How Blondie's Clem Burke altered the course of Fred Armisen's life

From the moment Fred Armisen first laid eyes on Clem Burke — rocking out on Saturday Night Live with his Beatles haircut and big, red drums — his life was forever changed.

Burke, the iconic Blondie drummer, has died at the age of 70 after what his band called "a private battle with cancer."

Unlike many other drummers of his time, Armisen says Burke was larger than life, never taking a backseat to his bandmates.

Armisen — an actor, comedian and, of course, drummer — says Burke was not only his idol, but also his friend. Here is part of his conversation with As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal.

When you close your eyes and you think of Clem Burke behind that kit, what do you see?

I see him at a more recent concert, a Blondie show I saw at the Greek Theatre [in Los Angeles], where I got to sit on the side of the stage, so I had a sort of side angle focused on him. And he was playing with such fervour that he almost looked like he was dancing as he was playing the drums.

On your social media post, you called it "relentlessly exciting," his kind of drumming.

Yeah, he never hung back and just sort of disappeared away from the song. Like, it really felt relentless. It felt like the drums were, like, right in front of you.

When did he first enter your life?

In 1979, when I was a kid, I saw him on Saturday Night Live.... They do the song Dreaming, and the camera pulls out from his kick drum. As opposed to, with a lot of bands, you just get a sort of wide shot of everyone in the band.

The rest of the band are, of course, you know, incredible, and Debbie Harry, of course, is the lead vocal. But there was something about that messaging. It's almost like the camera person was saying, like, "OK, but check out the drums."

For me, as a kid … there's something about his red drum kit and the way he was dressed and the way he was moving that was brand new to me. Even though it was like an echo, to him, of the '60s, I didn't know what that meant. I was like, what is this fashion? … Like, what is this version of drumming?

It really set me off to wanting to be a drummer. It was really like: Aw man, that's exactly what I want to be.

You wrote that you used his signature sticks at the SNL 50 show. What does it feel like to use those signature sticks and play?

Because he had health issues, Blondie couldn't play. But Blondie is, to me, such a huge part of SNL. So I was like, OK, Clem Burke should be here.

I was, like, what if I use his signature sticks? There's a version, you know, where it's like at least he's represented.

I took a picture of the sticks and I sent it to him to be like, "Hey, just so you know, I used your sticks." He answered back, and that was really meaningful for me. I wanted him to know that he was there.

And what did he say, if you're comfortable sharing?

He was really, really happy. And then as I was telling people that, like, "Hey, I did that," they knew because he showed them the photo. So that made me happy. It really did.

He was like a walking, excited encyclopedia of pop and punk. It was the best.- Fred Armisen on Clem Burke

What was he like to hang out with?

Aw, man! He was the best!

He was, like, everything you wanted from a person because he was a music nerd. He was a fan. And so you couldn't talk about anything without him having more details about it — about records, about what records were hits. Like, he really kept track. He was like a walking, excited encyclopedia of pop and punk. It was the best.

I got to play with him, too. I did some shows as this character I did from SNL doing British punk, and he was the drummer, so I got to play music with him.

Were you flipping out? Were you nervous? I mean, you know how to keep cool. You perform. You're a seasoned live performer. But, I mean, this is Clem Burke.

It's the weirdest thing. It's actually like a mix of knowing somebody so well without him realizing it. Like, I knew his drumming so well that it made perfect sense to me. So it felt natural.

And he was just out to have drumming fun. Like, he wanted to be a part of it, you know, just to be a part of it.

Now if you look online, everyone is writing all these beautiful things about him — about his drumming or about his fashion sense — and I love that. He's not one of those people who it's like, "Oh, he was underrated."

He was in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was celebrated. Everyone knew it. And the way that they featured him on records and TV, the way that Blondie featured him, they appreciated it and celebrated it.

How nice for him that it wasn't like, "I wish more people knew about him." No. All the greats bowed down to him. All the greats celebrated him. And isn't that great, that in his lifetime, he knew how loved he was?

There's so many wonderful songs, is there one that you would like us to play?

Union City Blue is the masterpiece. Masterpiece of drumming. Because, yes, Dreaming is the best, you know, it's the most well-known. But Union City Blue ... it's like a tornado. It's like you're being sucked up into a tornado of drumming ... up into heaven.