I welcome someone who is willing to march to the beat of his own drum – to hell with the haters.
The sound levels on stage were so loud with all that constant banging and smash, smash, smash; it did untold damage to the fine nerve endings in the inner ear, though it is worse in the left, which is the side of my snare drum and the monitor.
I went to my first drum n’ bass rave when I was 16 and remember being terrified. Looking around, trying to figure out how to dance to this music, watching some girl in some hot pants, trying little ways to learn her movements.
Don’t quit. Never give up trying to build the world you can see, even if others can’t see it. Listen to your drum and your drum only. It’s the one that makes the sweetest sound.
I became this dorky 15-year-old, in my bedroom all the time with crossed eyes, staring at my computer. It was all drum loops, R&B and pop – silly songs that I hope to God no one ever hears. But that’s what got me in to music.
For better or worse, I’ve always tried to march to my own drum and tell it like it is, while preserving some integrity and style. God, I’m fabulous!
It’s certainly no coincidence that big bands became the entertainment of the army in WWI and WWII, and that jazz drumming style is very military influenced. The snare drum comes from the military and becomes the core kind of sound of jazz drums.
When I was young, I had one of those Yamaha drum machines, and I used to practice to that quite a bit, just to practice soloing and being in time and completing all my phrases.
The thing I find frustrating about rock music is, how different can you make an acoustic drum kit sound, an electric guitar and vocals? It’s very stuck, whereas with electronic music, new sounds are being created.
I love to talk about the drums and music. I started playing drums when I was probably six and played a lot until I was about ten or eleven years old. So, I guess five or six years where I played. I had a drum set at home, and I would just bang on it. I’d even go on the Internet and study basic beats and so forth.
I love pop music. I love drum and bass, Calvin Harris, all these electronic things, but it’s nice to have something organic as well.
If I told my 18-year-old self that one day I’d have a sitcom and a sketch show on TV, I think he’d just drum his fingers and go, ‘When? How long is that going to take?’
I have a simple life. I mean, you just give me a drum roll, they announce my name, and I come out and sing. In my job I have a contract that says I’m a singer. So I sing.
The first time I held an African drum in my hands was at Koc University in a forest in the northern suburbs of Istanbul.
Just the same way I’d say a prayer before going onstage, taking that even further and using the drum to inspire people. And using that as a vehicle for the intention.
Songs come to me and I hear them. At least in part, they are very complete; I hear the whole chorus, including the drum pattern, the base, the countermelody, the basic harmonic structure and the main thrust of the lyric.
But, I don’t think any arranger should ever write a drum part for a drummer because if a drummer can’t create his own Interpretation of the chart and he plays everything that’s written, he becomes mechanical; he has no freedom.
Bill Ward, when you hear his beats, he’s not just playing a straight 4/4 beat; he’s doing almost a hip-hop beat. There’s a song called ‘Sweet Leaf.’ The drum beat that he’s playing, he’s trying to kind of swing and funkify it. Now, is he doing a great job of it? Maybe not. Maybe.
I’ve been playing with Blackwell over 20 years. We used to play when I first went to Los Angeles. Blackwell plays the drums as if he’s playing a wind instrument. Actually, he sounds more like a talking drum.
When I was about 14, I got a tacky keyboard for 250 pounds and put on a drum machine and found I could write a song.
I suppose I am a frustrated musician so I annoy my family by playing guitar in the house. I used to be into acoustic stuff but my son Joseph is learning drums, so now I have an electric guitar and we play Metallica. We have an amp and a PA in the garage with his drum kit.
My little brother played drums, so we had a drum set over at my house.
Then I tried out for the Fontana High School drum line, in Riverside, and I did really well. I got second chair, and played snare in that drum line for three years.
Sometimes I hear a drum groove in my head and I rush down to my studio.
One of the instruments that really stuck out to me was the talking drum, which is basically the first type of communication device. It’s a drum you put on your shoulder, and you can pitch it with your arm, and you can ‘talk’ with it.
