The Downbeat - Adam “Nolly” Getgood: GGD, Drum Sampling & Music Production

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

My guest on the podcast this week is Adam ‘Nolly’ Getgood. Acclaimed guitarist and producer whose credits include Animals as Leaders, Periphery and Sleep Token. Nolly is also the co-founder of GGD - a hugely successful plugin company that went from being two friends with a mutual love of capturing drum tones to a household name in the world of music production. We talk in depth about the origin and ethos of GGD, his career as musician and producer, and of course the development of MY new plugin on their platform: One Kit Wonder: The Downbeat. He’s a very nice and successful man

Hey guys, welcome back to the Downbeat Podcast. My guest this week is Adam Nolly Get Good. Now, Nolly has many strings to his bow. He is a guitarist. He is a bassist. He is a producer. He owns two plugin companies. He does a multitude of things. The reason for this chat is that me and Nolly have a new plug-in out. It's called One Kit Wonder the Downbeat and it is out now at ggd.com. I caught up with knowledge to discuss how difficult it was to make this plug-in as well as his production credits with bands like Sleep Token, Animals as Leaders and Periphery, who he also played bass in. He's an immensely talented man.

He has a dedication more than anyone I know for the sonic qualities of music, so it was great to root around in his brain. Before we get started, I want to let you know we have a Patreon. Patreon.com 4 slash the Downbeat. On it, you can get early access to episodes. You can get ad-free episodes. You can get anything I do early. There's discount codes on merch, there's early access to merch.

Everything I do is funded by the Patreon. It pays for Madison, the producer. It pays for Simon the editor. It pays for this room. It pays for these cameras. If you like the podcast, please consider signing up. patreon.com forward slash the downbeat. If you don't want to support the Patreon,

maybe you have a vendetta against Simon or Madison or Sony or cameras or anything like that, maybe even me. But you need to go outside looking very, relatively cool. Let me tell you www. the downbeat we got merch. We got everything from the sock to the hat. Everything in between except boxes pending. Pending. Pending.

I'll do boxes. We got high quality streetware with a little metal edge, a little bit of goth in there, whatever it is. It's all made designed by me. I don't physically make it. Some other people make it, ethically. But I design it and it is, I'm

telling you it's the best quality merch you can possibly get at the price point, you're going to look cool. www. The downbeat, e.80, so it's past downbeat. Please check it out. As ever, this episode of the podcast has brought you by the lovely people at Neural DSP. Now let's set the scene.

You have your unbelievable drum tones ready and you're a guitarist and now you need some guitar tones. Let me tell you, you're listening to a podcast, hopefully, with Nolly. Nolly has his own plugin at Neural DSP, much like many other artists like Tim Henson, Tosin Abasi, Misha Mansour, all your favourite guitarists and producers are using Neural DSP plugins to get their unbelievable tone.

All you've got to do is plug your rubbish little guitar. I think it might have to be slightly good. All you have to do is load up one of Neural DSPs plug-ins and you can get an unbelievable guitar or bass tone in seconds. Listeners of the Downbeat Podcasts can get a massive 30% off any NeuralDSP plugin by going to NeuralDSP.com and using the code, Downbeat, check it out. It's Adam, aka Nolly Get Good on the Downbeat podcast.

Hi. Are we rolling? I mean, we are, but I don't know when it's going to start. Yep. Here's a... Now, Nolly, welcome. Thank you. Welcome to the Downbeat.

Here's the thing. We were talking a minute ago. Here's the thing about Nashville that I kind of hate. Everything, barbers, coffee shops, restaurants. A lot of them look the part. And then the quality. he isn't there. I don't know if it's uniquely Nashville or if it's a USA thing.

A fake it till you make it thing. Style over substance. Yeah. Like the opposite of that cafe in Reading that you like. Workhouse coffee. Mm-hmm. Substance over style. I don't even know if it's still going.

I think they closed the location. Oh, dear. I don't know. I'm going to have to boost you up because you're very softly spoken. Well, I could also talk a bit louder. You got that David Gunn voice. David Gunn, who's that? King 810.

Oh, no. You got that one. You guys whispering. Yeah, you were whispering there. Nolly's already had, speaking of coffee, Nolly's already had one can of Monster Java mean bean.

And I never have anything like this. And you were debating a second. I was thirsty, man. It's milk. Are you still debating a second? I'm enjoying this deep well water. It still counts as unleashing the beast. Nolly, what are you doing in Nashville?

I'm here to see you, man. It came all the way specifically to see me. It reminds me of those days, heady 12 years ago where I'd nip down the M4 down to your parents' house. 12 years ago? Probably. Yeah.

20, I think 13. Oh, yeah, easy. Yeah, you'd come down. You'd have a new piece of drum gear. I would. And you'd just be like, do you want to record it? And I'd be like, yeah, come down. I needed a drummer.

