Breaking Cool Hand Luke
(Published in The Berkeley Beacon)
Breaking Cool Hand Luke
(Published in The Berkeley Beacon)
At a Cut The Kids In Half show, it’s common to become transfixed, damn near hypnotized, by Jack Silver as he thrashes a head of wild, red curls. In fact, every weekend, scores of Bostonians flood into cramped basements all across Allston just to get a look at him. Or they come for his brother, Charlie Silver. Or for Joey Sorkin or Kevin Mortenson. But there are some, like me, who find themselves unable to focus on anything other than their expressionless drummer with the dark-tinted shades.
They call him Cool Hand Luke.
Luke Tan is rarely ever seen without these two accessories. Even when he’s deep in the pocket, he’s always got that fabulously stoic look and a pair of jet black sunglasses. The overall effect renders him totally unreadable, untouchable— the unknown variable in Boston’s buzzing underground. Naturally, I’ve made it my mission to break him.
I know there’s more to Luke than he’s letting on. He’s a Harvard man, totally calm under pressure, and just about the fliest drummer in the greater Boston area. There’s got to be something beyond that slick poker face— A live wire humming beneath all that ice.
If I’m actually going to corner this guy, I figure I should have some decent backup. I’ve enlisted two members of the band, briefing them on my holy quest. They seem all too eager to oblige.
“Good luck,” Charlie Silver laughs, “Shit, I’ve been trying to break that kid for 6 years.”
Tonight, Cut The Kids In Half are performing at Luxurious Brighton Manor— a misnomer if there ever was one. The “Manor” is, in reality, one of those classic subterranean dens; A tightly packed hive of less-than-legal live music. I’m already late—largely due to the Green Line, and only in small part to the handful of drinks I took down at Rock Bottom an hour before. It was a necessary precaution. I needed something to steel my nerves before I came face to face with Cool Hand Luke in the flesh. I’m expecting a real fight from the kid, a field test of my own journalistic chops.
The show is just starting up when I arrive, which may well be for the best. It allows me the cover of darkness to install myself near the back wall. From this vantage, I can just spot his deadpan. Now and again, I catch a glimpse of those tinted shades, flashing over the cymbals. But already something isn’t right. I’ve got a prickling feeling all up my back, and I don’t know why.
Could it be possible? Am I imagining it? In a basement venue, packed to the gills with scenesters, it seems unthinkable, but there’s no denying it now. The unreadable face of Cool Hand Luke is looking directly at me! All at once, the picture becomes clear. I’ve been made! Compromised! Cool Hand Luke knew I was coming. One of the bandmates must have told him (This is why you can never fully trust a musician).
As alarmed as I am to have been spotted, Cool Hand Luke keeps on playing without betraying any signs of distress. Behind his drums, he is veritably invincible. It’s eerie to see such a skilled drummer looking so terrifically bored. At the height of the band's hit number “Mountains of Green,” I actually catch him gazing lazily at the small basement window. Breaking through that kind of calm is going to be a tall order. As the band finishes their set, I start preparing myself for the bout of the century.
Wordlessly, we both shuffle out into a cold February night. Cool Hand Luke knows this is where we’ve been headed since the start. We’re totally alone, each of us waiting for the first move to be made. It’s all quiet for a moment or two before I realize the ball is quite obviously in my court.
“Charlie says he’s been trying to figure you out for years,” I say, gently testing the waters.
Cool Hand Luke shrugs a little.
“There’s not that much to figure out, really.”
It’s a perfectly innocent answer, but he says it sheepishly, in a voice devoid of any coldness. This is the next curveball of the night. Cool Hand Luke’s defenses are non-existent, melting away almost instantly.
Luke tells me that he’s known Charlie Silver since eighth grade at Wardlaw + Hartridge, a 36-acre prep school located in Edison, New Jersey, just 22 miles south of Newark. This would be the place where Cut The Kids In Half formed its early lineup and began recording their debut album, What We Became.
But Luke had been playing the drums for years by that point. When he was in third grade, a drummer visited his elementary school for a demonstration, and from then on, Luke was hooked. Drums just made sense to him. If he hit something… it made a sound. He makes it sound so simple.
“Mostly I just didn’t want to read notes,” Luke grins.
Before joining Cut The Kids In Half, Luke was the drummer for his high school jazz band. He also frequently performed in the orchestra pit for local musicals. For Cool Hand Luke, being in a rock band has been the real learning curve. It’s no wonder. Cutting one’s teeth in classrooms and concert halls has to be about the farthest you can get from the atavistic world of Boston’s underground rock scene.
I’ve got to ask… “How’d you get that nickname?”
Again, Cool Hand Luke grins, almost blushing.
“We were in rehearsal one day, and Jack kept telling me I need to rock out more,” he explains, “Even when we were recording stuff in the studio, our producer had to be like ‘stop playing jazz and really hit the drums.’”
But that’s not how Luke rolls. Cool Hand Luke, like Paul Newman’s famous character, is nothing if not consistent.
“I think eventually Jack gave up and said… fine… You can just be cool.”
I’ll admit that, by now, I am a bit confused. What sort of sick trick is this? Cool Hand Luke isn’t cold-blooded at all. If anything, he’s a total sweetheart. He’s got a genuine shyness to him that makes his laconic answers all the more endearing. He’s real. He’s human. At this point, I figure there’s no need to play games anymore.
“What’s your life philosophy?”
Luke thinks for a second— and only just a second.
“It’s not that hard,” he replies.
What did I expect? Here’s a kid who’s simultaneously balancing an environmental science degree at Harvard and rocking out on the weekends, and all he has to say is, it's not that hard. I suppose it’s a pretty profound answer. Cool Hand Luke is healthy. He is self assured.
After some more thought, Cool Hand Luke shrugs again and says, “You know… Just do your best. Have fun. Hit some drums.”
Enough said. We both seem to understand that this is where our conversation ends. Cool Hand Luke ducks back into the basement where another band is starting their sound check, and I watch him go, distantly amused by what has been a total failure of an assignment. I haven’t broken Cool Hand Luke. I haven’t even come close. He leaves just as he came into this interview, and I’m left with the residual traces of that strange calmness— that it’s-not-that-hard conviction. Luke is unbroken… mostly.
Just before disappearing into the gloom, Luke Tan turns back and shakes his head at me, “You know, sometimes I really start to wonder about this whole character I embody.”