BDK Interview - Loic Maurin

With their album Hurry Up We're Dreaming M83 have gone from being a music snob's best secret to the band everyone wants to hear at parties. Anthony Gonzalez's infectious rhythms resonate deep in the brain, and Loic Maurin is the man he trusts to bring his beats and rhythms to life. Maurin's style and ability intersperses very well with Gonzalez's programmed percussion, and together they keep festival crowds dancing with their amazing live shows.


Maurin was kind enough to answer some questions while on a break from promoting Hurry up We're Dreaming. This is the english translation from the original questions, which were posed in French (original is posted at the bottom)




1. How old were you when you started to play the drums?


I started banging on barrels of detergent when I was three years old and began lessons at eight. Very early on I discovered a love for tapping on things.


2. What was the musical climate like at that time?


Like lots of kids in the 80s, I was only exposed to what was on mainstream radio.  That was the pinnacle of drum machines like the TR and Simmons Pads... Early on I was confused between acoustic and electronic drums, I thought my first drum kit was going to sound like the radio.


3. Are there any drummers that influenced your style early on?


When I was very young I was really into tracks by Status Quo, Tears For Fears and Phil Collins, but I was totally ignoring the fact that I was hearing Omar Hakim or Manu Katche! I eventually became a fan of rock and metal music, especially Roger Taylor and Nicko McBrain. Also guys like Josh Freese, Abe Cunningham and Matt Chamberlain. I am equally a fan of gospel drummers such as Thomas Pridgen, Aaron Spears and Gerald Hayward.


4. You have a talent for playing well-balanced rhythms that fuse electronic as well as live drums. How did you first become introduced to electronic percussion?


I started when I had to learn electronic parts for M83, I had only played acoustic drums until that point. I introduced a drum pad on our Saturdays=Youth tour. With our music it's especially important to reproduce the electronic components of the album but also have the power of a live kit. It really brings out the life of the show. I switch between electronic and acoustic drums often within the same track.


5. How do you think the role of a drummer has changed since the rise in popularity of electronic drums in all genres of music?


Knowledge of electronics and sample pads are already a requirement I have to say, and it's even better if you add Ableton skills to that! You know, I've always thought that having extra skills will help me to get some gigs, that's why I also play guitar, bass,... but nowadays it's definitely helpful to know how to use computer programs. Just hammering on the drums won't probably be enough to find some work I'm afraid, to me being professional is more about that. And I think it has always been this way. By the way one good drummer who knows how to deal with other stuff will always be chosen by the band or production over one good drummer who can only drum.

6. When the time comes to arrange and record drum parts, how much collaboration is there between yourself and Anthony?


When I arrive at the studio, Anthony has already composed the majority of the drum patterns and some drum fills that are important. My job in the studio is to replay the patterns on the demo and add my own touches of my sound and my drum fills. This is why I love playing M83 songs so much, because the patterns were written by a "non-drummer".

7. Is there any parts to songs that you are more attached to, or that you feel are more representative of your playing?


I like that I get to play a variation of styles. There's the power drumming on Steve McQueen or the dancefloor patterns on Colors, or Mirrors, then a country pattern on Raconte-moi Une Histoire. I love playing in a group that allows me to change it up on so many tracks.


8. M83 have been extremely busy playing the festival circuit since the release of Hurry Up We're Dreaming. What is the best and worst thing about playing all of these festivals?


The best thing is definitely getting to play our music in front of thousands of people at once. We've had the opportunity to play festivals like Coachella, Lollapalooza and Sasquatch and they've been nothing but amazing experiences. The worst part is that often there is no soundcheck and very short changeover, but we've added a group of techs to the team, so now it's their job to stress about it!




It was a pleasure interviewing Loic, and as M83 gears up to hit the festivals yet again this summer (They've already been announced for Coachella 2012) I wish them the best of luck.




_____________________________________________________________________


Now here is the original French transcript.