And you would share your treats and also your secrets with me. I mean, that was like, That was when I was in the laboratory designing, you know, like kind of, yeah, just experimenting with drum stuff. And it was fun. I mean, it was fun to come and hang with someone who had the ability to play drums at home, record drums at home. Because you were recording not just yourself, but other stuff.

I did like four records, I think. Didn't you do drums for a Xerath record? I did, yeah. I engineered the drums for three. In that, yeah. Do you know the story about that? No. Who's the kind of mixed that?

Is it J. Jacob Pound. Jacob Hansen, yeah. So we record this whole thing. If anyone doesn't know the band, Xerath, they were like my favorite band from the UK. They're on my, Xerath 3 was on my Spotify rap this year.

Really? Not just because I engineered the drums, but just because unreal album. I'm just keeping the numbers out. Just, I've got no points on it, but just keeping them up. Just unreal bands, like, yeah. Do you know what they do now?

What Mike and... Riot games, yeah. I was speaking to the guy from Riot the other day about something, hopefully that I get to do. Nice. Just me leaking something that hasn't even been offered to me yet. They're an D.A pretty hard.

There was no NDA. There was no NDA. But like, and you know, if there is an NDA, I will. Of course I'll be okay with it. Anyway, I was speaking to the guy from Riot and he was saying, it was basically, it wasn't, I'm not doing anything. He was saying about the podcast.

Oh, okay. Could I come on sometime I'm going to be in Nashville? Yeah, yeah. I wasn't here, but I was asking him what he was doing in Nashville when he was recording with Mike Pittman from Zerath, who also, I went to college with Mike. Did you? Yeah.

I didn't know that. ACM together, all three of us. No way. But when I did that record with them, I think the drums on that record sound incredible for, you know, you've been to that room. It's like this size, if that. Well, you've spent more time in it than I have,

but I would have said it's significantly small. I mean, I think the drum room was the same size as this, but the ceiling was six foot maybe. Yeah, yeah, it was. So we got a great drum sound. I was so pleased with, like, the edit, because I did the edit on the drums as well. went to Jacob Hanson for mixing,

comes back, I get an email from him, and he's like, enraged about track 10 or whatever it is, and he's like, it's all out of phase, everything's out of phase. And I was like, bro, this is crazy, like,

I'm pretty sure I did my best edit job ever. I pull up the stems, everything's fine. The band, we're cool now, but the band at the time, we're just like, yeah, this is unacceptable, this shit.

We're back and forward for, I reckon, a week. of like, what could this be? I'm like, here's a screenshot of my stems, show me yours and his are all out of phase. It ends up. Yeah, he's just crazy. The band had recorded a live orchestra for that song

without the track, and they recorded it one BPM too fast. So they time stretched 16 channels of drums in like Q bass, as in select all the time stretch. And it, like, ruined the whole fucking thing. And they were blaming you. Everyone blamed me, but I won. And there's no hard feelings.

because I fucking love those boys. No. So I worked with Mike because I did the Pentacle record. You did the Pentacle record. Well, the second one. And Jacob did the first. Shout out League of Legends.

Yeah. She's a League of Legends nerd. Oh, wow. You did the whole thing. The second one, yeah. Well, so when you say did, it was lockdown. Yeah. Mike tracked in Germany where he was at the time.

I didn't know where he's now. Yeah. I think he might be still in Germany. The plan had been that I'd go. But that was COVID time. And so that didn't happen. And then I actually played guitar and bass. on some of the songs.

Did you? And mixed it, yeah, which was, it's really nice working with a video game situation because no one has like their artistic ego in place. It's like, it's just, it's kind of, I'm not trying to say it's just a job and functional, but like at the same time, no one is trying to express themselves and their art through the music. So on the one hand, there's very little ego involved, but on the other hand, there are a lot of people involved. Yeah.

And Mike was my main point of contact. And, I mean, just he and I spent so many hours on Zoom and sending long emails, just like minute fixes. But it was cool. I mean, and he's, he wrote a lot of it. Yeah. And, you know, it's like, I was mixing this guy who's like one of the best violinists on the planet right now, recording with his strativarius violin and stuff.

And I was like, wow, this is a different league than, you know. just mixed that you didn't engineer that no i just mixed that yeah lot they've got people everywhere that's kind of how these things yeah i think because they was like yeah i mean national recording the drums for something from some fighting game or something i don't know they're recording something sorry if that's a leak give me some work and make me sign an india and i'll shut the fuck up i didn't even know that about you you got so many strings to your bow well i mean i guess i've done i forget records i've done for sure until something reminds me when you put your job descriptions out really and forgive me if I'm missing any guitarist bassist producer mixer engineer

that's like a owner of a plugging company and signature products that include but are not limited to a signature bass a dark glass pedal and a neural plug-in suite and guitar pickups guitar pickups as well two sets two sets with who with bare knuckle and a designer guitar as well but that's not a signature. That's like a designed weird thing. What's the guitar? Manson guitars. Didn't know that one.

