" 1FSGFDU $JSDMF 1BSBNPSF 8FF[FS %FWP - Drummers.by

42 

26 

34 70 

Chuck Madden 

Volume 35, Number 6 • Cover photo by Alex Solca 

C O N T E N T S 

Alex Solca 

Torry Pendergrass 

Ebet Roberts 

26 BRIAN TICHY 

He might refer to himself as just a punk kid from Jersey. A better 

way to describe the heavy hitter—who can claim credits like 

Billy Idol, Foreigner, Ozzy Osbourne, Slash’s Snakepit, and now 

Whitesnake—would be to call him a study in perseverance. 

34 JOHN VON OHLEN 

He’s one of the only drummers in history who pleased the 

notoriously picky swing king Woody Herman with his playing. 

A living guru of big band drumming says follow your heart— 

and the horn chart—and the world is your oyster. 

42 JOSH FREESE 

By day he lays down seamless tracks for tomorrow’s pop 

megahits. By night he blasts out aggressive, cutting-edge beats 

with A Perfect Circle. And when he’s not doing all that, Josh 

Freese is the man who Weezer, Devo, Sting, Paramore, and nearly 

everyone else calls when they need a drummer to save the day. 

54 GET GOOD: STAGE PRESENCE 

Three drummers who have the concept of stage presence 

down—Vince Neil’s Zoltan Chaney, Royal Crown Revue’s 

Daniel Glass, and GWAR’s Brad Roberts—school us on 

making the most of our visual potential. 

12 UPDATE 

Return To Forever’s LENNY WHITE 

California Transit Authority’s DANNY SERAPHINE 

Stryper’s ROBERT SWEET 

KC Drum Hang’s KEVIN CRABB 

70 10 REASONS TO LOVE 

PHIL COLLINS 

84 PORTRAITS 

Serj Tankian/Juliette Lewis’s TROY ZEIGLER 

90 WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT...? 

Three Dog Night’s FLOYD SNEED

EDUCATION 

60 Rudimental Symposium 

Revising The Standard Drum Rudiments 

Is It Time? 

by Jim Riley 

64 Rock ’N’ Jazz Clinic 

Write Creative Drum Parts Part 2: Anticipated Rhythms 

by Chris Prescott 

66 Jazz Drummer’s Workshop 

A Lesson With Philly Joe Jones 

Swinging The Rudiments 

by Jim Payne 

DEPARTMENTS 

8 An Editor’s Overview 

Drumming And Beyond by Billy Amendola 

10 Readers’ Platform 

14 Ask A Pro 

2011 MD Pro Panelist Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez 

16 It’s Questionable 

Drums In Extreme Conditions • 

Mind Matters: Band Versus Solo 

80 Showcase 

82 Drum Market 

88 Critique 

94 Backbeats 

Sabian Live • Who’s Playing What • CoverBand 2011 Winner 

96 Kit Of The Month 

Reaching For The Heavens 

EQUIPMENT 

18 Product Close-Up 

• Meinl Classics Custom Series Cymbals 

• Ford Maverick Series Drumset 

• Diril Assorted Cymbals 

22 Electronic Review 

Yamaha Pocketrak W24 And C24 Handheld Recorders 

72 Collector’s Corner 

Ludwig Amber Vistalite Snare by Harry Cangany 

73 Gearing Up 

Robert Plant’s Marco Giovino 

74 New And Notable 

The Coolest Items From NAMM 2011 

MD DIGITAL SUBSCRIBERS! 

When you see this icon, click on a shaded 

box on the page to open the audio player. 

Note: Shaded boxes appear when you first 

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88 

96 

94 

WIN 

$ 

Rebecca Truszkowski 

74 

18 

an autographed Joey Kramer 

prize package from Ludwig 

and Zildjian worth over 

8,000 

page 69

8 

MODERN DRUMMER • June 2011 

AN EDITOR’S OVERVIEW 

Drumming And Beyond 

Iwish I had a dollar for every time someone asked me, 

“What’s the secret to becoming famous?” Don’t get me 

wrong, I’m flattered that people assume I might even have 

a clue, but I don’t have any secrets, only suggestions—and, 

like most musicians, strong opinions on the subject. 

You’re reading MD, so if fame is a goal of yours, it’s obviously 

about becoming a well-known drummer. My first bit 

of advice: If you’re only in it to become famous, then you’re 

in the wrong business. And if you’re only in it to be rich, I 

hate to burst your bubble, but maybe you’d better get out 

now. I’m not saying that it’s impossible to become rich and 

famous by playing the drums, but, more often than not, fame and fortune arrive unexpectedly. 

In either case, they rarely come knocking together—and never unaccompanied 

by hard work and dedication. 

When my son, Matty, became a drummer at age five, I couldn’t foresee where he 

would be now at twenty-two. I watched his innocent passion for playing grow 

stronger every year, and the only suggestion I made to him strongly was, “If you want 

to work steadily in this business, learn to write songs,” something I’ve done since I was 

fifteen. He was already a pretty good drummer by the time he hit his early teens, so it 

wasn’t a total surprise that he took my advice and picked up the bass, then guitar and 

keyboards, and then he started to write. These days I can proudly say he’s working regularly, 

and, more important, he loves what he does for a living. 

For those of you who’ve been playing drums for years and already play other instruments 

and write songs, you know what I’m preaching. For those who are just starting 

out, play and practice your drums every day, and join a band as soon as you can play a 

few beats and keep a steady groove. Then, after your band has been rehearsing regularly 

for a while, for the last half hour of your practice sessions, try having everyone 

switch instruments and teach each other the basics. Playing drums is all about groove 

and time—something every musician needs, no matter what the instrument. All of us 

should be playing drums! And besides making you and your bandmates more wellrounded 

musicians, it will make each of you better at your own instrument. 

Now, say your passion is only playing the drums. You can still be involved in writing 

songs—you can contribute to the lyrics, you can sing melodies you’ve come up with, 

and you can write the most important part of any song: the hook. If you think about it, 

you’re probably already adding parts and making suggestions to your bandmates; 

sometimes your suggestion might be what really makes the song. 

In a recent conversation, Rick Marotta (Carly Simon, Steely Dan, John Lennon) told 

me how years ago he decided to focus on playing piano and writing. He eventually 

became very successful with those skills, writing the theme song for the TV show 

Everybody Loves Raymond. Rick’s decision clearly paid off big time. 

Another conversation I had a short time ago, with original Blood, Sweat & Tears 

drummer Bobby Colomby, echoed this idea. When I asked Bobby (who went on to be 

a driving force behind the scenes in the music biz), “What advice would you give to 

Modern Drummer readers who want to be better at the drums?” without hesitation he 

said one word: “Piano.” 

These sentiments are supported by the careers of several of the artists featured 

in this issue, including Phil Collins, Josh Freese, and Brian Tichy, all of whom play and 

write on other instruments. Even those who aren’t known as multi-instrumentalists, 

such as Three Dog Night’s Floyd Sneed or founding Chicago drummer Danny 

Seraphine, have seen their arrangement and hook ideas result in their bands’ songs 

becoming hits. And a quick scan of the Billboard charts at any given time will reveal 

at least a couple of top producers and songwriters who started their musical lives 

as drummers. 

So if you’re looking for advice about achieving fame, I might not be the best person 

to ask. But if you’re asking how to be successful—not necessarily rich, and not necessarily 

famous, but in demand for your musical skills and proud of the music you produce— 

I’d absolutely say you should become the best drummer you can be and seriously think 

about being more involved in the process of writing songs. 

The old joke “There are musicians, and then there are drummers” is long dead. 

Drummers are musicians! Now go out there and prove it. 

MODERN DRUMMER 

PRO PANEL 

FOUNDER 

RONALD SPAGNARDI 

1943–2003 

PUBLISHER/CEO 

ISABEL SPAGNARDI 

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT 

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PRO PANEL 

2011 PRO PANEL 

JASON BITTNER 

WILL CALHOUN 

JEFF DAVIS 

PETER ERSKINE 

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HORACIO HERNANDEZ 

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ALLISON MILLER 

ROD MORGENSTEIN 

CHRIS PENNIE 

CHAD SMITH 

PAUL WERTICO 

MODERN DRUMMER ADVISORY 

BOARD: Kenny Aronoff, Eddie Bayers, 

Bill Bruford, Harry Cangany, Dennis 

DeLucia, Les DeMerle, Len DiMuzio, 

Peter Erskine, Vic Firth, Bob Gatzen, 

Danny Gottlieb, Sonny Igoe, Jim Keltner, 

Paul Leim, Peter Magadini, George 

Marsh, Joe Morello, Rod Morgenstein, 

Andy Newmark, Neil Peart, Ed 

Shaughnessy, Steve Smith, 

Billy Ward, Dave Weckl, Paul Wertico. 

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: 

Patrick Berkery, David Ciauro, John 

Emrich, Mike Haid, Dr. Asif Khan, Rick 

Mattingly, Ken Micallef, Mark Parsons, 

Martin Patmos, Jeff Potter, Will Romano, 

Bernie Schallehn, Ilya Stemkovsky, 

Stephen Styles, Robin Tolleson, Lauren 

Vogel Weiss, Paul Wells. 

MODERN DRUMMER magazine 

(ISSN 0194-4533) is published 

monthly by 

MODERN DRUMMER Publications, Inc., 

12 Old Bridge Road, Cedar Grove, NJ 07009. 

PERIODICALS MAIL POSTAGE paid at 

Cedar Grove, NJ 07009 and at additional 

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All rights reserved. Reproduction without the 

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MODERN DRUMMER ONLINE: 

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES

Paul La Raia 

Tony “Thunder” Smith 

I was thrilled to see your feature interview 

with Tony “Thunder” Smith in the March 2011 

issue. I was fortunate enough to study with 

Tony in New York during the mid-’90s. As an 

educator, Tony sets the bar extremely high. I 

remember times at his Hell’s Kitchen studio 

when the lesson went significantly beyond 

the hour that I was paying for, and Tony wouldn’t dismiss me until 

I learned the material. It proved to me that he was extremely 

devoted to the art of drumming and took pride in his teaching. 

Not to mention that he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll meet. 

Jon T. Fishman 

The Power Of Positive Thinking 

I learned to play drums when I was around twelve years old. After 

a while, I lost my direction and stopped playing. I always regretted 

stopping, but at the time I couldn’t see how I could support 

myself and carry such a cumbersome instrument. I now realize my 

mistake. Playing is worth any sacrifice. There’s nothing I can do 

about the past but learn from it. I’m now fifty-one, and I just got a 

used set and started to play again. To anyone out there: Believe in 

yourself, and be ready to do everything it takes to keep at it. As 

Chris Coleman says in the January 2011 issue: “Through diligence, 

perseverance, and focus, all things are possible. Always remember 

that music is all about the moment. Just get in the moment and 

have fun, and good things will happen!” His comments and the 

ones from Michael Carvin in the same issue remind me how 

important a positive attitude is in being successful. Keep up the 

good work! 

Sylvain Pilon 

READERS’ PLATFORM 

The Groove Remains The Same 

Anthony Biuso’s moderndrummer.com article “John Bonham L.A. 

Tribute: The Groove Remains The Same” brought back wonderful 

memories of my youth and one of the reasons why I began playing 

drums many years ago. Drummers of all ages owe a debt of gratitude 

to Bonham and to Brian Tichy for organizing a tribute to one of the 

greats. My only regret is that I was not there to witness it in person. 

Chris Koerner 

For more on the tribute to Bonzo, 

check out Brian Tichy’s feature in this issue. 

MD 35 

Modern Drummer is the best damn magazine! 

David Roseberger (via Facebook) 

Loving all your stories and following the legends as well 

as the up-and-coming risers. 

Marie Haney (via Facebook) 

The best drum magazine, period. I’ve read MD for years 

and years, and it always has great cover stories and helpful 

information. Thanks, Modern Drummer—you’ve 

helped a whole lot of us. You rule! 

Dino Alan (via Facebook) 

A drummer’s best friend since 1977 and still going strong. 

Kenny Howard (via Facebook) 

HOW TO REACH US 

billya@moderndrummer.com 

MODERN DRUMMER MAGAZINE • The World’s #1 Drum Magazine • 

YEARS 

Of Excellence

LENNY WHITE 

Returning to grooving and rocking, forever 

Lenny White has a problem with musical labels. “What’s called 

fusion now, we used to call jazz-rock,” the legendary drummer 

says. “So I just went back to that.” White’s latest album, Anomaly, 

indeed has an emphasis on rock, with heavy Bonham-esque 

beats, distorted guitars, and a weighty mix. “‘Black Dog’ and ‘In 

My Time Of Dying’ were my favorite rock tunes, and I read that 

John Bonham used to listen to Tony Williams, Billy Cobham, and 

me, so that made my day!” 

Besides recording his own music and producing other artists, 

White participated in the highly anticipated 2008 reunion of 

Return To Forever. “I’ve always tried to make the most sound 

with the least amount of effort,” he says, reflecting on what it took 

to play RTF’s demanding music again. “It’s how you apply your 

energy. Back then it was athletics—how fast and how loud and 

how complex you could play. As you mature, you find ways to 

play more musically. You learn how to make things work.” 

And what’s the secret to meshing with some of the finest 

bassists ever? “The ride cymbal is key—getting it to speak and 

swing, and pinpointing your playing and how it fits with an 

acoustic, electric, synth bass, or organ,” White says. “And with 

Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, and Ron Carter, you sit back and 

you groove.” Not one to rest, White recently appeared on organist 

12 MODERN DRUMMER • June 2011 

U P D A T E 

DANNY SERAPHINE 

With a new DVD and autobiography, the founding Chicago 

drummer is looking to revive the art of jazz-rock timekeeping. 

As a member of the band Chicago, Danny Seraphine was a pioneer 

of the jazz-rock genre, influencing thousands of players 

with his performances on hits like “25 Or 6 To 4,” “Make Me Smile,” 

“Saturday In The Park,” and “Feelin’ Stronger Every Day.” Seraphine’s 

sudden 1990 ousting from the band caught everyone, the drummer 

included, by surprise. After achieving some minor success in 

the ensuing decade—not at the kit, but producing artists and 

soundtracks for Broadway shows—Danny felt there was something 

missing. “I produced some really great but unknown artists,” 

he says. “The lightbulb finally went off in my head: Get back to 

playing. So I took some refresher lessons with Joe Porcaro to 

work on my technique, and here I am.” 

Beginning with an electrifying appearance at the 2006 Modern 

Drummer Festival with his own California Transit Authority, 

Seraphine has been on a mission to rejuvenate an art form that he 

feels has been overlooked lately. A master of groove and technique, 

Danny sounds as fresh today as he did forty-three years ago, 

On Tour 

Pete Levin’s record Jump!, produced an album for the Italian singer 

Letizia Gambi, and has begun to plan more shows with a slightly 

altered Return To Forever lineup. But it’s no mystery who will be 

on drums. Ilya Stemkovsky 

when Chicago burst on 

the scene. 

Now, coinciding with 

the release of his autobiography, 

Street Player: 

My Chicago Story, as well 

as a new DVD, The Art Of 

Jazz Rock Drumming, 

Seraphine has been 

conducting drum clinics, 

making personal appearances, and readying CTA’s sophomore 

effort, Promises. His DVD offers a wealth of drumming tips, while 

his candid observations in Street Player are invaluable to musicians 

of any age. “I want to share whatever I know,” the drummer says. 

“I’ve had a chance to do things that most people can only dream 

of.” For more with Seraphine, read his Web-exclusive interview at 

moderndrummer.com. Bob Girouard 

Louis Vecchio with New Politics /// Adam Marcello with Katy Perry /// Jon Larsen with Volbeat /// Jason Ganberg with Purple Melon /// 

Doug Yowell with Ari Hest /// Matt Ochoa with the Dirty Heads /// Todd Sucherman with Styx /// Rodney Howard with Avril Lavigne /// 

Deen Castronovo with Journey /// Jim Riley with Rascal Flatts /// Brittany Brooks with Cee Lo Green /// Abe Cunningham with 

Deftones /// Van Romaine with Enrique Iglesias /// Alan White with Yes /// Billy Hawn with Jason Reeves /// Craig Pilo with Frankie Valli 

Toshi

T 

he Covering, a collection 

of songs that had a 

major influence on Robert 

Sweet and his Stryper bandmates 

while they were 

growing up in Orange 

County, California, is the 

group’s ninth album since its 

1984 debut, The Yellow And 

Black Attack! When asked 

what challenges he faced 

while attempting to replicate 

parts created by drumming 

legends, Sweet 

responds, “There weren’t any. 

I was having a good time. I 

think when you play music you have to 

enjoy it and not stress out so much. I stuck 

pretty close to most of the original drum 

parts, though of course every now and then 

I’d add something a little different.” 

Sweet says he’s fully aware that some 

conservative Christians may not endorse 

covers of songs like “Breaking The Law” by 

OUT NOW ON CD 

JOE RICKARD ON RED’S UNTIL WE HAVE FACES 

According to Joe Rickard of the Christian rock band Red, the 

making of the group’s new album, Until We Have Faces, differed 

from the typical creation and writing process for an album. “A 

lot of our demos and song ideas started with one of my drumbeats,” 

Rickard explains. “Basically, I would think of a song idea, 

visualize its structure, then lay down tracks at my house. I would 

send the tracks to the rest of the guys, and they would come up 

with riffs and other ideas by feeding off my drums. Later on we 

would come up with the final structure and finish the song. We 

tried out a lot of drum ideas in the studio, always taking the 

approach that was best for the song. After hearing the finished 

product, I feel like the process was a success. I’m very proud of 

our whole team and of Until We Have Faces.” 

Also On The Shelves 

Avril Lavigne Goodbye Lullaby (Rodney Howard, Josh Freese) /// Panic! At The Disco 

Vices & Virtues (Spencer Smith) /// Los Lonely Boys Rockpango (Ringo Garza) /// Dropkick 

Murphys Going Out In Style (Matt Kelly) /// Alex Skolnick Trio Veritas (Matt Zebroski) /// 

Matt Lowell Swan Lake (EP) (Joe Tomino) /// Henry Wolfe Linda Vista (Josh Collazo) /// 

Steve Earle I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive (Jay Bellerose) /// Cavalera Conspiracy 

Blunt Force Trauma (Iggor Cavalera) /// Members Of Morphine With Jeremy Lyons The 

Ever Expanding Elastic Waste Band (Jerome Deupree) /// The O’Farrill Brothers Giant 

Peach (Zack O’Farrill) /// The Cookers Cast The First Stone (Billy Hart) /// Crowbar Sever 

The Wicked Hand (Tommy Buckley) /// New York Electric Piano Keys To The City Vols. 1 & 2 

(Aaron Comess) /// Gene Lake Here And Now (Gene Lake) /// Ben Kono Crossing (John 

Hollenbeck) /// Blue Coupe Tornado On The Tracks (Albert Bouchard) /// Greg Lewis 

Organ Monk (Cindy Blackman) /// Zach Hill Face Tat (Zach Hill) /// Thursday No Devolución 

(Tucker Rule) /// Mister Barrington Mister Barrington (Zach Danziger) /// Henry Threadgill 

Zooid This Brings Us To Vol. II (Elliot Humberto Kavee) 

ROBERT SWEET 

With a new album, management, and tour, the pioneering 

Christian heavy metal drummer is ready to embrace 2011 

with gratitude. 

Judas Priest or “Heaven And Hell” by Black 

Sabbath. “But we went out of our way to 

pick songs that had inoffensive lyrics,” 

Robert explains. “Plus, a large part of our 

audience has always been non-Christians 

who we hope to reach. I know there are 

some who may not like it, but we mean no 

harm. Good music is good music.” 

“Pistol” Pete Kaufmann 

KEVIN 

CRABB 

Passing along the wisdom 

of drum gurus—with a little 

help from some heavy friends 

Rob Shanahan 

Something was ready to give. The walls of 

his house, Kevin Crabb figured. The 

Sunday gatherings he’d been hosting to keep 

alive the words of L.A. drum gurus Richard 

Wilson and Murray Spivack were threatening 

to spill out onto the street. If anyone else was 

allowed in, the fire marshal would surely shut 

the operation down. How did a simple act of 

reverence come to this? 

The story begins in late-’80s Toronto, when 

a former child jingle singer and celebrated 

actor named Kevin Crabb suddenly abandoned 

script and made off to Los Angeles. 

There he worked on snare drum execution 

with Spivack before undertaking intense 

studies in technique and composition with 

Wilson, another child prodigy. When Wilson 

passed on, Crabb convened the first of his 

Sunday get-togethers. The L.A. drum community 

responded enthusiastically. 

In May 2009, the KC Drum Hang, now a 

monthly event, found a more spacious home 

at the hot spot Spazio, then at the L.A. Music 

Academy, eventually moving to the prestigious 

North Hollywood club the Baked 

Potato. Guest performers have included Virgil 

Donati, Chad Wackerman, Clayton Cameron, 

Jake Hanna, Patrice Rushen, Alphonso 

Johnson, and Louis Van Taylor. 

Why does Crabb persist, year in, year out? 

“Richard Wilson shone a light on great art,” 

Kevin explains. “He was a noble, powerful 

guiding force, unparalleled in his technical 

comprehension and communication skills. It 

all comes down to an adage he paraphrased 

from Plato: Teaching is only achieved by 

example. That’s what’s happening at the 

Baked Potato, and in my own teaching, one 

on one or via Skype, I’m doing my best to 

spread the traditions.” T. Bruce Wittet 

June 2011 • MODERN DRUMMER 13

14 

How do you manage to fit composing into your 

busy schedule? 

Recording a rough idea for a song is very easy to do on an airplane 

these days. Any decent laptop has programs that allow you to do 

this, and it’s something that all drummers should know their way 

around. It’s a great tool for drummers to start working with bass 

lines and piano and guitar parts; it’s important to be able to hear 

instruments individually. 

What gear do you recommend? 

Certainly try to get the most powerful computer and programs 

as possible. I have a MacBook Pro, and I use Reason, which is a 

fantastic sequencer program. It has instruments from any part 

of the world you can imagine. Through that I get ideas for songs; 

it could be as simple as a drumbeat. And then I use Logic, which 

is a recording studio program. When I get home to my studio, 

I sometimes replace the electronic drums with my real drums 

and start replacing the other instruments with real musicians’ 

performances. 

So you’ll use that initial Logic demo as the basis 

for the final track? 

Sometimes I build up right from there, and sometimes I get the 

idea down and go into the studio and start working up the song 

from zero in a different platform. What’s also great about these 

programs is they teach you a lot about sound. The first day you 

start EQ’ing or putting effects on a snare, it gives you an amazing 

contact with the electronic world. 

Do you mostly use the effects that are included with 

Reason and Logic, or do you download plug-ins? 

I’m not really a sound engineer. And what’s already in there is 

pretty amazing. I’ve learned a lot about how a studio works, 

which is exactly what you have virtually in the computer. 


ASK A PRO 

HORACIO “EL NEGRO” 

HERNANDEZ 

You want something done? Ask the busiest guy in 

the room. This month, an MD Pro Panelist hips us to 

how he finds time to compose while touring, 

rehearsing, and recording 24/7. 

El Negro has released a number of albums featuring his original compositions, 

including two from his band Italuba as well as El Negro And Robby At 

The Third World War, with his drumming brother Robby Ameen. Several new 

albums featuring Horacio’s playing and writing are due out soon. 


PRO PANEL 

Anyone who works with a computer has to deal with the 

issues of power and memory. You could find yourself on 

an airplane for eight hours; that’s a long time for a battery 

to hold out, and a lot of time to use up memory. 

This new Mac is great; its battery lasts four or five hours while 

you’re working in a heavy program. But these days they have 

power available at most seats on airplanes. And I always carry 

four LaCie 500GB hard drives with me; they’re very small and 

lightweight. 

Do you keep any files on your laptop’s hard drive? 

No, it’s better to have your computer as clean as possible. It runs 

a lot better that way. 

