Twentyish Drummer Questions Volume Thirteen: Robby Wright!
Drum interview!
1. How long have you been a drummer?
I have been drumming for around 22 years, almost (started when I was 7 or so). That said, I usually qualify it with “punk” drummer or “metal” drummer, the former being more fitting. See, I am virtually useless as a timekeeper in any other genre or musical approach other than what would fit in the “rock” category - I just, so far, haven’t ever worked on it, developed further, or taken the time to learn something new - or found someone who was interested in and capable of teaching me something new such as dynamics, anything under the guise of jazz or the “jazzy” and that which relates to it, the rudiments, using my left hand with any sort of authority, etc. On the other hand, to be fair, I haven’t been asked or tempted to play anything otherwise. As it stands, I am sort of this strictly utilitarian punk drummer, only. But, a good one, I think. Basically a pensioner, by now.
2. When/why did you decide to be a drummer?
I was 7 and I loved heavy metal already, already caught in the grip of music and musical things, music videos, Headbanger’s Ball, etc. Metallica’s Master of Puppets, and so on. I don’t remember “deciding” to do it, honestly. My father also played and probably still plays drums, so a rickety drum set (an old Ludwig one, four piece with those old, great logo-less Zildjian cymbals from the 70s that are less and less available now) was available for me to dick around on then. Fortunately, we already lived not in an apartment building, so I could play until everyone got annoyed with the noise, and they understood for the most part, being metal-heads, and quite “loud,” themselves. I would be loath to admit that it was some genetic gift, the proclivity or “talent” for drumming, but maybe it was somewhere, somehow because of my father’s playing that I felt inclined toward drums rather than guitars, first anyway. More likely, it was probably because the drums were there and I wanted to be heard, to do, to make. He, I remember, took a bit of time to show me the very basics - not techniques, but just how to make a beat with my limbs and the instrument - so I was mainly, and remained, self-guided, to the my overall detriment as me as “drummer,” for sure.
3. What kind of set did/do you play?
The ancient Ludwig one for some time, then my dad’s overly big, double bass kit with a hundred cymbals during my “visitation” weekends with him, ha, and then I bought my own when I was about 16 years old - a Tama Rockstar 5 piece, some of which I used for almost 13 years or so, with a double pedal, of course, and a few cheaper, heavy Zildjian cymbals. I’ve since used a mess of different articles, some found, some just acquired for years, while I usually bought used cymbals when I could. Now, I don’t own drums at all (he says, looking downward with shame…). I sold them before my recent relocation to Europe. However, I play on a set here, 4 pieces, basic, not bad, enough - totally borrowed. But I am working on getting something for myself. It’s unbearably compromising.
4. What album(s) did you learn to drum to? If not an album, with whom? Or did you just bang it out?
I just “banged it out.” Slayer was my favorite band, so Lombardo, and then Bostaph, more importantly, were my guides early on. Recently, I re-learned how to play drums after obsessively listening to the more recent records of Propaghandi. Or, rather, relearned what it is to make good choices while drumming, especially in rather straightforward contexts, like hardcore punk and its interminable fast sections.
5. When you started out, did you buy so many accessories?
No, but, as I mentioned above, my father’s kit which I played on sometimes had many, many (if by accessories you mean drum pieces/cymbals. I am not sure - no, I am - if I’ve ever used a drum accessory - such as gloves, special shoes, grip tape for sticks, and other such superfluous and funny things. Fuck, I barely use ear plugs (this is stupid, however). Ha, cymbal cleaner! Not yet. Maybe when I mature as a “musician,” or as One Who Spends Lots of Boredom-Money on His Toys.