Matt Bellamy from Muse. Plays your guitar? Well, no. He has played Manson forever. Okay, yeah. And I designed a guitar with him. He did actually have one made for himself that he sometimes uses. But I don't think that's because of me.

You have so many strings to your both. It's a lot when you put it out like that. But it's everything just like, I don't know, you just kind of move from one thing to the next. That's what I was going to say. How do you manage that? How do you prevent burnout? You know, I was talking about this recently, and I think it's just because I cycle through things.

Like, it's not, none of those things is like the one thing that I do. I do get a little bit burned out on it. But then I kind of need to focus on something else that I've been ignoring for a while. So, you know, it's a really lucky situation to be in, to be able to do that. So, will you put all your eggs in one basket for a while and slow down on the other stuff? So, like, GGD, which I'm sure we're going to talk about. We are, definitely. that has to be my number one priority.

Not only am I found that company and have a salary from that company, but also there's so many people now involved in that, and I'm a key part of the pipeline of all products. So like, you know, I get time off now and then, but ultimately that's the thing I have to be most responsive to. What's GGD like day to day then? It's so variable. And, you know, it's only now that I'm starting to actually see,

like really well. value can come from and it can it can look so small time like just a dude on a laptop making some comments about like referring to myself you know very unprofessional seeming me on the couch making some comments on slack to a designer about something could slack like really just a kind of chat app which you can separate things out into threads that companies use for like intra company communication okay it's like a I think their their slogan is where work happens nice one of those companies. slogan, yeah.

So just, you know, it's interesting sometimes. Sometimes things take a lot of months of hard patient work to generate something that's really tangible. And other times it's like really tiny little bits of input here and there. So, you know, with GGD, I'm, you know, I'm attentive on Slack for questions. I guess you'd say my job role. Yeah, what's your role other than direct? I would define it as head of sound.

Head of sound. Head of sound. He almost sounds as ominous as where work happens. Oh, he's the head of sound. Yeah, I mean, I guess what I'm trying to say is like anything to do with the sound of the products. Yeah. That's like ultimately my responsibility. But you were quite hands on with it because we just recorded a plug-in.

And you were there. And I stayed at your house and we did the whole thing. Yeah. You would think you would delegate that being the owner. But I wouldn't want to. You know what I mean? Like the whole thing's built off really in the first instance, Matt Halpin and I going into a studio and trying our hand at recording drums. And like the thing which I bring to the company is that hands on like physically turning the tuning keys.

The nolly tone. It's the nolly tone. Of course it is. The nolly tone. Sure. I mean, I guess it's just me being there making decisions and reacting to sounds in real time. And like we have done some things which have been recorded by other people. sometimes I've been there

and a couple of instances in lockdown I wasn't so it's not that it could never happen did they come out worse in your opinion? No, no. Don't tell me the product I mean, no so I would say those products also were not things that were entirely in my wheelhouse

so it's not like a point of comparison exactly. Would you consider yourself the drum guy? In Gigi? Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Because you do make smash and grab as another place. There's another plug-in? There's a few plug-ins.

Yeah, we do some cab things. We've got a bass plug-in. I sample bass, which really sucked. Took a very long time to do. Sample bass as if it's like a drum plugin, as in every single note. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. Bam. I mean, but at least you don't have to be silent when you do it.

You do have to be still. Yeah. But it's de-eyed. So I'd just be like watching. Pick off or something. Just pick. Just the whole, the whole fret.

What did they call that scale? The whole. chromatic scale. The whole thing. Yeah. I mean, so I think, to be honest,

I did, I did make some concessions where it's like, the string just doesn't sound good, like the biggest one played right at the top. So I think it kind of was like,

as the strings got thicker, I wouldn't sample quite as many notes on. Oh, yeah, I forget how a guitar works. Some of the notes are the same. They are, yeah. I don't know anything about guitars. Before we get into our delightful plug-in,

give me a little background on GGD. Yeah. Because you did the podcast before, It was audio only. I can't really remember when it was. I feel like it was a long time ago. It's got to be four years ago or something. Fucking more than that.

If it was audio only, I think maybe it was... Madison, can you pull up, please? Adam Nolly Get Good, the downbeat. You think it was 2020 then? Maybe I feel like it might have been pandemic, maybe even pre-pandemic. Really? Were you in Glasgow pre-pandemic?

No. You were definitely up in Scotland. Was I? Okay. Maybe it's 2021. Maybe you're exactly right. March 2021. Happy birthday to me.

The Pisces episode. Okay, so four years. I mean, yeah. But a lot of people don't listen to the audio ones. Although I was doing the top 10 countdown the other day, I believe on audio, you're, if not in the top 10, you're like just slightly out of it.