Traveling can be an uncomfortable, annoying thing; often 

people just want to sleep and read something mindless. Is 

it difficult to get into the right headspace to compose? 

Believe me, it was a lot worse when this gear didn’t exist—when 

we had nothing to do during an eight-hour flight to Paris or something. 

You just think, okay, now I’m going into a composing session. 

It’s great to have the opportunity to get into your music and 

put down any new idea that you have, right in the moment. 

As a composer, who are you inspired by? 

There are a few drummer/composers who I’ve been a huge fan of. 

I love the music on Bill Bruford’s solo albums, which he composed. 

Of course Tony Williams, with his band Lifetime, made a great 

impact on music. And I’m a great fan of Peter Erskine’s records. 

It was a big thing for me to see that we drummers can put out 

everything that we have inside us musically. You just have to learn 

how to do it, study music every day, and keep trying to make your 

music better. And I have to say, it’s a little bit of a fashion now, 

drummer/composers. There are many good ones out there. The 

first question musicians ask you these days when you tell them 

you have a new record is, “Who wrote the music?” 

Paul La Raia 


PRO PANEL

I’m about to buy a Yamaha Birch 

Custom Absolute drumset for a 

student. He lives in the mountains, 

and the shells on his old 

drumset are not in round anymore. 

He thinks this is probably 

due to the weather where he 

lives, which is cool in the summer 

and very cold in the winter. 

Is there something we should do 

with his new drumset to keep 

the wood from deteriorating 

over time? 

Marcel Chalhoub 

According to Yamaha Drums product 

manager Jim Haler, “Yamaha 

uses an exclusive process for manufacturing 

our shells, called the 


IT’S QUESTIONABLE 

Drums In Extreme Conditions 

Staggered Diagonal Seam/Air Seal 

System. This allows us to craft 

shells that are round and gives the 

shells the stability to stay round for 

the life of the drum, even in very 

extreme weather conditions. Our 

Absolute Birch drums are manufactured 

in Osaka, where the temperature 

and humidity reach 

extremes from very cold and dry to 

very hot and humid. I’m not suggesting 

you put your drums under 

water, but I’ve actually received 

email from drummers who’ve had 

their Yamaha kits submerged in 

water during a hurricane. After the 

water subsided, they cleaned and 

dried their kits and found no damage 

to the shells.” 

Mind Matters 

Band Versus Solo 

I always wanted to play drums, so I bought a cheap set at a 

garage sale. When I come home from school, I go into my basement 

and pound away. I have fun playing along to CDs, which 

helps me unwind after a stressful day. 

I’m a high school senior and a member of a local drama club. 

Rehearsals for a play will be starting soon, and I’m also active 

in my church. Here’s my problem. My church has live music. 

The regular drummer got sick recently, and my minister asked 

if I could be the new drummer. Several of my friends also keep 

asking me to start a band with them. I have no motivation to 

be in a band, and I don’t feel qualified to play in church. One of 

my friends gave me a copy of Modern Drummer in hopes that it 

would inspire me to start rehearsing with him. That’s how I 

came across your column. Can you offer any advice? 

Carson W. 

I’m sorry, but I can’t help you—because you really don’t have a 

problem. You’re playing your drums exactly the way you desire. 

You’re using the drumkit like someone else might use a treadmill 

or a set of free weights. As you clearly stated, “I have fun playing 

along to CDs, which helps me unwind after a stressful day.” 

Humans vacillate between having a need for solitude and a 

need for communion. Spending time alone with your drums fulfills 

your need for a little escape from the world. The drama club and 

your church activities give you the camaraderie and connections 

that can be had only by being with other people. From your letter, 

it seems as if you’ve established a nice balance of the two. 

The only problem I see in your situations is with friends who are 

pestering you to take your relationship with the drums to a different 

level. Have your friends who are bugging you to start a band 

ever been in any sort of musical ensemble before? (And I’m not 

talking about school-sponsored groups, where many, if not all, of the 

managerial details have been taken care of by school personnel.) 

Overcoming Common 

Mental Barriers In Music 

by Bernie 

Schallehn 

Starting and maintaining a band takes a tremendous amount of 

work. Let’s use your drama club as an analogy. Members of the 

club and its advisor decide which play you’re going to perform. 

Then you hold auditions, followed by weeks, or even months, of 

rehearsals. Then you have a series of performances. 

If your friends keep insisting that you form a band together, try 

asking them a few of these questions: 

1. Where will we rehearse if not in my basement, and how often? 

2. Who chooses the songs? 

3. When we have enough songs to play out, who will book 

shows for the band? 

4. Where will we play? 

5. Does anyone have a PA? If not, how will we go about purchasing 

one? 

6. Do we—or our parents—have a vehicle large enough to carry 

our equipment to shows? 

If your friends are still intent on recruiting you, simply look them 

straight in the eyes and say, “I have no interest or time to do this.” 

That should get your point across. 

Lastly, I’m assuming your minister accepted your refusal to be 

the church’s new drummer. If he or she pushes the issue, push 

back (gently) by highlighting the fact that you really don’t have any 

interest in playing drums publicly. Simply continue to enjoy drumming 

as a solo hobby that offers escapism and stress relief. 

(Remember to wear ear protection!) And don’t ever be afraid to say 

no. It’s your life, and how you choose to spend your free time is 

ultimately your choice. 

Bernie Schallehn has been a drummer and percussionist for over forty-five 

years. He holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology and, while in private 

practice, held the credentials of a certified clinical mental health counselor and a 

certified alcohol and substance abuse counselor. 

HOW TO REACH US 

miked@moderndrummer.com

18 

Drummers throughout the world must 

be bulkin’ up and rockin’ out, because 

there’s been a recent surge in cymbals targeting 

heavy hitters. Meinl’s Classics 

Customs are no exception. Made from B10 

bronze alloy (10 percent tin and 90 percent 

copper), Classics Customs create 

tonal landscapes that appeal to drummers 

looking for powerful cymbals that maintain 

musicality. Today’s aggro-melodic 

rock genres often require gear that provides 

edgier sounds while still delivering 

clarity. Classics Customs achieve this by 

focusing on a fast, glassy attack and an upfront 

tonality with a quickly descending 

decay that makes way for the next strike. 

IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD 

The 8" splash ($109) sounded exactly the 

way I think a splash cymbal should sound— 

all splash and no trash. It had a slick, 

focused attack, and its immediate decay 

made it an excellent fast-acting accent 

cymbal. The 10" splash ($129) blended a 

subtle trashiness with the more sonorous 

qualities of the 8" model, and a slightly 

lower pitch and fuller tone added to the 

decay time. I found myself returning to the 

8" more often to meet my splash needs. 

TIGHT HI-HATS 

My personal hi-hat tastes favor sloshy, 

open sounds. I quickly learned, though, 

that both the 14" ($364) and 15" ($420) 

Classics Custom Medium hi-hats sounded 

best when played tightly closed. The more 

open I held them, the more static-like the 

wash became, which I felt diminished the 

hats’ musicality. Their tinny tonality made 

for a short, glossy stick sound that kept 

most every hit on an even keel. This 

proved to be great for consistency but not 

so beneficial for hi-hat patterns with a lot 

of inner dynamics. 

CRASHES 

The 18" Classics Custom Medium crash 

($292) had a go-to quality that made it 

immediately likeable. There was ample 

brightness in the attack, followed by some 

body in the overtones and a reasonable 

decay. Crashing and riding on this cymbal 

produced good results in rock-inspired 

applications. The only quirk of the model 

was that it played with a personality more 


P R O D U C T C L O S E - U P 

meinl 

CLASSICS CUSTOM 

SERIES CYMBALS 

by David Ciauro 

akin to a 16" crash. Conversely, the 16" 

Classics Custom Medium crash ($238) was 

the most lackluster of the sampled bunch. 

In terms of presence and shimmer, it paled 

in comparison to the 18" Medium or any 

of the heavier Powerful models. 

The 18" Powerful crash ($292) had more 

fullness of tonal character than the 18" 

Medium. The overtones tended to hang 

around a bit longer, with a somewhat 

chime-like wash. This was only noticeable, 

however, when I played the two 18" cymbals 

side by side. When I played them with 

a full kit, the differences weren’t as pronounced, 

especially with regard to overtones. 

The 20" Powerful crash ($328) had 

the brightest, most intense attack of the 

review group, yet it quickly faded to a bellowing 

wash that I found very pleasing. Of 

all the Classics Custom crashes, the 18" 

Medium and 20" Powerful were the ones 

that made their way into my gig bag. 

STICKY RIDES 

If stick definition is what you look for in a 

ride, the Classics Customs deliver it in 

spades. The 20" Powerful ride had definition 

and clarity aplenty, especially in the 

bell. Its decay would perhaps be too long 

if you tend to play with a loose, open feel, 

or if you like to crash your ride. The 22" 

Powerful ride ($400) was crystal clear without 

sounding too metallic. Its character 

was reminiscent 

of the thick 

“ping” sound 

that’s been 

recorded on so 

many memorable 

rock albums. 

Both rides 

worked better 

when I played faster patterns, including 

double-stroke rolls that required clear 

articulation. Crashing the rides didn’t 

prove to be a good idea, but the crashes I 

mentioned earlier would cover the 

crash/ride arena well enough. 

CHINAS 

Both the 16" ($238) and 18" ($292) Classics 

Custom Chinas had fairly stock sounds. 

They hit the trashy mark, in a manner that 

was a bit brash due to the brightness of 

the B10 bronze. Their firm overtones 

would likely be covered up on stage in 

larger rooms. But don’t be surprised if 

your bandmates start yelling at you for 

bringing these loud and aggressivesounding 

cymbals to a small club gig or to 

your rehearsal space. 

CONCLUSION 

Meinl has an impressive offering of cymbals 

and has risen to worldwide notoriety 

on all musical spectrums. Surely there are 

more diverse product lines in its roster, 

but props to the company for not leaving 

rockers in the lurch when it comes to making 

quality cymbals. I also appreciate how 

Meinl has embraced the fact that not all 

cymbals have to be “complex” or “sophisticated” 

in order to be the perfect sound 

for a genre. 

meinlcymbals.com 

SIFTING THROUGH THE NOISE 

The B10 bronze alloy used in the Classics Custom series has an 

inherent metallic quality that lends itself nicely to heavier rock 

situations. It’s as if there’s built-in EQ that allows these cymbals to 

have the proper volume to cut through and still sound musical. Classics 

Customs possess a tenacious shimmer and purposeful suddenness, 

emphasizing brighter shades that are loud without being noisy. 

•

ford 

MAVERICK SERIES 

DRUMSET 

by Waleed Rashidi 

Drummers often spend years, 

decades—heck, entire lifetimes— 

buying and selling gear in hopes of finding 

that one kit that’ll become a jack-ofall-trades 

for gigs and sessions. After 

spending a few weeks putting the Ford 

Maverick drumset through its paces via 

polar-opposite gigging situations (from 

delicate jazz to rimshots-only rock), I can 

say with confidence that this latest offering 

from the southern California–based company 

had no trouble adapting. And based 

on its stout construction, the Maverick will 

likely hold up to the various abuses that 

come its way without a single scar to show 

for it, making it a great heirloom kit for 

future generations of drummers. 

THE VISUALS 

One of the Maverick’s most impressive 

features is its finish. Our Fusion pack 

tester kit was in the striking pearlescent 

“abalone flake,” with subtle sparkles that 

reminded me of the opulent hues you see 

on a luxury car. Whether indoors or outdoors, 

the shells shine tastefully, letting 

the audience know that this is no bargain 

A BIG KICK WITH 

A SOFT SIDE 

The 18x22 Maverick bass drum proved to be 

much more versatile than its beefed-up size 

would imply. It features easy-to-adjust legs 

and was a snap to tune. With the pre-muffled 

Aquarian Super-Kick 2 batter head and Regulator 

front, plus some minimal internal dampening, 

the drum had plenty of resonance that helped 

it speak clearly during rock band rehearsals without 

the need for a mic. On a gig with a female 

jazz vocalist, the drum proved versatile enough 

to act subtly, responding to the felt beater with 

a feathery pulse. This kick impressed the other 

musicians in the band so much that they went 

out of their way to comment on how they loved 

its presence and how well it blended into the 

ensemble. 

setup. Also in line with the overall theme 

of being understated yet well apportioned 

are the kit’s discreet logos and badges, 

and the smallish aircraft-grade aluminum 

lugs (with aircraft-grade metal 

inserts and screws) are a nice match. 

The exterior finish of the Maverick 

kit is extremely tough and durable, 

due to the BTS Kevlar–bonded coating 

that Ford claims is “virtually bulletproof.” 

While we didn’t engage in 

any ballistics tests, it’s easy to note 

that these shells appear immensely 

well protected. 

DRUM BY DRUM 

Our test configuration consisted of 

10-ply maple 10" and 12" rack toms 

(with suspension mounts) and 14" 

and 16" floor toms. I used various 

tom arrangements, depending on 

the gig. Versatility is the key here, 

because no matter which configuration 

I chose, the Maverick was 

impressive to the eyes, ears, and 

hands. All four toms, which were 

fitted with 2-ply clear Aquarian 

Response 2 batter heads and Classic 

Clear bottoms, were quick to sing 

yet easy to control. When miked, 

they rang a little strongly, but that 

was quickly remedied with a few 

twists of the drum key. In fact, I 

rarely touched the toms’ tension 

throughout the course of the kit’s stay, as 

the drums arrived nicely tuned. My 

favorite of the lot was the 14" floor tom, 

which made it to every gig and practice. 

The Maverick snare has a 5 1 / 2 x14 maple 

shell that I dubbed the Gentle Giant. It’s a 

giant because it excelled in the rock realm, 

taking a bruising of continual rimshots 

from thick 2B sticks. These endless strikes 

revealed a cutting, full-bodied sound. The 

slick variable throw-off also made quick 

changes in snare sensitivity a snap, and 

the drum itself—equipped with a durable 

Aquarian New Orleans Special batter 

head—was easy to dial in. The gentle side 

kicked in when I used the snare with a relatively 

quiet jazz quartet. The sensitivity 

was rather impressive, with the drum sitting 

squarely in the band’s mix as my 7As 

tickled the head with light strokes. 

WHO’S IT FOR? 

A kit of this quality comes at a price tag 

that’s too steep for most entry-level drummers 

($5,845 list, $3,995 street). But for a 

high-end boutique set with such a gorgeous 

finish, clear and versatile tones, and 

an extremely durable construction, this rig 

clearly has long-term value. It’s been said 

that you can’t please everybody, but the 

Ford Maverick comes close—it’s a jack-ofall-trades, 

and a master of many as well. 

forddrums.com 

• 


diril 

ASSORTED CYMBALS 

by Anthony Riscica 

AD SERIES CRASH 

The 18" AD series crash ($415) in this review is 

lathed very lightly so that some of the raw metal 

still pokes through. This medium-thin cymbal provided 

a nice, round set of dark overtones. It had 

many of the same characteristics as the Jazz crash, 

but with a larger, warmer palette of colors. 


In his early twenties, Ibrahim Diril left 

Istanbul Cymbals and his tutors Agop 

Tomurcuk and Mehmet Tamdeger, with 

whom he’d been studying for five years. 

He moved back to Samsun, Turkey, where 

he worked with a relative and eventually 

collaborated with Meinl on the Byzance 

line and with Paiste on the Twenty series. 

In 2008, Diril quenched the “burning desire 

to start my own company” and developed 

Diril cymbals. His objective? Simple: to produce 

only the finest-quality instruments 

available. We were sent a wide range of 

Diril cymbals to check out. Here’s how they 

stacked up. 

TRADITIONAL SERIES 

The Traditional series was the most versatile 

of the lines we reviewed. The 14" hihats 

($600) had a responsive chick and a 

round overall sound. These hats would be 

an ideal choice for all-around applications, 

due to their modest sensitivity for jazz settings 

and their ability to cut for louder rock 

gigs. We also received 16" ($325) and 18" 

($415) Traditional crashes, which fell into 

the all-around category as well. They could 

handle full swipes with a 5B stick, producing 

a good deal of volume. On the flip side, 

they offered enough tone at lower volumes 

to be used in a small club with a jazz 

trio. In fact, I used the 18" crash as a ride in 

this setting, and it worked quite well. The 

medium-thick 20" ($475) and 22" ($550) 

Traditional rides had a good stick sound. 

While they were a little too thick for a standard 

jazz setup, they could easily cover 

everything else—from big band to rock— 

with class. 

JAZZ SERIES 

From the Jazz series, we checked out a 17" 

crash ($375) and an 18" flat ride ($415). The 

crash lived up to its description, “splashy 

and transparent.” The cymbal made its 

presence known but didn’t cover up anything, 

and it got out of the way quickly, 

which is exactly what you’d want out of a 

“jazz crash.” The 18" flat ride is relatively 

thin and couldn’t be coaxed into being 

loud. Its minimal overtones were sophisticated 

and more than pleasant to the ear. 

This would be an ideal cymbal when you 

really need to keep your volume in check. 

RAW SERIES 

From the Raw series, we received only a 

20" ride ($475). This cymbal has a mediumheavy 

thickness and, like the name implies, 

an unfinished appearance. Diril dismissed 

any lathing and relied on hammering 

alone to shape the tone. The result is a dry 

sound with a very articulate stick attack. 

The bell was slightly chime-like, but striking 

it did awaken some of the cymbal’s 

minimal dark overtones. 

ICE SERIES 

The Ice series consists of shimmering 

sounds designed to cut at any volume. The 

beauty of these models is that while 

they’re loud, they still retain some of the 

complexity that’s prized in Turkish-made 

cymbals. The 14" hi-hats ($600) are heavy. 

The chick they produced was full and cutting, 

as was the stick sound—even with 

the cymbals loosened up for a bit of wash. 

The Ice hi-hats retained some tone as well, 

which is a bit unusual for plates as thick 

as these. 

The 16" ($325) and 18" ($415) Ice crashes 

are also heavy and loud. In a rock band 

rehearsal, they cut right through. The 16" 

had a higher set of overtones, which was 

useful for occasional punctuations, plus 

enough sustain to sound appropriate during 

bigger moments. The 18" had a shiny, 

explosive sound that was useful in bigger 

crash/ride choruses. 

Relative to the crashes, the 20" Ice ride 

($475) was a bit less thick. This was a good 

thing, as the cymbal had plenty of volume 

while providing more tone underneath the 

stick sound. Its wash was glassy, and the 

ride cut well while maintaining rich color. 

Add to that a huge bell sound, and you’ve 

got a great choice if your goal is presence 

plus complexity. 

SAMSUN SERIES 

The Samsun line combines the bell construction 

of the Raw series with the bow of 

the Ice. The result is a group of cymbals 

that were brighter than the Raw models, 

while maintaining more earthy darkness 

than what’s found in the Ice series. The 14" 

Samsun hi-hats ($600) displayed the same 

stick-sound characteristics as the Ice models 

when played closed, but when they 

were loosened a bit, darker overtones 

started to reveal themselves. The same 

was true of the 16" Samsun crash ($325). It 

opened up with a shimmer from a light 

tap, but when I laid into it, I heard a darker, 

more raw sound. This was a nice all-around 

cymbal that would especially appeal to 

drummers who like a bit of trashiness in 

the mix. The 20" Samsun ride ($475) also 

displayed a good union of Raw and Ice 

characteristics. It had a somewhat bright 

stick sound, but with noticeably darker 

overtones than its 20" Ice counterpart. 

CONCLUSION 

From the diverse range of sounds we 

explored in this review, it’s obvious that 

Diril’s combination of expert experience 

and youthful energy has made for quality 

cymbals that rival competitors’ models. We 

expect to see more great things from the 

company in the future. 

dirilcymbalsusa.com

22 

This is a side-by-side review of the 

ultra-compact Pocketrak W24 and 

C24, the latest mobile recorders from 

Yamaha. The W24 weighs in at 3.25 

ounces (AA battery included), and the 

C24 tips the scales at 2 ounces (AAA battery 

included). Shared features include a 

metronome, a tuner, 2GB of internal 

memory (expandable with SD memory 

cards), a high-pass filter, a peak limiter, a 

speed control (MP3 audio only), a set 

timer function (delayed record start for 

eliminating hand noise while pushing 

the record button), and a hold/lockout 

button. Both products come with a DVD- 

ROM containing Cubase AI 5 software 

for editing recorded audio transferred 

to your computer using the supplied 

USB cable. 

NAVIGATION 

The controls on the W24 are clearly 

marked and easily accessible. On the lefthand 

side are the headphone jack and 

ALC (automatic level control) and mic 

sensitivity (high-low) switches. The faceplate 

has the record/pause, stop/esc, and 

play/speed buttons, as well as a round 

navigation toggle ring, which is used for 

setting record and playback levels. In the 

center of the ring there’s a menu/enter 

button. The right-hand side of the W24 

has an external mic/line jack, a hidden SD 

memory card compartment, a USB jack, 

and buttons for power, delete, and other 

functions. The bottom of the device has 

a speaker grill, a hold button, and a 1 / 4 " 

threaded socket for attaching the unit 

to a tripod or mic stand. 

The controls on the C24 are more condensed, 

requiring a little more care while 

navigating through the various functions. 


E L E C T R O N I C R E V I E W 

yamaha 

POCKETRAK W24 AND C24 

HANDHELD RECORDERS 

by Butch Jones 

W24 REMOTE 

The C24 and 

W24, shown 

at actual size 

The RC-P1 wireless remote control that comes with 

the W24 is a drummer’s delight. Once you’ve found the 

hot spot for placing the recorder, you can use the remote 

to set your levels and start and pause recording from 

behind your drums. 

The left-hand side has a headphone jack 

and SD memory card slot. The faceplate 

has a ring for play, stop, and cursor navigation, 

with the record/enter button in 

the center. The right-hand side of the C24 

has an external mic/line jack, an input 

level/speed toggle switch, an ALC/delete 

button, and a playback toggle control. 

The bottom has a speaker grill, on/off/ 

hold and line/mic switches, a battery 

compartment, and a slide switch for 

extending the USB connector out of 

the recorder. If you purchase the C24, 

you might want to get a USB extension 

cable so you don’t need to connect 

the recorder directly to your computer. 

A mounting clip is included to secure the 

C24 to a mic stand, music stand, or other 

steady surface. 

MICROPHONES 

The dual microphones on the W24 are 

set in a fixed X/Y configuration behind a 

protective wraparound rail. The C24’s 

stereo omnidirectional microphones 

are designed to cover a wide field of 

recording, and they’re recessed in the 

casing for protection. 

After recording drums, percussion, and 

acoustic guitars with both units, I found 

the W24 to have great stereo imaging 

and impressive room clarity. There was 

a slight bump in the higher frequencies, 

which gave the sound a nice sheen. 

Because of the nondirectional omni 

pickup of the C24, its recordings had a 

monaural sound, without the same highend 

shimmer that I got from the W24. 

RECORDING SETUPS 

Both units record in the PCM WAV format 

at 44.1, 48, 88.2, or 96 kHz, with 16- or 24bit 

depths, or in the MP3 format at 32, 64, 

128, 192, or 320 kbps.

The W24 has four preset “scenes” (not included in the C24), 

which are accessed by pushing the scene button on the righthand 

side of the recorder. These presets (Practice, Studio, 

Outdoor, and Live) contain combinations of record mode, sample 

rate, input level, mic sensitivity, limiter and mic settings, and 

more. You can also save up to three user presets. Just be sure not 

to overwrite the factory presets when you create your own; 

they’re not protected. 

PLAYBACK 

The W24 and the C24 come with a five-band graphic equalizer for 

adjustments at 150 Hz, 500 Hz, 1 kHz, 4 kHz, and 12 kHz, plus six 

EQ presets (Flat, Bass1, Bass2, Pop, Rock, and Jazz). There are several 

repeat modes, and you can change the playback speed without 

affecting pitch when working with MP3 files. A good use for 

the speed control would be to help lock down a song’s tempo 

during a songwriting session with your band. Both recorders also 

allow you to add a fade-in or fade-out, and you can split recordings 

into separate files using an internal editor. 