1. Quel âge aviez-vous quand vous avez commencer joué de la batterie? J''ai commence a taper sur des barils de lessive a l'age de 3 ans, et j'ai commence a prendre des lecons de batterie a 8 ans. J'ai manifeste tres tot une envie de taper sur des choses! 2. Quel était le climat musical dans ta region a cette temps? Comme beaucoup de kids dans les annees 80, j'entendais surtout la musique que diffusaient les radio mainstream. C'etait l'avenement de drum machine comme les TR et les pads Simmons... a l'epoque je faisais la confusion entre batterie acoustique et electronique, je pensais que mon premier drum kit  dans ma chambre sonnerait comme a la radio! 3. Est-ce qu'il y avait des joueurs de batteries qui sont influencer ta style quand tu étais jeune? Tres jeune, j'adorais des tracks de Status Quo, Tears for Fears ou Phil Collins... mais j'ignorais que j'entendais Omar Hakim ou Manu Katche! Apres je suis devenu fan de rock et de metal, et surtout de Nicko McBrain et Roger Taylor. Apres je suis tres influence par Josh Freese, Abe Cunningham et Matt Chamberlain. Je suis egalement fan de tous les batteurs de gospel comme Thomas Pridgen, Aaron Spears et Gerald Heyward.

4. Tu as un talent pour jouer avec une propre balance entre la percussion électronique et puis les batteries, comment est-ce que tu a devenu introduit aux percussion électronique?

J'y suis venu parce qu'il fallait jouer les parties de percussions electronique en live avec M83, je ne faisais que de la batterie acoustique au debut. J'ai ajoute un drum pad pendant le "Saturdays=Youth" tour. Pour notre musique c'est tellement important de pouvoir mixer des sons electroniques presents sur les albums et la puissance d'un kit acoustique qui fait vivre le live.

Je passe souvent de l'un a l'autre dans un meme track.

5. Comment pense tu que la rôle des batteurs est changer depuis que la percussion électronique est devenu plus populaire dans tous les genres de musique?

Connaissance de percussion l'électronique est déjà une obligation que j'ai à dire, et c'est encore mieux si vous ajoutez des compétences à Ableton aussi! Vous savez, j'ai toujours pensé que d'avoir des compétences supplémentaires va m'aider à obtenir quelques concerts, c'est pourquoi je joue aussi guitare, basse, ... mais aujourd'hui, il est certainement utile de savoir comment utiliser les programmes informatiques. Juste martelage sur la batterie ne sera probablement pas suffisant pour trouver un travail, je crains que, pour moi d'être professionnel est plus à ce sujet. Et je pense qu'il a toujours été de cette façon. Si tes chois sont un batteur bon qui sait comment utiliser les electroniques, et un bon batteur qui ne peuvent jouer les tambour, le premier va probablement être choisi par la bande ou de production chaque cas.

6. Quand le temps viens pour arranger/enregister les batteries avec M83, est-ce qu'il y a de la collaberation entre Anthony et vous?

Quand j'arrive au studio, Anthony a deja composes la majorites des drum pattern et certains drum fills importants. Mon job en studio consiste a rejouer les drum parts de ses demos en y ajoutant mon feeling, mon son et mes drum fills. C'est aussi pourquoi j'aime autant jouer les drum parts de M83 parce qu'elles ont ete composees par un "non drummer".

7. Est-ce qu'il y a des certain partis de chansons que vous étiez attachés à ou qui étais parfait pour votre style de jeu particulier?

En fait j'aime jouer toute sorte de style: le power drumming sur "Steeve McQueen", ou les patterns dancefloor de "Couleurs" et "Mirrors", ou le pattern country like de "Raconte moi une histoire"... J'aime jouer dans un groupe qui me permet de jouer differemment sur chaque track.

8. M83 est très occupé depuis la publication de "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming" avec des spectacles a plusieurs festival. Quel est le meilleur et le pire chose avec jouer sur l'etage de ces Festivals?

La meilleure chose est de pouvoir jouer devant des milliers de personnes et de tenter de les amener a notre musique, on a eu la chance de jouer a Coachella, Lollapolooza ou Sasquatch par le passe, que de bonnes experiences.

La pire chose est souvent le manque de soundcheck, avec des changeover tres court, mais maintenant dans l'equipe on a des techs qui stressent a notre place!

Ce fut un plaisir de Loic entrevue, et comme M83 se prépare à frapper les festivals cet été encore une fois (ils ont déjà été annoncées pour Coachella 2012) Je leur souhaite la meilleure des chances.

M83 - Hurry Up We're Dreaming

There aren't a whole lot of live drums on this electronic masterpiece by M83, but god damn is it ever amazing when they do come in. Loic Maurin has such a presence on the drums, it takes things to a completely new level when he's playing. He's the perfect example of a drummer who has adapted with the art form, blending in live drums with samples and electronics and weaving in between the programmed hits. He's half man and half machine. He's a strong, patient player who knows where to place hits that will be heard, but won't over take the grandeur of the piece. There is just no electronic replacement for an extremely solid, textural live drummer, and more and more electronic artists are starting to realize it. Maurin is a big part of why M83 are such an amazing live band, his energy and talent allow the rest of the band to really go off. He's a drummer you can trust to hold everything together.