Nice. Number 12. Not bad. I mean considering Kubla Khan's Spirit Box, not loose, bring me in her eyes, the knock loose again, architects, Kubla Khan again, architects, slip-knot, under oath, architects again, architects again, knock-loose again,

spirit box again, Nolly. So I'm, okay, I'm not a band. You're not a band. You're the number one of the not-banned. You're a number one, just a guy. Episode of the band. And it wasn't just some guy, yeah. You are more than just some guy.

When did GDD start and how did you start? It started like 10 years ago. 10 years ago. I can't believe that. Because that, well, I think about it, that means that like people that are in their late teens, early 20s, now maybe using our products. Like, we would have just been part of the furniture of like production maybe.

For them. And that just, if I think about the companies that I think that way about, you know, which are. Well, I mean, I'd say something like, I'm not comparing the size of the company because they're a lot bigger, but companies like Toon Track or like, you know, Stephen Slate. Yeah. Yeah. When we were coming up, it was pretty much those too.

Yeah. If you wanted drum sounds. Exactly. So it's kind of weird that I guess it's probably similar to you when you think about If I think about periphery or any bands that you've been in too Just like how long it's been around And how much of a younger person's life

I was thinking it's the other day actually Yeah Because we just split up and it's been 10 years And it's like some people who are 21 Their entire adult listening life We've been a part of Yeah

It's weird isn't it getting old I can't Kind of like it in ways. Like I feel a weird sense of respect from younger people, not in like some old man yells at Cloud, you should respect me way. Whereas people are like more, I really appreciate what you've done and what you've been doing.

And I'm like, I'm just kind of doing it. And then when I think about it, it's like, no, I've been doing it for your entire life pretty much. So you sort of become the old heads of the genre. Yeah. Yeah, I guess you kind of settled into that. It was funny. So do you know Connor Kaminsky?

He's a really, really talented guitarist. You might have seen him on Instagram. I think does he do GGD play throughs? Yeah, he's done. Yeah, yeah. So he wrote something with me. Yes. Love this.

I think I followed him after that. Okay. The Garsket song, yeah. See, well, he's, he's awesome. He's kind of become a friend. He came and hung out with his fiance, fiance, I think. And we went out to dinner with my mom.

Wow. Wow. And I bring this up. Yeah. Well, just because I was just aware, because he's a bit younger. He's maybe 10 years younger than I am. And then, like, my mom remembers, like, we were talking about black machine guitars. And she's like, oh, yeah, Doug, he was such a nice guy.

I sat next to him when we saw Dream Theater and stuff like that. It's just like, you start to realize, like, how small time it felt at the time. But, like, now how kind of incredulous that might seem, you know. Okay, so weirdly to also parallel. all that so my mom will repeatedly mention how nice dev in townsend was when you guys went to pick up my old kit for i didn't go but yeah yeah yeah a noop used one of my old tamers that was in my parents house and he was driving down to mono valley stopped off at my parents house devon townsend needed to use the toilet so my mom lets him in uses a toilet they have a little chat my mom with devon townsend

he leaves they phone me to say oh yeah it went really well kevin came in and used the toilet and i was like kevin and it was like yeah kevin the bald lad and i was like i think you mean devon townsend mom and she's oh yeah so like devon townsend is like really fresh in my mum's head is just like in her mind like a contemporary of mine and it's like mom that's fucking devon tally i know yeah so i mean he came and mixed devon came and mixed empath with me in in bath and at the time I was using the loft of my parents' house, of my mix room. And my mum was out of town, my dad was in,

and like for this, like, 10 days or whatever it was. So it was just like Devin and I and my dad, like, in this house. And my dad actually passed away really recently. Oh, I'm sorry, man. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it sucks.

But his voice is captured in the empath record. there's a song called Sprite has Morgan Agrin playing on it and Devin wanted there to be like a kind of kindly voice reading like a kind of you know an allegory like a kind of little nursery tale kind of thing yeah he was trying to think who should do it and he was like do you think your dad would be up for doing it because we're like having these kind of nice conversations around so somewhere I have a photo of like the two of them like because Devin just kind of I don't think he planned what the words were going to be but yeah once my dad said yes he kind of he kind of he kind of and like just scribbled some stuff down. And like somewhere there's the picture of the two of them, like dad in front of a microphone, Devin showing him the words. And yeah, if you listen to the song Sprite off Empath, that's my dad.

Yeah, it's very, especially now, it's so lovely to have his voice recorded, like in super high quality and stuff. Was he aware of the gravity of, like, the record he was on? Well, I don't know. I think so. It's a big record. It is a big record, yeah.