CONCLUSION 

After taking the time to navigate through all the options on the 

W24 and C24 Pocketrak digital recorders, I found both devices 

to be user friendly and easy to set up. By making use of the presets 

in the W24, you’ll be ready for most recording situations in a 

matter of seconds. If quality music recording is your main focus, 

then I suggest grabbing the W24 ($299). But for those of you who 

just need something simple and portable so you can capture 

thoughts and ideas before they slip away, the super-slim C24 

($199) is the way to go. 

yamaha.com

26 


Story by Dena Tauriello 

Photos by Torry Pendergrass

For over twenty years Brian 

Tichy has applied tremendous 

energy to every gig, 

delivering a perfect balance 

of personality and precision. 

Blending his own style with the signature 

fills of classic rock drumming, 

Tichy communicates his 

passion for the music from the 

moment he lifts a stick. Deftly using 

his Berklee experience and connections, 

the drummer, who’s currently 

with Whitesnake, has enjoyed 

steady work with some of rock 

’n’ roll’s heaviest acts, including 

Foreigner, Ozzy Osbourne, Velvet 

Revolver, Zakk Wylde, Slash, and 

Lynch Mob. 

Tichy learned the basics while 

growing up in New Jersey, and then 

it was off to Boston’s prestigious 

Berklee College Of 

Music. Brian quickly 

applied what he 

learned in school to 

real-life situations; 

when stepping into a 

new gig, he delivered 

only what was necessary. 

He also stayed 

true to his rock ’n’ roll 

roots of Zeppelin, Kiss, 

and Aerosmith, opting 

to practice his double 

bass chops by playing 

along to records rather 

than to a click track. 

It was at Berklee 

that Tichy became 

tight with bassist John 

DeServio. Around 

1991, “JD” brought his 

pal in to drum for sixstring 

virtuoso Vinnie 

Moore, just as the 

guitar-hero movement 

was taking off. Tichy 

traveled the country in a van, taking 

part in Moore’s club tour and opening 

ten arena shows for Rush. This 

led to one of the drummer’s most 

notable moments: playing Neil 

Peart’s kit during a soundcheck, 

and getting attention and respect 

from none other than Peart himself. 

Soon Tichy moved to California 

and began networking. During 

demo sessions for Canadian rock 

vocalist Sass Jordan’s 1994 record, 

Rats, Brian laid down the drum 

track for “High Road Easy.” The 

demo ended up being the keeper, 

and the song became the album’s 

first single, climbing to number 

nine in Canada while also receiving 

airplay in the States. A Canadian 

tour followed, after which Tichy 

found himself back in L.A. 

The drummer didn’t have much 

time to think about his next step, 

though, as he was immediately 

invited to be part of Ozzy Osbourne 

guitarist Zakk Wylde’s first project 

as a leader, Pride & Glory. Tichy 

toured with P&G throughout 1994, 

including stints in the U.K., Europe, 

Japan, and the U.S. By year’s end, 

the band was done, and Brian 

was in another transition phase, 

spending most of 1995 on Slash’s 

Snakepit world tour. In 1996 he 

shifted gears once more, focusing 

on the band Nickelbag, featuring 

Bernard Fowler, Carmine Rojas, 

and Stevie Salas. 

In 1998 Tichy made a more radical 

change and started his own 

group, BALL, in which he sang, 

played guitar, and did much of 

the writing. The band signed a 

deal a year later with Time Bomb 

Recordings but never saw the 

release of its American Aggression 

CD, due to the demise of the label. 

While working on BALL, though, 

Tichy became the drummer for 

Foreigner and spent the better part 

of the next three years on tour. In 

2000 he left Foreigner to play with 

Ozzy Osbourne on Ozzfest; by the 

end of the year Tichy found himself 

once again looking for a gig. 

Enter drummer Mark Schulman, 

who asked Brian to fill in for a 

month with Billy Idol. Tichy and 

Idol ended up spending the next 

seven years writing and recording. 

Devil’s Playground, from 2005, was 

Idol’s first album in more than a 

decade and featured eight tracks 

cowritten by Tichy, including the 

single “Scream.” On 2006’s Happy 

Holidays Christmas album, Tichy 


proves to be invaluable to Idol, 

playing most of the instruments, 

coproducing, and cowriting the 

two original tracks. Idolize 

Yourself: The Very Best Of Billy 

Idol followed in 2008, featuring 

three new tracks cowritten by 

Tichy, including the single “John 

Wayne.” During his tenure with 

Idol, Tichy also subbed for Matt 

Sorum in Velvet Revolver. 

In 2007 the drummer stepped 

back into Foreigner, filling in for 

Jason Bonham, who took leave to 

work with a re-formed Led 

Zeppelin. Tichy subsequently 

drummed on all but one track of 

the band’s 2009 album, Can’t Slow 

Down, its first studio release since 

1994. At the end of the year— 

which also saw Brian doing a onemonth 

sub for Seether drummer 

John Humphrey—George Lynch of 

Dokken asked Tichy to join Lynch 

Mob, which did a U.S. tour with 

Michael Schenker as well as a 

BRIAN’S SETUP 

2 

Drums: ddrum 

A. 6 1 / 2x14 wood or chrome snare 

B. 10x14 tom 

C. 14x16 floor tom 

D. 16x16 floor tom 

E. 14x24 bass drum 

F. 16x18 floor tom 

Brian also has a set of Deccabons 

placed behind his throne. 

Sticks: Vater XD-5B 

Heads: Remo Emperor X snare batter 

and Ambassador Snare Side bottom, 

Suede Ambassador tom batters (CS 

black dot on left-side floor tom), and 


3 

F 

1 

B 

A 

4 

European tour. 

In early 2010 Tichy was faced 

with a dilemma: His work with 

Foreigner had left him with the 

ability to do little else. It was time 

to choose—stay in a band you 

enjoy working with, or step down 

to create an open road of opportunity. 

Tichy chose the latter, coming 

off tour in April. As fate would 

have it, two days after getting 

home, he received an email 

from guitarist Doug Aldrich of 

Whitesnake. Tichy had been in 

contact with bandleader David 

Coverdale around the group’s 2002 

reunion but was committed to 

Billy Idol at the time, so Tommy 

Aldridge had returned to the fold. 

This time, however, the circumstances 

were perfect. MD caught 

up with Brian as Whitesnake was 

gearing up for its 2011 world tour 

behind the drummer’s debut 

recording with the group, 

Forevermore. 

E 

5 

C 

CS black dot bass drum batter and 

Coated Ambassador front head 

Hardware: ddrum, including Vinnie 

Paul signature double pedal 

D 

Cymbals: Paiste 2002 

1. 15" Sound Edge hi-hats 

2. 18" Thin crash with inverted 

6" Bell Chime on top 

3. 18" crash 

4. 12" splash 

5. 24" ride 

6. 20" crash 

7. 20" Novo China 

8. 20" Power crash 

6 

7 

8 

HONORING BONZO 

In August 2010, Brian Tichy had a brainstorm. It 

was really just happenstance; his mind drifted to 

Led Zeppelin, and he realized the thirtieth anniversary 

of John Bonham’s death was around the corner. 

What better way to celebrate than to assemble 

some of the world’s greatest drummers to pay tribute 

live, on a Bonzo replica kit. 

Tichy shared the idea with his promoter friend 

Joe Sutton, who happened to have L.A.’s Key Club 

on hold for September 25—the actual anniversary 

of Bonzo’s passing. Brian spent the next six weeks 

assembling the band, coordinating rehearsals, 

researching, and planning. There would be only two 

rehearsals prior to the show, during which each of 

the eighteen drummers would get one take only. 

Ludwig provided an amber Vistalite kit, and the 

Bonhams—John’s wife, Pat, sister, Deborah, and 

children, Zoe and Jason—were all in the house. 

Also present were members of Atlantic Records 

and the local radio station KLOS. (DJ legend Uncle 

Joe Benson hosted the event.) Deborah and Zoe 

fronted the band, while Jason closed the show 

with “Kashmir.” 

In addition to Tichy and Jason Bonham, the featured 

drummers included Steven Adler (Guns N’ 

Roses), Vinny Appice (Black Sabbath, Dio, Heaven 

& Hell), Kenny Aronoff (John Fogerty, John 

Mellencamp), Bobby Blotzer (Ratt), Frankie Banali 

(Quiet Riot), Danny Carey (Tool), Fred Coury 

(Cinderella), Jimmy D’Anda (BulletBoys), James 

Kottak (Scorpions, Kingdom Come), Abe Laboriel Jr. 

(Paul McCartney), Khurt Maier (Salty Dog), Stephen 

Perkins (Jane’s Addiction), Chris Slade (AC/DC, 

the Firm), Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers, 

Chickenfoot), Joe Travers (Duran Duran, Zappa Plays 

Zappa), and Simon Wright (Dio, AC/DC), with special 

video performances by Carmine Appice (Vanilla 

Fudge, Rod Stewart) and Mike Portnoy (Dream 

Theater, Avenged Sevenfold). 

The evening was such a success that other shows 

were scheduled to coincide with January’s NAMM 

show in Anaheim, California. Keep an eye out, as 

Tichy hopes to make this an annual event in honor 

of the beloved Led Zeppelin drummer.

BRIAN TICHY 

MD: You’ve worked consistently for years 

with a number of high-profile artists. How 

do you get gigs as an independent drummer? 

Brian: If you meet one person and they say 

one good thing to one other person, that can 

get you another gig. Some people are great 

schmoozers, and others are so kick-ass that 

somebody just has to notice them, and bam! 

Then there are people like me who just do 

what they do as much as they can and hope 

that it translates. 

MD: What’s your advice to drummers in 

terms of auditioning? 

Brian: Play the flavor of what you think the 

job calls for. Why would you want every flavor 

in your ice cream cone? Sometimes I’ve 

gone on auditions where I’ve tried to be too 

exact, playing overdubbed drum parts mixed 

in with the real track. You try to play two 

things at once, but it starts to sound confusing. 

If it’s a new band, it depends on what 

they’re going for. You may come in and add 

something to it, or they may say they need 

more of this or that. It’s a hard call. 

MD: How do you approach the gig once 

you get it? 

Brian: I go into gigs as I would play to a 

RECORDINGS 

Pride & Glory Pride & Glory /// Whitesnake Forevermore /// Stevie Salas Back 

From The Living /// Sass Jordan Rats /// Vinnie Moore Out Of Nowhere /// Billy 

Idol Devil’s Playground, Happy Holidays /// Derek Sherinian Blood Of The 

Snake /// Foreigner Can’t Slow Down /// Lynch Mob (new album to be released 

later in 2011) 

INFLUENCES 

Led Zeppelin all, bootlegs included (John Bonham) /// Van Halen all (Alex Van 

Halen) /// Rush Moving Pictures, Exit Stage Left (Neil Peart) /// Kiss Alive! (Peter 

Criss) /// James Brown In The Jungle Groove (Melvin Parker, Clyde Stubblefield, 

John Starks) /// AC/DC If You Want Blood You’ve Got It (Phil Rudd) /// Deep 

Purple Made In Japan (Ian Paice) /// The Knack Get The Knack (Bruce Gary) /// 

Missing Persons Spring Session M (Terry Bozzio)

ecord when I was a kid. That’s the 

simplest way to put it. I want to fit in 

with the sound I love, so I imitate it 

and emulate it. With Foreigner, I’m 

going to try to play “Hot Blooded” the 

way I loved it as a kid. I’m going to try 

to give off that same vibe that I heard. 

Same with Billy Idol. To play “Rebel 

Yell,” you want it to have the intensity 

that you felt when it was a huge hit. I 

want to at least start with that. If they 

say, “We’re going to do an acoustic 

version,” or, “Drop it down,” fine. But I 

want to start with what I think people 

paid money for—the way they heard it 

on the radio. 

MD: Let’s go back to when you first 

started hearing some of those classic 

rock songs, the ones that you’d eventually 

be playing on stage with the original 

artists. What was your first kit? 

Brian: I started hitting a kiddie snare 

at eight, then at nine I got a Sears 

Dynamite drumset with flames painted 

on it. After I trashed the Dynamite, I 

built my own kit outside in the yard. 

They were paving our driveway and 

left five buckets of tar there, all with 

different amounts of tar in them. I set 

them up left to right, pitched high to 

low, and sat on the fifth one. Then I 

grabbed a tree branch and broke it in 

two. That was my kit for the next couple 

days, until they finished paving! 

Then on Christmas day in fourth 

grade I got a late-’60s Leedy kit. I still 

have the snare. In fact, I used it on the 

entire Pride & Glory record and tour, 

on Slash’s Snakepit tour, and on a few 

other records. 

MD: When did you start taking 

lessons? 

Brian: That started months before getting 

the Leedy kit, with the understanding 

that if I did well in lessons I 

would get a new set on Christmas. My 

teacher, Bob Cook, was great, a hardcore 

big band jazzer with lots of fire 

and attitude and a rabbit right foot— 

heel down, very Buddy Rich. 

MD: How did you like your Berklee 

experience? 

Brian: It was awesome. You’re screwed 

if you interpret Berklee as reality, but 

not if you look at it and go, “What an 

amazing tool.” 

MD: You’ve worn many hats, including 

drummer, writer, guitarist, producer…. 

Which role do you prefer? 

Brian: I love guitar, always have. Don’t 

get me wrong—drums are one of the 

coolest things in the world. But I’ve put 

in a lot more miles behind the kit, 

which makes the guitar seem more 

mystical and challenging. I’m a better 

drummer than a guitarist; playing 

drums is more natural to me. 

MD: What’s your practice routine like 

today? 

Brian: The practice routine now is to 

think about practicing. [laughs] It’s 

pathetic—I just don’t have much time 

for practice. I do warm up, though. 

These days, drumming is an extension 

of my speed-bagging skills. I got so 

obsessed—it’s all about rhythm and 

accuracy and precision. The first time I 

sat down at the kit after a couple weeks 

of speed bagging, I was like, “Whoa!” 

My balance and equilibrium got better. 


32 


BRIAN TICHY 

I definitely felt a difference. 

MD: You’re a father of two. How does 

being a dad impact your career? 

Brian: It makes leaving difficult. As 

soon as you get an itinerary, the first 

thing you do is look at when you get 

home and when the breaks are. Then 

you gauge everything around that. I 

can’t stand being away from my kids. 

But you can’t complain about hitting 

drums for a living. Things could be so 

much worse, but it does change 

things. 

MD: What would be your dream gig? 

Brian: Led Zeppelin. If you’re a rock 

drummer and that’s not your dream 

gig, then I think there’s something 

really wrong with you! [laughs] But 

really, I would want to be playing guitar 

in my own band. It’s so different 

now, though. I don’t even know how a 

new band gets going, because do you 

really want to sign with a major label 

now? It’s kind of scary. 

MD: What advice would you give to 

drummers looking for touring or session 

work? 

Brian: You have to be yourself but 

also be some sort of chameleon. You 

want to have some personality, but 

it’s not about breaking ground, like 

you’re reinventing the drumset. You 

have to be able to go in there with a 

smile and kick ass quickly. You have 

to make sure the song sounds good 

and the hit single is a bigger hit single 

because of the groove and feel. 

MD: What have your greatest 

moments been? 

Brian: When people you grew up idolizing 

or people you respect compliment 

you. Having Neil Peart, Joey 

Kramer, Vinnie Paul, or Tommy Lee 

say some nice stuff has been awesome. 

After that, it’s writing with Billy 

Idol, because I’ve gotten to write 

music with a proven hit songwriter 

and pop icon and then watch those 

songs get played on the radio and 

supported on tour. I have something 

to look back on that’s a tangible thing 

forever.

34 

MODERN DRUMMER • June 2011

Chuck Madden 

John 

Von Ohlen 

by Paul Francis 

He’s one of the only 

drummers in history who 

pleased the notoriously 

picky swing king Woody 

Herman with his playing. 

A living guru of big band 

drumming says follow 

your heart—and the horn 

chart—and the world is 

your oyster. 

Growing up in Ohio, I heard quite a 

bit about John Von Ohlen. The 

musicians that I played with during 

high school were always talking 

about this great drummer who lived in 

Cincinnati and was revered for his work with 

Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Rosemary 

Clooney, Mel Tormé, Carmen McRae, and 

many others. I was about to start my freshman 

year in college when I finally decided to 

go and check out “VO” for myself. I made the 

two-hour drive to the Blue Wisp in Cincinnati 

and sat down right in front of John’s drums, 

intent on picking his playing apart. To me at 

the time, if a drummer didn’t have blazing 

chops, I didn’t have any use for him. 

As the music started, I was immediately 

taken by the way Von Ohlen had the entire 

ensemble smiling and having a great time. 

It didn’t seem as if he was doing much, but 

the band was on fire. When the shout section 

of the first tune came around, I noticed that 

John would set up the band with just one 

or two notes instead of a blazing fill around 

the toms, like I was accustomed to hearing 

drummers do. What he might have lacked in 

chops, though, he more than made up for in 

feel and musicality. The way he played and 

supported the band, there was no way the 

group couldn’t swing. 

“The Baron,” as Stan Kenton dubbed Von 

Ohlen, is a musical guru. He began his journey 

on the piano and then played the trombone 

for several years before he discovered 

the drums. Though humble and self-effacing, 

VO also possesses a confidence that can be 

instilled only by years of experience. Now in 

his seventieth year, John still holds down five 

steady gigs a week in the Cincinnati area. The 

following interview finds him honest, forthright, 

and more than willing to impart his 

considerable wisdom. 

MD: What made you switch to drums from 

piano and trombone? 

John: When I was fourteen years old, I got to 

see that great Stan Kenton band with Mel 

Lewis playing drums. It was at a ballroom, 

and I stood right in front of Mel. They were 

playing all those great charts by Bill Holman 

and Johnny Richards, and Mel’s drumming 

just took me. When I woke up the next day, I 

was a drummer. 

But I didn’t start playing drums until two or 

three years later, because we didn’t have the 

money for a set. I just stayed with trombone. 

A friend of mine who was going into the navy 

had just bought a Gretsch set, and he offered 

to rent it to me for $12 a month. It was a 

brand-new set—cymbals and everything. I 

think I was about seventeen when I started on 

the drums, and I just taught myself. I kept 

playing the trombone professionally until I 

was about twenty-four, and then I pretty well 

hung it up in favor of just playing drums. I 

still play piano for my own amusement and 


36 

for composing. 

MD: Do you think that learning harmony 

from playing the piano has 

helped your drumming? 

John: I’d say to anybody who wants 

to play drums that it would be good 

if they also took up piano. The piano 

is the king of instruments—it’s got 

rhythm, harmony, and melody. Most 

instruments can only play one line, but 

the piano is the whole ball of wax. If 

you’ve got that in your subconscious 

from playing piano, you’ll hear those 

things when you play drums. 

I’m not saying that a guy who just 

plays drums is not going to hear those 

things, but I notice it right away if a 

guy has played another instrument like 

piano. They play differently—more 

musically, as opposed to being “a 

drummer’s drummer.” 

MD: Many drummers learn by taking 

lessons and playing out of books like 

Stick Control. You, however, learned by 

playing along with records. How did 

learning to play in this way shape the 

musician that you are now? 

John: I took one lesson from a drummer 

that had great rudimental chops, 

but I just didn’t shine to that. My thing 

was playing to recordings. I did that 

for six, eight hours a day or more. 

When I first got on the drums, it was 

a real honeymoon love affair, and I 

couldn’t get off of the things. I just 

kept knockin’ away until it was right. 

I taught myself, which I think anybody 

could do. 

I never learned the rudiments. I still 

don’t know them, and it shows, there’s 

no doubt about that. But you get your 

own technique after a while, which is 

not necessarily based on rudiments. 

I’ve got a pretty natural, good open roll 

and press roll, and that’s about it. 

MD: You don’t discourage anybody 

from learning from a teacher, do you? 

John: Oh, no! In fact, to me, rudimental 

drumming is like playing the piano 

and learning your scales. It’s a really 

good way to go. I played drums without 

lessons, playing in every conceivable 

situation for so long. When I eventually 

got around to taking lessons and 

I tried to impose the rudiments on my 

natural playing, it just didn’t work. If I 


had done it right 

off the bat, it 

would have been 

great, but I was 

lazy and didn’t 

like anything academic. 

MD: I’ve heard you tell many a drummer 

to read the lead trumpet part 

instead of the drum chart. And I’ve 

seen you look over and read the 

trombone chart when you’re playing 

with the Blue Wisp Big Band. Is that 

because if you can see that the lead 

trumpet part is higher on the staff, it 

will be louder and you should kick the 

band a little harder? 

John: Right. It’s like Woody Herman 

told me: “Get your head out of the 

drum part—it’s a guide to insanity.” 

And it’s true! The drum parts usually 

tell you what not to do, not what you 

should do. 

I think it’s much better in a big 

band for the drummer to just have the 

brass parts. Over at the Cincinnati 

Conservatory, where I’m teaching, 

“Woody Herman told me, ‘Get your 

head out of the drum part—it’s a 

guide to insanity.’ And it’s true!” 

I coach the drummers while they’re 

playing in a rehearsal. I’m looking at 

the drum parts, and it’s a wonder that 

they can play anything at all. And yet, if 

they had a trumpet part, they could see 

exactly what’s going on with the band. 

You see the shape of the line. 

MD: Let’s talk about your time with 

Woody Herman. At that point in his 

career, he was known to fire drummers 

on the first night. What was it that 

made Woody keep you? 

John: It might be that most drummers 

dig playing in small groups more than 

playing in a big band. My first love has 

always been big band. Still is. The 

drummers Woody had before me 

didn’t have their heart and soul in big 

band like I did. I had been playing in 

big bands since I was a little kid, and I 

had the concept down. Now, playing

on that big-league level? I wasn’t there 

yet, but he saw that I had potential, so 

he kept me. 

MD: I’ve heard you talk about taking 

the attitude of, “I don’t care what you 

think—this is how I play.” How did you 

come to this realization? 

John: I was in a difficult situation 

when I gave Woody my notice. The 

band had those great tenor players like 

Sal Nestico who could really play. They 

kept riding me all the time, wanting 

me to play on top of the beat and all 

this crap. I tried to do it, but all it did 

was make everything real nervous 

sounding. In fact, Woody came up to 

me one time and said, “I think you 

should lay back a little.” I do know that 

when I started to do my own thing and 

not what the tenor players were telling 

me to do, they dug it. They actually 

wanted me to stay. I was finally doing 

it my way, not theirs. It’s the only thing 

you can do. 

MD: What advice would you give a 

drummer who wants to learn how to 

play in a big band? 

John: These days, you can’t play in a 

big band every day. And sometimes 

there’s not one around to play in at all. 

So I would say that the second-best 

way to learn is to play to recordings. 

Set up in your studio where you can 

play constantly, and teach yourself to 

play with recordings. Play what you 

like, what’s important to you. I think 

you’ll advance faster that way than if 

you try to take on all of the things that 

are going on nowadays. 

As a professional drummer, you do 

need to know how to play everything. 

But if you really want to advance your 

own style, I think you should keep 

coming back to things you really like. 

Emerson said that you only need a few 

books in your life. I feel that way about 

recordings. I still play to recordings, 

and I play to the same ones that I did 

in high school. 

MD: Let’s talk about your technique 

a little bit. 

John: Or lack of. 

MD: It’s been said that your fills sound 

like “sneakers in a drier.” What’s your 

approach to setting up a band? How do 

you come up with these crazy fills and 

then come out on the 1 every time? 

John: It’s totally instinct. I was 

doing those fill-ins when I first 

started playing. 

MD: Was any of it inspired by 

Don Lamond? 

John: Not really, because I didn’t hear 

Don do it on records until later. It 

might have been some small-group 

drummers like Roy Haynes, the stuff 

he did in the early ’50s. He did some 

off-the-wall licks. I kind of lit up to that 

and threw them in with a big band. 

MD: How do you think those fills affect 

the band? 

