Every day I lugged my backpack through the halls, waiting for the final bell. Then I’d race home and hole up in my room, playing the drums and the piano, composing music.
My mom had to beg the guys to let me play. I couldn’t even play the drums right – Brian had to show me.
There’s the drums, the music, the melodies, the lyrics, the production, the artwork: there are so many elements to making an album, and the drumming is just a very small fraction of what I focus on.
With guitar, bass and drums, you’ve got limited horizons.
Drums usually seem to tune themselves.
There’s something about rhythm and bass sections generally, how the bass and drums interact, that’s basically the soul of any song.
Drums isn’t my one thing anymore. I love to produce. I love to make tracks, write tracks, produce tracks, and I can’t just sit back as a drummer anymore.
I want to play guitar, piano, drums, write songs for other people. I can do punk – I can do indie – but as long as it has my voice, it’ll always be my sound.
I find that drummers are the coolest people in the world. I play a little bit of drums.
There’s individual turntable setups devoted to piano, bass, drums and a set for soloing as well. We like to try and explore the gamut of what a turntable can do.
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.
I felt like onstage I have to have a certain amount of anonymity, like, personal anonymity, to feel loose and free. When you’re up there with people who’ve known you for a decade, and you make a bad joke and you hear the cackling behind the drums, it’s hard to get lost in the moment.
There was always music in our home. My mom and my dad loved music. I remember when we were kids we would have these great parties at the house with congas and bongos and African drums, and it was amazing. It wasn’t until years later that I found out that they were actually Black Panther meetings.
Playing the drums hurts my back.
I’ve got my ideal job. I like to sing, I like to dance, I like to bang drums and dress up, and someone pays me – it’s incredible.
I come from hip hop for sure, and there are basic elements of that, but then I’ll take from somewhere else, like samba, and do it with trap drums. I like going places other people haven’t gone before.
I come from a very musical family. My dad taught me to play guitar. I play violin and drums as well. Violin, I started in elementary school. Drums actually came when I was in a program called ‘Rock Star,’ which was really awesome. We were doing a song by the Ramones, so I thought, ‘Why not play the drums?’
If I were to call it black music, that would be untrue. I don’t know what that is, unless it would be some African drums or something.
Mahavishnu’s drummer Billy Cobham was the best I’d ever heard. Not loud, that’s not the secret – powerful as hell when he wanted to be – but 90 per cent of the time, he was just dancing with the drums, you know? Just like a butterfly, all over them.
Mum is a photographer, and Dad does world music and plays almost every instrument except for drums.
Since my early childhood, I’ve played drums in visuals as well as sound.
I’ve always loved the mixture of crushing live drums with a programmed groove, that really cool blend, like in the verse there’s a really funky drum beat that is programmed then it comes in to the chorus; you’ve got that enormous human feel where the band kicks in.
We’ve got an electric organ, a sax, drums, guitar and bass guitar. We sound less like the Beatles than most of the groups.
I would love to play the drums with ‘The Who.’
I started playing the drums at five years old and used to listen to a lot of screamo bands like Asking Alexandria, Dream Theater, and Attack Attack!
I play ‘Rock Band’ with my friends’ kids, and they completely beat me senseless with it. I feel like I’m holding them back. I try to play the drums, and I just can’t play the drums. I think I need to work on my skills.
My first gig was in Philadelphia and I played the drums for my older brothers. That same night, I also played drums for Martha and the Vandellas. Ah, the fond memories of being 14.
I got my first instrument for Christmas when I was three or four years old. My parents got me a mandolin because it was the only instrument that would fit me because I was so small. I went straight from that into the drums when I was six, and then I started playing guitar when I was seven or eight.
When I was 16 I was in a neo hardcore band called Finger Charge. I played the drums with my shirt off.
I started playing drums in the 4th grade.
I played the drums. I basically started off in drum line. So it was just straight percussion. Then I got into the drum set. I was in the jazz band and then all through high school I was in orchestra.
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.
How can you not love a man banging on the drums? He knows how to keep a rhythm.
When I was a kid, I played drums, and when I first got a 4-track, I would put down drumbeats and then do the rest of the tracks on top.
Almost everything I’ve done, I’ve done through my own creativity. I don’t think I ever had to listen to anyone else to learn how to play drums. I wish I could say that for about ten thousand other drummers.
Drums were my first instrument.
I remember when I would write a song as a kid, I would also write out on paper what the drums would do, what the bass would do, and what the vocals would be doing.
Kanye is producing in the true sense of the word. ‘Real Friends’ was an idea started by me and Boi-1da. We passed it off to Kanye, and Kanye kind of stripped it down and had Havoc add some drums to it. Kanye had the vision. That’s really true-school production.
I always tell people that to be the funny person in a Steve Martin movie is like getting a call that Keith Moon wants you to play drums on his record. He should be playing drums on his record.
I wanted so badly to be in a famous band, and it was not happening. I played drums with different bands and with the Blue Man Group in Chicago, but I definitely felt like, ‘Wow, I did not picture my life being like this.’
Even in the band I was in when I was a kid, I’d be telling everyone what to do. I’d be leaning over the drums, telling them to tune their guitars, micromanaging.
I was very shy when I was younger. But I did have a terrible temperament. I would get angry very quickly, but the rest of the time I was this big goofball, playing the drums in a band and making out with girls.
I used to play the drums when I was, like, 5 through 10.
When you’re young, playing drums is immediately satisfying ’cause whether or not you know how to play anything, the bottom line is that you’re pounding on something, so you’re happy about it.
Frankly, I’m a drummer; and when I wanted to let off steam, I would just go and beat the hell out of my drums.
I like a nice rumble on bass, openness on guitar and drums that breathe.
We’re basically a rock band – guitar, bass, drums and vocals. But we take it further than that. We can be rotten, dirty, and heavy as anyone, but at the same time, we’ve got a lot of melody.
All I really had was a suitcase and my drums. So I took them up to Seattle and hoped it would work.
You know, when I was younger I was into all kinds of art – drawing, painting, all that stuff. But I played drums, played piano forever.
When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn’t even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake.
My father had a perfectly good drummer who he had an argument with. So one day, on a Tuesday, my father came in with a cheap pawn shop set of drums and said, ‘Put your foot here, and you kick there, and you play this, and this is the high hat.’ And Friday night, I was playing in a honky-tonk.
I just play drums, mate.
We had a bunch of instruments around the house. Like, I played different instruments, trumpet, bass, drums, piano, all that, but whatever I could get my hands on.
I had wanted to play drums since the age of 9 when I saw a drum set in the window of a music store for the first time. We took lessons at a local music school and began playing together after about 6-9 months of lessons.
I actually played guitar before I played drums. And I always play guitar on the Slipknot albums as well, as well as being responsible for a lot of the songwriting.
I’ve worked hard, but this business can be tough, and I just consider myself incredibly lucky to have had the career that I have, and to still be having so much fun playing drums and making music.
Playing drums is how I communicate. It’s how I speak to people. That’s my God-given gift.
I play drums and guitar, I snowboard, I do martial arts and acrobatics. I go to the movies every Friday.
People don’t realize how much it means to your music to record on tape, whether it be for new music or old music. People don’t realize how much or how imperative it is to use actual hardware when making drums because those are actual percussion samplers. They’re hardware instruments that are made to have the drum hit.
