THE B

LACK

PAGE

JUNE 2009

NASHVILLEDRUMMERS’ ROUNDTABLE PART I

Ben SesarDave McAfee

Dave NorthrupPat McDonaldRich Redmond

THE BLACK PAGEJUNE 2009

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Send us your feedback at:theblackpagemagazine@gmail.com Sean Mitchell PublisherJill Schettler Editor in ChiefJayson Brinkworth WriterRyan Carver Writer

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Nashville Round Table Part I:by Jayson Brinkworth

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A couple of years ago when I started writing for The Black Page, I had an idea for a feature article

based around the Nashville music scene and its drummers. They are some of the world’s best and have a wealth of knowledge to share.

I had a few players in mind but nothing concrete. The first player that fell into the mix was David Northrup from Travis Tritt’s band. David was in town for a show and a clinic, and we ended up heading out for a bite and a long drummer chat. The next player to come along was Dave McAfee from Toby Keith’s band. I met Dave when we were out on tour with Toby Keith, and we had a lot of time to exchange drum chat. The next player is no stranger to The Black Page, as he has graced the cover of our fair magazine: Rich Redmond from Jason Aldean’s band. The fourth player was on a recommendation from the first three and is the talented Pat McDonald from The Charlie Daniels Band. The final player is none other than Ben Sesar who plays with multi award-winning artist Brad Paisley.

These players make up a fantastic cross-section of drumming in general. They all have great chops, fantastic technique and are very educated in the music industry. With all of these drumming skills in tact it is their skills as musicians that impresses me most. Playing the song, supporting the lyric, and being dynamically expressive are just a few things that will keep these five great players employed all of the time.

I hope you enjoy part one of this educational read from five of the busiest and best players in the industry right now. See you next month!

NASHVILLEROUND TABLE PART I

by Jayson Brinkworth

To start off with, could you give us a glimpse into your formative years of playing? Say from the ages of 15 to 20?

Rich Redmond: I started playing drums at age 8. My early lessons taught me grip, reading, rudiments and basic drum set co-ordination. I am totally a product of the great music education system in Texas. Begin-ning in the fifth grade I participated in sym-phonic band, orchestra, marching band and jazz ensemble every year until graduation. I studied classical percussion and drum set and took it very seriously. I played in a mil-lion fun bands in El Paso, Texas, and lis-tened to tons of music. Some of my faves were The Police, John Mellencamp and Van Halen. Those were the big influences: Stewart, Alex and Kenny. I ended up attend-ing Texas Tech University and later the Uni-versity of North Texas. By the time I was 25 I had two degrees and had played tons of musical styles. I tried to pattern myself af-ter players like Gregg Bissonette, who could play tons of styles with conviction and also had an academic degree to fall back on.

Dave McAfee: I was in the high school marching band and the college marching band at Ohio U. Those years of experience gave me confidence. In high school, driving a 96 piece band as the only bass drummer was a great experience in time, meter, and responsibility. The stars had always been the snare line, but the director talked me into being the bass drummer, who was ulti-

mately the leader of the band. I was president of the band and section leader, and the pressure to run the section and know all the parts was a great teaching tool, and years later, ultimately helped prepare me for the responsibilities of driving a huge show like Toby’s.

Ben Sesar: hmmm. Those were basically high school and early college years. I had al-

Dave Northrup

Rich Redmond

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ready been playing for 6 years by the time I was 15. The goal in those days (as it still is today) was to play, play, play. I sought out and surrounded myself with people that were like-minded and wanted to play as of-ten as I did. College was no exception—the difference there was the additional focus on personal practice. I started playing gigs out on the town within my first semester.

Dave Northrup: I began playing in a school program at the age of 12, played all through high school, involved in concert band, jazz band, and select choirs. I competed in Area All State and All State Competitions. At 15 I began playing in rock cover bands outside of school. Began studying privately around 17, however I didn’t really get serious until my early twenties.

Pat McDonald: I started out at age 5 or 6 with a toy kit with paper heads. I promptly destroyed them and lost interest. They end-ed up in the attic for a few years. One day, for no apparent reason, I dug them back out and got completely bitten by the bug! I couldn’t play them much because they were in pieces, so I began playing to my mom’s 70s soft rock/disco records (The Eagles, The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, John Denver, Bread, Barry Manilow, etc.) on pillows on the couch, set up like toms all around me.

