Ralph Rolle Opens up About Drumming, Food, and Afrika Bambaataa (2016)

The term ‘disco biscuits’ takes on a whole new meaning as Nile Rodgers’ drumming pal Ralph Rolle graces the Theatre of Food at Electric Picnic. Interview Stuart Clark

We thought we’d seen pretty much everything at Stradbally but, nope, Ralph Rolle will score a Picnic first on the Sunday when he conducts a joint drum and baking masterclass in the Theatre Of Food. When not in funky Chic beatmeister mode, Ralph gets up every morning at five o’clock, dons his cook’s whites and goes to work at the Soul Snacks Cookie Company he’s been running in the Bronx since 1996.

Using centuries’ old family recipes passed on to him by his grandma, Ralph’s individually wrapped Down Home Double Chocolate Chip, French Cocoa Chocolate Chip, Georgia Oatmeal Raisin, Miami Raisin Walnut, Chunked Up Chocolate Walnut, Peanut Peanut Butter Cookie, Grampy’s Chocolate/Peanut Butter Cookie, and Sweet Potato treats are not only the toast of New York City, but have also pitched up recently in Tokyo where Soul Snacks has a four-storey superstore. Next in his sights is Dublin, with Rolle actively looking for an Irish business partner.

Like his pal Nile Rodgers, Ralph has been making music since he was a nipper, with a 17-year stint as the Apollo Theater house drummer seriously honing his skills.

“Nile was in the Apollo house band before me, so we’re always swapping stories,” Rolle beams. “Working there and doing the Wednesday Amateur Night shows, in particular, was an honour because it’s such a New York tradition. The crowd boos if they don’t like you, so you’re really in the trenches! Ella Fitzgerald did it, D’Angelo did it, James Brown did it, Lauryn Hill did it… if word gets out that you’ve played the Apollo and killed it, you’re only going in one direction, which is up.”

While loath to pick a favourite, Ralph says that, “I got a massive buzz from playing with D’Angelo who was the one who started the neo soul movement. Through him I also got to drum with Erykah Badu and India Arie who are as lovely as they are talented.”

The only person who Ralph considers to be funkier than D’Angelo is Prince who he got to play with twice.

“The first time was in a New York club when, totally out of the blue, Prince just popped up on stage, grabbed a guitar and started jamming with the band I was in,” he fondly reminisces. “I remember thinking, ‘Is this really happening?’ All these years later it still seems like a dream. His sound was so rhythmic and meaty and fun. Then, years later when Chic were on before him at the New Orleans Superdome, he came out and performed ‘Let’s Dance’ with us. Man, he tore up the stage! I’ve never encountered a guy so hell-bent on entertaining the audience. Prince gave so much of himself musically.”

Rolle was an eyewitness to the birth of hip hop in the late ‘70s.

“I grew up in the same building as Afrika Bambaataa; his family’s apartment was on the first-floor, ours was on the third,” he reveals. “This was long before the Universal Zulu Nation when he was still known as Lance Taylor. His mother, who was a nurse, got the Reeves family in 2F to keep an eye on him when she was at work during the day. To keep her latch-key kid occupied she bought him a set of turntables, which he used to play out of his window facing the community centre. My mother, who was president of the tenants association, was very unimpressed. She wrote herself into hip hop history by working it out with Lance that he could play his turntables either in or outside the back of the community centre one day a week. At first it was, ‘Oh, they’re just playing records’ but gradually people realised that taking Kraftwerk’s ‘Trans Europe Express’ and turning it into something insanely danceable was an art form of its own. If you want to get down to minutes and days, Kool Herc was probably the first person to scratch with Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash and Disco King Mario in a photo-finish for second. They were the guys who lit the fuse; our Clash and Sex Pistols.”

Rolle got to kickstart a genre himself when he joined James Chance And The Contortions, the NYC no wave outfit worshipped by the likes of Trent Reznor, Franz Ferdinand and James Murphy who’s also Picnic-bound with LCD Soundsystem.

“I’m as proud of that as anything I’ve done,” he states. “My brother was eight years older than me and played everything from jazz to rock to Motown to gospel. I wanted to be like him, I listened to everything too.”

Ralph knows Stradbally well having played there twice with Chic.

“We had such a brilliant time, but then again it’s always brilliant when you’re up on stage with Nile,” he concludes. “When I got the call to be the Chic drummer, I promised myself I’d murder the gig. Nile is hilarious – he has more jokes than you could ever imagine and is an encyclopedia of everything. Seriously, I’ve yet to find a subject that he’s not well versed on.”