Stylistically, Maurin fits in with guys like Martin Bulloch of Mogwai, Gerry Fuchs of Maserati and Brad Weber of Caribou, except he takes that powerful, thick kind of playing and puts in on the dance floor. He manages to have a unique and noticeable style on the drums without ever feeling excessive or selfish in his playing. He pushes himself but never beyond the songs means. That's an ability I wish more drummers had (or that I had myself, really).

The percussion arrangements on this album are the perfect blend of programmed drums and live playing, and most of that credit goes to Anthony Gonzalez who has an incredible sense of rhythm. A drum part is only as good as the song that it's for, and there is no lack of prime material on this whole double album. I don't know what it's like to play these songs in front of a festival crowd, but I'll bet it's pure bliss.

I can't embed it, but check out this video of M83 playing on Jimmy Fallon, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Classic BDK

Some videos of my old band recently surfaced, and it sort of led to me spending a night watching some old footage and being nostalgic, just thought I'd share a few golden oldies.








Of the 3 years or so Alan Benjamin was a band I think these were my favorite two songs to play. We never recorded I Can't Wait and I had totally forgotten about it until this video surfaced. It's definitely the only recording of it ever.









These are some early videos of when Sleepless Nights had two drummers, myself and the wonderful Mary Cobham (whom recently put out her own record that is fucking killer, you can hear it here). The video of Allyson Got Robbed is from a show we did on Mary's birthday in Fredericton and is probably still one of my favorite shows of all time.





This is footage from midway through The Establishment's existence (you can download our final album for free HERE) The first video is from a drag show we played at Reflections. Lots of booze, sweat and lipstick. The second is from one of the last shows to happen at Yarmouth's Cotton Mill, the only all ages venue that would let rock shows happen for the whole time I was playing in bands in Yarmouth. It was a great room with a really cool atmosphere, and I've seen so many life changing shows in there it's impossible to count them all.

Well I had a fun time re-hashing old memories and shows. I hope you did to. If not I don't care. It's my blog and I'll do what I want.

BDK Interview - Liam O'Neill

Drum face, it affects all of us.

Liam O'Neill from Suuns was kind enough to do a back and forth email interview over the last couple weeks. He gave me the most thought out, elaborated answers I've gotten from anybody I've ever interviewed, and is probably the best example of the kind of drummer I intended on promoting when I started this blog. His powerful minimalist approach is accentuated by his broad imagination, and seeing him play this past weekend for the Halifax Pop Explosion was as amazing as I had hoped. Here's his interview:

1. Where did you grow up, and what was the musical climate like when you started playing?

I grew up in Kelowna, BC. Arid, beautiful, at the heart of the Okanagan Valley, and chock-a-block full of golf, wine, and blue hairs. Kelowna wasn't much of a buzzing town arts-wise. There was something of a music scene, mostly comprised of high school band teachers, guys in cover bands, and a few pros who gigged for a living. From pretty early on, I could tell that if I really wanted to get somewhere with music this probably wasn't the place to do it. On the plus side though, as a young drummer I would play with some of my teachers and got some gigs with the local orchestra there. I was way in over my head, and that pushed me a bit.  Story of my life, really.

2. Who were some of your favorite local drummers that you saw early on?

I would go and see my drum teacher Lonnie Burma play around town when he did, but he didn't gig a ton. He was really impressive to me - he was into Vinnie Colaiuta and guys like that so you could see how that can make an impression on a young dude like me. I would go and watch some of the older kids, the ones who had gone off to jazz school or whatever, whenever they would come back to town. More than liking their playing, I remember liking how fucking cool they were. I think that really made a big impression on me. In a way, the content of the playing was secondary. These kids were super hip to me, playing what I then believed to be some modern and edgy shit. That's what I wanted to do.

3. How did you get started on playing the drums?

My siblings and I all took piano lessons when we were tots. It was alright, but I found reading music arduous and difficult. I would usually just figure out the songs by watching my sister play them, or I figured them out by ear. So I guess I craved a more intuitive, more visceral instrument. Drums just seemed like the easiest instrument to me. That, and of course they were fucking cool. What else is music but the eternal, abstract quest to impress the opposite sex? I wasn't gonna impress any chicks playing classical gas on an electric piano. I set up some pots and pans in front of the TV and I played along to MuchMusic videos until my mom got sick of never having any strainers or pot lids, and I got a junker Westbury kit for my twelfth birthday. I would get up early to play those drums.