I think this was a huge positive step be-cause it developed my ears as well as my hands. I learned to really listen and hear what the drums were doing in the music and, unbeknownst to me at the time, why. I tried to imagine the pillows as my kit and copied what I was hearing. I hassled my mom to get me real drums, and she finally relented, buying me another toy kit but a little better one with real heads and hoops

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and small-sized wood shells. That kit didn’t have a hi hat. It had one tiny bass drum, one mounted tom, a snare on a stand and one cheap cymbal.

As I got more into it, I knew I needed better drums, so by the time I was 12 or so she bought me my first real kit. It was one of those no-name Taiwanese junk kits, but it had a working hi hat and real (albeit cheap) cymbals. I played them all through middle school and kept playing along to re-cords, developing my ears and hands.

By this point I had be-gun buying my own records and left her easy listening music for more heavy rock music. I got really into Kiss and learned to copy all of Peter Criss’ stuff. By the time I got to high school I got into the music programs (jazz band, marching band, concert band), met more people who were into mu-

sic and they started turn-ing me onto other music. I got turned onto guys like Steve Smith with Journey, Terry Bozzio, Mark Craney, Vinnie Colaiuta with Frank Zappa, James Bradley Jr. with Chuck Mangione and, most importantly, Neil Peart. I became a complete Rush fanatic and spent hours learning Neil’s drum parts and licks. high school be-came nothing more than a place to study just enough to get by in regular classes and spend every spare mo-ment in the band room.

At that point, I had be-come a fairly accomplished player for my age, and my parents realized I was really into this and they got me a real kit with real cymbals—a Ludwig Chrome-O-Wood kit with a full set of Zildjians. I joined a local band and started gigging in clubs dur-ing my senior year. When I graduated, the band started traveling the southeastern Pat McDonald

U.S., playing rock covers in clubs all over Florida, Georgia and Alabama.

I was diagnosed with hodgkin’s Lympho-ma in 1983 and had a recurrence in 1985 and quit the band to have surgery and che-motherapy. During my recuperation, I de-cided to get really serious and go to music college. I applied to Berklee but got turned down, so I followed all my high school drum-mer buddies to Georgia Southern College, played in the jazz band, marching band, concert band and took nothing but music theory courses to get a basic knowledge of music—and then re-applied to Berklee. I got accepted this time and went to Boston in the summer of ’87. I took a full load of classes, lessons, private lessons with Gary Chaffee and practiced non-stop for about eighteen months. On Chaffee’s recommendation, I left Berklee and started gigging full time. I’m still doing it today!

What factors played into you choosing Nashville as a base for your music ca-reer over places like LA or New York?

Ben Sesar: I was in a really good band at the time I graduated college, and we were going to move to New York. Two of the members bailed at the last moment, leaving only the lead singer and myself. We wanted to keep the band together but had nowhere to go. We knew some people in Nashville who graduated the prior year and took an interest in re-forming the band with us. So, we threw all of our stuff in a car and went. Nashville was a default destination, but I liked the idea of it from the start. I knew it was a music town like LA or NYC, but with much less density. My speculation was that it would be easier to “stick out” here.

Dave Northrup: I always knew someday I wanted to have a family, even from an early

Ben Sesar

age. Although, at the time, the music being made and players in New York and LA influ-enced me a great deal, I just felt Nashville seemed to be the logical choice economi-cally. Between 1992 through 1995, while touring, I had an opportunity to meet several musicians from Nashville who were able to give me some insight on the scene. After a brief visit in early ‘95 I knew it was where I was supposed to be. I just felt right in my spirit.

Pat McDonald: I ended up doing all kinds of gigs—rock, funk, top 40, society dance jazz gigs, weddings, big band, you name it. Those experiences led me to Sarasota, FL, to take a house gig in a jazz club. I did that for a couple of years then joined with a local rock guy who did clubs and played constantly. I became a first call guy in town for gigs and session work and had a fulltime roster of students.

I got called to play on a Christian-pop re-cord project with two brothers who lived in Sarasota and owned a multi-million dollar fi-ber optic business. I did their record and did some live shows with them. They decided to move their business to Nashville and asked me to come along. I had reached the top level of what success I could have in Sara-sota and decided to give it a try and see how I could fare in a big pond instead of a small one. I moved up to Nashville in April ’97. I had considered all of the three music cen-ters before, but the opportunity to move to Nashville and live rent-free until I got on my feet pretty much sealed the deal for me!