Do you reckon you can find me that photo? Would you be okay with the photo being, like, on the podcast. Maybe, yeah. I mean, it's a rubbish photo. If I remember, I don't have one of my mom and Devon, so I can't do that. But I feel it's, I'll try and find it. Yeah. This is, we're so far away from your question, but you know what I love is with GGD, with all of these things. I love how small time it feels when you're actually doing the thing. Yeah. I don't know, there's something that I just find so nice about like, it's just some guys hanging around doing something. And in many ways I guess with what I do I don't like take the temperature of the popularity of stuff in the

same way that you do if you're doing a tour and in front of yeah a couple of thousand people or whatever it's just me doing my life doing the thing you want to be doing because it needs to exist for you yeah to have it and it feels really small time like I'm just in the spare room at my house and my daughter and wife are in the house and I'm going downstairs and making a coffee and then coming back up and mixing something and then it's like kind of big It's so big. Have you got any like, any idea on how many records have used to drums? Oh, I don't know.

I keep finding out it's being used on stuff. And like, I found out recently a lot of metalcore albums these days are just programmed drums. Like 50%. Yeah, a huge amount of. But no one really leaks what they're using, which is annoying. Can you hear it when you hear a record? Can you be like, that's my plug-in? Symbols usually give it away.

Because a lot of the time in these productions you're talking about, they just want, like, a good sounding symbol set. Yeah. And then they might blend in other samples. But there are certain sounds, like the original modern and massive pack. Yeah. That was kind of like our breakthrough. That was 10 years ago.

Well, that was eight years. So we started with the Matt Halper Signature Library. Oh, okay. Yeah. Because you asked me how the whole thing started and I told you about my dad meeting Devon. It's fine. There's a podcast.

This is what we do. This is what we do. Yeah. So Matt and I had the opportunity to work with a company. they approached us asking if we wanted to do a sample library. And then the process of negotiating, not even like hard negotiating, just communicating was taking ages.

And then it got to a point where the finances just didn't seem like they were going to work out. Maybe because Matt and I were going to 50-50 as well. It was like, well, this doesn't seem like a massive payday. Should we just try and do it ourselves? Were they essentially, they were going to get you to do the work

and they were going to provide the software? Yeah, it was an established drum company, like company that's still around. And it seemed like a good opportunity. But yeah, as we got into it, it seemed like it was going to take ages to come out, which now I really understand being on the side. Like these things too take ages to put together. We recorded this a year ago. Yeah, and that's relatively quick, yeah.

What was it August? No, it was, it was, maybe it was August, I can find this out. But you know what I was thinking was funny the other day? I was thinking when I, I did that was like maybe to the day or like a couple of weeks after I was like I might move to America and I remember I was talking to you in the car. And I was just like, yeah, I might move to America. Oh man, I remember that so clearly.

And I remember feeling like from what you were telling me, circumstances were kind of, you were like the cork in a bottle about to be popped out. And you were just like so ready. I'm going to blow your fucking mind and my own considering I moved to America with a visa with freighting all my gear. I remember it seemed very, very short. On the 26th of November, I did that. Yeah.

13th of October. Yeah. Okay. That's what I mean. Champagne bottle was just ready to go. On the 13th of October, I was like, I might move to America. Yeah. And whatever that is, 34 days later, I did it.

I am mentally unwell. But wasn't that, was that because you had, I'm not trying to diminish it, but was it because touring was basically forcing you, that was like the time you could do it, otherwise it was going to be way later kind of thing. Didn't you move and then go straight on the road? I went straight on the downbeat tour. My gear got freighted on the 26th.

Which did awesomely, didn't it? Yeah. Because we were talking about that. And you were like, I guess I'm just going to talk. Talk. Yeah, it was kind of weird. And it went great. But in retrospect, talking about burnout,

I went from a full year of touring straight into that plug-in with you, straight to a podcast tour and then moved and then straight back on tour with Australia so I was so burnt out do you remember when we did the samples that you were really unwell

I do kind of had like an infection or like a throat infection or something and then weirdly enough today my throat is scratching I'm like maybe I was just allergic to nollie the thought of me maybe I was just allergic to nolly I was so sick and it was so funny I was remembering when we were doing the sampling

just thinking Oh my God, I'm going to cough. I'm going to cough during like a symbol as well. Anyway, we need to finish answering my question before we go. We don't have to. I know, we'll do it. You do the plug-in. You do the first one.

Well, so, I mean, we decided to just give it a go. Yep. And we checked in to a studio in Baltimore that had been recommended. We'd never been there before. And Baltimore's where Matt lives. Yeah, that kind of made sense. The wire. Silence to the Lambs.

Matt Halper. The trilogy. That's it. And we'd like sampled shells just for fun when doing a record, but we'd never done like a full sample set of symbols. Yeah. So we didn't really know what we were doing. But we sampled for like three or four days or something and captured loads of stuff that,

I think a lot of we used like weird tinkles on the symbols and swells and stuff. And then we had it compiled into a contact library via DES. Do you know DES, does don't you? I know DESS through GGD, but do you? Oh, no, I didn't you, Des from before, right? Des, I know, Des from playing with the safety fire. Oh, of course, right. I know.