 The quality of this photo is on par with the quality of most Westbury drum kits.

4. How old were you when you started playing in bands?

I guess I started playing in bands at about age 15 or so. By that time, I was a young budding jazzbian. My friends and I would hang in the band room at lunch hour, rehearsing. We were already deep into stuff like Miles Davis' 60's quintet, which in retrospect seems ridiculous and embarrassing to me, but at the time we thought we were so fucking cool. The idea of a bunch of 15 year olds trying to play avant-garde jazz is precocious to the point of silly, but I'm glad we tried it. Since then I've always played what I consider to be ambitious music, with varying degrees of success. We also gigged pretty regularly around town, which was good experience, and one time the girl I dug came to one of our lame gigs at a cafe, watching us right up front. I did not speak to her.   

5. What was some of the first music you feel really started to influence your playing?

There are probably a million things that have influenced me heavily that I'm not even aware of (those are the most important influences I think - they give you character), but the first major musical event I can still remember well was getting Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. I was obsessed with it. It was epic, diverse, emblematic and mysterious. Certainly Jimmy Chamberlain's drumming marked me - it was obvious to me even as a kid that he was what propelled tracks like Jellybelly to insane heights, but I also appreciated him holding down the fort on tracks like Where The Boys Fear To Tread. The only other thing I can remember making an impression on me was having an audio cassette of Star Wars - The Empire Strikes Back, when I was a kid, and I remember that it scared the shit out of me but I was totally fascinated by it. The theme to Peter and the Wolf had a similar effect on me.

6. How did you eventually move to Montreal and become part of Suuns?

Directly after high school I moved to Montreal to study jazz drums at McGill University. It was a good new beginning for me - nobody in Montreal knew how much of a reclusive geek I was, so I started being social and partying a lot. I met a lot of older musicians, and Ben (our singer and main songwriter) was one of them. I thought he was totally fucking cool. We would run into each other around town and joke about starting a rock band, and then one day he called me up and told me he was actually starting a rock band and would I be his drummer. I was like "YA". Max was a guy who I had been playing with in various projects for a few years already at that point, and we asked if he wanted to play keyboards because hey, why not? Joe was in the rehearsal space with Ben the first time I walked in, and in four years we still have not exchanged one single word between us. I assume he's in the band but that's about all I can tell you about him. We really had very little of an idea what we were doing. That early stuff was just totally bonkers, thrashy shit. Ben would show us a song, we'd play it once or twice and that was it. Voilà.    

7. I'm surprised to hear you had a beginning playing Jazz because your playing is so straight and robotic on a lot of the record, at what point did you sort of start to detach from your early jazz tendencies?

I guess I've always been drawn to precise, economic players, even with the jazz guys I listened to. I like drummers who sound like they're composing parts rather than creating a feel, and I've always tried to play like that. Suuns happens to be a great arena in which to exercise that aesthetic. When I was into jazz I always liked Tony Williams more than Elvin Jones, and I really flipped over guys like Ben Perowsky, especially cos he has a very rock n roll sound even when he plays jazz. Actually I think Tony Williams plays on some of that PiL stuff, not to mention Lifetime. Jim Black, too. So that kinda stuff was important transitional material for me when I was 21 or so when i was getting tired of school and getting to a point where playing jazz seemed irrelevant and depressing to me. The idea of being a smart, pattern-based, hooky, rock drummer was starting to appeal to me more and more. I got Interpol's Turn On The Bright Lights and that totally did it. Icy, beautiful, economical and smart. It was the first time I really heard drumming that made me say "I want to play like that".  Then I found out about Stephen Morris (Joy Division) and stuff like that. I was really trying to go in that direction when the band started. I was trying to get away from playing in a linear, stream of consciousness kind of a way (the way a lot of young excited kids play) and get more methodical, really construct my parts.   

8. I'm assuming you've moved on from your set of junker Westburys. What kind of kit do you play on now, and do you have any pieces that you feel really define your sound?    