Dave McAfee: In school, most of the drum-set guys at Ohio U were studying jazz or fusion. Our Grad Assistant was from Berke-ley, and our professor was a jazz phenom named Guy Remonko. however, Mr. Re-

monko was very into time, no matter the genre. I worked on time relentlessly during my time at school. I had moved around a lot growing up, but my dad had always listened to country music. he always watched the Nashville-based music shows. honestly, I always liked the vocals in country. To this day, I try to play to the vocal—dynamically, musically, and emotionally. I love the coun-

Dave McAfee

try genre when it comes to drumming for the lyric and the emotion of the song. Larrie Londin was my hero for playing like that.

Rich Redmond: I moved to Nashville in March of 1997. I was having my quarter life crisis in Dallas and knew I had to make my move to the coasts. I had decided on LA when a friend of mine told me that a gal named Trisha Yearwood was auditioning drummers in Nashville. I flew to the audition to make my mark. The players on the gig turned me on to an audition with Deanna Carter, which led to an audition with Barba-ra Mandrell. I had three major auditions in a two-week time period. It seemed like Nash-ville was the place to be. I gave my band two weeks’ notice and drove to Nashville with one drum set and my little black cat, Cha Cha. The internet has made the world a smaller place in the last ten years, so I am now intensely focusing on making my mark in the NYC and LA markets, in addition to all of my responsibilities in Nashville.

In respect to the current gigs that you all have, how did these situations present themselves?

Rich Redmond: A lot of new drummers come to town and ask for advice about how

to get connected. I tell them to take every gig that comes along, shake hands and get involved. Sometimes those “small” gigs turn into big ones. That’s what happened for me. I met a young Jason Aldean in 2000. he had a publishing deal with Warner Chap-pell. I started doing tons of industry show-cases and demos with him. In 2004, he got signed. When it came time to record the re-cord, he and his producer thought about me first because we had established a relation-ship. You have to develop and nurture many relationships to be successful in this busi-ness. Taking gigs with a young and hungry Jason Aldean led to me playing on three successful records, six top ten singles, a #1 song, videos, tours, etc.

Dave McAfee: I had been playing out of Nashville with several acts for years. Musi-cians tend to know each other out on the tours. I had known several of Toby’s guys. I had done an album with the bass player, who is the band leader. I had been in bands with the utility guy. It was those connections that got my name in the hat. I had jammed with Toby on several occasions in the past. When my name came up for discussion, Toby hired me without an audition, and I’ve been there ever since. Of course, you have to be able to do the job ultimately, but the

Rich Redmond

value of networking speaks for itself in this instance.

Pat McDonald: When I got to Nashville, I dumped my truck and drove downtown to hit the clubs and start exploring—the very first night. I literally went out to a jam night before I had even slept one night at my new place! I started sitting in and passing out my number to anyone who asked for it. I was getting calls for local gigs in about two weeks.

I ended up getting the gig with Tanya Tucker (my first real tour bus road gig) in about four months. I was stunned that it all started happening so fast. I did her gig for almost a year then got fired. I had learned from my buddies in town that getting fired by Tanya was a kind of a “rite of passage”, so I didn’t let it get me down. She has always been prone to waking up and just firing her whole band for no discernible reason. I be-came one of many victims.

I pressed on and kept working locally. I ended up on a house gig at a club outside of town for a year or so. The bass player on that gig engineered at a studio during the day and he called me one day to come over and bail out a session that was running be-hind because the guy who was hired to play drums wasn’t cutting it. It ended up being a solo project by Taz DeGregorio who plays piano with The Charlie Daniels Band. Taz liked what I did, paid me and that was that—back to my house gig. About two weeks later, Jack Gavin left Charlie after fourteen years and Taz told Charlie about me. I got a call to come over and audition and ended up get-ting the gig. I just began my tenth year in the band.

Dave Northrup: My initial goal when I moved to Nashville was to be a studio guy,

to stay in town and work my way up the ladder and establish myself as an “in town guy”. Back then you had to make a decision as to what you wanted to do: tour or record. It was taboo to try and do both, so the first five years (1995 – 2000) that’s what I did, hung in town and tried to break into the studio scene.

I had some marginal success, each year getting a bit better up until 2000. Frustrated with the struggle of trying to stay around town, I finally just decided to take some au-ditions for touring work. I was fortunate to get several auditions right away: Pam Tillis, Clay Davidson, both I didn’t land. Then I got a call to audition for Trisha Yearwood, which

Ben Sesar

I was real excited about. I had always been a fan of her music. Unfortunately I lost the gig to Charlie Morgan, Elton John’s drum-mer.