Play atrophy? Yeah, we were, like, on some all-dayers at some point, and then also the safety fire stayed at someone's house after a drum, the London drum show, like, I want to say 2016 or something. And me, and I won't say his name because he's Mr. Professional at the moment, but me and him got absolutely fucked up on code. at the drum show, like trying to get all these famous drummers to do blow with us. Quite a lot of them did.

And then we like ended up staying at this house and the safety fire were there. I think that's the first time I ever met this. Oh, okay. Right. So, Des is old me. Old me. Des has managed to make himself entirely invisible to the public. Yeah.

Nobody knows, but he is kind of like, so Matt and I had this idea. Des was a good friend. He'd recently done like a contact live. for Rudy. Based off the first good Tiger record, it was Shells only, but he had a contact guy. Oh, really? I don't remember that. Yeah, I don't think it was, I mean, it was pretty short-lived.

And he was like, well, you know, I can put you in contact. And basically he just immediately became part of like, it wasn't really a company yet. But it was like, well, the three of us seemed to have like a good matching skill set. And we got it built. And we were writing Periphery 3 at that point, I think. So I was in Silver Spring, staying just above Misha's apartment and loaded it up on Misha's computer and like tried putting some MIDI through it. And we were like, whoa, that actually sounds really good, you know.

And Misha thought so too. So he was like, well, I want to get in on this. And that was, you know, that was the moment that we all put our rings together in a circle. G, G, G, D. Split, split. And then. Split the company, 25%. Ownership, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good for you. Yeah, that's how it started. And then we did Modern and Massive. We were like, well, we've done the Matt Halpin thing, but we should do something a bit more generic.

Yep. And it was codename, the Rock Library. Okay. And where work happened. So glad you didn't use that. Well, it's funny because we're going back eight or nine years. And I hadn't been able to find the original sessions that we recorded the Modern and Massive as it came to be known samples into.

I had ones from further down the line when they were being edited and there'd kind of been more stuff had been done. And then I found like a really old hard drive that made a horrible noise when I plugged it into one of those, you know, and it died pretty quickly, but not before I managed to like salvage a few things off, including the rock libraries. I saw and I was like, oh, it was called the rock library. I completely forgot. Yeah. And the goal had been to do something. And we were thinking of like Dave Grohl meets under oath meets that like big drums, kind of big rock drum sounds. And that,

I don't know, it seemed to capture, I don't know really what happened. Why it happened in that way, but it, it just went everywhere that library. And I know that we've recently launched Modern A Massive 2 now, like eight years later, on our own.

Stand-alone plugin, which is huge for us. You know what? It has a bit of advice from me. Okay. To you. Yeah. You need to be posting more about the fact it's standard.

though, because almost every single person that I've mentioned, my plugin, has been like, oh, I hate contact. You know, sometimes we send it to artists or whatever, and like, we have an email that goes out, you've probably received one. And it explains how to install it. And like, 20% of the time, no, I'm probably overracking it. But we get a few people that are like, well, I'm in native access and I don't see it there. And we're like, no, no, no, no, no.

It's not that thing anymore. So yeah. The people that don't know what this is, real short layman's terms, for drum libraries that are in contact, you need to install a contact player, and then you need to install the library into contact player, and then contact is the VST that you put your drums through. People like me, who are a fucking idiot,

that's too much for me. Well, it's also in trying to, because contact is like a turnkey solution for lots of companies. It's like Roblox. or Minecraft, you can make games within it, that you are confined to the rules of the game that was made in the first place. Yeah, and it's so generic in how it loads up

that that initial process of configuring things can be quite confusing because it's kind of like so many different options and if you've not encountered it before, it's, yeah. It's also a brilliant way to get into the business of selling any kind of virtual instruments. you know, GGD wouldn't exist without it, but it certainly was something that we wanted to,

we wanted to create our own kind of custom program. And doing that for a drum sampler, you can do it fairly cheap and quick and not very in-depth and not very beautiful. And we decided to go the route, not realizing how long it would take, but, you know, it took us six years, really. Six years?

Well, yeah, because of the way that we did it, basically, which I won't go into. but like we we have one sentence yeah basically we created something fairly generic and then it took time to build it out to something which ggd could use to create something very fully fledged like what we've done now with modern massive two so it's a long play but now it's out there it's like yes finally it's it's it's much easier to create content for that platform that you've made it's it's our own thing it's like you know it's our own factory like everything set up exactly how we wanted. I wanted to ask you. Oh my God, it's podcast time. I know. It's a two week. You got,

yeah, it's amazing. I wanted to ask you what you felt like the process was like without necessarily going into like all the boring detail of exactly how we did it. Was it more in depth than you thought. Was it more boring? I'll tell you this. Yeah, tell me. It has felt like the most amount of work I've done on anything. Whoa. Excluding learning the last stray record. Okay. As we spoke about in the car earlier, I have a track record with old records where I would like, I'd write the song, I'd kind of learn the drums, I'd go to the studio, I haven't really learned them properly and it takes me too long in the studio. The last stray album, I learned it note for note. I would say that's the most amount of work I've ever done in music was for that stray record other than like practicing, like professional or something that's going to come out. Number two is this plug-in. Okay. And it wasn't specifically... It's not preparation.

