Phil Ehart, the drummer, producer and manager for the acclaimed rock band Kansas (‘Carry On Wayward Son,’ ‘Dust in the Wind’), gave two presentations Tuesday on the band’s history and his thoughts on the music industry. The Daily Orange sat down with him after his second presentation at the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

Daily Orange: How did your presentation at Syracuse University come about?

Phil Ehart: Well it seemed to be out of the blue. A guy named Rob Enslin (spokesperson for The College of Arts and Sciences) who works here, I knew back in Atlanta. He worked at Intersound Records that Kansas was signed to for a couple of years. He then came up here and started working at the school, and I guess they needed some industry pros to come and talk. So he gave me a call and said, ‘Would you be up for coming up here?’ So, it was really through Rob.

You said during your presentation the name Kansas simply came from your home state. Could Kansas potentially have been called anything else?

Yeah, The Kansas Blues Band was a name, White Clover was a name, Saratoga was a name – there was a number of band names, but Kansas just seemed to say so much about us, and this was before there was a Boston. Chicago was Chicago Transit Authority. There was really no bands that called themselves after a state or anything, so we thought it sounded kind of cool, and we were all from Kansas so we thought, ‘Well yeah, that’ll work.’ So, it was about that simple.

Kansas has usually been described as a progressive rock band. Would you describe the band any different?

A lot of progressive music fans don’t put us as a progressive rock band because we’ve had hit songs, and ‘if you’re really progressive you don’t have songs on the radio.’ I describe Kansas as a symphonic rock band. That kind of says it all. You got the violin, the string arrangements – we’re a symphonic rock band, and you can’t say that a lot of about other bands. So, I think that describes us the best. I’m not comfortable being in the progressive world because we’re not really like that. Those bands are like…incredible. You know what I mean? As fast as they play and the stuff that they play – I don’t put ourselves in that. I’m flattered that they put us in there, but symphonic rock band works great for us, for me.

You said during your presentation at Bowne Hall that you’re a big Foo Fighters fan. Are there any contemporary drummers that you admire?

Wow, well Taylor Hawkins who plays for Foo Fighters is really good. I like the drummer, I don’t know his name, in the Goo Goo Dolls, I think he’s a really good drummer. Contemporary drummers, I know they’re out there. That’s about it for me right now.

What does the future look like for Kansas?

We’re just really looking forward to doing these symphonic shows, and then doing the DVD next year for our 35th anniversary, which will bring probably other old members back in to do songs and stuff. It’ll be a retrospective of 35 years of what we’ve done so we’re looking forward to that.

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Published on March 18, 2008 at 12:00 pm