I picked up a kit of Slingerlands from 1965 last year and I love them. I also have a new Gretsch renown series snare drum that's actually a pretty interesting sounding drum. Really wide sound, like long, even blasts of white noise. It kind of reminds me of Jeremy Gara's (Arcade Fire) snare. But the drums on Zeroes are a total Frankenstein kit. I was just playing whatever I could find. I don't see any part of my setup as being totally essential to my sound per se, but I definitely do have a much stronger idea of how I want to sound in a general sense than I did when we made Zeroes. If anything, the band is getting more electronic, so maybe I should say my MPC is the most important part of my sound. Just kidding. That would be a dumb answer.  

Where we're going, we won't need drums.

9. Going into the recording of Zeroes QC, was there anything specific you hoped to accomplish with your playing?

Yeah totally. I had some really specific goals, some better executed than others. At the time, recording everything separately was intriguing to me. That disjointed kinda stuff (again, Stephen Morris) where all the various percussion elements are mixed and effected differently was bonging my bell. I recorded Arena in that manner, and I think that's some of the stuff I'm more proud of on that record. I wanted to explore the more studio-specific aspects of percussion rather than the straight up performance-on-the-drumset aspects. We cut up and looped a lot of my parts, like on Sweet Nothing. That whole song was built in the studio. I was also trying to get away from that Bonham style sound with a lot of room mics in the mix.  I did most of the drums in a dry room - a lot of the songs are just one overhead, snare mic and bass drum mic  I wanted no room ambience, and for most of the space to come from post- prod reverbs, if there was any space at all. Varying degrees of success with that one.  Songs like Gaze are a little more conventional, with room mics and whatnot. That, and playing well. That was another one of my goals. Varying degrees of success.

10. Are there any songs in particular you feel represent your artistry more than others?

Different songs in different ways. I mentioned Arena earlier and I think that's telling of my meticulousness and attention to detail (I spent a whole day doing that percussion, cutting it up, orchestrating it all - the guys were getting pretty annoyed I think). I also kinda like how Gaze came off.  hat's more the side of me that digs David Lovering (Pixies) and whoever plays in Tom Petty's band. And then you have stuff like Marauder which is a total mess of bullshit. Whether I like it or not, that came from me. I guess "representative of my artistry" and "proud of" are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It's a lifelong process. 

11. If you had to choose between never being able to record again or never being able to play live, which would you choose?

Wow. That's a tough call. I think I'm a much better performer than I am a studio magic-worker, and for that reason I'm tempted to choose to cut out performing when faced with that awful decision, just because I could stand to get so much better at recording, but I could never do that. Performing is too much a part of who I am, it's been too central to my life for too long, too thrilling for me to give up. If I ever quit performing I'd probably have a massive cocaine problem or something. Recording is more the thinking man's side of the musical process, and I, for better or for worse, am partial to the more visceral side of it. 

12. If you could put together your own band using anyone, well known or not, who would be in it?

Probably I'd like to have a duo with my good friend Adam "Herr Bonizar" Kinner.  He and I are very similar personally and musically, and I like the idea of starting a project with someone only because you really like spending time with them, you can do no wrong. It makes the band process-oriented rather than goal-oriented, which is the best/most sustainable way to be. Similarly, I have a very abstract fantasy of touring Europe with my girlfriend Fjola, who likes cool music. We'd probably have a cool project together. Oh yeah and I would wanna be in Fleetwood Mac. Not replace Mick Fleetwood. Just hang out with those cats. That'd be wild. 

13. Have you ever been to Halifax before? What do you hope to do/see while your here?

Yeah, I played HPX with Young Galaxy back when I used to play with them maybe three or four years ago. It was fun. I won't be there for very long, so I won't get to check much stuff out.  Maybe jet an eye along the harbor, get over my jet-lag with a few too many Propellers (I'm writing this while on a plane back from Iceland). Also, this will be Suuns' third shared festival bill with Chad VanGaalen, and this time I want to work up the nerve to walk right up to him and tell him to his face that Van Gaalen 1 has some of the most shreddin' guitar solos of all time.

4. What modern drummers (friends or otherwise) would you like to see get a little more attention?

I'm digging the girls these days. Stephanie Bailey from The Black Angels is totally amazing.  Whoever that girl from Warpaint is, her sound is crazy. This weekend at Iceland Airwaves, I caught a set from Denmark's Thulebasen, whose female drummer was excellent. I ran into Tune-Yards' Merrill Garbus (a fantastic drummer in her own right) after the set and we both agreed that, universally, there's something unique and heavy about the touch of a female drummer. I know you're supposed to be all affirmative action about it and say that there's no inherent difference between a female drummer and a male drummer, but I find that that's just not true. If there was ever an argument for the existence of femininity as a quality unto itself, free of societal influence, it would be the sound of a really amazing female drummer. It's a really hip sound that's been largely untapped until recently, and now you're seeing more and more of them. Just watch, in five years, less even, everyone's gonna want a female drummer.  I know that might sound like a silly generalization, and I hope I don't sound sexist or whatever, but I really believe it's true.   