6. Single or double?
Double when it’s there, which now, tragically it’s not. It’s making me better, more resourceful, at drums, though. I fully admit that having a double pedal and starting with one moreover, cursed my drumming from the start, in the sense that it would be forever parochial and sort of mechanical (read: lazy). On the other hand, I believe that incorporating double kick into punk, and doing it well, is the reason that most people probably ever took notice of my drumming in the first place. I started off with a total libidinal fixation and investment in the (mostly) empty skill of being able to do running double bass for hours and so on, when I was really young, but through the years I basically used (and use) double pedals for fills and emphatic accents. Basically, however Paul Bostaph did it, so I wanted to do it too. And still do, mostly. I use double bass less and less, but it’s due to the sort of bands I’ve been in in the last 6 years also: less metal, more straightforward, less drum-centered).
7. Stick size/type?
5B is right for me. I used 2Bs for a while but my hands are small and, with them, I broke cymbals even more swiftly and absurdly than normal. However, I got used to the weight. I use any type that costs a little more than the absolute cheapest (who understands me?). I bought a pair of Vic Firth sticks for 10 dollars once and broke them in one practice and then never tried expensive sticks ever again. It must be said, also, that I know by now how to hit things properly, so it’s not just total imprecision. So, shit for amateurs, basically.
8. Nylon tips, or wood?
Doesn’t matter honestly, but wood is what I usually get.
9. What brand of heads do you prefer?
Ones that don’t dent and become welted after 3 times using it! Where are you? Perhaps it’s time to learn how to really seat them, no? Clear ones, but I don’t know why. Remo: same reasoning -habit.
10. What is your favorite cymbal ever? Those old Zildjians I mentioned above. Also the nice and costly A series from that same manufacturer. I’ve never had some economic allegiance really to any one brand, but I’ve mostly had either Sabians or Zildjians. I used to only want to use Paiste because of some of my favorite drummers used the Tama and Paiste combo, but it was just a caprice and short-lived.
11. What are your thoughts on china cymbals?
They’re perfect when they are large and attached to stands loosely. Meaning, not cranked down. I used a china type (eventually it broke and I never replaced it) for years and I know I was always this sort of garish outsider for doing it, or, like, too metal (cheaply ironic considering that most of the bands I’ve met in the punk universe were/are still playing so much watered-down metal), or whatever, but I like them a lot when they are used wisely. Listen to Propaghandi’s drummer for a good example of this in current hardcore punk.
12. How about splashes?
I don’t ever, or try not to, employ any cymbals under 18 inches circumference. Splashes are nice in certain types of music, of course. The old drummer of Opeth used one on their most well-known and lauded albums and it sounds cool somehow, even in that heavy context.
13. Where did you get your gear from?
Ha, everywhere. In Prague: nowhere yet. In Cincinnati, I scoured Mikes Music from time to time for used cymbals. On certain wistful days, I would just eat my pride and privation and go to Guitar Center - that skinnery - like before tours, and ruefully buy a new cymbal for whatever crazy price they were asking that week. A lot of the stuff I played for the last 5-6 years was borrowed, bought from friends, given to me, acquired parasitically. It’s been rough. Drums are a luxury item, you know.
14. How do you feel about the statement “any drummer with more than a four piece set is an asshole?”
Not an asshole as such, likely (or, well, there are many axes upon which to make such a prediction, aren’t there!), but just more encumbered than the average punk pseudo-elitist, ersatz musician who, strangely, doesn’t like fills (or anything) that direct attention to the drums (or wouldn’t know how to, or just can’t, execute them). I stopped using the extra rack tom and bigger sized drums both because of the travails of moving them in and out of places, the cost of appropriate cases, and the weakness of mounting gear, and so on. But, it’s a dumb sentiment, like most that people make when they use “gear” as a set-piece of their interpersonal communications.
15. I don't remember the specifics of which bands you are in that are active now.. What bands have you been in/are (as a drummer) you in? Would you mind listing out a bandography for us?