No. It was... I wasn't prepared for how hard it would be to hit all the velocities. Because we do it. We do it. Very thorough. And if anyone's got this far and I don't know what the fuck we're talking about, which matters on mine or not know what we're fucking talking about.

We're talking about basically, in layman's terms, we have created with GGD. One kit one of the downbeat, a way that you can install me into your computer and you hear me playing my drums with my sticks and my arms and my grooves if you want them. Or you can be puppet master. Or you can be the puppet master, but the sound is me. So to do that, you need to basically get every single velocity hit of every single part of a drum kit. But I have to do it.

And I wasn't prepared for, I guess, how many hits there would be. It's not that it wasn't fun. It's a patience game. And you weren't feeling well. And that sucks. Yeah, that was a big part of it. That sucks. Like, I, is one of the, because I sometimes do the sampling myself, like, do the hits.

If I'm in a clear headspace and there's nothing stressful going on around me in my life. Yeah. I love it. It's almost blissful. Meditative. Meditative. It's literally like what Buddhists do, like, listening to the best. Like, you know, you just, like, sit and hit something.

Listen to the resonance. And just listening to it and you just sit still and contemplate it and then do it again. It's, it can be amazing. But, man, if you're, like, in a rush or something annoying's going on and you need phones going off. Or yeah, you're feeling. So, yeah, you're feeling. Two seconds. Then it, then it can be a torture.

But I did. That wasn't the bit that felt like true. I mean, at the time, it did feel like true work. I think it took a, really do, three days. I think it was five. Fuck, five days. Right. Okay.

So five days. at the amazing real world studios Peter Gabriel that was on a bucket list for me to record in and I guess I kind of recorded in there I mean I did yeah you did you played some beats not for a little jam that's the other thing the thing that felt like the real work

was the 300 grooves right yeah which is something I didn't have any look at that was all on your end I didn't even know that that I thought that was going to be a separate pack and I was going to have time to do it. And it was,

I was like, I don't think I know 300 grooves. So that was the bit that felt like real work. But you did them and they're really sick. Thanks very much. I'm genuinely super into this product. I think it's out of the box. Sounds great.

And I always love the One Kit Wonders, which are literally just one kit, no options, because it's just that thing. What do you mean by no options? Because there's still a mixer. Sorry, I mean in terms of the drum kit.

Yeah. Modern and massive two, let's say, has whatever, seven kick drums and nine or ten snare drums or whatever. This is just your setup. And I love the purism of that. I mean, so do I. Because it's,

I play those drums and those symbols because I think they're the best ones. Yeah. I mean, I might be biased, but like, I think the symbol, and this is not, this is not because of the recording quality

or any of that. It's just my personal preference for symbols. I think this plug in. has the best symbol sounds I've ever heard on a pluggy. Sick. And partly that's because it's just my preferred symbol set up. Sure. I don't know.

The hi-hats are just so good. Like, the realism is insane. Yeah, I'm glad you think so. Unbelievable. When you put in the work, it's like cooking your own food or something. Like when it comes out good, you're just like, oh, this is such a lovely resolution. I have a question on this as well, though, because I have a question on this as well, though, because I'm a firm believer.

You can tell me if I'm completely wrong. But like when I've been playing the beta version of this, it really does sound like me. It does. Because it's my arm and the way I play the snare plus my sticks. It's not just my gear. It's the same way. I watched a video of Les Claypool recently, Primus Les Claypool,

and he's talking, he was on Rick Beato's podcast. And he was talking about, they tried for years with Primus to get the Stuart Copeland drum sound. And they tried a bunch of different drum kits that tried everything. And then one day he was jamming with Stuart Copeland on a drum kit. It wasn't even his. And it's like, oh, it's just him. Yeah. And it's crazy that that comes out in a plug-in.

It is. I mean, you mentioned snare. I think a rim shot is like a fingerprint almost. Yeah. Like that, that geometry of like how the stick context. Variables. I think there is like some people have more of a generic rim shot sound, but certain people, and you have a really great rim shot sound,

I've heard a lot of it. That's like my only one. The only thing I can do is I can hit that baby loud. It's not just volume because some drummers on the same drum as they go above a certain intensity, he gets thinner. However it is the angle that they're catching, they're no longer getting the body out of the drum. I know what you mean.