During an election, it’s like they’re doing my job: they’re going around banging the drum for their party and selling their movie. You know, it’s the same thing.
My drum sticks are in the ‘Hall of Fame.’ I know that.
I really just wanted to play the drum set and match that. I was never really into the percussion thing.
If the only time you bang the drum is when it’s time to get someone elected, and you don’t get involved in a mass movement, then you’re working against real and substantive change.
I think it’s beneficial to practice with a metronome or drum machine in order to strengthen your sense of time. It will help your concept of time and improve your feel.
Black holes can bang against space-time as mallets on a drum and have a very characteristic song.
I’ve never been a huge fan of drum solos.
I dropped Nascimento in the first round, but he came back, and I had to dig really deep because he was gaining the whole time. He ruptured my left ear drum with a right hand in the fifth round, which caused a few hearing problems, but I was able to overcome it.
When I play in Hong Kong I go alternative, from Wu Tang Clan to ‘Blue Monday,’ and then for the last 45 minutes, if they deserve it, I play beautiful drum ‘n’ bass.
I made an electronic record in the vein of Cluster. I was programming synthesizers and drum machines and that sort of thing.
I feel like, with drum programming, the way I used to do it, I’d think of how somebody would play these drum patterns and then try to replicate that through programming. It’s not that it’s better or worse, it’s just a different style.
I can’t tell you how many things I’ve worked on where I sat on it for a few years, and then somebody else did something very similar. Whether it’s some weird vocal effect you hear on another record, or a drum beat, or even a song title, a subject matter, or a mixture of different kinds of music.
I started out as a drummer, and when I was 9, my drum teacher had an album out. He was the rudiment king! He signed it for me, ‘Rudimentally yours, Frank Arsenault.’ How cool is that?
I met Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I’m not really star struck by actors, but musicians, that’s when I get star struck. Chad Smith is my number one drum influence, so that was a real mind-blow. I spoke to him – proper English, thank God!
I took piano lessons and I wanted to play drums when I was six. Luckily enough, my parents let me have a drum kit in my room – which is kind of crazy.
I love Sylvan Esso. I want to bring in more electronic elements, but also some analogue stuff. Stuff like ’70s drum machines really fascinates me.
Playing along with records is key. And as far as equipment goes it has gotten so much more affordable and the drum sets are of great quality. I play Pearl; their Export Series is great for a beginner.
It’s as if my left heel is my bass drum and my right heel is the floor tom-tom. I can get snare out of my right toe by not putting it down on the floor hard, and, if I want cymbals, I land flat on both feet, full strength on the floor.
I have a playroom with my drum set, a guitar, and amplifier at home.
That’s where I think a lot of these guys today are just, ‘I’m the drummer, man. Check it out. Here’s my lick. I just learned this new drum lick. I’m just gonna blast all over the place.’ It’s like, ‘Man, you’ve got to let the song breathe.’
Before you worry about what genre it is, about whether it’s a loop or a drum, it’s about what suits the song. It’s using what’s within your reach, but also reaching for everything you can. I don’t know if I always get it right, because I don’t know every sound yet.
People say I play real loud. I don’t, actually. I’m recorded loud and a lot of that is because we have good engineers. Mick knows what a good drum sound is as well, so that’s part of the illusion really. I can’t play loud.
So I’ll set a cycle in motion and pop it into record and I’ll lay down a drum pattern, a bass line, a keyboard and guitar part, and once the groove is going I launch into the song and sing my song over the top.
Many people don’t know that New Jersey is a fertile breeding ground for writers, some of them quite renowned. And I would wager that most would be truly startled to learn that the star in the Jersey firmament is – drum roll here – Newark.
My place in Scotland is in the middle of nowhere, so you’ve just got a keyboard, guitar, a little drum machine and you know if you can work stuff out like that, if you can hammer out songs that sound good just with those three things and a voice, you’re on your way.
I’m a freak, everything has to be totally flat when I play. Ed Will, my jazz teacher, set up everything completely flat, and then you’d tilt your snare drum away from you, so I do that too. So my snare tilts away from me.