Hmm. Cincinnati bands all: One Nation Under; Still Crossed; Hacked Off (short-lived but good); Look Alive; Tumor Feast; umm; Captives (short-lived but great, my best drumming lived there); Silo (one beat only); a seasonal Slayer cover band, ha; some other things and small side bands that never materialized into active bands, per se. I am playing with a friend, Luděk, here in Prague now. So far, it’s just bass and drums but it’s really fun and necessary for me. I don’t know where it will go but I get to yell in Czech while playing drums so the challenge is as basically insurmountable as it is unusual.
16. Where is your best performance located? (This refers to physical media)
Tumor Feast’s “Suicide” EP contains the fastest drumming from me (I still laugh out loud at certain parts). Captives “Unspeakable Truths” demo cassette, the most tasteful (though I overplayed and it’s all basically inaudible). The recorded drumming from when I was 16-19 is all really bad and, worse, tasteless. Most of the best drumming I’ve done hasn’t made it to a recording - I can never pull it off in studios the right way. I am a much better guitarist in this respect.
17. Who are your top three drummers now?
The guy in Propaghandi is a master of the style (Jordan?). Chris from Magrudergrind (just watch him). My friend Dennis from the American band Nukkehammer is fantastic to watch also. Tragedy’s drummer never wastes a hit - he is exacting and a role model for someone like me so tempted to overplaying and ornamentation.
18. Who were your initial top three drummers?
Queensryche’s, Lombardo, and then the heavens parted and thus spoke Paul Bostaph (I suppose Lars Ulrich should get an honorable mention, but I have all but erased him from my lifeworld after Load and then, irrevocably, after hearing his voice, at length, during that otherworldly documentary about themselves they bathetically made some years ago. Not the latest film effort, which, I’m sure, is an unendurably mawkish, overinsistently abject treat as well.
19. Have you ever actually stopped a cymbal crack?
How do you do this? Tell me!
20. Do you play any other instruments, or do you feel like a drummer should just concentrate on doing their drummer job well?
I play guitar, much more creatively than drums. Drums, again, are purposeful and largely physical for me, they are exercise rather than any sort of locus of what might be called “personal” expression or any formal sort of artistry. When I found someone to play drums in the bands I envisioned, I stopped playing drums for a few years straight almost, and just focused on writing music. Drummers are the servicemen, the dishwashers, as it were, of not just individual bands but, sometimes, entire music scenes. Thus, they should always focus on drums enough to keep playing them so as to be fresh enough for the inevitable situation of when those around him or her will desperately need a drummer, and, thus, good bands can exist. In this naïve sense, drumming is a sort of “drummer job” of sorts, or it can feel that way often. For me, I had to learn how to play guitar if I wanted to ever feel like I had any way to have worthwhile creative input in bands.
21. How do you feel about that “This drummer is at the wrong gig" video?
It’s funny. I can’t spin sticks, still.
22. What is your signature move?
Being unaware of it.
23. What cd do you put in just because the drums are amazing?
Sorry for the redundancy, but Propaghandi’s Potemkin City Limits is, for me, metal drumming par excellence. Also, recently, Death’s later records (Individual Thought Patterns onward have been surprising me for how pronounced, odd, untoward, and totally domineering the drumming is (I will add that these are sort of rediscovered, or new records for me in general). Shai Hulud’s Misanthropy Pure is also captivating drum-wise, among its other merits (though, we can be sure, that those drums were heavily edited and assembled rather than played continuously), but mostly the mind that created the beats, which is likely the guitarist, like always. Either way, its imaginative drumming/structures and a rare example of that which is “progressive” in metallic music when that epithet is starting to lose the most valuable aspect: the notion that something progressive is “progressing” toward something not just innovative but interesting.
24. What would be the most exciting fill in spot for you; the kind where you would puke from excitement before going onstage?
Most of my imaginarium consists of this sort of dream scenario centered on playing guitar, actually. But, honestly, before the first set of this Slayer cover band (seasonal - the Hell Awaits edition), I felt this sort of intense and overwhelming excitement that almost was literally nauseating. To mimic, to ingratiate the Gods as such! In a basement! In Ohio. To a bunch of drunk idiots! As a drunk idiot! Let this illustrate how bequeathed and cropped my drumward ambitions truly are!