John: The best way I can put it into 

words is that if you’re inclined to do 

those kinds of fills, you’ve got the time 

inside you so strongly that the band 

feels it. Very rarely do I throw the band 

off, but every once in a while I blow 

it. It’s really funny when I do, because 

it just train-wrecks the whole thing, 

and everybody has to claw for it to get 

back. [laughs] 

MD: How is your approach different in 

small groups versus big bands? 

John: There’s hardly any difference. 

I’m not a real great small-group 

drummer…at least I don’t think I am. 

MD: Yet you’re playing in a small 

group four nights a week. 

John: Yeah, but someone like 

[Cincinnati pianist] Lee Stolar plays 

the structure of the tune the same 

way every time. So I just treat that like 

a big band, only softer. 

MD: You’ve played with some of the 

greatest singers in jazz. When backing 

a singer on ballads, you don’t play 

brushes. You just play with your feet 

keeping the time. 

John: It’s funny how just that little 

swirl will make everybody keep talking. 

But if you don’t do the swirl and you’ve 

still got that beat going with your 

feet, it silences the club. Not all the 

time, but at least half the time it just 

quiets the club right down. And I 

know if I had that swirl going, that 

wouldn’t happen. 

MD: Where did you get this idea? 


John: From a great drummer named Sol 

Gubin. He was one of the great unsung 

drummers. When I was with Woody’s 

band, we did a double bill with Tony 

Bennett, and Sol was playing drums. 

When a ballad started, he just played 1 

and 3 on the bass drum and 2 and 4 on 

the hi-hat, with no brushes. That 

pushed Tony’s voice right out in front. 

MD: One of my favorite recordings of 

yours is Carmen McRae’s Dream Of 

Life album with the WDR Big Band. 

Do you approach backing up a singer 

differently in a big band from the way 

you would in a trio? 

John: Well, in a big band you just pretty 

well hang it out. In fact, that’s what 

they like. John Clayton was writing 

these hot arrangements, and I wasn’t 

going to sit dead on those. I think the 

singers like it when the drummer is letting 

it hang out. That’s the reason 

you’ve got a big band. On the ballads, 

John wanted to hear the swirl. He said, 

“I want to hear the smoky nightclub 

feel on this.” So I did it at the rehearsal, 

but on the gig I just couldn’t do it, 

because he had such beautiful writing 

in there with her singing, and I didn’t 

want to hear that swirl clutter it up. So I 

just didn’t do it, and I think it made the 

chart stand out more. 

MD: Jeff Hamilton cites your brush 

playing and your “lateral motion” 

concept as a major influence on his 

playing. 

John: Coming in from the side gets a 

shhhh sound, whereas doing a vertical 

stroke gets a tap, like a stick. I don’t do 

it all the time, because sometimes I 

want a more pronounced brush beat. 

I’ve got different brushstrokes, like we 

all do. 

MD: You’re known as a great admirer of 

calfskin heads. Why do you like using 

them so much? 

John: With the bass drum, calfskin is 

just ridiculous. It sounds like a bomb 

going off under water—it’s physical. 

You can feel it out in the audience hitting 

your gut. There’s nothing like calfskin 

on the bass drum, especially if you 

tune it low. Calfskin goes lower without 

wrinkling. If you take a plastic head and 

lower it, it wrinkles pretty easily. But 

calfskin just keeps going low. 

When you first put calfskin on your 

drums it’s like another world, but it’s a 

pure sound. They try to get plastic 

heads that sound like calf, but it’s like 

trying to imitate water. You can’t do it. 

MD: A lot of jazz drummers like to tune 

their drums to higher pitches. What 

inspired you to go for a lower tuning? 

John: When I was a kid I used to watch 

The Arthur Godfrey Show in the morning. 

It was a variety show, and they 

had a band. I would use two cardboard 

cylinders from a coat hanger as sticks 

and pretend that I was the drummer on 

the show. I’d slap the cylinders on the 

couch, and I think that’s the sound I’ve 

been trying to get the whole time. 

MD: Do you think a low tuning blends 

with the band better? 

John: Oh, yeah! If you play in a big 

band long enough, you have to tune 

your drums low. If you don’t, you’re 

going to conflict with the horns. You 

need to get underneath them. If you’ve 

got your drums tuned up high, you’re 

in the horn register, especially the 

trombones and saxes. And drums 

tuned up high don’t get that good 

punch. If you listen to any big band 

drummer that’s been around for a long 

time, they’ve got ’em down pretty low. 

MD: You’re still leading the Blue Wisp 

Big Band after almost thirty years. How 

has your approach to playing with a big 

band changed over time? 

John: When I left Stan Kenton, I went 

back to Indianapolis and had time to 

record myself and study what I was 

doing. I started concentrating on trying 

to get the best sound from the cymbals, 

drums, and brushes, a hundred percent 

of the time. I’d go for sound instead of 

worrying about the rhythm or the 

tempo rushing or dragging and all that 

crap. I found that when I went for 

sound, my body relaxed and I got a 

good stroke on the cymbal. When I 

started playing with the Blue Wisp Big 

Band, I think I played better because 

things started falling into place. 

Before I made these changes, I was 

just power driving. Everybody thinks 

that when you’re with a big band 

you’ve got to play loudly, but that’s not 

true. If you get the right feel going in 

your hands, especially the touch on the 

cymbal, it relaxes the rest of the limbs. 

Then you’ve got the whole band in the 

palm of your hand.

FREESE 

Story by Adam Budofsky 

Photos by Alex Solca 

42 

JOSH 


By day he lays down seamless tracks for 

tomorrow’s pop megahits. By night he 

blasts out aggressive, cutting-edge beats 

with A Perfect Circle. In between, he plugs 

away at his own twisted punk rock platters. 

And when he’s not doing all that, he’s the 

man who Weezer, Devo, Sting, Paramore, 

and nearly everyone else calls when they 

need a drummer to save the day.

That Josh Freese has so deeply lodged himself 

in our consciousness as the guy to call, for any 

number of musical situations, is a true achievement. 

But what might be most fascinating about 

Freese’s career is that he’s done it while being his 

own man. The complete opposite of the cliché studio 

chameleon who can blend in with the musical 

furniture, Josh imbues his playing with boatloads 

of personality. And not chopsy, scene-stealing 

personality—though he’s certainly capable of that— 

but rather soulfulness and the kind of unpredictability 

that draws attention to a particular musical passage, 

not just to the drummer. It’s a rare skill, one 

made even more remarkable by the fact that Freese 

has exhibited it since he was quite young, elevating 

the music of veteran players twice his age and setting 

an example for the rest of us for how it’s done. 

The other important part of the puzzle is that 

Freese is just plain fun. The music industry has certain 

archetypes, and Josh gleefully destroys them 

every time he releases one of his solo albums, 

uploads another DIY video to YouTube, or poses for 

a photo. You really don’t need to get very far past 

the cover of his 2000 album, The Notorious One Man 

Orgy, to pick up on the fact that Freese has no intention 

of taking himself too seriously—after all, how 

tough can a guy look while holding a doughnut and 

a cup of coffee and wearing an argyle sweater under 

a plaid sport jacket? Clearly, it’s not fan-boy adulation 

that Freese is after with his own music, just our 

presence at his party. 

Perhaps the best example of Josh’s healthily 

skewed view of the rock life can be found in the selfpropelled 

publicity efforts surrounding his 2009 

album, Since 1972. The drummer thought it would 

be fun, and hopefully raise awareness of the album, 

if he offered the LP in a selection of progressively 

expensive packages, including versions that comprised 

his taking fans out to lunch at P.F. Chang’s 

and on tours of Disneyland, and writing and producing 

songs and videos about them. Freese nearly 

went nuts following through on his promises while 

keeping up his already insane freelance schedule, 

but we’re happy to report that he survived, 

and even came out of the madness with a 

brand-new EP to share, appropriately titled My 

New Friends. 

In early 2010 we came up with the concept of 

trailing Josh for a year as he went about his 

job of being drummer to the stars, getting 

regular updates on all happenings in Freese 

Land. The idea was that after twelve months 

we’d report back to readers what it’s really like 

to be working at the absolute top of the game 

in the modern music industry. A funny thing 

happened on the way to the interview, however. 

Even though the period between June 2010 

and May 2011 was a typically active one for 

Freese, including recordings and live work with 

A Perfect Circle, Sting, Weezer, Devo, Paramore, 

and Michael Bublé, the well-publicized collapse 

of the record industry has left all musicians— 

even those as successful as Josh—unsure of 

where they’ll be professionally in the coming 

years. Therefore much of our discussion with 

Freese focused on this new reality and the 

implications it has, not only for first-call drummers 

but for all of us trying to make a buck or a 

name for ourselves as drummers. 

When we last spoke with Freese, he was touring 

South America with Paramore, replacing 

recently departed drummer Zac Farro and 

enjoying a bit of a change of perspective….

MD: So what’s it like playing with 

Paramore? 

Josh: First off, the band is really popular 

right now, and they cater to a 

younger crowd. On tour in South 

America, every time we landed at the 

airport or left the hotel, it was like 

Beatlemania—kids jumping on the 

van…real teenage hero-worship stuff. 

Plus this was the first time I was in a 

band where I’m old enough to be their 

dad. I’ve always been the young guy, 

whether it’s in Devo, the Vandals, A 

Perfect Circle, Weezer…. I have to bite 

my tongue when I start telling stories 

about, like, Warped Tour ’95, which 

seems like yesterday to me. They’re 

like, “Oh, yeah, I was in fourth grade 

then….” After a while I was thinking, 

I’m like some big shot here—I’m going 

to enjoy this while I can! [laughs] 

MD: Does the age difference translate 

to the playing at all? 

Josh: It was a very easy situation for 

me to slip into. You never know with 

these things. There are bands I play in 

where the guitar player’s great but the 

bass player lags, or the bassist is great 

but the guitarist can’t play 8th notes to 

save his life, and it makes it tough. 

With these guys it’s a breeze. They all 

play really well, including drummer 

Zac Farro, who left the band recently. 

Some people who see them on MTV 

might be like, “Aw, come on, man,” 

but there isn’t a weak link in the band. 

They play with a click live too, and 

they play really well with it. And physically 

it’s been fun for me. There are a 

lot of parts going on, and it’s pretty 

nonstop. They gave this old man a 

good workout. 

MD: You recently told us you’re feeling 

more inspired about playing 

drums than you have for a while. 

Josh: Some of that has to do with feeling 

like I want to reinvent myself 

somehow. I find that I’m not being 

inspired by the same bands I’ve 

always listened to; I’m wanting to get 

into something new, whether that’s 

playing drums or…. I feel like talking 

about this is walking on dangerous 

ground, like I’m setting myself up 

for something…. 

It’s not like I want to start a bebop 

band. But I’ve never really made a 

record that features the drums at all. 


A YEAR IN THE LIFE 

Even in a down music-industry economy, Josh Freese’s calendar is pretty darned 

full. Here’s some of what the drummer has been up to over the past twelve months. 

MAY 2010 

• Live gigs with Weezer 

• Recording sessions with Richard Marx 

and Italian superstar Zucchero 

• Corporate gig with Sting in Dallas 

“The day of the gig, Stewart Copeland was in 

town rehearsing with the Dallas Symphony 

Orchestra. I hadn’t played drums in four days, 

I hadn’t played with Sting in eight months, 

and we were only getting to practice during 

soundcheck. And Stewart’s on the side of the 

stage with his arms folded. Earlier in the day 

Sting was messing with me: ‘You know, 

Stewart’s going to be there.’ But after a while 

I was like, ‘He’s one of my favorite drummers 

ever, but I have to not care. What’s he gonna 

do, grade me? Is my life going to be over 

because I blew a fill?’ It’s not worth it to give 

yourself a heart attack.” 

JUNE 2010 

• Weezer gigs 

• Late Show With David Letterman, Colbert 

Report, and Live! With Regis And Kelly TV 

appearances with Devo 

• Sessions for Ricky Martin’s new album 

with producer Desmond Child at Bob 

Clearmountain’s studio 

• Interviews for Since 1972 

• Sessions for Dynamite Walls with 

producer Paul Fox 

• Wiring done for home studio in Long 

Beach, California “Hopefully soon I’ll be 

able to start doing sessions for people there. 

Up to now I’ve worked on my own stuff all 

over the place, wherever I can go in quickly 

and cheaply. I might be set up at a friend’s 

studio doing tracks for some other project, 

and we’ll finish up and I’ll go, ‘Listen, can you 

give me five minutes on my hard drive? 

Lemme do two takes.’” 

JULY 2010 

• Devo show at Hollywood Park Racetrack 

in Inglewood, California 

• Touring Midwest, East Coast, 

and Canada with Weezer 

• Sessions for new Kelly Clarkson album 

AUGUST 2010 

• Devo dates, including Lollapalooza in 

Chicago “The second we went off stage at 

5:50, I ran in my Devo outfit across the street 

to my hotel, peeled the wet clothes off, 

jumped in the shower, and in fifteen minutes 

was in a cab to the airport, where I had a 

9 o’clock flight to L.A. because the next day 

I had a Weezer gig at like 3 P.M. in Huntington 

Beach.” 

• Weezer gigs at Reading and Leeds 

Festivals in England 

SEPTEMBER 2010 

• East Coast Weezer dates 

• Vandals gig 

• Recording for producers Howard Benson 

and Scott Cutler 

• The Tonight Show with Weezer 

• Tom Weir soundtrack session 

• Mixing My New Friends EP 

• Rehearsals with A Perfect 

Circle for first shows in six 

years “We rehearsed in a little room in North 

Hollywood. We did it in bits and pieces, rather 

than cramming, since the shows weren’t until 

November. I’ve held A Perfect Circle dear to 

my heart for many years.” 

OCTOBER 2010 

• More Perfect Circle rehearsals 

• A Perfect Circle plays Jimmy Kimmel Live! 

NOVEMBER 2010 

• 3-week Perfect Circle tour “We played 

three nights in five different cities, and each 

city was pretty close to L.A., so in between 

I’d come home, sleep in my own bed, take 

my kids to school…. I had my fourth child, 

Lucy, on a day off between shows in L.A. and 

Seattle. We’d planned to induce labor on 

that day.” 

• Gigs in L.A. and San Francisco with 

Weezer 

DECEMBER 2010 

• Session with the Dwarves “One of my 

favorite bands of all time. We did what 

might be the best song I recorded all year, 

‘Fake ID.’” 

• Sessions with the Calligraphers 

• Weezer shows in Colorado, 

Boston, and New York 

• Got a vasectomy “This was 

on Terry Bozzio’s birthday, 

December 27, which I remember because I 

used to be such a fan boy when I was a kid. I 

filmed the whole thing. The doctor and I hit 

it off when he told me he likes to film his 

family vacations and edit them himself; all 

we did was talk shop about cameras and 

editing software. So he was down for my 

weird art film.” 

JANUARY 2011 

• Starting Paramore rehearsals 

• Soundtrack session for Mark Isham 

• Weezer gigs in Chicago 

• A Perfect Circle rehearses new songs to 

be released this year 

• Sessions for Michael Bublé “I played on his 

last couple records, including the hits 

‘Everything’ and ‘Haven’t Met You Yet.’ I’m 

really proud of that stuff, because I get pigeonholed 

as this hard-hitting alternative rock 

drummer, but I like playing really quietly.” 

FEBRUARY 2011 

• Paramore South American tour “I read a 

thing online where some kid goes, ‘That’s 

amazing that they got Josh Freese to go with 

them to South America! He’s unbelievable, 

even though he’s, like, old.’ I’m like, I’m old! I 

actually got a kick out of it.” 

MARCH 2011 

• Paramore South American tour continues 

• Publicity duties leading up to April 

release of My New Friends 

• Devo shows 

APRIL 2011 

• A Perfect Circle recording sessions 

• Weezer shows 

• Rehearsals for upcoming Perfect Circle 

shows in May

JOSH’S SETUP 

The DW Collector’s series kit 

Josh put together especially 

for the studio shots in this feature 

includes a 10x13 tom, 

12x14 and 16x18 floor toms, 

and an 18x20 bass drum, plus 

a 5 1 / 2x14 aluminum snare. The 

Paiste cymbals are, from left, 

14" Signature Dark Crisp 

hi-hats, a 19" Dark Energy 

crash Mark I, a 21" Twenty 

series ride, and a 17" Signature 

Full crash. The DW hardware 

includes a 9000PB single pedal 

and a 5500TD hi-hat stand. 

The kit’s wonderful 

graphics were created 

by Freese’s son Hunter. 

“He does these really 

involved drawings,” 

Josh explains, “so I let 

him take a Sharpie to 

this old set I had. They 

look really cool.” 

Freese also provided the following rundown 

of the different setups he uses for his 

main gigs. (The live photos in this feature are 

from a Perfect Circle concert.) 

Devo: 22" bass drum, 12" and 13" toms, 16" 

floor tom, 14" snare; 14" Dark Crisp hi-hats, 

two 18" Full crashes, and 19" Full crash (all 

Signature series) 

Sting: 22" bass drum; 10", 12", and 13" 

toms; 16" floor tom; 14" snare; two 6" Rata 

toms; 14" Dark Crisp hi-hats, two 18" Full 

crashes, 19" Full crash, 21" Dry Heavy ride, 

8" and 10" splashes (all Signature series); 

double pedal 

I’ve got this record out now, you know, 

sort of following through on all that 

publicity stuff from the last album. 

But I’m already working on my next 

record, and I’m thinking of it being 

more…progressive, for lack of a better 

word. Maybe it’ll be an instrumental 

record and focus on me playing the 

drums. Maybe it’ll have “real” musicians 

playing on it instead of just me 

doing the guitar parts. And that’s real 

exciting for me. 

You know, it’s been years of me saying 

no to doing things like the Modern 

Drummer Festival—number one, 

because I’m super-busy. But also out 

of insecurity, because I’ve got that just 

like anyone else. I’ve always felt weird 

about putting myself on the spot. 

Especially in a room full of people who 

are there to just see you—not your band 

Vandals: 22" bass drum, 12" tom, 16" floor tom, 

14" snare; 14" Signature Dark Crisp hi-hats, 21" 

Twenty or 22" 2002 series ride, 18" Signature Full 

crash, 19" Signature Full crash; double pedal 

Weezer: 22" bass drum, 12" tom, 16" and 18" 

floor toms, 14" snare; 14" Signature Dark Crisp 

hi-hats, two 19" Signature Full crashes, 21" 

Twenty series ride; double pedal 

A Perfect Circle: 22" bass drum, 10" and 12" 

toms, 16" and 18" floor toms, two 14" snares; 

14" Signature Dark Crisp hi-hats, 18" Signature 

Full crash, two 19" Signature Full crashes, 21" 

Signature Dry Heavy ride, 21" Twenty series 

ride, 20" Signature Thin China on top of 20" 

Signature Full crash; double pedal 

Freese’s heads of choice are Remo, including 

Coated Controlled Sound snare batters and 

Clear Ambassador bottoms, Coated Emperor 

tom batters and Clear Ambassador bottoms, 

and Powerstroke 3 bass drum batters and Ebony 

Powerstroke 3 front heads. His sticks are the 

Vater Josh Freese Player’s Design H-220 model. 

or to see you play with someone else. 

MD: There’s nothing to hide behind. 

Josh: Right. But I had a conversation 

with Liberty DeVitto and Dom 

Famularo at this book signing a couple 

months ago, and Liberty was telling me 

how Dom had helped him when he 

started to do more clinics. And Dom 

was like, “You should be out there 

doing this stuff. I’ll tell you what I tell 

everybody: You just gotta put your bigboy 

pants on and do it.” And I was like, 

“You’re right—I have to stop being a 

baby or being so insecure about what 

people might think.” 

You know, I’d go to clinics as a kid 

and see people who would just blow my 

mind, and because of my own insecurities 

I’d think, I’m not going to blow anybody’s 

mind, so why should I do it? I 

mean, I’ve loved Vinnie Colaiuta since

JOSH FREESE 

I was eleven years old, and even though 

I know I have some of his influence in 

my playing, I’m not Vinnie. But maybe 

when I do a more drum-centric record, 

that’ll be something that works as a 

jumping-off point in that kind of setting. 

So I am more inspired these days. In 

the past, when I’ve been really busy 

doing freelance stuff, I’ve sort of rested 

on my laurels—I’ve always taken pride 

that I never, ever warmed up, for 

instance. But now I’ve been taking a 

practice pad with me on tour and playing 

for a half hour before I go on stage. 

It really feels good, and I feel like I’m 

not being a lazy jerk. 

MD: That doesn’t seem likely. 

Josh: Well, it’s not a matter of being 

busy; I just feel like I’ve got these great 

opportunities. Who am I to say no to 

the Modern Drummer Fest or Drum 

Day L.A.? I basically need to get off my 

ass, is what I’m telling you. [laughs] 

I recently flew to Seattle to record 

with ex-Fastbacks singer/bassist Kim 

Warnick’s new band, the Calligraphers, 

with Stone Gossard, who’s one of my 

best buddies in the world—such a great 

musician and a great spirit. Stone’s 

always on me, like, “You writing 

music?” “Well, I’ve been busy….” 

“Man, you gotta be writing music! 

Just pay for the engineer—I’ll let you 

use my studio for a week, do whatever 

you want, stay at my house.” He’s 

always getting people off their asses, 

which I love about him. 

MD: When we’ve gone through your 

calendar over the past year, sometimes 

you’ve mentioned doing a session 

for producers like Howard Benson, 

Tom Weir, Brendan O’Brien, or Matt 

Squire, but you don’t always immediately 

recall the name of the band the 

session was for. 

Josh: All these producers I mention 

are super-talented guys and easy to 

work with. When Howard Benson or 

Brendan O’Brien or Rick Rubin calls, I 

don’t go, “Well, who is it for?” and then 

decide whether I’m going to play. It’s 

like, this is what I do. These guys know 

they can count on me, and unless I’m 

on the other side of the world, I’m 

going to do it. Or unless I have some 

major problem with the artist—which 

has never happened—they know they 

can count on me to be professional and 

do my stuff and make it easy on everybody. 

I kind of show up no matter who 

it is. 

I feel very grateful and blessed to be 

in a position to have these guys call me 

and allow me to make a living playing 

drums. And even if it isn’t a great artist, 

the fact that I’m playing and I’m seeing 

friends of mine in the studio, and I’m 

having to learn the song…. Even if it’s 

not a great song, I’m having to rise to 

the occasion quickly, and that’s all 

great experience. 

MD: You’re so busy that there must 

be times when you have scheduling 

conflicts. 

Josh: Usually I can plan far enough 

ahead that there aren’t conflicts, but 

sometimes I just can’t do a show if I’ve 

already made a commitment. It’s especially 

hard with Devo, because they 

were one of my first favorite bands ever. 

Whenever I can’t do a Devo show I feel 

like my wife is running around town 

going on dates with some other guy. I 

feel territorial about it. As I grew up, no

JOSH FREESE 

matter what, whether I was in my jazz 

fusion stage, my punk rock stage, or 

my Frank Zappa phase, I always loved 

Devo. So having to sit stuff out with 

them is a drag. 

MD: Do you have an idea of what your 

average fan is like? For instance, who 

are the fans who bought the higherpriced 

packages of Since 1972? 

Josh: That’s a good question. I’ve 

worked with so many different kinds 

of artists. There are sort of dark alternative 

rockers who know me from 

A Perfect Circle and Nine Inch Nails, 

and then there are people twenty 

years older than me who love Paul 

Westerberg or Devo. The guys who 

bought the expensive Since 1972 

packages were pretty much split 

between drummers and other types 

of musicians. 

As far as the drum community, I’m 

not sure who my fans are. I think some 

of them border on the drum geek guys, 

but then I think some of the drum 

geeks think I’m too much of a rock ’n’ 

roll drummer to be any good, or I’m 

not enough of a full-bore chops guy for 

their taste. 

I’ve come to wonder not only who 

my fans are but who I am in that 

respect, because I flip-flop between 

doing some bonehead punk thing and 

loving it and being on stage the next 

night with Sting playing delicately. 