Soon after that I was recommended to a new artist named Rebecca Lynn howard. The bass player from that gig was hired by Travis Tritt’s management to put together auditions for a new band. he asked if I’d be interested in checking it out. Of course I said yes. A few days later Travis’ management asked if I would hang after my audition and play for the other fiddle, bass and keyboard auditions which they would pay me for. I had a chance to play with Travis more than any of the other auditioning drummers.

Ben Sesar: Using my basic philosophy of “play, play, play, and don’t worry about the

rest” (i.e. don’t worry about “making it”, be-ing recognized, getting paid, etc.) I eventu-ally played in front of, and befriended, the people who would put me in touch with a local guy managing artists. I auditioned for a female artist of his at the time. I got the gig, but her career quickly fizzled. A year later he called me about a new guy he had: Brad Paisley. he told me they only had a few gigs, and not to expect much, but I didn’t care be-cause of my “play, play, play” attitude. Ironi-cally, Brad had the same attitude, so we hit it off right away.

As I say to all of my students, it is one thing to get a gig, but the real work comes in keeping a gig. What do you each bring to an artist’s music that helps you keep the gig?

Ben Sesar: You have to really screw up to lose your gig with Brad. he is a very loyal person who doesn’t like to let anyone go. having said that, the early days were a chal-lenge for me. I was coming from a mainly rock background, and I was very new to country; Brad was a traditional country art-ist. I knew right away that there were many subtleties I was missing. I submerged my-self into the genre, finding an appreciation, not only as a drummer but as a fan of music. This helped me to get inside Brad’s mind by learning to appreciate the same things he did. he took notice and very much appreci-ated the extra effort, which helped reinforce his loyalty. This was ten years ago, and the process has not stopped since.

Dave Northrup: I think one of the most im-portant elements in approaching an artist gig is respect for the music—their music. Taking the time to really learn and pay atten-tion to detail. Play for the music and always

Dave Northrup

be song-supportive. I’m a detail freak. I love nuances and subtleties, ghost notes that sometimes don’t always translate as well in live per-formance situations but are so crucial for the groove, in my opinion.

having spent a fair amount of time in the studio I pay at-tention to those things. Also from a hang perspective I try to be flexible. You have

to deal with many different types of personalities on the road. Being easy going and flexible with the ability to get along with others is crucial. You only spend an hour, an hour and half to two hours on stage. The other twenty-two hours you have to live in close quarters with others, so you have to be able to get along. Being positive and being able to do “the hang” is very important. You can be the baddest cat around, but with a crappy attitude and the inability to get along with others, no one will re-ally care how good you are and won’t want to work or be

around you.

Pat McDonald: I think first and foremost is profession-alism and a good attitude. This is a business and you must be a pro. Attitude and personality are huge here. You will not go far if you get a reputation for being dark, gloomy, negative or just a drag to be around. The guys who succeed here are the

guys who people just enjoy spending time with. They’re laid back and relaxed, flex-ible, patient, dependable, pleasant and able to roll with the punches.

You have to be organized, have good gear, play well and be on time, ready to go when the red light comes on or the lights go up. That is what keeps you on a gig around here. If you get a rep-utation of being weird or dif-ficult or burdened with piles of personal issues, people stop calling you. Drug or al-cohol problems or personal issues that spill over onto the gig will kill you. There

are tons of great players here who can do your gig in a heartbeat, so babysitting a guy with a pile of person-al baggage is really low on most folks’ list of priorities. I think in my case being a sol-id player with a varied musi-cal background and having a sense of humor and abil-ity to bring some levity into the room has helped me im-mensely.

Dave McAfee: You have to be tuned into many things, not just drumming. You almost have to be part psychologist and part coach in order to be an artist’s “go-to-guy” night after night. It helps to be a team player and a friend. Atmosphere is very important in a big tour. It just works better if it’s fun. Of course, you have to be consistent, and the band and the artist have to be able to count on you.

My goal was always to be one of the successful drum-mers in Nashville. I ultimately wanted to find an artist that felt like they would almost

I don’t believe that drummers at our level get to have good nights and bad nights ... You have to be dependable night after night.

Dave McAfee

rather not play without me. Obviously, there are many great drummers in Nashville. I think realizing that fact makes you better. Then, of course, you still have to strive to do your artist’s show as good as it can be done.

I don’t believe that drummers at our level get to have good nights and bad nights. An arena country show nowadays is very drum-prominent. You are definitely in the mix. You have to be dependable night after night. Toby and the band certainly never need me to be the star, but they do need me to run the show like Toby feels it every night. To-by’s main directive has always been that the show be fun and the crowd be standing all night long. I am coming up on my ten-year anniversary, and it’s still fun out there.