Suuns - Zeroes QC

It's a couple months before the Halifax Pop Explosion so I began my usual ritual of checking out a bunch of the bands who have been announced to play that I'm not all too familiar with. This has basically devoloped into me just listening to the Suuns record like mad for the last three weeks. Now their show is the one I am most excited for, except for my own (Ahem, Friday the 21st, Tribeca, 8:30pm, cough).

I mean really, how long has it been since I wrote about an actual record/new drummer? Months? This record, and especially Liam O'neil have given me something to be excited to write about, at a time when I felt I had pretty much exhausted myself.

Liam's drumming combines a lot of elements I've talked about before. There's a touch of the very kraut-rock sort of minimalist drumming of groups like Kraftwerk and Can, but there's also this amazing underlying intensity that only escapes in short bursts, like Liam is holding and wrestling an explosion in a jar -- letting it out to ease the tension only briefly. Even at his most minimal his playing maintains it's own life. It's methodical and well structured, but it still remains stylized. He also can change between laying low in the background and being the life of the party with ease, and songs like Sweet Nothing and PVC are two songs that I think demonstrate both sides of Liam's playing perfectly. Both songs have straight, well positioned playing that has brief moments of wonderful abandon that really takes their music into another level.

Songs like Marauder and Armed For Peace are much grittier and livelier, but are still rooted in Liam's spot on precision. Even when he's traveling around the kit a little he never strays from the foundation, and his kick drum especially keeps things in focus while the rest of him explores. The strong approach to the kick drum gives some of the songs a slight hip hop feel, albeit a dark, twisted one.

I can't wait to hear these songs performed live, and if you're in Halifax for the Pop Explosion you would be doing yourself a favor to check out Suuns as well. We can hang out. I'll be the guy with the beard, it shouldn't be too hard to spot me.

Drumming. IT'S EXTREEEEEME.

Drumming for sport makes about as much sense to me as bowling for art does. Some things should just not exist, and extreme sport drumming competitions are right up there with non-alcoholic beer and Jersey Shore for me. Let me say this once and for all -- art, and music especially, is not a competition. Music is the conception and execution of ideas, a creative endeavor subjective to the audience. To try and quantize it and turn it into some sort of feat of strength and endurance goes against the main reason lots of people started to play music in the first place, and I find that insulting.

Now, I have no problem with a friendly group of drummers getting together and playfully trying to see who can outplay the other. I would never be involved, but I understand that it's going to happen. But when you start holding yearly competitions and people spend months and even years training for these things, you do nothing to advance the art form. I would even argue that on top of being just plain stupid, these kinds of competitions are detrimental to the art of drums as a whole, and insulting to anyone who takes themselves remotely serious as a musician.

Think about it, if you're spending all your practice time trying to play 1000 single strokes per minute, you're neglecting every other part of the drums to perform something that isn't even applicable in most areas of drumming, and for what? Bragging rights over a bunch of other bedroom drum geeks? If your only goal as a drummer is to be the fastest drummer there is, why not apply that kind of training and focus on something that will actually be relevant to more than just a small niche group of people? So many times I hear people talk about someone as a great drummer, when all they can do is play really fast. That's not great drumming. Anyone with a practice pad and loads of time on their hands can achieve that. Drumming is about expression, and the only thing you're expressing to me by focusing solely on speed is that you're a misguided douche-bag. Just spend ten minutes browsing the poorly designed World's Fastest Drummer website (complete with a super annoying pop up that shows up EVERY TIME YOU NAVIGATE TO ANOTHER PAGE) and I think you'll get my point. These people didn't get into drums for the love of music or art, they got into it because they feel the need to be the best at something, and they sucked at regular sports so they invented their own. I have a problem with ego-stroking endeavors in general, and this is just a big circle-jerk for drum nerds.