These days I find myself watching 

YouTube clips of Weather Report for 

the first time in fifteen years, so it’s not 

just about the Descendents or the 

Circle Jerks for me right now. Actually, 

right now I’m huge into Jaco Pastorius, 

just getting into his whole thing. Aside 

from revolutionizing electric bass, he 

was such a character, which I guess is 

part of my fascination. I’ve read his 

book a few times, and it’s really sad 

and interesting and inspiring. 

MD: Speaking with you about the Since 

1972 special-package takers, it’s clear 

you’re still in touch with your inner 

fan boy. 

Josh: I think so too. Mark 

Mothersbaugh of Devo said to me, 

“Josh, your personality is perfect for 

what you’re doing.” Because not a lot 

of people could say with a straight face, 

“I’m taking you on a personal tour of 

Disneyland, and then we’re going to go 

to Sizzler for dinner, and then I’m 

gonna give you a haircut and we’ll get 

drunk!” [laughs] It really is who I am. 

Part of me is like this total Peter Pan. I 

think a lot of musicians, especially rock 

musicians, do have that not-wantingto-grow-up 

thing. The only part that 

has made me grow up is that I have to 

answer to my kids. So I can’t just be a 

complete freak; I’ve had to tone down 

some of my creative traits. And hopefully 

my kids won’t hear these records 

until they’re teenagers anyway. 

MD: On the other side of the spectrum, 

you played on Michael Bublé’s big hit 

“Haven’t Met You Yet.” 

Josh: On some of the stuff I play on, 

I don’t like the way I sound. But I 

think it’s important to be able to pat 

yourself on the back sometimes. 

That’s one track that I listen to and 

really love the way it sounds. One of 

the reasons is because it’s a shuffle, 

and it can be tough to make shuffles 

feel great. They’re the one thing you 

can’t learn out of a textbook. When I

JOSH FREESE 

started playing with Sting in 2005, one 

of the only songs I was freaked out 

about playing with him was “If I Ever 

Lose My Faith In You,” which has a real 

nice shuffle to it. Vinnie plays on the 

record and it sounds beautiful. And I’m 

wondering: Am I going to be able to 

make it feel that expensive? But Sting 

told me I completely nailed the feel on 

it, which made me beam. 

Back to Michael Bublé, early this year 

I spent a couple days recording with 

him at the Capitol Records studio, for 

his upcoming Christmas album. It was 

the first time in a while I’d been nervous 

about a session. We cut live with a fortypiece 

orchestra, and I’d never done that 

before. These days, 90 percent of the 

time it’s just me and a producer with a 

Pro Tools rig, and we can go over it as 

many times as we want. But here we 

were going for takes with the full band, 

background singers, Michael singing…. 

Everyone’s on the clock, and they’re all 

super-pro one-takers and sight-readers. 

If I mess up in the last chorus, I’ve got 

sixty people looking at me: “Drummer!” 

I’m not the star on this session. Lots of 

cases I walk in and they go, “Ooh, we 

got Josh Freese.” Here I’m one tiny 

piece of this huge puzzle. If I mess it 

up, I mess it up for everybody and I 

cost them a lot of money. 

MD: Over the past year we’ve talked a 

lot about the changes in the music 

industry and how they affect freelancers 

like you. 

Josh: In the last year or so in the studios 

I’ve definitely felt the effect of the record 

business collapsing, between the economy 

and people getting music for free 

and no one buying records. There aren’t 

really budgets for recording anymore, 

and I’ve seen the amount of my work in 

the studios shrink a bit. As a freelance 

drummer and a father of four, it can be 

scary sometimes. If I’m not working as 

much, what about the guy who normally 

works half as much as me? 

I’ve been fortunate my whole life; I’ve 

always waited for the phone to ring, and 

it always has, which is great. But there 

have been times when I’ve thought 

maybe I should be more proactive. 

That’s why I’ve been trying to think of 

interesting ways to kind of reinvent 

myself. Plus I like to be optimistic and 

look at the situation as inspiring—like, 

people need to figure out how to do it 

on their own now. If you can scrape up 

some money to get a laptop and some 

crummy microphones, if the content 

is there and you have the means to 

record it decently and get it out for 

people to hear, you’re making opportunities 

for yourself. 

I get emails from kids all over the 

world: “I want to come to L.A. and break 

into the studio scene….” And when I 

answer them I try to be optimistic and 

give them some words of wisdom and 

encouragement. I think what it comes 

down to is that hopefully you started 

playing the drums because you got off 

on doing it. Hopefully it wasn’t just to 

make money. I mean, no one’s guaranteed 

a job in music just because you’re 

good or because you went to music 

school. I’ve probably spent more money 

in a month making this new record and 

hiring a publicist and getting it printed 

up than I’ll ever make back from it. And 

at one point I thought about this like, 

Why AM I doing this? Well, I’m doing it 

because I love doing it. It’s what I do.

E.J. DeCoske 

Stage presence—the way musicians visually 

communicate the emotion and meaning of the 

music they’re playing—can come in many different 

forms. Some players, like bebop pioneer Max 

Roach and the Rolling Stones’ Charlie Watts, are 

comfortable adopting an image of refined sophistication. 

Others have a flair for the dramatic—think 

of the nonstop antics of the Who’s Keith Moon or 

the upside-down theatrics of Mötley Crüe’s 

Tommy Lee. 

Despite the number of us who filled every spare 

inch of our school notebooks with sketches of Billy 

Cobham, Carl Palmer, or Travis Barker tearing it up 

on some imaginary stage, many of us have never 

thought hard about the way we look to the crowd. 

But by ignoring our own stage presence we’re limiting 

our power as musical communicators—and, 


literally, the size of our audience. 

Professional performers are keenly aware of the 

image they’re sending out, not only with their playing 

but also with their body language, their clothing, 

even their facial expressions. They know that giving 

attention to their image doesn’t necessarily lessen 

what people think of their skills as players—in fact, 

it can actually improve perceptions. 

MD spoke with three drummers who definitely 

don’t take the concept of stage presence lightly— 

Vince Neil’s remarkably energetic Zoltan Chaney; 

Royal Crown Revue’s modern swing maven, Daniel 

Glass; and GWAR’s Cretaceous comic book hero 

come to life, Brad Roberts. Whether or not you 

adopt their particular methods isn’t the point—the 

important thing is inspiring you to think more 

about making the most of your own visual potential. 

Interviews by Steven Douglas Losey

ZOLTAN CHANEY 

Vince Neil Band 

MD: What does performing mean 

to you? 

Zoltan: It’s an opportunity to share a 

passion. Once I’m on stage, performing 

becomes a platform to come up 

with something visually that I haven’t 

seen or done before. When it comes to 

drumming, it’s not like anyone is reinventing 

grooves and beats. But the 

visual aspect doesn’t have an end—it 

can always be innovative and fresh. 

I’m trying to pioneer a movement 

where no one has gone visually. 

Performing is an opportunity to try 

something in the moment and be able 

to share that with a crowd, because it 

may not happen that way again. There 

aren’t any words to describe it when 

I’m in the zone. 

MD: How do you get into that 

headspace? 

Zoltan: For me it’s thankfulness, 

humility, and understanding. When 

the moment comes for you to use your 

gift, there should be a sense of urgency 

and appreciation. You never know if 

it’s the last opportunity you have to 

fulfill that desire. Life is temporal— 

maximize the moment. 

MD: How do you best connect with 

an audience? 

Zoltan: I believe that whatever a drummer 

does, if it’s genuine, people will be 

impacted, influenced, and inspired. 


PRO PANEL 

Zoltan Chaney’s work with 

Mötley Crüe frontman Vince 

Neil has drawn admiration 

from some of rock’s heaviest 

hitters. Chaney’s theatrics 

involve walking around the 

kit, crashing with whatever’s 

available (including other 

cymbals), and simply using 

his lanky frame to manhandle 

the drums. 

Our Contributors 


PRO PANEL 

In addition to drumming for 

Royal Crown Revue, MD 

2011 Pro Panelist Daniel 

Glass has played with Bette 

Midler and Mike Ness. An 

in-demand teacher and 

clinician, Glass conducted 

a master class at the 2010 

Modern Drummer Festival. 

The connection I have with the audience 

is intense, aggressive, and never 

lacking in fun. I myself don’t have a 

script of what’s coming next during the 

show, but I know I’m going to try 

something, whatever its outcome. 

MD: What drummers do you draw 

from theatrically? 

Zoltan: Really just Jim Henson, who 

created Animal, because I can’t say I 

draw from any non-Muppet drummers. 

I draw more from Travis 

Pastrana, who pioneered the freestyle 

motocross movement. He has opened 

up opportunities for other riders to be 

able to make a living through endorsements 

and new events. He does things 

that no one envisioned could be done 

on a dirt bike, so my connection with 

him is that I’ve always tried to do the 

same with drumming. 

MD: What is your image on stage? 

Zoltan: I don’t tag myself as having an 

image, but most of the chatter I hear 

from people at the shows actually does 

compare me to Animal. It’s really an 

infectious output of energy that draws 

in all witnesses. People come to be elevated 

and entertained, so I really put 

my entire being into what I want to 

convey. 

MD: Your life revolves around it? 

Zoltan: Performance for me is not a 

routine, it’s a mindset. You either have 

the confidence to try something different 

or you’re afraid of what others 

might think if you do. Fear of other 

Few bands are driven by 

theatrics at the level that 

GWAR is. Drummer Brad 

Roberts has directed the 

group’s special brand of 

costume-rock drama for 

the past twenty-two years. 

people’s opinions will paralyze your 

creativity. Every fiber inside me 

screams, “I was created to do this!” 

MD: How seriously do you take 

performance? 

Zoltan: It has always bothered me to 

go to a concert and see drummers not 

putting any effort into it. I will never 

understand the disconnect or lack 

of effort or acknowledgment of the 

fans. People paid to see them and are 

literally providing them with a job, and 

in a lot of cases a career. If you don’t 

love what you do, then let someone 

who does get behind the kit. 

MD: What do you bring to the table? 

Zoltan: First would be my attitude. I 

play with urgency and fire because 

that’s who I am as a person. As for 

showmanship, I’ve tried to come up 

with a visual style that I haven’t seen 

before, while still playing with consistency 

and authority. It’s all inspired by 

my desire to share that visual innovation 

with the audience. I’ve been told 

by other drummers that I’ve inspired a 

whole drum community and raised the 

bar. I just want to give people my best, 

put a smile on their face and some joy 

in their heart. 

MD: How do you want audiences to 

remember your performances? 

Zoltan: I want people to take home 

unbridled enthusiasm, expectancy, 

excitement, and memories. I want to 

inspire them to be the best that they 

can be in whatever area of life they’re 

in. I believe that everyone has a purpose 

and a destiny, so my hope is that 

when they see me perform they’ll rise 

up on the inside and transfer that passion 

into something that sparks them. I 

want to be totally depleted when the 

show is over, and to make sure people 

got what they came to see. 

DANIEL GLASS 

Royal Crown Revue 

MD: What does stage presence mean 

to you? 

Daniel: It’s important that we see that 

our role as a musician is to entertain 

people. With Royal Crown Revue we 

always think about what we’re doing 

on stage. We present music in a classic 


GET GOOD: STAGE PRESENCE 

style, and that’s our goal in what we wear, how our set is put 

together, and what our attitude is. I always ask myself, “What is 

our presentation to the audience?” All of us have a solo in our 

show. One of my things is playing part of my solo on the bass 

strings, and I do a lot of stick clicking, playing rudimental and 

melodic grooves. 

It’s important to know that most of the time we’re not playing 

for other drummers—we’re playing for regular people. Gene 

Krupa would have these drum battles with Buddy Rich, and 

even though Buddy was a better drummer, Krupa would always 

win. The reason was simple: What he played resonated more 

with the fans. Buddy Rich would play these amazing things, but 

outside of drummers in the audience, the people wouldn’t react 

the same. 

MD: How do you make your performance genuine? 

Daniel: I have to be present in the moment every single night. 

That means that if the bass player is out of time or the PA sucks, 

I still have to be present at that moment. I remember studying 

with Freddie Gruber, and one thing he always said was, “When 

you’re in the practice room, just practice; when you get up on 

stage, let the moment dictate what’s next.” I tell my students 

the same thing today. 

MD: How can a drummer command a room? 

Daniel: If you watch someone like Steve Gadd, he’s always in 

this zone, and he’s never distracted or looking around the 

room. He’s just channeling something outside of himself. All of 

his chops, limb independence, and coordination are just there 

in the service of the song. Gadd can play the simplest rock beat 

and the pocket is so great that everyone in the room will stop 

what they’re doing. The way to grab people is by setting down a 

serious pocket from note one. You have to literally say, “This is 

where the time and feel are for this song.” 

MD: What drummers do you draw from in terms of 

showmanship? 

Daniel: Of course Gadd is a huge influence on me; I love the 

way he expresses himself musically and the way his time feels. 

By the nature of what I do in Royal Crown Revue, I’m influenced 

by the older generation of showmen from the 1930s and 

’40s, guys like Gene Krupa, Papa Jo Jones, Buddy Rich, and 

Sonny Payne. The more I’ve studied these guys, the more I’ve 

found that everything traces back. If you dig Tommy Lee, find 

out who he listened to—it was probably John Bonham. So then 

check out what John Bonham was listening to, which was Little 

Richard’s band. 

MD: What holds back drummers’ performances? 

Daniel: Sometimes excuses are our big downfall. We’ll be very 

critical, or not feel good about a fill we screwed up, or get distracted 

by the girl in the front row. In the jazz world I hear a lot 

of drummers complain about playing the same songs over and 

over again. Our challenge as a drummer is to say, “I’ve played 

this song a thousand times—what am I feeling in the moment 

to bring freshness to it?” It’s about being honest and allowing 

whatever is inside you to come out. Frankly, it takes a completely 

different set of chops, just like practicing our paradiddles 

and our rudiments or playing with our band. At the end of 

the day, that’s what’s going to give you a career in drumming. 

MD: What differentiates a good performer from a great one?

GET GOOD: STAGE PRESENCE 

Daniel: The great drummers are the 

ones who can dig deep and find that 

zone to perform in every single night. 

The way I connect is I look to guys that 

have the groove thing handled. I’ve 

found that the deeper my groove gets, 

the faster I can grab an audience’s 

attention. Showmanship, energy, and 

looking appropriate are all part of it 

too. Have your eyes open, and engage 

people. It’s important to put out 

enough energy to reach the back of 

any room. 

MD: How much does image matter? 

Daniel: In our band the look is really 

important. Everyone has some kind of 

image that they project on stage. We 

wear vintage suits. When I first joined 

the band I started going to antique 

malls and picking up vintage suits and 

ties and tie bars from the ’30s to the 

’60s. Even if I go out and do a jazz 

thing in New York, I try to wear a little 

something to tie into what I’m doing. 

Style is important, because it’s another 

reason people may or may not remember 

you. 

BRAD ROBERTS 

GWAR 

MD: What does performing mean 

to you? 

Brad: My everyday life is performance. 

It’s not like we put costumes on and 

perform—we wear this stuff every day! 

You should treat every moment of 

your life as a performance, because 

you never know if GWAR will be 

behind the corner to kill you with a 

rubber sword. 

MD: How does Brad Roberts connect 

with an audience? 

Brad: Drummers have always been in 

the back with mountains of gear. The 

drummer connects on a physical level 

with the audience; it’s using the most 

basic form of music—rhythm and 

beats—to connect. You don’t have to 

be a musician to tap your foot or clap 

your hands. 

MD: What drummers do you draw 

from? 

Brad: Early on it was Alex Van Halen 

and AC/DC’s Phil Rudd. Then there’s 

Bill Stevenson from Black Flag and the 

Descendents. Black Sabbath’s Bill 

Ward was the orchestrator of drumbeats, 

Zeppelin’s John Bonham was 

the timekeeper. What I got in the early 

days is that you should exist inside the 

music and really make the song swing. 

MD: In GWAR your persona is JiZMak 

Da Gusha. 

Brad: Yes, we have our suits of armor 

to go into battle. It’s a ritualistic 

preparing of everything. I developed 

what I needed to be able to play the 

drums in that stuff. It took a lot of perseverance 

and determination. GWAR’s 

a very theatrical and art-driven thing, 

and we tackle a lot of themes and 

ideas. We use those ideas to govern 

where the stage show and musical 

ideas will go. 

MD: You’re one of the few bands 

whose music is secondary to the 

stage show. 

Brad: We write songs based on theatrics, 

and my job is to accent those 

things. The idea is that I can play the 

kit any way I want when I’m in costume; 

I have a lot of fun because of the 

outrageousness of it all. All the music, 

especially the drums, are moving 

along to the production and the theatrics 

and the dynamics. I am the 

overseer, because when the monsters 

come out, I’m leading the dynamics 

and looking at the character of the 

monster and what the action calls 

for musically. Everything we do is 

well thought out thematically and 

choreographed with everyone on 

stage. It’s like you’re coming to see 

a live rock opera. 

MD: The costumes you wear are 

outrageous—and huge. 

Brad: It’s hard to do this job. I don’t 

know if anyone else could come in and 

play a gig with a monster head and 

monster feet on. I know tons of drummers 

who don’t even want to try on my 

helmet. I had to learn how to play with 

my head and my feet covered and half 

my body in latex. Most of the time I 

can’t even see the kit. GWAR’s motto 

has always been “Don’t talk about it— 

just do it.” There are a lot better players 

out there than me, but I would 

challenge anyone to put on the bucket 

and go out there and play.

60 

Yes, it’s time to revise the forty international rudiments. 

There, I said it. (Someone had to, right?) 

But before I could consider the best way to revise the rudiments, 

I first had to define what this group of forty really is. 

Any list of rudiments that I’ve seen, especially the earliest 

ones, shows a collection of patterns that were essential to the 

drumming style of the day. So let’s take a look back in time. 

The history of rudimental drumming is said to reach back 

as far as the 1300s, when the Swiss military began using fife 

and drums to signal troops into battle. This style of military 

communication spread through Europe over the next few 

centuries and eventually made its way across the Atlantic to 

the young United States Of America. 

As rudimental drumming took hold in U.S. military 

branches, there was a lack of standardization. By the late 

1800s, there were three separate texts in circulation on rudimental 

drumming. Then, in 1933, the top rudimental minds 

of the day, headed by William F. Ludwig, got together to share 

ideas, and they came up with a list of thirteen essential rudiments. 

They later added thirteen more, to create what’s commonly 

known as the standard twenty-six drum rudiments. 

This was the definitive list until the Percussive Arts Society 

came along in the 1960s. PAS rearranged the original twentysix 

and added fourteen Swiss rudiments, to create the forty 

international drum rudiments. 

It’s been more than forty years since there has been any 

significant attempt to update this list. But think of how far 

rudimental drumming has come in just the last thirty years. 

The introduction of the Kevlar head in marching ensembles 

created a high-definition sound that completely changed how 

rudimental music is written for snare drum. Having been 

classically trained by a member of the Boston Symphony, I 

had mastered the forty rudiments and had studied from all of 

the standard rudimental books. When I showed up at the 

University Of North Texas in 1987, however, I was shocked 

when I realized that there was a new list of what are called 

hybrid rudiments, which I was completely unaware of. I did 

what I could to catch up, but I always wondered why these 

rudiments weren’t taught along with the standard forty. 

Fast-forward to today, and it’s clear that what were cuttingedge 

techniques for drummers in college and DCI corps thirty 

years ago are now very common for today’s high school–level 

drum lines. We’ve entered an age where the forty international 

drum rudiments don’t sufficiently prepare our students to 

play in even their own school ensembles. As an educator, I 

can no longer remain silent on this subject. I believe it’s time 


RUDIMENTAL SYMPOSIUM 

Revising The Standard 

Drum Rudiments 

Is It Time? 

by Jim Riley 

to create an updated list that will adequately prepare our students 

for their drumming future. 

Updating the standard rudiments will require adding some 

of these new hybrid patterns—and we may also have to consider 

eliminating a few of the more antiquated or redundant 

ones. To begin, let’s look at a few rudiments that I feel 

deserve to be on the new list, which I’m unofficially calling 

the Modern Standard Drum Rudiments. 

The Cheese Family 

The forty standard rudiments are broken down into four subgroups: 

rolls, diddles, flams, and drags. In modern rudimental 

drumming, there’s an important fifth group that consists 

of what are known as “cheese” rudiments. Don’t be fooled by 

the name. These things are crucial. A cheese is performed by 

placing a grace note before a double stroke. 

The rudiment called cheese invert is played just like an 

inverted flam tap, only substituting a cheese for the flam. 

This next rudiment is based on a flam accent, using a 

cheese in place of the flam. This pattern is very common in 

the modern drum-line repertoire. I call it the cheese accent. 

One of my favorite hybrid rudiments is the flam five, which 

is created when you add a grace note before a five-stroke roll. 

This rudiment belongs in the cheese category because it 

incorporates the flam/diddle concept.

RUDIMENTAL SYMPOSIUM 

You can also combine cheeses with traditional flams to 

create unique and useful patterns. This next one is called a 

cheese cha. It’s similar to the cheese accent in Example 3, 

only you add a flam to the last 8th note of the pattern. 

We could go on and on with cheese variations based on 

the standard rudiments, like the flam paradiddle and 

pataflafla, but I don’t think that would best serve our objective, 

since hybrid rudiment enthusiasts have already come 

up with more than a hundred of these new patterns. Instead, 

I would like to point out some other patterns worthy of consideration 

for our new list. 

Eggbeaters And More 

The eggbeater is another modern rudiment with a funny 

name, but it’s a cool and unique pattern. It’s formed by playing 

three notes with your right hand followed by two notes 

with your left hand. Although the eggbeater is a five-note 

pattern, it’s usually felt and phrased more like a triplet. 

This next rudiment, called the herta, is one that’s frequently 

played in a drum line on quads (marching toms), 

but it’s also often used on drumset. Hertas are based on 

triplets and consist of two 16th notes followed by two 8ths. 

Speaking of kit applications, this next pattern, often called 

blushda, gets used so frequently by drumset players that it 

should be included in the mix. It’s based on a flam drag, but 

it doesn’t alternate. 

What To Leave Out? 

The previous examples are just a few of the more modern 

rudimental patterns that are worthy of consideration for our 

new list. As I mentioned earlier, in order to add rudiments 

it’s likely that we’ll have to cut some of the originals. This 

will be easier to do if we establish criteria for inclusion on 

the new list. I believe a pattern must be useful, essential, elemental 

in nature, and, most of all, unique before it can be 


considered a rudiment. 

Many of the standard forty rudiments are either variations 

or combinations of more basic rudiments. To me, any roll 

longer than a nine-stroke becomes a long roll. Do we really 

need to delineate ten-, eleven-, thirteen-, fifteen-, and 

seventeen-stroke rolls? Or are they simply long rolls of 

varying durations? Other rudiments that fall on my endangered 

list include the drag paradiddle #1, drag paradiddle #2, 

and flamacue. Sure, they’re great combination patterns, 

but are they unique and essential enough to be considered 

rudiments? 

There are also inconsistencies in the standard list. The 

current roster of forty rudiments includes single, double, 

and triple paradiddles but only single and double tap drags. 

Why isn’t there a triple tap drag? The dragadiddle, on the 

other hand, has no variations. Double and triple dragadiddles 

could be really cool. So how do we handle these seemingly 

arbitrary inclusions and omissions? We may want to 

consider eliminating all double and triple variations and 

instead call them what they are—variations of the original 

rudiment. 

The flam paradiddle-diddle is named incorrectly. A paradiddle-diddle 

(which is an awesome rudiment, by the way) 

doesn’t alternate, while the flam paradiddle-diddle does. So 

shouldn’t it be called an alternating flam paradiddle-diddle? 

Also, the standard list includes the flam drag. If you peel 

away the flam in the flam drag, you would have something 

called a tap drag. But that pattern isn’t included in the current 

list. Instead, it’s written in its inverted form and called a 

drag tap. This is another inconsistency worth addressing. 