Rich Redmond: Great question! I have al-ways been a journeyman drummer. I have played with one-hit-wonders, legends and everyone in between. Most of these acts like a drummer to play their part and stay out of the way. Occasionally, you get lucky and work for someone who really champi-ons what you do and encourages you to be completely you.

Jason encourages me and the entire band to be ourselves, and it’s a big part of the act. Pat [McDonald] plays a drum solo every night! What a dream. I have recently started playing a drum solo every night in the show, and it is a thrill to get to play an 80s inspired arena drum solo in front of 5,000 people!

I always try to make myself indispensable to the act. When you aren’t there they really miss you. I try to bring a consistently positive attitude and performance level to the stage every night and a producer’s ears to record-ings and rehearsals. It really helps that my best friends in the world make up Jason’s band. We played together for years before

joining forces with him, so there is a built in “family factor” to all we do. That would be my advice: Be a team player, take direction, offer direction, be a solid person and play at a high level always.

I know that Nashville has had a pretty cut-and-dried studio scene for years. You have all played on some great records. What is your opinion on the live versus studio scene in Nashville?

Rich Redmond: The line in the sand be-tween session and road player is disappear-ing. I have been spoiled rotten since I cut a record called Right Now with my last band Rushlow in 2003. That opened the door to me playing on the recordings for every band I work with. I have such freedom with my current gigs that it would be very difficult to go back to a job where I had to mimic some-

Pat McDonald

one else. It would have to be great money and exposure to want to go back to that. Darryl Worley, Jamey Johnson and many other acts are using their touring bands to play on their records. It’s a nice step forward for Nashville. however, there are many road bands I hear that could never cut it in the studio.

There is definitely a set of skills that have to be in place to do session work. Many Nashville cats are juggling studio and road work because of the economy and simply because they like to have that balance. Guys that I pattern myself after like Kenny Aronoff and Mark Schulman have always done both. I couldn’t choose between them. I like doing both too much!

Dave McAfee: I do absolutely love both. I feel like I mostly owe my success to the live gigs I have been lucky enough to have. Studio world has been great to me this last couple of years, and I am certainly grateful! I am fortunate, though, that since 1986 every live gig has led to a more successful one. I admit I have been lucky, but they say luck is when ability meets opportunity, right?

Making records is obviously a dream come true for any drummer, and I am a workaholic when it comes to playing and producing in the studio. It is awesome to create projects and then watch them come to life. It’s great if they are successful and even get critical

acclaim sometimes. I have to admit, though, that I love the pressure of the big tour live show. I love taking every variable into ac-count every night. Tuning, groove, perfor-mance, tricks and tracks… there is always something happening that needs your undi-vided attention.

Turning in a great show in spite of the myr-iad of things that may go wrong is a terrific challenge. Making it look easy and fun is the goal. It is tremendously rewarding when a sold out arena crowd never sits down all night! Sure you are striving for perfection, but having the time of your life every night for years is a much better way to live the dream. I believe that in that one way studio and live are the same. The audience isn’t having fun until you are!

Pat McDonald: Live work in Nashville is pretty wide-ranging. There are club gigs in honky tonks, singer/songwriter nights in clubs, new artist showcases, as well as the standard road gigs that everyone is com-peting for. There’s a lot of work, and each of those kinds of gigs have circles of peo-ple who are involved in them. You become friends with people in those circles and hopefully get called to play with them on their gigs and projects. The circles of people all overlap, so you’ll invariably work with the same guys in different situations.

The session scene kind of overlaps all that

Dave McAfee

as well. Lots of guys who do gigs will also dabble in production or own small studios, so it’s really common to do a gig with a guy you haven’t seen in a year then get a call to come to his studio and cut a project with some new artist that he’s producing. There are tons of small independent studios that do projects like that.

The upper echelon of the studio world is a hard nut to crack, but most of the guys I know who have broken into it got their start by doing road gigs and demo sessions. The people you meet on every gig have their con-nections and will bring you into their folds where you’ll meet other guys who know oth-er people, and it just feeds on itself. It’s a big web of folks who all work together.

The session world is different than live, though, because there is a different set of concepts and musicality that is expected. It’s the nature of the business of selling re-cords. You learn really fast what a producer expects from you, and you do your best to deliver it. I’ve played on so many demos and records here now that I know imme-diately when I hear the rough mix exactly what I should do and what is expected from the drum part. It’s really become a “paint by numbers” kind of thing in the majority of cases.