If you've read my interview with Jerry Granelli, you might remember him talking about his mentor, drum legend Joe Morello. Morello, in his day, was probably the most technically enabled drummer alive. He had speed, but he also had creativity and intuition, and it made him the most sought after jazz drummer for years. When I asked Jerry what the most important thing Joe taught him was, he knew instantly. Morello would always tell him this -- "The only reason to have technique is to serve the music." It wasn't about bravado or one-upmanship, it was about having the proper skills available to you so that when the time came you could contribute to the musical idea properly. We're all slaves to the ideas and that's the point.

Now, I understand that in Joe Morello's time, things like drum machines and Death Metal didn't exist, but the idea is still the same. Take, for example, someone like Florent Mounier from Cryptopsy. He is extremely technically skilled and is one of the fastest drummers in metal today, but the music demands it. That's fine. Listening to his playing you still get a sense of his musical identity, he is an extremely talented and important drummer. He's an example of someone who along with learning the speed, still maintains an artistic sense and vision with his music, which is why so many drummers respect him. With Extreme Metal there is a very thin line between serving the music and serving the musicians, and it's pretty obvious when you listen to certain bands which ones belong in which category.

That's why I have such and issue with sport drumming. It breeds the kind of drummer that is only in it to serve himself and show off his abilities, and that is when art begins to lose it's credibility. It went from being a curiosity among drummers into a league of people who put all of their time and energy into training and preparing and attempting to outplay each other, and it seems to be most popular in the realm of drummers. You never hear of speed-piano competitions, or endurance harmonica-ing. For some reasons drumming attracts a certain crew of people that feel the need to always be out-doing each other, and those kinds of drummers are the worst. If we start encouraging drummers to simply focus on speed and technical aspects without giving them the proper artistic foundation, then we're just going to end up with a bunch of beef-headed braggarts walking around backstage with their chests puffed out trying to challenge everyone, and they're going to drink all of my band beers.

So the next time you encounter a drummer that's talking about how amazing someone is because they can play really fast, do me a favor, look them in the eye and say "So what?"

Impress me with your imagination, it's what separates us from the monkeys.

You Know, It's Sad But True.

"I never thought I'd see the day where Metallica would come to town and I wouldn't give a shit."

This is what my friend Josh Kogon said as we stood outside Gus' Pub last Thursday as Metallica was winding down their show on Citadel Hill just blocks away. I had been trying to find a way to sum up how I felt about the whole thing, and his statement hit the nail on the head. How could a band so influential to me as a musician in the early years of my development, a band I listened to, played along to and defended constantly growing up, how could they come to town and instead of going I chose to pay 7 dollars to see VKNGS play at Gus' Pub? The answer itself is multi-faceted, but before I get into it I can still sum it up with one word.

Lars.

I have had more conversations about Lars Ulrich than any other drummer I can think of, and given the heated discussions about the Metallica performance on a local message board, I can see I'm not alone. For the last little while (especially since the Napster debacle, St Anger in general and the documentary Some Kind Of Monster) Metallica fans, while staying true to their band, have turned on their opinionated Danish drummer. There are many claims that he can't pull off the old material as well, with rumors of backing tracks and even using guitars/bass triggers to mask his incompetence (which for the record I would just like to say is ridiculous and highly improbable).

Just to get a hint of what I mean, here is the album version of Dyers Eve.

And here is a recent video of them playing this song live. Notice that A) He doesn't do the double kicks through the verses. and B) Lots of his rolls are flappy and sloppy.

Now, every band who has lasted for as long as Metallica will have a slew of fans pining for "the good old days" but rarely is the disdain focused on only one member as it is with Lars. People complain about him not being able to pull off the iconic double kicks in One, or the speed in Battery and they complain about poor timing and badly executed drum fills. People love to pick him apart, especially now. They want their icon back, the great drummer who could pound through those riffs in nothing but a pair of spandex shorts. The great drummer who has probably influenced as many players in his generation as Keith Moon and John Bonham did in theirs. But here is where my opinion differs.

I don't think Lars Ulrich was ever really a great drummer. Not really anyway.

Before I get into it, there are some things you should know.

I loved Metallica when I was younger, and you know what? I still do. I even liked their post-Sandman records up until St Anger. Hell, Load was the first Metallica record I owned and I played the shit out of it. Sure, it wasn't really metal, but who gives a fuck, it was still a good rock record. Bands evolve, and they could have done a lot worse.

Now, as far as Lars goes, I have probably played along to at least 75% of everything Metallica put out until 1999. I spent hours in the basement with a dusty old ghetto blaster just trying to keep up and I learned a hell of a lot from those albums. Just writing any of this stuff feels sacrilegious considering how important that music was to me. I'm sure everyone who grew up with me and is reading this thinks I'm a huge hypocrite, but whatever, people change and learn.

