Freedom and expression. These are the things that matter most to Billie Davies, who has used the drums as a means to express herself freely for more than 40 years now.
For Davies, seeking freedom is a purpose, a way of life. It stems from her days among bohemian communities in southern France, living in a DIY RV and playing music in the streets, where she shaped her chops early on, playing by herself or along manouche and blues musicians.
There is no formal schooling in Davies’ playing—her technique she built playing around different places and different people. She moved from the heavy, fast swing of the gypsy music she practiced in France, to the more modern struts of the cool bop scene in the U.S., managing to crunch in a transitional phase in Greece, where she played what she amusingly refers to as “their sexy music.”
Noé Cugny 