There are exceptions, of course, but gen-erally you are there to provide the kind of track that they’ll like, that will serve the song first and foremost and be able to get it down

really quickly. Sadly, that usually ends up being the same kind of track you did on a similar song last week! I love being in the studio, but I get stir crazy after too much of it. I gotta get out and play and have fun!

I know there are guys who stay in town and do sessions five days a week (although not as many as there used to be) but I just can’t do that. I need variety. I’ll do sessions when they come along, but I don’t know if I could handle doing nothing but session work all the time and not balancing it with some live work.

Dave Northrup: As I briefly touched on ear-lier, back when I first moved to Nashville in 1995 the scene was divided—either you were a touring guy or a session guy. That has changed significantly in the past five years. More and more guys’ session guys are now also doing some touring work, and some artists are actually using their touring band to record on their records.

Back in 1998 I had the incredible privilege of working with bass great Anthony Jackson for several weeks. One of the many conver-sations we had was about the studio scene in Nashville and how he thought the whole “road guy, studio guy” was absurd in his opinion. he shared with me the importance of being able to do both well, and the only way to continue to improve and grow as a player is to do both. Musicians all have dif-ferent seasons in their career where they

Click on the names below to visit the guys online

Ben Sesar Dave McAfee Dave Northrup Pat McDonald Rich Redmond

might do more of one then the other, but the whole Nashville stereotype to him was ridiculous. That opened my eyes and gave me a totally different outlook on what I was doing and what I should focus on. Both are important, and you should be able to do both well.

Ben Sesar: It’s true. Over the years, a large disconnect has evolved between the live scene and studio scene. Very rarely do the two mix. I suppose it has to do with the different skill sets, as well as varying degrees of pres-sure required to perform in either setting. For example, I guess it’s viewed (by the powers that be, who helped drive the system to where it is today) that any common thug could come in and re-hearse for weeks and get the music right for a tour. In the studio, they don’t rehearse. Your musical instincts must be honed sharply, as you are expected to play songs you’ve never heard before with speed, brilliance, and taste. In addition, the stu-dio is really about mastering your emotions.

The misconception is that those who are pigeon-holed as “live players” don’t pos-sess the evolved skills re-quired for the studio. In real-ity, this simply isn’t true. Lots

of guys can do both. I mean, it’s understandable from a record label point of view; they don’t want to waste precious time and money on people who haven’t proven they can handle the pres-sure of the studio. But like anything else, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. The so-called studio guys here in town were also inex-perienced at some point, but someone took a chance on them, and they developed the skills needed to survive and flourish in that world.

I know the list could be very long, but who are some of your biggest in-fluences, drummer or oth-erwise?

Ben Sesar: This is in no par-ticular order, and I’m leaving out a lot: Steve Gadd, Eddie Bayers, Buddy Rich, Kenny Aronoff, Ronnie Vannucci, Stewart Copeland, Joe Mo-rello, and John Bonham. honestly the list is so long.

There are so many, and a lot of my main influences were people I knew growing up, musically or otherwise.

Dave Northrup: Wow, yes this could be a long one be-cause I have so many per-sonally and professionally. Drumming-wise I’d have to say Jeff Porcaro has been my biggest influence. Other drummers are Steve Gadd, Carlos Vega, David Garib-aldi, Bernard Purdie, John Bonham, Rick Marotta, Jer-ry Marotta. Manu Katche, Stewart Copeland, Vin-nie Colaiuta, Dave Weckl, Ed Greene, Russ Kunkle, Zigaboo Modeliste, Matt Chamberlin, Shawn Pelton, Clyde Stubblefield and Jabo Sparks, Steve Smith, Simon Phillips, Dennis Chambers, Steve Ferrone, Grady Tate, Peter Erskine, Will Ken-nedy, Troy Luccketta, Frank Briggs, and there are so many others.

The music of Pat Metheny, Weather Report, Jaco Pas-

“You can be the baddest cat around, but with a crappy attitude and the inability to get along with others no one will really care how good

you are.” - Dave Northrup

Jayson Brinkworth is an accomplished drummer, percussionist, vocalist, educator and writer.

Click HERE to visit him at www.jaysonbrinkworth.com

torius, Miles Davis, The Yel-lowjackets, Marcus Miller, Stanley Clarke, Tower of Power, James Taylor, Steely Dan, James Brown, and Mo-town. Personally speaking, my mom and dad, my wife Sandy, and my relationship with God.