25. Shoe preference or no shoe?
Always shoes. Whatever I am wearing. Usually the same ones I have to keep wearing, sadly.
26. How do you feel about playing to a click track?
Profoundly demoralized, emasculated, etc. the only time I tried. I really wish I could do this - almost every recording I’ve ever done, especially during slower tempos, is at some point marred by some markedly off-point snare hit in some moment which relies on its power and groove to carry it - the shame! - the but, alas, haven’t managed to develop as such. I don’t think that, or, rather, concertedly disagree with the platitude that playing to click-tracks ad acta sunders the integrity or, worse, the “punk-rock-lifestyle” away from the offender. I can’t see any reason why it is a “bad” thing; I assume drummers can still stray from those clicks and then get back onboard when and how they want to. For me, it’s like a magic trick I can’t do but only tried once. Onward, real drummers-musicians-artisans!
27. What was the best show that you've played?
I am not sure, but I did a good job in short series of shows filling in for a band called Enabler in Canada and the States last summer (2012). It was the first real challenge (technically) on the drums, especially live and actually on a tour, which I had had in some time. The second “edition” of the Slayer cover band (Reign in Blood) was my favorite show I’ve ever drummed at, and one of the best too.
28. Are you concerned at all about the type of wood that sticks, the kit, and. etc are made out of?
No. If the set is at least the lower-middle range of quality - Pearl Export, Yamaha Stage Custom, Tama Rockstar, etc. - it’s truly all the same for me. I’m more specific, or have a verifiable opinion, about cymbals. I like 24” kick drums, though I know they are unnecessary and burdensome. This level of dynamics and issues relating to tone are lost on me. I can still barely tune the fucking things. Oh! Maybe my “signature move” is making, I’ve been told, the worst looking and sounding drums, when played alone, sound good or even really good when played all together under a band.
29. Do you use different sticks for different songs, depending on need?
No, but it’d be fun to play in a band where I had to. Though, I couldn’t play in that band, likely.
30. What are your thoughts on triggers?
They sound really awful often, especially when the kick drum is triggered only. I am not ideologically against them as some (this is often a captious issue for many!), but I generally can’t stand the painful-to-watch ennui of death-metal drummers and so on whose entire spectrum of ability and the backbone of their music depend on their hits being evened out and so on by computers. It’s so weak live; it looks so lame, almost miserably comic, and just bad usually. I think, however, all this newer sound-replacement stuff is a good thing when used and edited/blended well, especially because the tendency is to create “dry,” punchy, more metallic drum sounds, rather than this recently fashionable boominess and “natural” sound that people have been trying out so much in modern metal bands - a la High on Fire, as one example - when everyone decided, as if in total conjunction, that sounding “big” would be better than sounding distinguishable and/or “metal.” Converge’s (and God City Studio’s entire recent output of records’) drum sound is a perfect example: sound perfect, come off as “real,” but are likely all some 50/50 blend of acoustic and artificial, but it doesn’t matter because they sound utterly perfect. Debatable case to case (as it always depends on the bands overall aesthetic and spirit), but my heart remains with metal music and the dry but mostly natural drums of the late 80s and 90s recordings. Tragedy’s drums are always great sounding, though entirely different than the aforementioned. Crude Attitude is another masterpiece of recorded drums (and cymbals, dear God!). The Slayer cover album, Undisputed Attitude, for me, has the best drum sound I’ve ever heard (even with an overly-tight, tinny snare, and its mostly “natural” sounding. Their God Hates us All is also a stalwart example of, for me, ideal drum tone/production.)
31. Fill in the blank:
Best word (phrase) ever to describe your drumming: Consistent.
Worst word (phrase) ever to describe your drumming: Bad?
Word (phrase) that you are aiming for while drumming: Devout.