A Call To Arms 

Right now many of you are probably saying to yourselves, 

Who does this guy think he is? I’m just a longtime drummer 

and educator who feels that it’s time to open up a dialogue 

regarding what’s currently taught as the standard drum 

rudiments. I don’t believe I have all of the answers on this 

subject. On the contrary, I’m calling out to the titans of the 

rudimental world to bring this discussion to the forefront. I 

firmly believe that rudiments are the building blocks for our 

creativity as drummers, and it’s time for the rudimental 

experts and educators of the world to come together once 

again to exchange ideas and create an updated list that will 

better prepare students for the modern repertoire that 

awaits them. 

Jim Riley is the drummer and musical director 

for Rascal Flatts. He marched in the 

University Of North Texas drum line from 

1987 to 1991 and was a member of the Velvet 

Knights drum corps in 1989. You can contact 

him through jimrileymusic.com.

64 

I 

MUSIC KEY 

n part one of this series (April 2011), we 

discussed various ways to make a direct 

connection with the rhythms found in other 

musicians’ parts. For this installment, I’d 

like to take a slightly broader approach. In 

addition to the interpretation of the rhythm of a song’s 

melody, it is extremely important to know simply how the 

music flows from measure to measure. We can observe this 

through the way chords and melodies are introduced and 

stressed within the meter. The downbeat on the 1 often maintains 

the strongest emphasis, but this isn’t always the case. 

Listen closely to the music and notice if melodies or chord 

movements are instead anticipated. 

An anticipation is defined as a rhythmic attack that occurs 

ahead of the downbeat. Using a typical measure of 4/4 time 

as an example, we expect a strong beat on the downbeat of 1. 

If this accent is moved ahead to the “&” of beat 4 of the previous 

measure, then the accented note occurs an 8th note 

earlier than expected. This anticipation gives music forward 

motion that effectively builds momentum and energy. 

Do not confuse anticipations with pickup notes. A pickup 

is an unaccented note that occurs before the first beat of a 

measure. The difference between the two is not where they 

occur in time, but rather how they are stressed within the 

song’s rhythm. 

Regardless of how closely you choose to connect with your 

musical counterparts, creating a drum part that emphasizes 

the song’s harmonic movement serves to strengthen and bring 

cohesion to the overall sound. In a simple drum accompaniment, 

the placement of these few accented notes becomes 

especially important. After you become aware of where the 

chords change, you can begin to focus on the details. Try to listen 

for the notes or chords that are stressed and therefore 

require special attention in your drum parts. Either ignoring or 

incorrectly interpreting a song’s anticipated chordal movement 

can get you into trouble. Of all the connections in your 

part, this one requires extra attention. Playing a strong downbeat 

on 1 when the guitar part is clearly stressing an anticipation 

might cause the music to feel cluttered or give the impression 

that you’re out of sync with the band. 

Here’s a typical anticipated guitar-strumming rhythm and 

some ways in which it can be interpreted in a drum accompaniment. 

Notice how the chords are introduced on the “&” of 

beat 4. 


ROCK ’N’ JAZZ CLINIC 

Write Creative Drum Parts 

Part 2: Anticipated Rhythms 

by Chris Prescott 

When an accented note is surrounded by empty space or 

quieter dynamics, that note will draw more attention. I find 

that in most instances leaving the downbeat empty following 

a strong anticipated accent will add power to the part. 

Another good reason to rest on the downbeat is based on 

practicality. If you’re playing at a faster tempo and leaning 

into big crashes on these anticipated accents, the rest gives 

you a moment to get your hands back in position to continue 

your pattern. Here are some examples that leave a rest on 

beat 1 for dynamic contrast. Notice the move from the hi-hat 

to the crash cymbal on the anticipated accents. 

It’s critical to incorporate anticipations into your fills as 

well. Here are some examples that connect with an 8th-note 

anticipation. These accents are most often played with your 

dominant hand, since you’ll have time to continue your regular 

cymbal pattern without too much struggle.

To this point we’ve discussed anticipations at the 8th-note 

level, but anticipations can be quick 16th-note accents as 

well. In our next example, the anticipation falls on the “a” 

of beat 4, preceding the usual downbeat of 1. Try playing 

these anticipated accents with your non-dominant hand 

along with the bass drum, instead of scrambling to get your 

lead hand to catch the quick rhythms. It’s great to be flexible 

in this regard, so if you currently avoid using your nondominant 

hand to play accents, take some time to get 

confident with this sticking. Be careful not to get tangled 

as you bring your hand up to catch the 16th-note accent 

when keeping time on the hi-hat with the other hand. It’s 

often easier to execute these patterns if you clear the path 

by playing time on the ride cymbal instead. 

Here are some fills that incorporate 16th-note anticipations. 

Again, you may want to accent with your non-dominant 

hand. Always be open to different sticking possibilities—but 

know that sometimes the path of least resistance can help you 

keep your rhythm consistent and confident. 

Chris Prescott is a San Diego–based multi-instrumentalist 

who currently drums for Pinback. His recently published 

book, Creative Construction, is available through his website, 

ccdrumbooks.com.

66 

Tall and strong with big hands, Philly Joe Jones was a commanding 

figure. He was powerful, but he was also sensitive 

and compassionate. His drums could roar or whisper, 

depending on what suited the moment. I took several lessons 

with him in the early ’70s, when he was living in the East 

Village of New York City. For those of you who aren’t already 

familiar with Philly Joe, he was one of the most respected and 

accomplished jazz drummers of the bebop and post-bop 

eras. Early in his career, people confused him with the great 

Count Basie drummer Jo Jones, who’s also known as Papa Jo 

Jones. So, after Joe moved to New York from his hometown of 

Philadelphia and became the house drummer at the Café 

Society Club on Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village, he 

added “Philly” to his name. 

Philly Joe toured and recorded with the legendary Miles 

Davis Quintet from 1955 to 1957. The band featured Davis on 

trumpet, John Coltrane on tenor sax, Red Garland on piano, 

Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe on drums. Miles 

acknowledged that Jones was his favorite drummer, which is 

amazing when you consider the guys he played with: Max 

Roach, Kenny Clarke, Art Blakey, Jimmy Cobb, Tony 

Williams, Jack DeJohnette…. 

When he was in Davis’s group, Philly Joe was criticized for 

being too dominating and for playing too loudly. But to 

many, that just meant he was doing his job—taking charge 

and leading the band. Miles loved what Philly Joe was doing, 

and it set a new standard for post-bop drumming. 

I went up to Philly Jones after one of his gigs in New York 

and asked if he would give me lessons. He told me to get 

Charley Wilcoxon’s Modern Rudimental Swing Solos For The 

Advanced Drummer and bring it to our first lesson. I told him 

I had already studied the rudiments, but he said this was 

where we should start—and he was right. 

Yes, I had studied rudiments, but I hadn’t really learned 

how to use them to make music. Philly Joe based many of his 

solos on rudiments, but he reconstructed them in his own 

way, incorporating a lot of syncopation and swing while 

always maintaining a clear sense of form. 

I was very nervous when I arrived at Jones’s apartment, 

but he was cordial and friendly. We sat down at a pair of practice 

pads and started working through Wilcoxon’s “Rolling 

In Rhythm.” We broke the solo into four-bar phrases. Philly 

Joe was very particular about the accents. He played them 

about twice as loud as the other notes, which were treated 

more like filler. 

The first two bars of “Rolling In Rhythm” are based on 

16th-note double-stroke rolls. Starting on the “&” of 3 in bar 

3, we have three successive five-stroke rolls. Each roll takes 


JAZZ DRUMMER’S WORKSHOP 

A Lesson With Philly Joe Jones 

Swinging The Rudiments 

by Jim Payne 

up three 8th notes, creating a three-over-four feel. This motif 

is used throughout the solo and is a very useful technique for 

adding rhythmic interest to any style of playing. 

Philly Joe would also play the solo on a pillow so there was 

no bounce at all, or he would use brushes. Practicing that way 

definitely helps strengthen your hands and wrists. 

Measures 5 and 6 are pretty straightforward. Just make sure 

the accents come out strong. Measures 7 and 8 are fairly easy 

to play because of the long roll in bar 7. The three-beat fivestroke 

roll happens again in measure 8. The phrase ends with 

an accent on 4. The two 16th notes at the end of the line are a 

pickup into the next measure. When I practiced this solo, I 

repeated each four-bar phrase until I got it down. 

Philly Joe talked about how you don’t hit down to make the 

sound—you pull the sound out of the drums. 

Starting on beat 3 of measure 9, the three-beat five-stroke 

roll appears again. Just repeat it four times, and that’s it! 

Measure 11 starts with another three-beat figure (two 16ths 

followed by two 8ths) that’s played three times. Measure 12 is 

a long roll with an 8th-note flam at the end.

JAZZ DRUMMER’S WORKSHOP 

I remember going to a gig with Philly Joe at a downtown 

club. We arrived early, and there weren’t many people in the 

room. He sat down at the piano and played some beautiful 

music. I was knocked out. He could’ve played the gig on 

piano—he was that good. (No wonder he always nailed the 

form of the tunes!) Check out his amazing drumming on 

“Stablemates,” from his Drums Around The World: Philly Joe 

Jones Big Band Sounds album, for an example of how he 

navigates difficult forms. 

Seeing Jones play piano inspired me to take lessons and 

continue studying theory and harmony. I realized that if I 

wanted to truly understand jazz, I’d have to learn at least the 

basics of what the other players were doing. I had to train 

my ears to hear the chord progressions, and I had to be more 

aware of the harmony so that I could play with more authority. 

How can you lead the band if you don’t know what the 

other players are doing? 

In measures 13–16, the first three beats are the same, followed 

by slightly different endings. Measure 15 is a repeat of 

measure 13, only starting with the left hand. 

Measures 17–20 were hard for me to master. I’d never 

thought of playing accents on the first two notes of a long 

roll. Philly Joe wanted the accents to come out clearly. Again, 

he treated them as the main melody notes. 

Measures 21–24 are based on a familiar three-beat figure 

(two 8ths followed by two 16ths), but I had to be careful, 

because the accents change within the figures. Sometimes 

both 8th notes are accented; sometimes only the second 8th 

note is accented. 

Measures 25–28 have the same three-beat figure (two 8ths 

and two 16ths) with alternating accents, and then the solo 

finishes with some nice accents on the offbeat and a big 

accent on beat 4. 

When we finished playing through the solo, Philly Joe 

said, “I want you to memorize this page and come back 

when you’ve got it down.” This really threw me, because I’d 

never memorized twenty-eight bars of music before. I’d 

learned many arrangements to songs but never anything 

this detailed. 

This process of memorizing a complete rudimental solo 

was one of the most important things I learned from Philly 

Joe. The better you are at memorization, the better off you’ll 

be when it’s time to prepare for a gig, especially if you’re 

playing with an established group where the other members 

already know the material. 

I found the trick to memorizing this solo was to break it 

down into chunks. I started with four-bar phrases and then 

proceeded to eight-bar phrases. Then I worked on learning 

the transitions between phrases. I tried to find some key that 

would make it easy to remember the next line. For instance, 

measure 3 starts just like measure 1, measure 5 starts with 

two figures that are like the opposite of the last two figures in 

measure 4, and so on. 

If you try to absorb the entire thing at once, you’ll get discouraged. 

It’s like looking at the top of a mountain while on 

your way up—you feel as if you’ll never make it. But if you 

just keep your eyes slightly ahead of your feet and take it one 

step at a time, you’ll eventually get there. 

It took me about a month until I had memorized “Rolling 

In Rhythm” to the point where I had enough courage to perform 

it in front of Philly Joe. After that, we moved on to 

“Flam Accent Fantasy,” “Swingin’ The 26,” and several other 

classic Wilcoxon solos. What an experience! 

“Rolling In Rhythm” originally appeared in Charley Wilcoxon’s 

Modern Rudimental Swing Solos For The Advanced 

Drummer, published by Ludwig Masters Publications 

(masters-music.com). Excerpts used with permission. 

Jim Payne has played with Maceo Parker & the J.B. Horns and 

has produced records for Medeski Martin & Wood. He teaches in 

New York City and online, and his book/DVD Advanced Funk 

Drumming is available through Modern Drummer Publications. 

For more, log on to funkydrummer.com.

The kit features Ludwig oak/maple 5-ply 

R.F.S.T. shells in Orange Glass Glitter WrapTite 

finish with white powder-coated hardware. 

The set includes a 14x24 bass drum, 16x16 and 

16x18 floor toms, a 9x13 tom-tom, and the 

Joey Kramer “Hit Hard” Signature snare drum, 

a 6 1 / 2 x14 black nickel-over-brass shell with 

personalized, laser-engraved dragon graphics, 

matching tube lugs, and die-cast hoops. 

The winner will also receive a set of Zildjian 

cymbals, including a pair of 14" A Zildjian New 

Beat hi-hats, a 20" Z3 Medium crash, a 19" A 

Custom Projection crash, a 21" Z3 Mega Bell 

ride, a 20" A Zildjian Medium Thin crash, and a 

19" K Custom Hybrid China, plus a six-pack of 

Joey Kramer model drumsticks. 

All of the drums were 

personally played and signed 

by Joey—making this a truly 

ONE-OF-A-KIND PRIZE! 

www.joeykramer.com • www.ludwig-drums.com • www.zildjian.com 

Consumer Disclosure 1. To enter, visit www.moderndrummer.com between the dates below and look for the Ludwig/Zildjian Contest button (one entry per email address). 2. ODDS OF WINNING DEPEND ON THE NUMBER OF ELIGIBLE ENTRIES ENTERED. 3. CONTEST BEGINS APRIL 1, 2011, AND ENDS 

June 30, 2011. 4. Grand Prize Drawing: Winner will be selected by random drawing on July 15, 2011. Winner will be notified by phone or email on or about June 16, 2011. 5. Employees, and their immediate families, of Modern Drummer, Ludwig, Zildjian, and their affiliates are ineligible. 6. Sponsor is 

not responsible for lost, misdirected, and/or delayed entries. 7. Open to residents of the U.S. and Canada, 18 years of age or older. Void in Quebec, Canada; Florida; and where prohibited by law. 8. One prize awarded per household per contest. 9. Prizes: Grand Prize — one (1) winner will receive the 

Joey Kramer Ludwig Keystone USA Series Signature 5-piece prototype kit, Orange Glass Glitter WrapTite finish with white powder-coated hardware: two snare stands, Pro-Float hi-hat stand, and six 900 Series straight/boom stands; a set of Zildjian cymbals, including a set of 14" A Zildjian New Beat hi-hats, 

1 each: 20" Z3 Medium crash, 19" A Custom Projection crash, 21" Z3 Mega Bell ride, 20" A Zildjian Medium Thin crash, and a 19" K Custom Hybrid China; and a 6-pack of Joey Kramer model drumsticks. Approximate retail value of prize: $8,004. First Prize — three (3) winners will each receive a 

6-pack of Zildjian Joey Kramer Signature drumsticks. Approximate retail value of each prize: $103.50. Approximate value of prize: $310.50. Approximate retail value of contest: $8,315. 10. Sponsored by Modern Drummer Publications, Inc., 12 Old Bridge Road, Cedar Grove, NJ 07009, 973-239-4140. 

11. This game subject to the complete Official Rules. For a copy of the complete Official Rules or the winner’s name, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to: Modern Drummer Publications/Ludwig-Zildjian/Official Rules/Winners List, 12 Old Bridge Rd., Cedar Grove, NJ 07009.

70 

Over the course of a storied forty-year 

career, Phil Collins has graced countless 

songs with consistently inventive 

drumming, repeatedly shape shifting his 

sound and approach while maintaining an 

unmistakable musical identity. From his 

beginnings as percussionist extraordinaire 

in one of progressive rock’s grandest 

bands, Genesis, to his monumental solo 

success, Collins has changed the pop 

landscape with sonic innovations while 

still managing to write hit after hit. 

Against all odds, he succeeded original 

Genesis singer Peter Gabriel and continued 

to work the kit, subsequently taking 

the group to previously unimagined commercial 

peaks. 

Whether playing thick backbeats, 

blazing fills on slappy concert toms (no 

bottom heads needed, thank you), or 

programming an understated loop to support 

an atmospheric vocal, Collins, who’s 

produced radio gold for a wide array of 

artists, has always been a true original. 

Remarkably, as his solo career and Genesis 

ran parallel for decades, he showcased a 

seldom-seen ability to be a chart-topping 

pop star and an accomplished instrumentalist. 

In the process, he influenced an 

entire generation of drummers. And 

here’s a mind-boggling stat: Collins is 

one of only three recording artists (Paul 

McCartney and Michael Jackson are the 

others) who have sold more than 100 million 

albums worldwide both as solo artists 

and, separately, as principal members of a 

band. So if all you know is Disney’s Tarzan 

or adult contemporary balladry like 

“Separate Lives,” explore these reasons to 

love the amazing—and, outside drummers’ 

circles, often underappreciated— 

Phil Collins. 

GENESIS, “SUPPER’S READY,” 

FOXTROT (1972) 

A brash twenty-one-year-old Collins 

makes his presence known on this ambitious 

suite, the centerpiece of Genesis’s 

early live shows. Phil’s warrior snare 

groove (6:33) is offset by perfectly placed 

crashes, while the British martial rhythm of 

the “Willow Farm” section features cool 

linear patterns, delayed snare hits, and sly 


10 Reasons To Love 

PHIL COLLINSby Ilya Stemkovsky 

beat flipping (11:50–11:58). 

Later, “Apocalypse In 9/8” is 

a study in how to navigate 

odd times, as Collins 

delights with an extremely 

quick combo of kick doubles 

and splashes (17:11) and 

general tension-and-release 

mastery. Check out the live 

version from 1977’s Seconds 

Out, where Collins and his 

in-concert drumming foil, 

Chester Thompson, lift 

“Supper’s Ready” to even 

greater heights. 

GENESIS, THE LAMB 

LIES DOWN ON 

BROADWAY (1974) 

The last record to feature 

Peter Gabriel on vocals, this double album 

is a Collins tour de force. “In The Cage” 

features a heartbeat-like kick pattern that 

flows into steady quarter notes, with nifty 

tom hits on the “&” of 3 in the 3/4 beat 

(1:18), plus colorful bell hits for the keyboard 

solo (3:22–3:27). Simple, funky, and 

totally effective. “Back in N.Y.C.” finds 

Gabriel in full-on punk attitude mode, and 

Collins’ perfect accompaniment is supportive 

and conversational. When Phil 

opens up on his ride (1:08) and arrests the 

music with jabbing flams over the insistent 

keys pattern (1:35), it’s clear that the 

’70s British groups, and their drummers, 

had the green light to try anything. 

FUSION? BRING IT ON! 

Ever the workaholic, Collins joined the 

(mostly) instrumental group Brand X in 

1975 and found an outlet for his most 

chops-oriented playing. Having long 

admired drummers’ drummers like Billy 

Cobham, Collins took the challenge to 

demonstrate his more fusiony side. 

Brand X’s “Nuclear Burn,” from 1976’s 

Unorthodox Behaviour, is a linear funk 

workout in 11, while “Malaga Virgen,” 

from 1977’s Moroccan Roll, is a Jaco 

Pastorius–style “(Used To Be A) Cha-Cha” 

up-tempo samba. Peripherally, Genesis 

also benefited: “Los Endos,” from 1976’s 

A Trick Of The Tail, would feature a show- 

Ebet Roberts 

stopping, tom-pounding live drum duet 

with Thompson, and “Down And Out,” 

from 1978’s …And Then There Were Three, 

contains outrageous 10/8 snare/hats/ 

crash flurries when the beat kicks in. The 

fiery Collins had something to prove. 

PHIL’S FILL (YEAH, THAT ONE) 

Is the colossal drum entrance on “In The 

Air Tonight” the most air drummed figure 

of all time? Whether it’s done by a gorilla 

in a Cadbury commercial or by Iron Mike 

Tyson in The Hangover, or it’s covered 

by the hip-hop community, this iconic 

piece of drumming from Phil’s 1981 solo 

debut, Face Value, is simply part of the 

modern cultural canon. But what a subversive 

drumming performance it is: The 

eerie synth and Roland CR-78 drum 

machine loop builds practically unbearable 

tension leading up to the powerful 

beat that finally arrives at 3:40, complete 

with Collins continuously blurring the 1 

while still singing. (Check YouTube to see 

that feat in concert, and witness how the 

drummer dramatically stalks the stage, 

eventually arriving at his kit.) 

“Often, when I bump into strangers on 

the street,” Collins told England’s Mail On 

Sunday paper, “they won’t speak to me— 

they’ll just act out the drum sequence 

from ‘In The Air Tonight.’ That song just 

won’t lie down.”

GATED REVERB 

Perhaps Collins’ biggest trademark is his 

super-compressed, in-your-face, “gated 

reverb” drum tone, which would transform 

recorded kit sounds in the ’80s and spawn 

countless imitations. With help from the 

brilliant producer Hugh Padgham, Collins 

cut short the natural echo of his drums, 

creating a massively punchy mix that 

would become synonymous with his 

music. And who needs cymbals? The 

gated drums were so distinctive that 

entire songs were built around tom- and 

snare-heavy Collins patterns employing no 

cymbals at all: “Intruder,” from Peter 

Gabriel’s 1980 self-titled third solo album, 

which is entirely cymbal free; “In The Air 

Tonight”; “I Don’t Care Anymore,” from 

Collins’ 1982 solo album, Hello, I Must Be 

Going!; and numerous others. 

GENESIS, “ABACAB,” ABACAB (1981) 

As Genesis’s material began to adhere more 

closely to pop conventions, Collins’ drumming 

displayed a newfound economy. Less 

is definitely more regarding the crushing 

beat on “Abacab,” and the sudden disco 

hi-hats (3:08) add just the right spice at 

just the right moment. Later Collins continues 

to truck away with pure power at the 

relentless 2 and 4 during Tony Banks’ keyboard 

solo—nothing superfluous, no notes 

wasted. The old prog faithful might have 

cried foul, but this was undoubtedly a 

modern Genesis and a sign of things to 

come from the drummer. 

GHOST (NOTES) IN THE MACHINE 

Collins embraced e-drums, loops, and programming 

early on, incorporating them 

into the very fabric of his compositions. 

From the offbeat tambourine loop of 

“Mama,” from 1983’s Genesis, to the killer 

multiple LinnDrum overdubs of “Sussudio,” 

from 1985’s solo No Jacket Required, to the 

ping-ponging tom patterns of “Tonight, 

Tonight, Tonight,” from Genesis’s 1986 

multi-platinum smash, Invisible Touch, the 

synthetic beats make the song. Using 

“fake” drums was a courageous choice for 

Collins, who long had a serious drum technician’s 

reputation. Obviously he was on 

to something: The title track to Invisible 

Touch was a number-one hit, with nary 

an acoustic drum heard. (Ironic twist: 

“Invisible Touch” was replaced in the 

top spot on the Billboard charts by Peter 

Gabriel’s only number-one song, 

“Sledgehammer.”) 

PHILIP BAILEY, “EASY LOVER,” 

CHINESE WALL (1984) 

Obviously a drummer mixed this, because 

it’s slamming. From the huge crashes and 

monster fills that open the track, it’s clear 

that Collins the drummer, singer, and producer 

means business on this duet with 

Earth, Wind & Fire vocalist/percussionist 

Philip Bailey. Check out the syncopated 

snare and crash plus the descending tom 

stutter setting up the second verse at 2:12. 

And is that a sped-up version of the 

famous “In The Air Tonight” fill at 3:01? 

Other artists clearly liked what they 

heard—Collins would go on to produce, 

record, and tour with Eric Clapton and to 

drum on Howard Jones’s hit “No One Is 

To Blame.” And of course Phil’s patented 

slap enlivens 1984’s all-star Ethiopian 

benefit track (and one of the U.K.’s bestselling 

singles), Band Aid’s “Do They Know 

It’s Christmas?” 

