a drum set and let me play. And I totally rebelled against piano. So drums was my instrument. I want to play piano so bad. You see me tapping on my thumbs. I mean I learned to play and all that and learned to read, but to sit down and play something it would take a while to figure out because I haven't developed that thing. But I'm slowly getting back into playing drums again. I direct the choir and now I'm slowly getting back into playing bass guitar. It's been about 25 years since I played the bass. I would like to do more administrative, but I'm... >>INTERVIEWER: You mean then write yourself? >>James Gaiters: A little bit of everything. Since I'm kind of like the first one of my kind. A traditional minister of music in our circle of churches is someone who does a lot of playing and singing and directing and stuff like that. I think that for greater growth the director needs to delegate and employ other gifts and talents to bring the thing together. I do direct now. I do play now. I do sing now, but I'm looking forward to other people stepping up and offering their voice. I'm a jazz musician. Like and everybody does what they do. You solo and back off and let somebody else solo. There's a story about John Coltrane. Do you know who John Coltrane is? There's a story about him. He Ñsomebody transcribed a solo of his transcribed his Giant Step solo and brought it to him to see. They were real excited and they showed it to him. He said that's nice. I'll probably never play that again. There's something about Jazz that's so far over there. You never do the same thing twice. It's without thought. It's just Okay I'm going to play tonight. They don't teach you how to improvise but they teach you a vocabulary. Okay? Based on your ABCs you have this whole its just that simple. It's a language. >>INTERVIEWER: So you learn stuff to fit together, kind of? They teach you like pieces and you fit it together the way you want to. >>JAMES GAITERS: Uh huh, technically. You know I understand what you're sayin but that's like we're just talkin right here and we could have this same conversation and I never learned to read or write because I've learned a language and I am able to communicate with it. I was in Japan with a band and they called it standard blues and we played and if you closed your eyes you could never know that you were playing in Japan. You probably couldn't read his and I couldn't read his paper but we spoke the same language so it's just a vocabulary type thing and vocabulary style and intuitionÑlogic. >>INTERVIEWER: you mentioned you had a daughter. Are you considering raising her the way your parents raised you? >>JAMES GAITERS: Wo, oh! You know I ÑyeahÑyou know but as you can see I'm a talker. I got some spankins and they get spankins. Let me show my wallet. I have two sons and two daughters. >>INTERVIEWER: Okay. >>JAMES GAITERS: I have a grandson. I told you I'm an old man. I don't remember my parents talking to me as much as I talk to them. You know and now looking at my mother, well both my parents relationship. I think they were kind of afraid to talk to me or to all of us like I talk to our kids. I tell my oldest daughter you know use your intelligence to diffuse ignorance. Let's talk first. Let's Ñthere's a lot of stupid stuff. I can do something stupid and you can say something stupid you know let's hold on for a second. My upbringing was good but I think I'm seein places I can improve. The middle girl, she's a musician. She plays piano because she wants to. >>INTERVIEWER: [Laughs] >>JAMES GAITERS: She cannot walk by the piano without touching it. She's gorgeous. >>INTERVIEWER: Any sesame street electric avenue? >>JAMES GAITERS: Sesame street. Oh man. School house rock. You remember that? >>INTERVIEWER: Yes I do. >>JAMES GAITERS: Mr. Rodgers too. >>INTERVIEWER: Oh, Mr. Rodgers. >>JAMES GAITERS: Mr. Rodgers was awesome. >>INTERVIEWER: He was awesome. And the train was amazing. >>JAMES GAITERS: Yeah. You remember Mr. Rodgers? Cause my Dad says he remembers when T.V. first came out and he said that there was one T.V. on his street for a long, long time and everybody used to go watch.