Thanks for answering these for me!
1. How long have you been a drummer?
I have been drumming for around 22 years, almost (started when I was 7 or so). That said, I usually qualify it with “punk” drummer or “metal” drummer, the former being more fitting. See, I am virtually useless as a timekeeper in any other genre or musical approach other than what would fit in the “rock” category - I just, so far, haven’t ever worked on it, developed further, or taken the time to learn something new - or found someone who was interested in and capable of teaching me something new such as dynamics, anything under the guise of jazz or the “jazzy” and that which relates to it, the rudiments, using my left hand with any sort of authority, etc. On the other hand, to be fair, I haven’t been asked or tempted to play anything otherwise. As it stands, I am sort of this strictly utilitarian punk drummer, only. But, a good one, I think. Basically a pensioner, by now.
2. When/why did you decide to be a drummer?
I was 7 and I loved heavy metal already, already caught in the grip of music and musical things, music videos, Headbanger’s Ball, etc. Metallica’s Master of Puppets, and so on. I don’t remember “deciding” to do it, honestly. My father also played and probably still plays drums, so a rickety drum set (an old Ludwig one, four piece with those old, great logo-less Zildjian cymbals from the 70s that are less and less available now) was available for me to dick around on then. Fortunately, we already lived not in an apartment building, so I could play until everyone got annoyed with the noise, and they understood for the most part, being metal-heads, and quite “loud,” themselves. I would be loath to admit that it was some genetic gift, the proclivity or “talent” for drumming, but maybe it was somewhere, somehow because of my father’s playing that I felt inclined toward drums rather than guitars, first anyway. More likely, it was probably because the drums were there and I wanted to be heard, to do, to make. He, I remember, took a bit of time to show me the very basics - not techniques, but just how to make a beat with my limbs and the instrument - so I was mainly, and remained, self-guided, to the my overall detriment as me as “drummer,” for sure.
3. What kind of set did/do you play?
The ancient Ludwig one for some time, then my dad’s overly big, double bass kit with a hundred cymbals during my “visitation” weekends with him, ha, and then I bought my own when I was about 16 years old - a Tama Rockstar 5 piece, some of which I used for almost 13 years or so, with a double pedal, of course, and a few cheaper, heavy Zildjian cymbals. I’ve since used a mess of different articles, some found, some just acquired for years, while I usually bought used cymbals when I could. Now, I don’t own drums at all (he says, looking downward with shame…). I sold them before my recent relocation to Europe. However, I play on a set here, 4 pieces, basic, not bad, enough - totally borrowed. But I am working on getting something for myself. It’s unbearably compromising.
4. What album(s) did you learn to drum to? If not an album, with whom? Or did you just bang it out?
I just “banged it out.” Slayer was my favorite band, so Lombardo, and then Bostaph, more importantly, were my guides early on. Recently, I re-learned how to play drums after obsessively listening to the more recent records of Propaghandi. Or, rather, relearned what it is to make good choices while drumming, especially in rather straightforward contexts, like hardcore punk and its interminable fast sections.
5. When you started out, did you buy so many accessories?
No, but, as I mentioned above, my father’s kit which I played on sometimes had many, many (if by accessories you mean drum pieces/cymbals. I am not sure - no, I am - if I’ve ever used a drum accessory - such as gloves, special shoes, grip tape for sticks, and other such superfluous and funny things. Fuck, I barely use ear plugs (this is stupid, however). Ha, cymbal cleaner! Not yet. Maybe when I mature as a “musician,” or as One Who Spends Lots of Boredom-Money on His Toys.