JULY 13, 1985 

Simply saying Collins “participated” in Live 

Aid would be selling his accomplishments 

short. How about this itinerary of events: 

Collins plays with Sting at London’s 

Wembley Stadium, doing solo hits and 

Police numbers like “Roxanne,” flies on the 

Concorde to Philadelphia to drum in Eric 

Clapton’s group, laying it down for “Layla” 

and “White Room,” then later takes part in 

a Led Zeppelin reunion alongside Power 

Station drummer Tony Thompson, killing it 

on “Whole Lotta Love” and “Stairway To 

Heaven.” “Owning” Live Aid is more like it. 

Concurrently, the soothing “One More 

Night” graces every dentist’s office in the 

country. In the ’80s, Collins is everywhere. 

A GROOVY KIND OF DRUMS 

With all due respect to Bill Bruford, Carl 

Palmer, and other British progsters, Collins’ 

sense of pocket is unmatched. With a fully 

formed sense of groove on even the earliest 

Genesis songs—“I Know What I Like (In 

Your Wardrobe),” from 1973’s Selling 

England By The Pound, is just plain funky— 

Collins has the soul of a Motown drummer, 

and he scored a hit with a 1982 cover of 

“You Can’t Hurry Love,” which was made 

famous by the Supremes in the mid-’60s. 

His love for groove-based horn-section 

material also comes through on 1989’s 

“Something Happened On The Way To 

Heaven” and the heavy quarter-note snare 

pulse of 1996’s “Dance Into The Light.” 

Check out the tom/snare intro to Face 

Value’s “I Missed Again”—it’s the same lick 

you hear the Funk Brothers’ Benny 

Benjamin playing on so many ’60s classics. 

Collins’ latest record, Going Back, is an 

all-Motown covers disc, proving that no 

musician ever strays too far from his roots. 

Phil says a spinal injury has forced him to 

retire from drumming, but still, we can 

dream—we hope he’s far from done.

Ludwig 

by Harry Cangany 

COLLECTOR’S CORNER 

The last major addition to the 

Ludwig line before the death of 

founder William F. Ludwig Sr. was 

the acrylic shell option known as 

Vistalite, which was introduced in 

1972. The idea of using a non-wood 

shell was not unique to Ludwig. A 

small manufacturer called Zickos also 

explored the concept starting in 1969, 

and acrylics have been used by Fibes, 

Slingerland, Sonor, Tama, and other 

companies as well. 

Vistalites, however, are the bestknown 

acrylic drums. They initially 

came in clear and blue, but by 1973 

Ludwig had added yellow, green, red, 

and amber, and the company later 

offered other colors and swirl patterns. 

The least common of the solidcolor 

Vistalites are those in green and 

amber. Part of the appeal of amber is 

that it was the color of choice for Led 

Zeppelin’s John Bonham. 

The typical Vistalite set was the 

Big Beat—a 14x22 bass drum with a 

double tom holder, 8x12 and 9x13 

rack toms, a 16x16 floor tom, and a 

matching 5x14 snare. There are 

61 / 2x14 Vistalite snares, but they don’t 

seem to be as popular. There are also 

Vistalite snares with extended Super 

Sensitive strainers. The amber 

Vistalite snare shown here has ten 

classic “bowtie” lugs. A version of 

this lug with a center cut is used on 

Amber Vistalite Snare 

student-level Acrolite drums. 

Today’s acrylic shells sound similar 

to wood. Back when this snare was 

made, acrylic drums had their own 

unique sound. There are no pores in 

the shell to absorb vibrations, so the 

tone is harsher, with a lot of ring. 

Drummers either loved or hated this 

more aggressive sound, but the semi- 

transparent look was the obvious selling 

point. Ludwig later introduced the 

Jelly Bean kit, where each drum was a 

different color. Original Vistalites will 

have the company’s blue-and-olive 

badge. The series fell victim to high 

oil prices and low demand by 1980, 

but Ludwig revived the line a few 

years ago, just in time for the 2007 

Led Zeppelin reunion featuring John 

Bonham’s son, Jason, on his own 

signature yellow Zep kit with black 

powder-coated hardware.

Robert Plant’s 

MARCO GIOVINO 

Drums: vintage Slingerland, Ludwig, 

and Rogers 

A. 7x15 Slingerland Radio King snare 

(modified by Andy Foote at Drum 

Supply House in Nashville) 

B. 12x15 early-1970s Ludwig parade snare 

C. 12x14 1940s Slingerland Radio 

King tom 

D. 5x12 Joe Montineri jingle snare 

E. 16x16 1940s Slingerland Radio King 

floor tom 

F. 16x18 Rogers floor tom 

G. 10x14 Ludwig parade snare 

H. 14x24 1940s Slingerland Radio King 

bass drum 

Giovino often swaps the Radio King 

snare with a 6 1 / 2 x14 Ludwig Supra-Phonic 

or a 5x14 Rogers Powertone. “My drumset 

looks like a garage-sale kit,” Marco says. “I 

used to teach at a store in New Jersey 

called Ritchie’s Music. George Sigler, who 

runs the drum department, knew that I 

loved old drums, so he always gave me 

first crack at the ones that came in. That’s 

how I got the Slingerland bass drum and 

B 

1 

C 

toms. They have 3-ply mahogany shells; 

no other drums sound as warm, fat, and 

fuzzy as these do.” 

Cymbals: Hammerax, Zildjian 

1. 18" Zildjian K Constantinople crash 

2. 24" Hammerax flat ride 

3. 19" Hammerax Liquicy ride 

4. 18" Zildjian crash/ride with 16" Zildjian 

K crash and Hammerax Nu Bell on top 

5. Hammerax Boomywang 

“My cymbals now are mostly 

Hammerax. Their stuff is just so unique 

and cool sounding. Robert didn’t want me 

to use any hi-hats. The thing you see in 

A 

H 

D 

2 

DRUMKIT DETAILS, 

ON STAGE AND UP CLOSE 

Interview and photos by Sayre Berman 

E 

the picture is something on a hi-hat stand, 

but it’s my own little creation. We’ll leave 

it mysterious like that.” 

Sticks: Wincent rods, brushes, and 

drumsticks 

Heads: Evans, Remo, and Stern Tanning 

“In the studio I used calfskin heads from 

Stern Tanning. They sounded so warm. 

The combo of those heads and these vintage 

drums creates a lot of low end.” 

Hardware: Pearl 

3 

4 

F 

5 

June 2011 • MODERN DRUMMER 73 

G

2 

3 


N E W A N D N O T A B L E 

The winter NAMM show 

was held this past January 13 through 16 in 

Anaheim, California. This annual event gives manufac- 

turers the chance to show off their new models, revamps 

of old standards, and off-the-chart creations that will help 

guide the industry in new directions. Here’s a glimpse of 

some of the most noteworthy products that will soon be 

available at your local drum shop. by Rick Long 

1 

1. GRETSCH’s classic-car-inspired Renown 57 kit 

has a low street price of about $1,900 and comes 

with a matching throne. 

2. MEINL’s percussion catalog continues to grow 

with innovative products like the FX Pedal, while 

new cymbals include additions to the Germanmade 

B20 bronze M-Series, a 22" Byzance Vintage 

Sand ride, perforated Vintage Trash crashes, and 

aggressive-sounding B10 Classics Custom models. 

3. MAPEX’s Blaster kit is based on the Black 

Panther Blaster snare drum shell formula and features 

thin maple shells with walnut sound-shaping 

rings. Each drum is accented with brushed black 

chrome hardware. 

4. SONOR rolled out its signature Benny Greb 

5 3 / 4 x13 beech snare drum. 

4

5 6 7 

9 

11 

13 14 

15 

8 

10 

12 

5. HAMMERAX offers some unusual cymbals 

and gongs, including Photon series crashes that 

can be inverted to create China sounds and the 

ameobic-looking Boomywang instrument 

shown here. 

6. TURKISH produces a full line of cymbals, 

including the recently launched Vintage Soul 

series. 

7. YAMAHA introduced the vintage-inspired 

Club Custom line with “mod” swirl finishes in 

blue, black, and orange. 

8. GMS displayed new snares with exotic 

veneers, like this ebony macassar over maple. 

9. RHYTHM TECH has a new take on the hihat 

jingle attachment, the Hat Trick G2. 

10. REMO’s Powerstroke Pro line of bass drum 

heads features permanently mounted foam 

muffling rings. 

11. TREEWORKS has created the TRE35rc 

limited edition flat-bar chime, which features 

rectangular bars for a distinctive sound. 

12. VIC FIRTH is now part of Zildjian, but 

the two companies will continue to operate 

separately. 

13. BRADY is an Australian company known 

for its high-quality, beautifully constructed 

stave- and ply-shell drums. In addition to some 

innovative new kits, Brady displayed the latest 

additions to its one-of-a-kind Walkabout snare 

series. 

14. NATAL, a drum and percussion company 

from England, offers drumsets and stave-shell 

snares in maple, birch, ash, and bubinga. 

15. PAISTE created a big buzz at the show 

with the release of the Twenty Masters 

Collection—which includes the 24" JR Robinson 

Signature Groove Deep ride—and the reintroduction 

of the legendary Formula 602 series.

18 

20 

22 

23 


16 

17 

19 

21 

24 

16. SABIAN’s all-purpose Omni crash/rides 

were developed along with electronica great 

Jojo Mayer, and the company’s Holy China was 

designed in collaboration with Chili Peppers 

drummer Chad Smith. 

17. LUDWIG displayed Joey Kramer’s setup 

with white hardware, along with a slew of cool 

offerings like the green Vistalite kit shown here. 

18. ROLAND is now offering DW hardware 

packages with various V-Drums sets, in addition 

to more customization options for the high-end 

TD-20KX (shown) and a new mesh-head KD-9 

kick pad for the affordable TD-9 and TD-4 kits. 

19. CALATO’s Regal Tip drumsticks were the 

originators of the nylon tip. New models featuring 

the serrated E series tip sound more like 

wood than nylon. 

20. DREAM cymbals have good sound and are 

a great value. This is the Dark Matter Energy ride. 

21. AQUARIAN surprised everyone with an 

electronic drumhead, the inHEAD, that turns an 

acoustic drum into an electronic trigger. 

22. DRUM WORKSHOP’s Performance 

series is making the DW name affordable to 

more drummers, without sacrificing the quality 

of the construction or tone. 

23. LP, under the category of new and 

portable, offers the Laptop conga. 

24. TRICK’s Predator remote hi-hat has a long 

footboard that resembles the company’s popular 

Dominator bass drum pedal. 

25. NOBLE & COOLEY displayed solid-shell 

snares, a CD Maple series drumkit with a cool 

quick-release tom mount, and a few vintagestyle 

rope-tuned drums. 

25

26 

28 29 

30 

32 

31 

27 

26. ZILDJIAN’s technology division, Gen16, has released 

the Digital Vault, which includes multi-sampled recordings 

of various lines of Zildjian cymbals, to be triggered with 

FXpansion’s popular drum sample software, BFD2 and 

BFD Eco. 

27. TAMA’s low-price Silverstar series features all-birch 

shells. 

28. AHEAD’s Armor padded bags are teardrop shaped 

and open extra wide to allow a better fit. 

29. TYCOON displayed an electric cajon with a built-in 

speaker. 

30. TAYE offers a very cool StudioMaple wood-hoop snare 

drum and has added brass shells to its highly regarded line 

of metal drums. 

31. EVANS now offers its 12 mil single-ply G Plus drumhead 

with a traditional white coating. 

32. ISTANBUL AGOP made additions to Cindy 

Blackman’s Om series and updated the Matt Chamberlain 

signature ride to be a little thicker than the original version. 

33. PEACE displayed pro-level gear with stunning finishes, 

plus a new full-size electronic drumkit. 

33

34. PRO-MARK is now part of the D’Addario family, 

which also owns Evans Drumheads. 

35. CRUSH is a new company that offers high-end 

kits and snares at reasonable prices, in birch, ash, 

maple, bubinga, acrylic, and carbon fiber. 

36. SLEISHMAN’s all-maple Omega and exoticwood 

custom drums come with the company’s 

patented suspension system. 

37. FIDOCK, from Australia, takes the concept of 

wood rims to a high level, offering entire kits and several 

models of snares with hoops built from the same 

species (and sometimes the same log) of timber. 

38. DRUMCRAFT has been in business in Germany 

for a couple of years now. It’s coming to the U.S. for 

the first time in 2011. 

39. CYMBAGS help keep your cymbals clean and 

well protected between gigs. They slip on without 

having to remove the cymbal from the stand. 

40. ISTANBUL MEHMET is celebrating its sixtyfirst 

anniversary with some new rides. 

41. SOULTONE expanded its Vintage Old School 

line with 1964 jazz crash/rides, which are based on 

the sounds of Tony Williams’ cymbals from that time 

period. 

42. DUNNETT CLASSIC DRUMS had models in 

different booths at the show. Here’s an example from 

the James Trussart Collection. 

43. TRX’s Icon Stackers are vented cymbals that can 

be played alone or layered with other cymbals for 

short, trashy sounds. 

44. FORD’s Maverick drumkit has a tough exterior 

finish that prevents road wear. (For a closer look at this 

exact kit, check out the review on page 19.) 

40 

42 

34 

35 36 

37 

41 

43 44 

38 

39

DRUMMERS 

Learn To Read 

With Sam Ulano’s 

Open Your Brain Study 

GET YOUR 

FREE 

COPY 

OF SAM’S 

“FOLDY” 

Send Requests To: 

127 W. 43rd Street, Apt. 1026 

New York, NY 10036 

212-977-5209 

www.samulano.com 

“I’ve Taught Some 

Of The Best.” 


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Eames hand-crafted North American 

birch drum shells in Finetone, 

Naturaltone, Mastertone, and Vintage 

E series. Eames Drum Co., 229 Hamilton 

St., Saugus, MA 01906. 781-233-1404. 

www.eamesdrumshells.com 

STUDY MATERIALS 

Fast Hands For Drummers. To order, 

send $12 to: John Bock, 9 Hillview Place, 

Elmsford, NY 10523. 

Beat the competition! 

www.percxpress.com 

Free Drum Chart! Instant download of 

the best charts ever! New releases! 

www.DrumChartsInternational.com 

Polyrhythms! Technique! Independence! 

Chuck Kerrigan. Info: 814-215-2617, 

www.youtube.com 

Drum-Set Systems: Improve fills, solos, 

reading, and approach to playing. 

39-track CD. www.mattpatuto.com 

INSTRUCTION 

NYC Drummers: Study with John 

Sarracco, one of the most knowledgeable 

pros in the NY area. Accepting only 

the serious-minded for drum instruction 

the professional way. Staten Island 

studio locations. 718-351-4031. 

NYC—Westchester. Learn the art of 

playing the drums. Students include 

platinum artists. All welcome. “It’s 

about time.” Tel: 914-591-3383, 

914-674-4549. www.edbettinelli.com 

Philadelphia: Drum lessons - 

a wholistic approach. Major league 

technique, concept, application. 

MartinBradfield@yahoo.com 

Drum Studios in West LA! Only $325 

per month! Air Conditioned/24 Hour 

Access/Pro & Clean/310-876-9666 

TKprod.net 

Extra! Drummers, visit jeffindyke.com. 

YouTube search Jeff Indyke. Instruction: 

516-263-9782. Hotline: 516-539-BEAT. 

NYC—Tabla. Learn Indian classical 

drumming with Misha Masud. All levels. 

Study in Indian rhythmic theory also 

offered for composers, jazz/fusion musicians. 

Tel: 212-724-7223. 

Baltimore-Washington: Grant 

Menefee’s studio of drumming. B.M. 

Berklee College of Music. All styles and 

levels. Tel: 410-747-STIX. 

Frustrated with your feet? In L.A., 

get sick scary double pedal chops! 

Rick, 310-392-7499. 

thefootiments@yahoo.com 

MISCELLANEOUS 

N.A.R.D. Is Back! The National 

Association of Rudimental Drummers. 

Approved by Ludwig. 

www.nard.us.com 

Paying drummer jobs since 1969. 

818-888-7879. 

www.MusiciansContact.com 

VINTAGE SHOWCASE 

The Ludwig Book! by Rob Cook. Business 

history and dating guide, 300 pages (64 

color), Wm. F. Ludwig II autobiography, 

books on Rogers, Leedy, Slingerland, 

calfskin heads, gut snares, and more. 

Contact Rebeats, tel: 989-463-4757, 

Rob@rebeats.com, Web site: 

www.rebeats.com 

Vintage: Snares, sets, singles, cymbals, 

hardware, logos, and trades. Look/see, 

www.drumatix.com

84 

t’s really your personality and your 

“Iego that influence everything in a 

given group,” says Serj Tankian/Juliette 

Lewis drummer Troy Zeigler when asked 

how he ended up landing a pair of gigs 

supporting two very strong personas. 

The Tankian position opened up first, 

when top touring/session drummer Bryan 

“Brain” Mantia decided not to go on the 

road to support the release of the System 

Of A Down frontman’s 2007 solo debut, 

Elect The Dead. A who’s who of alternative 

rock drummers was put to the test at 

Tankian’s studio to determine who would 

be the best fit, but ultimately it was 

Zeigler, a relative unknown outside an 

inner circle of Los Angeles musicians, who 

ended up in the drum seat. “I just went in 

without any pretense,” Troy explains. “I 

did my homework, which is very important, 

and I knew I was a good enough 

drummer to be there. But beyond that, it’s 

the inexplicable sentiment and the identity 

that you bring forth in your playing. If 

you’re a total demonstrative asshole, 

people can feel that in your playing. So 

I try not to be too much of an asshole…at 


P O R T R A I T S 

least not in auditions.” 

Last summer, Tankian brought Zeigler 

into the studio to record the majority of 

the drum tracks for his sophomore 

release, Imperfect Harmonies. Unlike Elect 

The Dead, which was a more straightforward 

rock album, Imperfect Harmonies features 

a lot of syncopated rhythms, dense 

orchestral-type arrangements, and multiple 

layers of loops and programmed drum 

parts, all of which has added an extra challenge 

for Zeigler now that the band is 

preparing to play the tunes on stage. “I 

have to sing a lot more, while also playing 

these semi-syncopated parts that I recorded 

for the album,” the drummer says. “On 

top of that, I’m running loops from a laptop, 

and I have to play to a click track, 

which we didn’t do on the last tour. But I 

love the challenge of trying to execute 

something that’s conceptually difficult. My 

sentiment is: Bring it on!” 

Zeigler’s other main gig, as one-fourth 

of actress Juliette Lewis’s high-energy rock 

quartet, came about during some downtime 

between touring with Tankian in 

support of Elect The Dead and recording 

Who’s to argue with a 

six-foot-six man who 

self-medicates with 

drums? Serj Tankian’s 

go-to guy uses hardearned 

skill and healthy 

aggression to make his 

percussive point. 

TROY ZEIGLER 

by Michael Dawson 

Imperfect Harmonies. The story behind 

how Troy found himself in this highly coveted 

drum chair (which was previously 

occupied by Patty Schemel, Dave Grohl, 

and Thomas Pridgen) again comes down 

to bringing the right vibe for the situation. 

“I got the audition with Juliette through 

this guy Barry Squire, who puts together 

bands for artists here in Los Angeles,” 

Zeigler says. “Over the past ten years, he 

would call me for auditions, but I never 

went because they’re usually cattle calls. 

That environment is just rife with bad 

energy, and the gigs were never anything 

I was that interested in. When he called 

me about the Juliette gig, I was skeptical 

at first. But when I heard a couple of the 

songs from her first album, they struck a 

chord with me.” 

Like the initial tryout with Tankian, the 

audition for Lewis’s band was a pressurecooker 

environment. “They tried out 

about sixty drummers,” Zeigler recalls. 

“There was one guy who looked scared 

out of his mind, so I started talking to him 

to try to ease him down a bit. He went in 

before me and played really well. But 

Ronn Dunnett

when he walked out, he was so far gone in 

his spiraling confusion that he didn’t even 

look at me and just jetted. 

“I went in, carrying my sticks and the 

main section of my double pedal, which 

still had the two beaters on it,” Zeigler 

continues. “When Juliette saw that, she 

said, ‘Oh, you’re not playing any double 

bass.’ Instead of getting all muzoid and 

saying something like, ‘Well, I play double 

bass and I’m pretty fast, but your music 

couldn’t handle it,’ I just said, ‘Oh, this isn’t 

the Slayer audition?’ That kind of set the 

vibe. I didn’t think I played as well as I 

could have, but a couple days later they 

called me. I figure that my ability is what 

got me to the audition, but it was the 

vibe—plus a bit of luck—that got me 

the gig.” 

Despite his often menacing and aggressive 

stage presence (“I sometimes get into 

these blackout places where I’m taxing my 

body like I never have before—hitting the 

crash cymbals so hard they’re choking out 

and the snare is about to break apart”), 

Zeigler is one of the most laid-back and 

gracious people you’ll ever meet. So 

where does all of this rage come from? 

“Being really shy when I was younger, 

along with not being good at sports 

and being picked on for being different, 

created this sentiment for music that’s 


TOOLS OF THE TRADE 

WITH SERJ TANKIAN 

Drums: Tama Starclassic Bubinga in burnt copper 

sparkle (6 1 / 2x10 and 7x12 toms, 13x15 and 

15x18 floor toms, 17x24 bass drum, 5x12 side 

snare), 6 1 / 2x14 George Way Elkhart copper snare 

Cymbals: Sabian 13 1 / 2" HHX Groove Hats top 

over 13" HHX X-Celerator bottom, 6" HH splash, 

20" HHX O-Zone ride (used as crash), 10" HHX O- 

Zone splash stacked on a steel disk, 24" HHX 

Groove ride, 19" HHX X-Plosion crash, 19" 

Paragon China, 8" HH splash (used on snare) 

Electronics: Mandala drum, Apple MacBook Pro 

unapproachable by anything else in my 

life,” the drummer explains. “I feel like I’m 

on a fairly even keel as a person because I 

shed that furious nature inside me on the 

drums. Drums are an extension of my psyche. 

It’s the self-loathing, frustration, 

anger, love, elation, and joy that all come 

WITH JULIETTE LEWIS 

Drums: Tama Mirage acrylic in 

“black ice” (9x12 tom, 14x16 

floor tom, 20x22 bass drum), 

6 1 / 2x13 Dunnett James Trussart 

Collection snare 

Cymbals: Sabian 15" HHX X- 

Celerator Hats, 20" HHX O-Zone 

ride (used as crash), 22" HHX 

Groove ride, 20" AAX X-Plosion 

crash 

Heads: Evans Power Center Reverse Dot snare batters and Hazy 200 bottoms, Onyx 

tom batters and clear G1 bottoms, GMAD bass drum batters and Onyx Resonants 

Hardware: Tama, including Iron Cobra double pedal with Grip Peddler footboard pads 

Sticks: Vic Firth Danny Carey signature with wood tips 

out when I’m playing. There are times 

when I’m using completely improper 

technique, swinging my arms wildly 

and literally trying to break my cymbals 

in half. But that’s great because I’m able 

to come off stage and I’m all puppy dogs 

and ice cream.”

DRUMMERSALIVE This month we take a special look at some live CDs and DVDs 

88 


RATINGS SCALE 

that have come out over the past year or so, plus a cool new 

photo book focusing on the art of live drumming. 

RECORDINGS 

BOB MARLEY AND THE WAILERS 

LIVE FOREVER 

Bob Marley and the Wailers were to reggae what 

the Beatles were to pop music—the most popular 

exponents, and the best. Unlike the Beatles, 

the Wailers have provided us with several live 

albums that clearly capture the band at its most 

incendiary. This double CD, which was recorded 

at the Stanley Theatre in Pittsburgh on September 23, 1980, presents Marley’s 

last live performance before he succumbed to cancer the following May, and 

respectfully adds to the legacy of such classic albums as 1975’s Live! and 1978’s 

Babylon By Bus. 