Pat McDonald: My big-gest influence in life was my grandfather. My mother raised two kids as a single mom, and he stepped into the role of father when I was young. he taught me re-sponsibility, fair play, how to handle trouble when it came along and the difference be-tween right and wrong. he gave me basic life lessons that I still lean on today.

As far as drummers go, as I mentioned before, Pe-ter Criss was the first big in-fluence when I was kid. He was followed by (in no par-ticular order and overlapping in the timeline) Neil Peart, James Bradley Jr., Vinnie Colaiuta, Tommy Aldridge, Dave Weckl, Dennis Cham-bers, Jeff Procaro, Bernard Purdie, David Garibaldi,

Steve Gadd, Steve Ferrone, Alex Van halen, Buddy Rich, Joe Morello, Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette, Paul Wer-tico, Jim Keltner, Lars Ul-rich, Mike Wengren, Daniel Adair, Trilok Gurtu, Greg Morrow, Shannon Forrest, Eddie Bayers, Earl Palmer, Buddy harman, Chad Wack-erman, Rod Morgenstein, Terry Bozzio, John Bonham, Phil Rudd, Danny Gottlieb—heck, that’s just the begin-ning of the list!

I listen to everything and always manage to find something cool about what-ever it is. Any good music is influential to me.

Dave McAfee: My cousin Joan was a great influence on me when I was a kid. She was and is an amaz-ing drummer. She is now a teacher and a great one at that. My high school band director Jim Billingsley really made me believe I could do this.

My dad was a hard work-er and instilled a good work ethic in me. As far as legend-ary drumming heroes, Larrie

Londin was amazing to me the one time I got to spend time with him. I absolutely wanted to be him when I was growing up. Jeff Por-caro, Dave Weckl, Ritchie Albright and J.R. Robinson are all influences of mine, among many others.

Rich Redmond: In no par-ticular order: Gene Krupa, Rich, Max Roach, Baby Dodds, Ringo, Charlie Watts, Keith Moon, John Bonham, Jeff Porcaro, Kenny Aronoff, Carmine Appice, Eddie Bay-ers, Stewart Copeland, Alex Van halen, Nigel Olson, Steve Gadd, Shawn Pelton and the list goes on and on. They all bring something unique and special to the table that I have soaked up from repeated study, tran-scription and listenings. I’m always checking out new stuff and the iPod has every-thing from ABBA to Zappa on it! I also really enjoy books on motivation, life coaching, spirituality, philosophy, mar-keting and business. That stuff is just as important in a career where you are your

When the Pen Hits the Pageby Sean Mitchell

A s woodshedders, we bear the burden of many jobs on

stage: the meter keeper, the groove master, the protector of the pocket and the click track cad-

dy. My pedantic friend and guitarist extraordi-

naire “The Chad” once said to me, “Guitarists are much

like drummers, just without all the social problems.” While this may be a com-mon misconception, I can explain why The Chad hath been led into such non compos mentis hypothesis.

Admittedly we are much like our distant cousin the goalie (who favors standing in front of pieces of rubber travelling in excess of 100 mph): neither breed is too tightly wound and apt to some eccentric behav-ior. It is with good reason that we drummers tend to favor the more abstract walks of life. After all, you don’t end up of sound mind after two hours of ta ta ti ti ta over and over again. Come to think of it, isn’t there a form of torture similar to that?

Which brings me torpidly to my point and the reason for this month’s ramblings. Every month around this time I fire up ye old laptop and ponder a subject with which to assever-ate my inner voice upon these eco-friendly pages. I spend most of my time shedding

wood in my little corner of the living room running rudiment after rudiment as Jill (my girlfriend and partner in crime) sits and tries so valiantly to understand why exactly I must repetitively hammer out the most incommo-dious sounds on a small piece of rubber pad. As the tempos increase, and my dex-terity proves that my hands do in fact have a breaking point, I am always given the same goofy grin from my sweet and loving future wife.

I know most people have no clue why we do this, why we tap our way into oblivion day after day. Only drummers have their own secret language, invented for the sole purpose of talking amongst ourselves. This is the beauty of being a drummer—knowing how to speak that language of paradiddles, flams and ramatacues. Some mere mortals may have had a look down the rabbit hole to grasp a few phrases, but in reality until you have sat and ran rudiments until your hands are numb and the hoop sweat has soaked through your jeans, none can say they speak “drummer”.