6. Single or double?
Double when it’s there, which now, tragically it’s not. It’s making me better, more resourceful, at drums, though. I fully admit that having a double pedal and starting with one moreover, cursed my drumming from the start, in the sense that it would be forever parochial and sort of mechanical (read: lazy). On the other hand, I believe that incorporating double kick into punk, and doing it well, is the reason that most people probably ever took notice of my drumming in the first place. I started off with a total libidinal fixation and investment in the (mostly) empty skill of being able to do running double bass for hours and so on, when I was really young, but through the years I basically used (and use) double pedals for fills and emphatic accents. Basically, however Paul Bostaph did it, so I wanted to do it too. And still do, mostly. I use double bass less and less, but it’s due to the sort of bands I’ve been in in the last 6 years also: less metal, more straightforward, less drum-centered).
7. Stick size/type?
5B is right for me. I used 2Bs for a while but my hands are small and, with them, I broke cymbals even more swiftly and absurdly than normal. However, I got used to the weight. I use any type that costs a little more than the absolute cheapest (who understands me?). I bought a pair of Vic Firth sticks for 10 dollars once and broke them in one practice and then never tried expensive sticks ever again. It must be said, also, that I know by now how to hit things properly, so it’s not just total imprecision. So, shit for amateurs, basically.
8. Nylon tips, or wood?
Doesn’t matter honestly, but wood is what I usually get.
9. What brand of heads do you prefer?
Ones that don’t dent and become welted after 3 times using it! Where are you? Perhaps it’s time to learn how to really seat them, no? Clear ones, but I don’t know why. Remo: same reasoning -habit.
10. What is your favorite cymbal ever? Those old Zildjians I mentioned above. Also the nice and costly A series from that same manufacturer. I’ve never had some economic allegiance really to any one brand, but I’ve mostly had either Sabians or Zildjians. I used to only want to use Paiste because of some of my favorite drummers used the Tama and Paiste combo, but it was just a caprice and short-lived.
11. What are your thoughts on china cymbals?
They’re perfect when they are large and attached to stands loosely. Meaning, not cranked down. I used a china type (eventually it broke and I never replaced it) for years and I know I was always this sort of garish outsider for doing it, or, like, too metal (cheaply ironic considering that most of the bands I’ve met in the punk universe were/are still playing so much watered-down metal), or whatever, but I like them a lot when they are used wisely. Listen to Propaghandi’s drummer for a good example of this in current hardcore punk.
12. How about splashes?
I don’t ever, or try not to, employ any cymbals under 18 inches circumference. Splashes are nice in certain types of music, of course. The old drummer of Opeth used one on their most well-known and lauded albums and it sounds cool somehow, even in that heavy context.
13. Where did you get your gear from?
Ha, everywhere. In Prague: nowhere yet. In Cincinnati, I scoured Mikes Music from time to time for used cymbals. On certain wistful days, I would just eat my pride and privation and go to Guitar Center - that skinnery - like before tours, and ruefully buy a new cymbal for whatever crazy price they were asking that week. A lot of the stuff I played for the last 5-6 years was borrowed, bought from friends, given to me, acquired parasitically. It’s been rough. Drums are a luxury item, you know.
14. How do you feel about the statement “any drummer with more than a four piece set is an asshole?”
Not an asshole as such, likely (or, well, there are many axes upon which to make such a prediction, aren’t there!), but just more encumbered than the average punk pseudo-elitist, ersatz musician who, strangely, doesn’t like fills (or anything) that direct attention to the drums (or wouldn’t know how to, or just can’t, execute them). I stopped using the extra rack tom and bigger sized drums both because of the travails of moving them in and out of places, the cost of appropriate cases, and the weakness of mounting gear, and so on. But, it’s a dumb sentiment, like most that people make when they use “gear” as a set-piece of their interpersonal communications.
15. I don't remember the specifics of which bands you are in that are active now.. What bands have you been in/are (as a drummer) you in? Would you mind listing out a bandography for us?