Now this revelation that Lars wasn't the god everyone made him into didn't come overnight, things started to sort of change my opinion a little at a time. I think the first inclination I had that maybe he wasn't so great was when I was on one of my first tours to Ontario, and someone in the band had downloaded a version of Ride The Lightning that was ripped from a 45rpm vinyl, but was slowed down to 33rpm. This gave songs like Fight Fire With Fire and For Whom The Bell Tolls an awesome, sludgy feel and it was like listening to a whole other doom metal album. The guitars sounded thick and muddy, the bass was huge, but the drums? Well the drums sort of ruined everything.

It was very apparent when the drums came in that while the guitars and bass were spot on, the timing on the drums was off pretty much all the time. Rolls were sloppy, double kicks were skipping and swinging and the whole thing felt very detached and sloppy. You might think that's unfair, to slow down a record and then criticize it, but I guarantee you if you slow down a Slayer record Dave Lombardo's drumming will sound just as tight as it does sped up. When you think of all the great metal drummers that play tighter, faster music than Metallica, it's pretty disappointing that Lars couldn't do then what thousands of drummers that he influenced can do now. But again, this was just my first inclination, my second was when I found out how Metallica makes records.

When bands record an album, the standard procedure is to start with the drums. For most forms of rock and metal, this is the blueprint. Drums are the foundation of a band, so recording them first and getting them right is usually the first step. then the bass guitar, then guitars, then vocals, yadda yadda yadda. But that's not how Metallica makes records.

Metallica record the guitars first. Then the bass. Then the drums. Now, taking different approaches to recording is not necessarily a bad thing, but this seems like it would be a lot more work for no reason. Unless of course, you have a drummer with poor timing, then it makes total sense.

You see, the thing for me that really tips the scale in favour of Lars being a not-so-great drummer, is how he writes drum parts, or rather, how he doesn't write them at all. Lars' style is something I've invented a term for, he drums-by-numbers. What that means is, he simply plays the most obvious and easiest accompaniment to the guitars. When the guitars go chugga-chugga-chugga-womp, he goes thudda-thudda-thudda-pow and everything is layed out for him nice and neat. I mean hell, why think of a cool part when you can sell a million records by putting absolutely no thought into being stylish or creative?

Now you might be wondering how I can attack the drumming of someone I learned so much from, but here's the thing. The way Lars plays drums lends itself perfectly to someone just learning the basics because essentially, that's all Lars does. He plays the most obvious, basic thing, thus making his albums great learning tools. It's a great foundation for further development, except Lars himself has never developed, and with age his endurance and speed has naturally deteriorated, leaving his absence of creativity and talent much more noticeable. Now, knowing this, it makes much more sense to record albums the way Metallica does, because with the guitar part locked in tight he can figure out what to do instead of the guitars playing off of the drums, which I'm sure would just be a disaster.

Normally, I wouldn't care about this sort of thing. Hell, Phil Rudd has made a career out of this exact thing, and I love that about him. But Phil Rudd isn't getting top honours in best drummer polls, and he's not on the covers of the drum magazines. For some reason, Lars has been able to fool hordes of drummers into thinking he's this amazing virtuoso, and his inflated ego and attitude towards everything just drive me crazy enough that I felt like someone had to finally say it. There's no shame in being a mediocre part of an otherwise amazing, talented and iconic band, but don't walk around as if you're the Zeus of an instrument you've hardly mastered.

I firmly believe that Metallica could have rounded up any drummer (and really, they kind of did) and been just as successful. Lars should realize his place in that band isn't to wow everyone into thinking he's incredible, his place is to keep a solid foundation so the other guys can really show off.

You might not agree with me but I can guarantee you that if you had a choice between getting Lars in your band or any of the top one thousand drummers who cite him as an influence, you'd be better off with his pupils, and I find that extremely sad.

So maybe I didn't go to the show because I didn't want to spent $120 to see one band I liked. Maybe I didn't go because I didn't feel like shoving my way around a crowd of meatheads and spend seven dollars a beer in a crowded beer tent, or maybe I didn't go because I didn't want to be disappointed by a group that meant so much to me as kid. But I hope that the people that did go had as good a time as I imagine the 15 year old me would have had, those many years ago. Nothing I say should change that.