Hopefully by this point in the article I have given you enough ostentatious words for you to ascertain that I either have access to an incredible thesaurus or somehow gained a Masters degree in English in the past month. Yes, folks, the theme of my contribution to this month’s Black Page is

much ado about the literary arts.Like our distant relative the goalie, as

much as we are often the sole representa-tive of our craft on any given stage, we are still very much a part of the game. While our own drummer dialect is beautiful thing in it’s own right, one of the keys to the kingdom of musical success and prosperity lies in the lyrics and melody. The last time I checked, you cannot collect royalties on the intro to “Wipeout”. The savvy players are the ones who know that when it comes to royalties, the pen is mightier than the stick.

Writing songs isn’t about rhyming or about sitting down to specifically write an epic a la “hotel California.” Most songwriters will tell you that their best work didn’t come from sit-ting down to pen a ditty; rather, a song will often write itself, so long as the musician can see clearly and put pen to paper. What they don’t often talk about is the years of writing that preceded said masterpiece. In drummer lingo, Dennis Chambers doesn’t have the chops and technique he does be-cause he sat around waiting for inspiration to play. But you can bet that when inspira-tion hits him, it is a thing of beauty.

“I keep a legal pad on the bedside table be-side my bed. I try to keep them all over the house, I’ll start three or four different songs on the same pad and write things on different pages. That’s why it takes me so long to make an album. It’s not writing the songs, it’s sorting out.” = Don HenleyJust as it is so important for us to keep our chops up by hammering out rudiments, so too is the skill of writing. Does this mean you must sit and ponder the complexities of rhyming with orange or why violets may be

blue? No way. It is as simple as keeping a journal handy to write in everyday. Nothing in particular to start other than the thoughts in your head, for they are the fodder for the musical masterpieces of many a genius.

“I don’t have to say I’m going to make a song. A song is always there. I just have to open my mouth and a song comes out.” - Peter ToshOne great exercise is to call upon a friend whom you feel you could write with. have them write out ten really random sentences about whatever they want and you do the same, numbering each sentence. Don’t let the other see what each is writing. When you are done, have your friend read their number one, then you read your number

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one, then on to number two etc. The trick is to try and connect the sentences to create lyrics for a tune.

You will find that even though two people are living two distinctly different lives, your streams of consciousness will have some commonalities. While this exercise is really meant to induce creativity, trust and non-lin-ear thinking, along the way you never know what gems lay within the potentiality of the whole randomness of it all.

Being that I am ham-fisted on any melodic instrument, I keep a small voice recorder by me at all times. I may not be able to play piano or guitar well, but my subconscious doesn’t care. I am inundated with melodies all the time. As Lauren Bacall might say, “You know how to whistle, don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow.” Melo-dy is melody, just getting it into the recorder and out of my head is half the battle. hum, sing, whistle…doesn’t matter. I’ll get it in my little recorder and I can find someone who can do something brilliant with it later.

That is my process. But the importance lies in the action. Saying that you would like to play more precise triplets doesn’t get the job done; you have to spend some time and

work that muscle. Songwriting is no differ-ent, many songwriters who say they write strictly by inspiration are also writing years of poetry or journaling on the side. Some-times it is not so important to know what steps to take as much as taking the steps at all. Inspiration comes only to the active participant.

“Music breeds its own inspiration. You can only do it by doing it. You may not feel like it, but you push yourself. It’s a work process. Or just improvise. Something will come.” - Burt BacharachMusic is simply expression and communi-cation. Whether that expression is a voice, drum, guitar or sitar, it is meant to convey the pieces of feelings that live in the conscious-ness of the artist. If the work has been done, the artist becomes vaguely aware of how those pieces fit together and how to mold them into intellectual property.

In the end you don’t have to know how to write a great song, you just have to know when to let the pen hit the page.

Ryan Carver is a member of the Academy of Drums faculty, the Vic Firth education team and PASIC. Click either link below to visit him on the web or to email Ryan your questions and groove requests.

www.carverdrums.com www.myspace.com/ryancarver

Roddy Coordination & Chops: by Ryan CarverThis is something I saw Derek Roddy playing in clinic. he was alter-nating hand and foot at different rates around the kit. I wrote down the different rates with the hi hat keeping time with the foot. Practice each slowly to get the spacing right. When you are comfortable you can try to voice the phrasings around the kit. Keep all notes clean and clear. To get really advanced, try to play some ride variations and play each line with the remaining hand. Also, practice these using your left foot!

“You give and take. That whole bit about ‘Hey, that’s my stuff’, that’s pub-lic domain, man. Once you play it, it’s open sea-son. If anybody plays it, it’s a salute to you.”

Billy Cobham