Hmm. Cincinnati bands all: One Nation Under; Still Crossed; Hacked Off (short-lived but good); Look Alive; Tumor Feast; umm; Captives (short-lived but great, my best drumming lived there); Silo (one beat only); a seasonal Slayer cover band, ha; some other things and small side bands that never materialized into active bands, per se. I am playing with a friend, Luděk, here in Prague now. So far, it’s just bass and drums but it’s really fun and necessary for me. I don’t know where it will go but I get to yell in Czech while playing drums so the challenge is as basically insurmountable as it is unusual.
16. Where is your best performance located? (This refers to physical media)
Tumor Feast’s “Suicide” EP contains the fastest drumming from me (I still laugh out loud at certain parts). Captives “Unspeakable Truths” demo cassette, the most tasteful (though I overplayed and it’s all basically inaudible). The recorded drumming from when I was 16-19 is all really bad and, worse, tasteless. Most of the best drumming I’ve done hasn’t made it to a recording - I can never pull it off in studios the right way. I am a much better guitarist in this respect.
17. Who are your top three drummers now?
The guy in Propaghandi is a master of the style (Jordan?). Chris from Magrudergrind (just watch him). My friend Dennis from the American band Nukkehammer is fantastic to watch also. Tragedy’s drummer never wastes a hit - he is exacting and a role model for someone like me so tempted to overplaying and ornamentation.
18. Who were your initial top three drummers?
Queensryche’s, Lombardo, and then the heavens parted and thus spoke Paul Bostaph (I suppose Lars Ulrich should get an honorable mention, but I have all but erased him from my lifeworld after Load and then, irrevocably, after hearing his voice, at length, during that otherworldly documentary about themselves they bathetically made some years ago. Not the latest film effort, which, I’m sure, is an unendurably mawkish, overinsistently abject treat as well.
19. Have you ever actually stopped a cymbal crack?
How do you do this? Tell me!
20. Do you play any other instruments, or do you feel like a drummer should just concentrate on doing their drummer job well?
I play guitar, much more creatively than drums. Drums, again, are purposeful and largely physical for me, they are exercise rather than any sort of locus of what might be called “personal” expression or any formal sort of artistry. When I found someone to play drums in the bands I envisioned, I stopped playing drums for a few years straight almost, and just focused on writing music. Drummers are the servicemen, the dishwashers, as it were, of not just individual bands but, sometimes, entire music scenes. Thus, they should always focus on drums enough to keep playing them so as to be fresh enough for the inevitable situation of when those around him or her will desperately need a drummer, and, thus, good bands can exist. In this naïve sense, drumming is a sort of “drummer job” of sorts, or it can feel that way often. For me, I had to learn how to play guitar if I wanted to ever feel like I had any way to have worthwhile creative input in bands.
21. How do you feel about that “This drummer is at the wrong gig" video?
It’s funny. I can’t spin sticks, still.
22. What is your signature move?
Being unaware of it.
23. What cd do you put in just because the drums are amazing?
Sorry for the redundancy, but Propaghandi’s Potemkin City Limits is, for me, metal drumming par excellence. Also, recently, Death’s later records (Individual Thought Patterns onward have been surprising me for how pronounced, odd, untoward, and totally domineering the drumming is (I will add that these are sort of rediscovered, or new records for me in general). Shai Hulud’s Misanthropy Pure is also captivating drum-wise, among its other merits (though, we can be sure, that those drums were heavily edited and assembled rather than played continuously), but mostly the mind that created the beats, which is likely the guitarist, like always. Either way, its imaginative drumming/structures and a rare example of that which is “progressive” in metallic music when that epithet is starting to lose the most valuable aspect: the notion that something progressive is “progressing” toward something not just innovative but interesting.
24. What would be the most exciting fill in spot for you; the kind where you would puke from excitement before going onstage?
Most of my imaginarium consists of this sort of dream scenario centered on playing guitar, actually. But, honestly, before the first set of this Slayer cover band (seasonal - the Hell Awaits edition), I felt this sort of intense and overwhelming excitement that almost was literally nauseating. To mimic, to ingratiate the Gods as such! In a basement! In Ohio. To a bunch of drunk idiots! As a drunk idiot! Let this illustrate how bequeathed and cropped my drumward ambitions truly are!
