I love to travel, playing drums, and being on the road as not many people can say that.
We decided to do some of Merle’s things with modern instrumentation. We used a flute, a bass clarinet, a trumpet, a clarinet, drums, a guitar, vibes and a piano.
My desk is my drums.
Most studios in Memphis had a house set of drums; the drummers just brought their own sticks.
At a young age I thought, ‘Wow, that fiddle thing, that’s pretty cool. That mandolin is great. These drums, I like these drums… ‘ They were Indian drums. And I was saying, ‘But that guitar. That guitar. Girls are going to like that guitar.’
The golden rule of drums is hands clapping and feet tapping, and when you are in and out of consciousness, you can’t do that to best of your ability.
I wanted to play the drums, but I had no rhythm.
I grew up on Dilla, Timbaland, Pharrell, all these drums that are super pocketed, so all those influences come out on a song like ‘Ungrateful Eyes,’ with all the crazy drum swing.
The Pentecostals had horns, drums, guitars, huge choirs, and screaming and dancing and all kinds of stuff. That was for me.
I play guitar a bit. I’m trying to learn drums – I feel like I can play violin. I’ve never tried, but I just feel like I can.
I always have trouble recording drums and double bass.
You’d be surprised. Drummers ape each other. The way every rock n’ roll record sounds like something else but not all together. Everything other drummers play, if you’re playing drums, they all hear.
You get some confidence in your songwriting abilities and go for the essentials – guitar, bass, drums, vocals. Those are the basic band essentials that have to be in place before you go any further.
The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth.
I grew up with my parents always listening to rock music. My dad wanted me to play guitar, but I always had more of an ear for drums. He really wanted me to be a guitar player, like him.
Geopolitical drama lessened but did not die after the Cold War; in 2008, the specter of thousands of seeming automatons banging drums at the opening of the Beijing Games frightened and enthralled the world, reminding us that China was a nation on the rise, a competitor for global dominance.
I listen to Bill Stewart play the drums and when I have finished doing that, I listen to Bill Stewart.
Music plays a very important role in my life. I’m a frustrated musician. I play the drums.
Earliest musical memory is probably being scared stiff with my family’s band as a youngster on stage playing the conga drums.
The most memorable moment was playing drums with Bob Dylan.
Not really, drums found me, I just liked music, all kinds of music.
My mom passed away a day before high school started, and her dream was for me to be a full rock and roll guy, and play drums in a band.
Most great records really start with the drums.
I didn’t sing, but I did play the drums.
I’ve played every instrument you could possibly think of for 10 minutes. So I’m mediocre at everything. I can play drums, guitar, piano, violin, saxophone, clarinet, flute… Just not well.
I play mostly guitar, and I played drums in my brother’s band for a while growing up.
When I listen to a record, or when I’m making a record, I listen to everything. I listen to the drums, the bass, the voice, the arrangement. I listen to the whole piece as an ensemble. I don’t only listen to the guitar player.
It’s a miracle was the last track recorded for the album, we based it on the rhythm from the middle of ‘Late Home Tonight, where there’s Graham Broad playing lots and lots of drums with me shouting in the background, pretending to be a mad Arab leader.
As I said, when we needed to move over to rock’n’roll, Sam and Vernon couldn’t quite make the shift. So that’s when Larry took over on drums, and we needed a bass player.
I love puppies, and I love animals in general. Besides that, I do martial arts: extreme martial arts. I also play real guitar and drums, and sing. And I’m taking some college classes, hoping to major in English and creative writing.
I played drums on Keith Carradine’s first record.
When I make a record with My Morning Jacket, I love what those guys do, so I don’t have a need to play bass or drums or anything, because we’re doing that as a unit.
I learned to play drums to the ‘Blue Album.’
I didn’t start playing drums until I was 12, for school band; they didn’t have any saxophones left. My step-pops had a kit at the house, and I had never done anything that I understood so quick. It was so natural. It was the most fun and consistent thing in my life.
As Buddy Rich, for instance, broke into the business at the age of three, I think it was, on drums, so indeed did I break into the business at the age of four as a singer.
I remember the first time somebody played me Janis Joplin. My friend Donna put on Janis Joplin, and she said, ‘You’re like her.’ At the time, I wasn’t even a singer; I was a drummer. I just wanted to play the drums.
I connect so much with Peter Gabriel’s sound because, to me, he always had that South African vibe. His drums were always something to move to: it was almost like Calypso. I’m a big fan.
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.
What made me want to play drums in the first place was Led Zeppelin and The Who. My parents had their records, and I grew up listening to them with the stereo cranked.
I love the sound of a Fender Rhodes or James Jamerson-style bass lines that are their own melody, and live drums and Moogs.
I’ve just been recording mostly acoustic stuff, drums, and sax, and electric guitar. I’m just still writing songs and what not.
I got my first set of drums when I was around 3. I went from band to marching band to Latin jazz band – it’s like riding a bike.
My way of relaxing was always doing the opposite and playing the drums, but I need to be able to actually chill.
All I ever wanted to do was play the drums; I felt good about myself when I played the drums. So I worked anywhere and everywhere I could lug my drums in.
The drums tell me everything. Everything else registers a millisecond later.
I have a method of working on music: I’ll get up in the morning and throw down some drums on my drum machine, and then I’ll come back later and try to pop off rhythms to it.
Look, I love to sit in with small groups and play the drums. What’s wrong with that?
I love drums and still play frequently.
I wanted to hear the songs in the way that I had written them, which was very basic. All I wanted was drums and another guitar, and I was just going to sing.
I don’t focus on one thing. I play guitar and bass and keyboards and drums, but I never stay on anything long enough to become a specialist at it.
I started on the drums when I was eight.
That’s how we grew up – kinda like Pops would put his drums, his percussion and instruments into the car and we would just go to a facility in the Bay Area and he would say to us, ‘You think we have it bad? There are people worse off than we are. Let’s go give back to the kids.’ And that’s how we grew up.
Well, I take my drums everywhere I go so I can play them for relaxation.
I only started playing piano because I had chickenpox when I was about 14 and wasn’t allowed to play my drums for a whole week… We had a piano in the house, so I just sat down and played that instead.
Any show that has ‘party non-invite’ as its central conflict drums up the operatic high drama of a good Russian novel. It’s the ‘Real Housewives’ Crime and Punishment:’ first the horror of a non-invitation, and then the shattering aftermath.
I never got the chance to put drums on ‘Watersigns,’ because the company was in a rush to release it – and me.
For fun, I love to play the drums… poorly. I have a band, a bunch of theater nerds – we got together, and we’re like, ‘Let’s play rock music for three hours and never take breaks.’ We call ourselves The U.S. Open.
Drums all have their own particulars – each drum has a place where they sound the best – where they ring out and resonate the best, and the head surface isn’t too loose or too tight, mainly so you get a good rebound off of the head.
I don’t like pre-written raps; I think it makes the song better if you listen to the beat first. In a sense, you have to make a marriage with the beat. I ride the beat, hear the flow of the drums, get the melody of my flow, and then from that point, it’s a process of what I want to say.
I’m always trying to show versatility. I’m juggling, and I’m flipping fire, and I’m chewing gum and rhyming at the same time… on a unicycle, while playing the drums.
What sounds good on the radio is really loud kick drums and loud snare drums, when everything’s bombastic and in your face. It’s the equivalent of a houseguest who screams all the time.
If what you do for a living is play drums or bass, then that defines you. You don’t want to be some guy missing notes here and there; you want to really speak with it.
My first real experience with worship, I was 19. I was playing drums in the church band at a church in Phoenix, and they asked me to be the worship leader.
