McRad

MUSIC CONNECTION/WWW.MUSIC CONNECTION.COMI can tell you exactly when I realized I'm a professional drummer: it's when we were doing pre-production for the last record and we just had a little hole-in-the-wall rehearsal studio that we'd go to six days a week. During that period of time there was a marked difference between the first day of the week and the last, and between what I could previously play and what I was feeling confident to attempt. It just clicked and I knew I was playing better.We'd be writing drum parts to songs and stuff and they would be pushing me to do something better, and after doing that every day I just felt that things were more fluid and everything was coming more natural to me.As a pro, the drums are always on your mind, because your entire day is focused on playing your instrument in one form or the other. If you're not a pro, you're only putting so much time into being consumed with the drums, because you have to go to another job somewhere and work."Make sure TO leave an impression on every single person you meet, because you don't know how those contacts may help you in the future." --Chuck Treece PLAYING FRAME DRUMSI started on frame drums when I was a kid. They have them all over the world; Bendir in Africa; a Pandeiro in Brazil, and so on. They have skin on one side and are totally open on the other side. I never played kits at all; I just moved onto another instrument called a Zarb (A Persian Doumbek). I responded to the sound of these drums right away, and I really loved the sound of the goatskin, with its resonance. My mother would take me to a lot of Buddhist retreats when I was younger, and I would hear the bells and all these repetitious and circular rhythms, and eventually it would not only influence my percussion playing but also inform my drum machine playing.IT'S IN THE SKINGoatskins are very different sounding than calf and other skins, because it has way more resonance. It could be hard to deal with if weather is a problem; like, if it's raining outside you're pretty fucked and you have to bring a blow dryer to tune it, which is what I do; you'd hear me onstage going, "Whoosh!" (laughs). Now I like the skin more for the tactile sense, but you don't really hear the skins anymore, because I run it through distortion pedals and stuff like that.CRAZY STAGE SETUPSWith my distorted percussive gig, I use a pick-up that I run through a few pedals, and I also use a small line mixer where I push the trim all the way up. Then I use a gate, and it cuts out the distortion when I stop playing. The distortion's pretty heavy, so it could overload a mixer, and the gate makes it sound like a gun battle, like, "Ch, ch, ch, ch." For my orchestral percussion gigs, I use a totally different setup: I probably have three timpani's in different sizes. Then there's a large concert bass drum that's really enormous. I have some tubular bells, and gongs, and I also have the piano hooked up to electronics, so I can play bass and textures. Sometimes I run some stuff into Ableton Live, and I have this thing called Fireface, which is a real good A-to-D converter. Sometimes I'll take a bass drum and put a lot of objects in it, so when the bass pulses come out, it just starts vibrating and all these rhythms come out of it, and I don't even need to play it.UNKIND PROGRESSI don't think technology has been that kind to (frame drums) at all. It's totally fucked, actually. Glen Velez's series has an interesting line of frame drums, but I've got one of them and underneath his name I wrote, "worst nightmare." I'm a different kind of frame drummer, maybe, but I have drums that were made in Uzbekistan by a guy who's been making them for 30 years in his house, and no one knows his name. I can't find drums made in America that have the tone of these. There's also a scientific reason, and that's because instruments that are old, age like wine. The wood starts to soak in the oxygen, and new wood that is just chopped won't have that. So the more a piece of wood breathes, the better the tone. The same goes for the skin, but now with that Plexi-skin, the wood is not wood and it's just not going to sound the same. But I guess you're getting something that is weather-proof and good for touring, so people will adapt to them.FAVORITE DRUMMERSStewart Copeland was a huge influence when I was in high school. I loved Buddy Rich, Billy Cobham, Dennis Chambers, Lenny White, and Narada Michael Wal-den. One guy from D.C. that gave me a lot of input is Scott Garret. When I got into hip-hop I would just play a Pete Rock record from front to back, and I learned how they were changing the kick drums ever so slightly. Then Amir "?uestlove" Thompson got into it on the breakbeat side, and I really wanted to learn how to bring that into a rock setting, so I would play those records with headphones.BAD BRAINS BANGERSProbably the hardest record to play with is Bad Brains' I against I, because there's so many different styles of drumming on it. Plus it's Mackie Jayson playing on it. He's just an amazing drummer and most of the stuff that sounds like double bass on that is done with one pedal; he was doing that way before hardcore drummers where thinking about playing that fast. When I joined the band I tried to live up to (original drummer) Earl Hudson's personality and Mackie's chops and tenacity; I mean, he was a vicious drummer.Earl was probably better for the group, but Mackie made some huge changes in hardcore/punk drumming that he still hasn't gotten his respect for. He was really into fusion stuff, and he would incorporate flams and all types of fast single-stroke rolls. He's not just playing blast-beats through the song; he's still very technical and musical.SEX, DRUGS & EXERCISE?I would do regular pushups and leg lifts and I realized that it made everything a little more fluid for me. So if I want to work on speed, I can, but I know I have to work my body out first. You don't want to put too much unwanted stress on your wrists, so it's better to get them stimulated, so you can push your body further. I'm also a vegetarian, and I found out that when I abuse my temple, or my body, everything else that I was dealing with went to that same level. I know that if I have limited time to do what I want to do I have to be on point, so if I have to do something hard, I'm not coming in out of the cobwebs.THE AUDITIONDrummers are scrutinized a lot, so auditioning is one of the hardest parts of playing drums. You would do well to figure out what kind of band you want to play with and then try to match up with the bands that need a drummer, because you're that much closer to what the band is probably looking for. For people who are just doing cattle call auditions, you may not get the gig if you don't show up with your own personality.Make sure to leave an impression on every single person you meet, because you don't know how those contacts may help you in the future. And just as important as being personal and professional, is to be qualified, because those bands are spending a lot of time and money looking for what they need, and you should be able to fulfill all the requirements listed in the e-mail, or phone-call, or however you got the recommendationEndorsements: MESA BOOGIE, EMG PICK UPS,PRS GUITARS,METAL FACTORY PERCUSSION,ISTANBUL CYMBALS,DR STRINGS,VATER STICKS,AQUARIAN DRUMHEADS,WRECKROOM SKATEBOARDS,SESSIONS CLOTHING,4KIDZ PRODUCTION,CHADWICK ST. PRODUCTIONS,DRUMCORE,ASEC,ZOLA BEVERAGES,SESSIONS CLOTHING n BACK 2 BASICS PHILLY/SYLK CITY
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