“In this great future, you can’t forget your past,” Marley sings in “No Woman 

No Cry.” He’s of course talking about the bigger picture, but the sentiment 

absolutely applies to drummers wishing to understand the roots of modern 

boundary-pushers like Jojo Mayer, Mark Guiliana, and Gil Sharone, whose 

unique styles wouldn’t be imaginable outside the context of the reggae and 

dub experiments of Marley’s longtime drummer, CARLTON BARRETT. Beyond 

his work with Marley, Barrett played on hugely influential dub albums like 

Augustus Pablo’s King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown. And it’s not a stretch to say 

that Carly’s spacious, playful feel, perfectly between straight and swung, defines 

classic ’70s reggae. When you hear any of his best work now, the links to today’s 

meter manipulators are impossible to ignore. We all wish we could be so in 

command of the time yet sound so relaxed, all the while slipping in ridiculously 

badass commentary at just the right time. Covering many of Marley’s greatest 

songs, this set is yet another source of understanding how deep Barrett’s contributions 

were, not only to reggae drumming but to the evolution of all intelligent 

rhythm making. (Island) Adam Budofsky 

EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER 

LIVE AT NASSAU COLISEUM ’78 

Although ELP would disband within a year of the 

performance, this previously unissued live recording 

from 1978 finds the progressive rock giants at the 

height of their powers. Remastered from the original 

analog tapes, the sound of this February show is 

clear and full. As a band, ELP is tight, energetic, and 

both driving and serene. CARL PALMER is exemplary 

throughout, whether providing a locked-down rock foundation, acting as a 

classical percussionist, or issuing rapid tom barrages. Featuring a strong sampling 

of the trio’s classic repertoire, including the epic “Tarkus,” Live At Nassau 

Coliseum will delight fans and newcomers alike. (Shout Factory) Martin Patmos 

Classic Excellent Good Fair Poor 

MULTIMEDIA 

TRANSATLANTIC 

WHIRLD TOUR 2010 

DVD (2) LEVEL: ALL $24.98 

After a nine-year hiatus, this allstar 

neo-prog quintet comprising 

keyboardist Neal Morse (Spock’s 

Beard), drummer MIKE PORTNOY, 

bassist Pete Trewavas (Marillion), and guitarist Roine Stolt 

(Flower Kings), along with guitarist/keyboardist Daniel 

Gildenlöw (Pain Of Salvation), delivers as a cohesive unit 

throughout a nonstop roller-coaster set of epic material. 

Cofounder/audience motivator Portnoy injects commanding 

chops and respectable lead and harmony vocals, and 

his over-the-top rhythmic gymnastics get to breathe a bit 

within the appealing context of Transatlantic’s lengthy 

melodic voyages. Disc two of the set includes behind-thescenes 

footage, interviews, and a bonus track featuring 

Transatlantic covering the classic Genesis song “Return Of 

The Giant Hogweed” with guitarist Steve Hackett. Overall, 

Whirld Tour 2010 is an excellent blend of old-school and 

modern-day prog. (Metal Blade) Mike Haid 

BEHEMOTH 

EVANGELIA HERETIKA 

DVD (2)/CD LEVEL: ALL $29.98 

With approximately five hours of 

content on two DVDs and a bonus 

audio CD, Behemoth clearly spares 

no expense to give its fans a generous 

“all access” experience with Evangelia Heretika. The 

DVDs contain two entire concerts as well as two tour documentaries, 

behind-the-scenes footage, and interviews. The 

CD features a concert recorded live in Warsaw. The in-depth 

tour docs are informative and entertaining, though some 

content gets lost in the translation from Polish to English. 

What does come across is the band’s heartfelt dedication to 

its music and its fans. Beyond the corpse paint are four guys 

who are critical of themselves and their performances and 

who strive to do everything at the peak of their capabilities. 

Drummer INFERNO brings the blast beats with unrelenting 

fury but displays some human moments as well during the 

live sets. (Metal Blade) David Ciauro

TRAFFIC LIVE AT SANTA MONICA 

DVD LEVEL: ALL $19.95 

This concert, taped at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in 1972, admirably represents 

the great jazz-folk-rock band’s later-period lineup that featured percussionist REEBOP 

KWAKU BAAH, Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section members ROGER HAWKINS (drums) 

and David Hood (bass), and regulars JIM CAPALDI (vocals, percussion), Chris Wood (flute, sax, keyboards), 

and Steve Winwood (vocals, keyboards, guitar). Though this version of the famed British 

ensemble especially embodies the term jam band, at its heart Traffic was always a soul group, and 

bringing in Americans Hood and Hawkins was a great idea on paper and in practice, amping up an 

already exciting concept even further. Fans of the first three Traffic albums might miss Capaldi’s 

aggressive kit work. (Jim moved upstage live, providing background and some lead vocals.) But 

Hawkins, having helmed important records by Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and Leon Russell, 

among many others, is obviously a groover of the highest order, and he brings to Traffic a superpro 

but down-home feel. It’s especially fun to hear his effortless bass drum dance and sweet snare 

singles on the more upbeat numbers, like Capaldi’s vocal highlight, “Light Up Or Leave Me Alone.” 

Meanwhile, Reebop’s ever-present congas add a unique color to the band’s palette. Deep stuff. 

(Cherry Red Films) Adam Budofsky 

HEAVEN & HELL NEON NIGHTS 


The untimely 2010 passing of vocalist Ronnie James Dio marked the end of an era 

of metal royalty. When Black Sabbath first parted ways with Ozzy Osbourne in the 

late ’70s, the band called upon Dio’s powerful, dominant voice, which quickly 

became the standard for the emerging metal genre. Dio’s first recording with Sabbath was the 

1980 classic Heaven And Hell. When original Sabbath members decided to regroup, the recurring 

Dio version of the band became Heaven & Hell to avoid conflict. This 2009 concert (Dio’s last 

filmed performance) gives an accurate account of second-generation Sabbath, with drummer 

VINNY APPICE and the group performing gems from the “Dio years” catalog in full force. More 

structured and straightforward than early Sabbath material, the overall vibe of Heaven & Hell is 

dictated by Appice, who incorporates a straight-ahead, machine-gun-like groove, as compared 

with original Sabbath drummer Bill Ward’s loose, swinging feel. This is a must-have DVD for fans 

of Dio, Sabbath, and old-school metal. Horns up! (Eagle Vision) Mike Haid 

ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA LIVE: THE EARLY YEARS 


This ninety-minute DVD collects three early live performances from the hugely successful 

progressive pop band. The four tunes from the 1973 Brunel University show 

are a bit rough sonically and visually, but the Rockpalast German TV performance 

from ’74 is an improvement, reprising three of the Brunel tunes with greater fidelity and a bit more 

tightness from the band. We get some nice shots of drummer BEV BEVAN too, and it’s cool to 

hear him funk up the bass drum part on “Showdown” as compared with his approach on the 

album that ELO was touring behind at the time, On The Third Day. It’s also fun to witness the evolution 

of Bevan’s drumset over the course of several years. By the time we get to the 1976 “Fusion” 

concert from London’s New Victoria Theatre, surrounding the drummer are now two more toms, 

additional cymbals, a set of timpani, and a gong. Bev also sounds stronger here, and the song 

selection is better, representing the group’s creative peak with highlights from the albums 

Eldorado, Face The Music, and A New World Record. Though the band’s album sales would skyrocket 

and its stage shows would become much more elaborate in the ensuing years, this DVD might be 

the best place to start your ELO/Bev Bevan research. (Eagle Rock) Adam Budofsky 

A DRUMMER’S PERSPECTIVE BY DAVID PHILLIPS 

BOOK LEVEL: ALL £29.99 (approx. $48) plus postage 

As Drum Workshop’s European artist rep for the past few years, 

drummer/photographer David Phillips has enjoyed a bird’s-eye view of 

many of the greatest players on the planet doing their work. This book is a collection of some 

of his most exciting photographs, and it’s a treat to pore over his high-quality portraits of Ray 

Luzier, Gene Hoglan, Joey Castillo, Josh Freese, and many other drumming giants in the heat 

of performance. American drummers are also treated to great images of and stories about 

top-notch players who are less known on these shores, like Dr. Feelgood’s Kevin Morris, Mark 

Knopfler’s Danny Cummings, Robbie Williams’ Karl Brazil, Kasabian’s Ian Matthews, and 

Jamiroquai’s Derrick McKenzie. Since it’s a photo book, A Drummer’s Perspective focuses on the 

image, so there’s not a lot in the way of academic discussion of the players’ technique. But 

Phillips does include anecdotes from most of the shoots, allowing us to feel we’re in on the 

play-by-play. VIP tags and other bits of show paraphernalia add a nice touch, and the largeformat 

hardcover presentation complements the energy and bigness of the photography. 

(music-images.co.uk) Adam Budofsky

90 

WHAT DO YOUKNOW ABOUT...? 

FLOYD SNEED 

Few people have played on as many hit songs—and looked as 

cool doing it—as Three Dog Night’s drummer. And though the 

band’s time at the top of the charts has passed, the sights and 

sounds of its influential double bass demon will never fade. 

by Bob Girouard 

Three Dog Night put a lock on the 

pop charts in the 1970s. What 

began as a working outlet for the talented 

studio backing vocalists Chuck 

Negron, Cory Wells, and Danny 

Hutton morphed into a mighty musical 

ensemble that scored twenty-two 

Top 40 hits between 1969 and 1975. 

That’s roughly one Top 40 single every 

three months for six years straight. 

“Mama Told Me Not To Come,” “Joy 

To The World,” “Black And White,” 

“Shambala,” “An Old Fashioned 

Love Song,” “Liar,” “Never Been To 

Spain”…the singles and albums flew 

out of record stores faster than they 

could be made. 

The rhythmic powerhouse fueling 

these songs was Floyd Sneed, whose 

innovative blend of African, Latin, 

R&B, gospel, and country styles was 

the perfect complement to Three Dog 

Night’s wildly diverse catalog. The 

humble and unassuming Sneed grew 

up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. “My 

parents bought a piano,” he recalls, 

“but I wasn’t interested. From the time 

I was three years old I wanted to play 


drums, so I taught myself how to play. 

I used to listen to everything on the 

radio, including a lot of country-andwestern 

music, jazz, and big band. 

Guys like Elvin Jones, Art Blakey, Max 

Roach, and Tony Williams were big 

influences, as was Buddy Rich, who 

later became a friend of mine.” 

Sneed’s first major gig was with 

Conway Twitty, when the pioneering 

country great came to Vancouver, 

where Floyd had relocated. The drummer 

also worked early on with his then 

brother-in-law, famed comedian 

Tommy Chong, who at the time had a 

serious rep around town as a guitarist 

with Little Daddy & the Bachelors. The 

gig eventually led to opportunities in 

the States, including an unusual “audition” 

for a newly formed group called 

Three Dog Night. 

“I was working in L.A. with a band 

called the Heat Wave,” Sneed remembers. 

“We were doing the last live performance 

at the Ambassador Hotel on 

Wilshire Boulevard and at the same 

time working at a club on Hollywood 

Ed Caraeff 

Boulevard called the Red Velvet. 

Joe Schermie, bassist for Three Dog 

Night, happened to be passing by 

the club one night while en route to 

McDonald’s. Joe asked the doorman, 

‘Who are the drummers playing on 

stage?’ and the guy told him, ‘There’s 

only one drummer, and his name is 

Floyd Sneed.’” 

Six months after joining, Sneed had 

his first hits: “Nobody,” “Try A Little 

Tenderness,” and “One,” all of which 

appeared on Three Dog Night’s selftitled 

1969 debut album. Over the next 

seven years, the band was America’s 

most viable pop entity. Delivering a 

killer live show, Sneed and his brethren 

powerfully backed three of the best 

blue-eyed soul men this side of the 

Righteous Brothers—and introduced 

the American public to many of the 

finest songwriters of the day, including 

Laura Nyro, Paul Williams, Hoyt Axton, 

Harry Nilsson, and Randy Newman. 

Consistently a huge draw, Three Dog 

Night was also the first rock act to do 

stadium tours on a massive scale. 

“Floyd Sneed is the most 

unique drummer I’ve 

ever heard, and the most 

humble man I know.” 

—Chuck Negron

FLOYD SNEED 

Despite such gargantuan success, though, the band, like 

many of its peers, eventually disintegrated due to drug and 

alcohol abuse, inflated egos, and the impact of disco. Sneed 

quit in 1974, and later that year he, Schermie, and guitarist 

Michael Allsup launched the short-lived SS Fools. “I loved that 

band and the album we did,” Floyd says. “Our record continues 

to sell in places like Japan, where it’s in big demand for 

serious collectors.” 

Though the original members of Three Dog Night reunited 

in 1981, Sneed was gone for good by ’84, briefly running a 

restaurant in Santa Monica, California, called Floyd’s Rock ’N’ 

Riginal Chicken & Ribs. Two distinct manifestations of the 

fractured band are still active today, however. A Hutton/ 

Wells-led version continues to perform with original members 

Allsup and keyboardist Jimmy Greenspoon, and Sneed 

appears fairly regularly with Chuck Negron’s soulful touring 

show. The drummer, who says he still gets along with all three 

singers, remains active in the music, art, and film worlds, 

including being featured as an actor in various Cheech & 

Chong movies. MD recently sat down with the classic rock vet, 

who, rather than mulling over the past, insists, “I’m getting 

ready for my next forty years.” 

MD: You’ve always had an interesting approach: funky, but nontraditional. 

The way you syncopate your double bass embellishes 

what you’re playing on top, and you use your feet to initiate 

patterns and accentuate fills. How did you develop all that? 

Floyd: I used to practice on just bass drums and snare, making 

patterns out of that. I developed some good rhythms just using 

that approach. I actually made the move to a double bass kit 

with Three Dog Night, a Rogers set with black and white stripes. 

MD: Did the variety of styles that Three Dog Night covered 

influence your multi-tom setup? You had something like four 

rack toms and two floors. 

Floyd: As we progressed, on every song we recorded I took a 

conscious approach to make it sound different from the last 

one. So the extra drums did afford me some additional colors 

to place in the songs. 

MD: Are you still using two separate bass drums? 

Floyd: Today I use a five-piece kit with a double pedal. I like it, 

and when I’m touring with Chuck Negron I play his other 

drummer Frank Reina’s kit. I also play percussion. 

MD: In the mid-to-late ’60s, guys like you and Ginger Baker 

were experimenting with polyrhythms. Is that where your selfcoined 

“L’African” playing style came from? 

Floyd: Yes, it is. It’s a combination of African, Latin, R&B, and 

even a little country thrown in. 

MD: You and Joe Schermie were one of the tightest rock 

rhythm sections ever. What made you two so special? 

Floyd: Growing up in Phoenix, Joe had a lot of Mexican and 

Latin influences. With my African influences, we understood 

how to stay out of each other’s way yet make things funky. 

We just gelled. 

MD: Like several other players of that time period, you were 

somewhat under-recorded, meaning the nuances and the 

power you were bringing to the music on stage lacked presence 

on your records. 

Floyd: I think that was partly due to the fact that the focus was 

on the vocalists. It was like, “Turn the drums down—we can’t 

hear the vocals.” But I think my presence was felt on most of 

what we recorded. 

MD: Did you use your stage setup in the studio or a pareddown 

set? 

Floyd: In the beginning I used a basic four-piece kit in the studio, 

then later I added more pieces. If the track needed more 

drums, I added or subtracted accordingly. 

MD: Along with John Bonham, you popularized the acrylic 

drumkit. Were the wood drums you were using at the time not 

punchy enough, or did you just want a different look? 

Floyd: A little of both. The Zickos drums, which were the first 

and best Plexiglas sets made in the USA, gave me looks and 

sound. I had a total of 500 rhinestones put on those drums! I 

mean, when the lights hit those things, it was unbelievable. 

Keith Moon also had a set with the Who. The kit was larger 

than a normal kit at that time. It looked good, and I adjusted 

everything to where I needed it. 

MD: What cymbals were you using back then? 

Floyd: Mostly Zildjians and Paistes. I liked to use a 20" ride and 

various crashes. And I still like to use a sizzle cymbal because 

it’s so versatile. My setup is pretty much the same today. 

MD: What drummers are you enjoying these days? 

Floyd: Neil Peart, Vinnie Colaiuta… there are so many. Also, 

the great jazz players: Art Blakey, Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Tony 

Williams… Buddy Rich was the greatest, the absolute epitome. 

For more on Floyd Sneed, go to floydsneed.net.

SABIAN LIVE AT WINTER NAMM 

As usual, Sabian Live, held this past 

January 14, was the social happening 

of the winter NAMM convention. 

Cool and unusual musical pairings are 

common at the event, and this year was 

no exception, with rising drum star 

Mark Guiliana and his group Beat Music 

being accompanied by electro-groove 

god Jojo Mayer for their encore. 

Guiliana’s unique and genuinely futuristic 

approach was enough to send a 

wave of “What’s this all about?” through 

the crowd. 

Chad Smith’s Bombastic Meatbats 

followed Guiliana’s set. The Meatbats 

are a perfect vehicle for Smith—tight 

and intense classic-rock-style grooves 


B A C K B E A T S 

with the occasional demanding time 

change, but loose enough that you feel 

as if you’re actually watching the band 

at a sleazy club at two in the morning, 

not at an industry mixer in an oversize 

hotel meeting room. Closing the show 

was an all-star ensemble featuring 

Walfredo Reyes Jr. and Ray Yslas and 

Smith Yslas 


Reyes 



their band, Sinverguenza, with Ruben 

Blades bassist Oskar Cartaya, keyboardist 

Matt Rohde, and the 

Shameless Horns. 

Joining Sabian in sponsoring the 

event were KMC Music, Remo, Gon 

Bops, Evans, Pro-Mark, Audix, Sonor, Vic 

Firth, No Worries Productions, and 

Regal Tip. 

Mayer and Guiliana 

WHO’S PLAYING WHAT 

Yamaha has welcomed Tommy 

Igoe to its roster of endorsers. 

Now playing Pearl are Julian Dorio 

(the Whigs) and Nick Hughes (L.A. sessions). 

New Zildjian artists include 

Shawn “Clown” Crahan 

(Slipknot), Kim Schifino (Matt 

& Kim), Chris Fryar (Zac Brown 

Band), and Zac Farro. 

Joining Los Cabos Drumsticks 

are Johnny Rowe (Tin Star 

Orphans), Mike Fitzpatrick (Downchild), Brad 

Rice (Jason Boland & the 

Stragglers), Brittany Brooks 

(Cee Lo Green), Michel “Away” 

Langevin (Voivod), Taya Perry 

(Homemade Jamz Blues Band), 

Brad Morgan (Drive-By 

Truckers), Justin Peroff (Broken 

Social Scene), Aaron McNeil (independent), Josh 

Ingram (We, the Undersigned), Joshua Van 

Tassel (David Myles, the Outlanders), Phoenix 

Arn-Horn (Courage My Love), Liu-Kong Ha 

(Random Recipe), Matt Oliver (Jettblack), Dan 

Wilding (Trigger the Bloodshed), and Ryan 

Halsey (independent). 

Neil Sanderson (Three Days 

Grace) has joined the Gon Bops 

artist roster. 

Daisy Lai (Never A Hero) is 

endorsing SJC Custom Drums. 

Revolution Drum has teamed with Big Bang 

Distribution and Ahead to launch a new line of 

heavy-duty bags called Ahead Armor Cases. 

Daniel Glass (Royal Crown Revue) is an endorser. 

Scott Travis (Judas Priest) is using Vater sticks. 

Courtesy of Drummerszone

COVERBAND 2011 DRUM WINNER TOHBIAS JUNIEL 

Out of hundreds of entrants, Tohbias Juniel was named the winning drummer 

in the CoverBand 2011 contest, which invited individual musicians to upload 

a two-minute video to coverband2011.com between July and December of last 

year. A public vote determined the finalists, and a panel of celebrity judges then 

selected the winner in each of seven categories (vocals and various instruments), 

who would ultimately join forces to become CoverBand 2011. 

A trip to Anaheim to perform at the NAMM show was part of the prize for the 

winning band members. For the thirty-one-year-old Juniel, that was just part of 

the thrill. He also received a brand-new Gretsch Renown four-piece kit and Full 

Range hammered steel snare drum, complemented by a cymbal package from 

Sabian and hardware from Gibraltar. 

Juniel also got a special additional prize: the chance to meet personally with 

company president Fred Gretsch, who was pleased to learn that the drummer is 

already a dedicated Gretsch player. As Tohbias explains, “I’ve been playing Gretsch 

drums for most of my career, so I’m thrilled to be 

getting a new Gretsch kit to work with.” When 

asked how he came to be a drummer, he replies, 

“My father, Chester Juniel, was the director of a 

drum-and-bugle corps in the Denver area, so 

from the time I was about two years old I was 

always around drumming. I learned how to read 

music and how to read books at the same time. 

“My father also played drumset,” Juniel continues, 

“as did my older brother Steven. So I 

was playing on a set by the time I was in elementary 

school. When I was fourteen I was 

playing with cats in their forties and fifties. 

Fortunately for me, a local drummer named 

Rudy Royston took me under his wing.” 

Juniel’s entry for the CoverBand 2011 contest 

was a mix of funk, pop, and fusion-esque 

styles that burned and grooved at the same 

time. “I really love to play everything,” 

Tohbias says. “Right now I’m playing a lot 

with a singer-songwriter from Nashville 

named Calvin Locklear. And I’m playing in 

a funk/alternative band in Denver called Bop 

Skizzum. I play pop, R&B, Latin…I love it all. 

I feel that as a drummer it’s important to 

be diverse. 

“Right now I’m looking to move up in my 

career, to play on the big stages. I’d really 

like to get some tours and some recording 

sessions with top artists around the world. I 

also want to do some writing and see where 

that goes.” 

Text by Rick Van Horn 

Photos by Tom Schwarz, 

courtesy of KMC Music 


This month we’ve got what just might be the 

largest kit on earth. When we ask its owner, 

Mark D. Temperato of Lakeville, New York, why 

he favors such an enormous setup, he replies 

simply, “Why not?” He continues, “As an agent of 

rhythm, I built my set to be one of a kind, with 

different makes and models of quality drums 

and cymbals for a fresh combination of sounds.” 

The kit features a whopping seventy drums 

(by Pearl, Tama, Ludwig, Remo, Pacific, LP, and 

Toca, with heads by Remo) and seventy cymbals 

(by Zildjian, Paiste, Sabian, Wuhan, UFIP, 

COMING UP 

IN MODERN DRUMMER 

K I T O F T H E M O N T H 

REACHING FOR THE HEAVENS 

Andrew Lepley 

Agazarian, and Stagg). Rather than mounting it 

all on a rack, Temperato uses stands, because, he 

says, “I like the whole massive chrome ‘root’ look. 

I could also fit more drums and cymbals with 

only a 1 / 2" space between them.” The stands and 

mounts number more than a hundred. 

It’s hardly a surprise to find that Temperato 

needs a hand with all this stuff. “It takes a fourman 

crew six to eight hours to set it up and six 

hours to take it down,” Mark says. “The equipment 

is transported in a carpeted forty-eightfoot 

custom tractor-trailer. Each piece has its 

A TRIBUTE TO 

JOE MORELLO 

own case and compartment for the road, with 

eight large wheeled cases with custom tubing to 

hold the stands. The gong has its own insulated 

aluminum crate.” 

Temperato ends on a personal note. “I play 

drums as an expression of my love and passion 

for Jesus Christ,” he says. “I have played for 

Him since 1978, and everyone else just gets 

the overflow!” 

Photo Submission: Hi-res digital photos, along 

with descriptive text, may be emailed to 

billya@moderndrummer.com. Show “Kit Of The 

Month” in the subject line of the message. 

•Deftones’ ABE CUNNINGHAM 

•2011 READERS POLL RESULTS 

AND MUCH MORE!

" 1FSGFDU $JSDMF 1BSBNPSF 8FF[FS %FWP - Drummers.by

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