25. Shoe preference or no shoe?
Always shoes. Whatever I am wearing. Usually the same ones I have to keep wearing, sadly.
26. How do you feel about playing to a click track?
Profoundly demoralized, emasculated, etc. the only time I tried. I really wish I could do this - almost every recording I’ve ever done, especially during slower tempos, is at some point marred by some markedly off-point snare hit in some moment which relies on its power and groove to carry it - the shame! - the but, alas, haven’t managed to develop as such. I don’t think that, or, rather, concertedly disagree with the platitude that playing to click-tracks ad acta sunders the integrity or, worse, the “punk-rock-lifestyle” away from the offender. I can’t see any reason why it is a “bad” thing; I assume drummers can still stray from those clicks and then get back onboard when and how they want to. For me, it’s like a magic trick I can’t do but only tried once. Onward, real drummers-musicians-artisans!
27. What was the best show that you've played?
I am not sure, but I did a good job in short series of shows filling in for a band called Enabler in Canada and the States last summer (2012). It was the first real challenge (technically) on the drums, especially live and actually on a tour, which I had had in some time. The second “edition” of the Slayer cover band (Reign in Blood) was my favorite show I’ve ever drummed at, and one of the best too.
28. Are you concerned at all about the type of wood that sticks, the kit, and. etc are made out of?
No. If the set is at least the lower-middle range of quality - Pearl Export, Yamaha Stage Custom, Tama Rockstar, etc. - it’s truly all the same for me. I’m more specific, or have a verifiable opinion, about cymbals. I like 24” kick drums, though I know they are unnecessary and burdensome. This level of dynamics and issues relating to tone are lost on me. I can still barely tune the fucking things. Oh! Maybe my “signature move” is making, I’ve been told, the worst looking and sounding drums, when played alone, sound good or even really good when played all together under a band.
29. Do you use different sticks for different songs, depending on need?
No, but it’d be fun to play in a band where I had to. Though, I couldn’t play in that band, likely.
30. What are your thoughts on triggers?
They sound really awful often, especially when the kick drum is triggered only. I am not ideologically against them as some (this is often a captious issue for many!), but I generally can’t stand the painful-to-watch ennui of death-metal drummers and so on whose entire spectrum of ability and the backbone of their music depend on their hits being evened out and so on by computers. It’s so weak live; it looks so lame, almost miserably comic, and just bad usually. I think, however, all this newer sound-replacement stuff is a good thing when used and edited/blended well, especially because the tendency is to create “dry,” punchy, more metallic drum sounds, rather than this recently fashionable boominess and “natural” sound that people have been trying out so much in modern metal bands - a la High on Fire, as one example - when everyone decided, as if in total conjunction, that sounding “big” would be better than sounding distinguishable and/or “metal.” Converge’s (and God City Studio’s entire recent output of records’) drum sound is a perfect example: sound perfect, come off as “real,” but are likely all some 50/50 blend of acoustic and artificial, but it doesn’t matter because they sound utterly perfect. Debatable case to case (as it always depends on the bands overall aesthetic and spirit), but my heart remains with metal music and the dry but mostly natural drums of the late 80s and 90s recordings. Tragedy’s drums are always great sounding, though entirely different than the aforementioned. Crude Attitude is another masterpiece of recorded drums (and cymbals, dear God!). The Slayer cover album, Undisputed Attitude, for me, has the best drum sound I’ve ever heard (even with an overly-tight, tinny snare, and its mostly “natural” sounding. Their God Hates us All is also a stalwart example of, for me, ideal drum tone/production.)
31. Fill in the blank:
Best word (phrase) ever to describe your drumming: Consistent.
Worst word (phrase) ever to describe your drumming: Bad?
Word (phrase) that you are aiming for while drumming: Devout.
Thanks for answering these for me!