Too many drummers sit at the back covered in drums, and you never see them.
I would really love to collaborate with Gwen Stefani and M.I.A.; artists that kind of make sense with me vocally. And in terms of style, I’m a very visual artist. I really love Pharell. I love people that really care about drums, and I like beat-heavy.
Led Zeppelin was Led Zeppelin when John Bonham was on drums. It’s timeless.
Writing songs is an essential part of my life: my mother teaches piano, and I have inherited my grandparents’ passion for music, especially from my grandfather Tommy, who was a great drummer. It’s no coincidence that I play the drums best, but I am also good with the guitar and the piano.
My son, Wolfgang, plays drums, guitars and bass.
I see a lot of comments on Twitter and stuff about how ugly I am, how bad I am at the drums, how awkward I look, and I’m like, yeah, I agree with most of those things.
I was a kid living in New Jersey, who – I’d wanted to make movies since I was a little kid, so that came before music for me. But I started playing drums just as a hobby, and I wasn’t even really into jazz that much.
When someone is playing drums, they aren’t actually moving around a space; they’re just moving their arms and limbs. They’re stuck behind the drum set. So to film someone playing the drums and make it feel as kinetic as a car chase or a shootout or a battle scene was the challenge.
Not a lot of hard rock bands are just letting it all be – they’re adding a lot of samples on things, or effects or whatever – and we just wanted the drums to be raw so you could really hear what Brooks Wackerman is capable of.
A band like Depeche Mode would go out and record them hitting a trash can with a steel rod or something and recording it. And that would be one of their sounds of the drums. I love the creativeness of that kind of really raw sampling.
I’ve never been able to sit round on my own and play drums, practice in the back room, never been able to. I’ve always played with other musicians. It’s how I play, there’s no joy for me in playing on my own, bashing away. I need a bass, a piano, guitar, whatever, and then I can play.
‘Makossa’ is from Africa, and it means ‘dance.’ It’s also the name for this type of music. In my song, I decided to mix in some Jamaican sounds, like the steel drums.
I used to be a drummer in a band, and I really loved playing the drums, so I look forward to the right opportunity to do that at some point. Maybe even on TV. Every single live performance I’m doing on TV, I want it to be different and unique.
I actually wanted to be a drummer, but I didn’t have any drums.
A lot of these guys come up and say, ‘Man, you were my influence, the way you thrashed the drums.’ They don’t seem to understand I was thrashing in order to hear what I was playing. It was anger, not enjoyment – and painful.
I don’t have perfect pitch. My drums sound like a drummer, not a drum machine.
The rhythmic feel of ‘Dark Days In Paradise’ is completely different to anything I’ve ever done before. There’s a lot of drum loops on there, but used in conjunction with real drums: a lot of influence from hip-hop and dance music, with the keyboard sound and sequencing.
When I was much younger I tried to play guitar and bass first. Drums were just the easiest thing for me to play. I picked it up really quickly.
One of the advantages of playing in a club is that even with bass and drums, the atmosphere remains intimate with the audience.
I can put a hip-hop beat to reggae. That is, I can have real reggae in the drums and in the rhythm, and on top of it I can put The Rolling Stones’ feeling, anyone’s feeling on top. Nobody has ever done this before, man.
The drums are very trashy: it’s all electric, it’s very in your face, and it’s not perfect. It’s raw, and I think that’s what ‘garage’ means.
I play piano and drums very poorly and French horn and tuba all equally as bad.
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 played the drums, and I was in a band called Funkasaurus Rex in Toronto. When I left for school, it became hard to play as frequently.
My mom always told me I should have a Plan B. I said that if I’m not going to play guitar I’m going to play drums. And if I’m not going to play drums, I’m going to play bass. I always just wanted to play music. I was completely obsessed.
I don’t take breaks, man. In the past, I used to spend my free time getting in trouble, and now I spend it working on my music. If I’m not playing drums with my cover band, Chevy Metal, I’m working on songs for myself.
Without Metallica, I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing. I have every Metallica record, of course, and I would spend hours on drums in my parents’ basement with the stereo behind me, cranking those records and learning Lars’ drum beats, beat by beat.
A band asked me to go on tour when I was 22 and asked me to play drums, and I taught myself so I could go on this trip with these people. The drums found me; I didn’t find them. When I started playing, I realized how appropriate an instrument it was for me.
Beating the drums for Hawaii is not hard to do… the place just grows on you.
Having my son on drums has made a huge difference. I can’t stress this strongly enough, in terms of the groove space and style that Joachim gave me to instinctively play what I felt in a more free way, rather than feeling constricted. That’s true on record and on stage.
I played in a punk rock band in high school called the High Heel Flip Flops. I was the drummer. I played drums for, like, four years.
I have all the rhythm in my left hand, and I use the rhythms that Gene Krupa did on his drums.
Still for fun, I play the drums, but I don’t do much recording with them.
I’m a huge Bob Marley fan; I remember going to Jamaica for the first time when I was a kid and I got so obsessed with the steel drums.
I’ve been playing the drums since age nine.
I just don’t see myself as retiring. As long as I’m healthy and can play the drums, that’s what I’m going to do because that’s the most fun thing that I know how to do.
I wrote a song with Kara DioGuardi called ‘What If,’ and it’s a really beautiful song. It’s kind of like a rock ballad. There’s a lot of guitars and drums in it.
Drums just always sounded like the most fun part of that good music for me.