Other drumers, you, for example, can take a full arm above the head swing at it and still get like the out of it. You know what I mean? I think one of the things what we're talking about when you asked me, how was it for me? One of the things I didn't really realize was like just how almost unusable 127 is for realism. The hits that I did at 127 for people that don't know, 127 is the most.

maximum velocity you could put into midi. So it's the loudest possible note. I would never play a drum like that in my life. Well, okay, you do live. I bet you do. I've seen you live. When you're really going for it, that's what it's like.

Yeah, but you can't play a blast beat like that. No, you can't. You can't play a, feel, like a fast feel like that. It's when you've got the time and the space to be able to. The interesting thing, though, is like, I guess each drummer's 127 is going to be different. Totally.

So, like, as loud as I can hit a drum. with these big fucking arms is going to be a much different maximum loudness from someone else who can only hit it like here. I think there's a lot to be said about the drummers doing their own sampling for these things.

The sticks as well. The reason I play the rock sticks, even though I know they slow me down, is that drums sound better on the different. Yeah, I use either rock sticks or usually two Bs, I think, if I sample shells. and then maybe five Bs for symbols. Yeah, I've been thinking about going back to five Bs for playing.

Now I'm not in a band. Yeah. For like just studio stuff because I'm faster. Yeah. But live, I get blisters when I use five Bs because they're too small. And I'm like holding on for dear life. But in the studio, way faster. Sure.

And now I'm a free agent. Do whatever the fuck I want. Seven A's if you want. Definitely not that. But like, you know, when you do the sampling, Like you really get you go so granular that you see these differences and actually the stick thing is not a big it's it is a really big difference like yeah if you are just looking at like peak levels and looking at the volume of a drum like if you flip your stick around or move down or up like it really has a noticeable difference especially to that like top level of like how much you can get out of it how do you think I did I think you did brilliantly great thanks very much I really really enjoyed it it sounds sarcastic No, honestly, like I... It was a good hang as well, though.

It was fun. Oh, I'm glad you think so. You were like hanging with... Craig stayed with me. Real world's close to my house. Staying in my house. Hanging with my daughter occasionally. Hell yeah.

With my wife. Yeah, we were... I had a great time. Until I was too sick and I was like, I'm going to take myself away. I was unwell afterwards. I know. You got it. Yeah.

So you can... Basically, two people got incredibly unwell for this one... I'm pretty sure my wife to come up. Really? And child, if I remember, correctly. Yeah. These things happen. I infected an entire family for this plugin. I remember it was like, is it two or like two days or one day before you were going to come to my house to do this thing? You're like, just so you know. I'm starting to get unwell. Which I respect. You know, it's nice that

you did that. And there was definitely like, oh man, we are, we're going to get this. Yeah, you know. Confined. But there's too many wheels in motion. Yeah. It's already booked. Studio times booked. Yeah. And, you know, our schedule is not necessarily. super easy to line up. We didn't know you're about to move to the States, isn't he? I was planning on moving to America. No one knew that. Yeah. I don't think that sampling is for everyone.

Like the act of doing it. Yeah. Like I say, it's a patience game. And I didn't know how you were going to find it. And I thought you did actually really well. And it's really fun because I think you really put things under a spotlight when you do it. You know, your technique, you have to. I don't want to give away how you do it.

But you do gamify it for the person who's there. So I was having a great time. Yeah, it is once, you know what, the early sample libraries, we didn't have anywhere near as much of a plan. Yeah. And it was kind of like every time we were trying to improve. And it was taking like up to a year for the thing we just sampled to come out. So then it kind of always felt that we're trying to play catch up

because then it would come out and be like, oh man, I wish we'd done this differently. But now we're at a point where it's so locked in what we do. that there's no doubt because there's nothing worse. You know, if you're doing a really laborious, like, boring process, and you don't know if it's going to work, that is morale crushing. Yeah. But you previously, sorry to cut, were you previously just going, okay, hit it really loud, okay, hit it really loud, okay, hit it really loud, okay, hit it really loud, okay, hit

it slightly less loud. Was it like that? I mean, it's a little bit. In the beginning, yeah, a little bit like that and very much trusting in Matt, Matt, did the sampling at the start, like trusting in his drummer sense of like getting the velocity. There's this interesting thing which is like, I guess it's like for like a tennis player trying to do something like a swing from nothing is kind of different. Yeah.

Than doing it in context. And it becomes like, yeah, okay, maybe those are the mats like comfortable hits from nothing. But maybe when he's doing like a little ramp up in volume or he's doing a specific beat, maybe he's hitting a certain volume that just doesn't feel right to do from nothing. Yeah. So we needed to figure out like a way of making sure that the whole range was captured. And then... And sound organic when it gets played.

Exactly. And a way of communicating that wasn't verbal. And then that became like having a screen that the drummer can see. And so we're seeing the same thing. And then it became a lot easier. And it's just a trust the process thing now of like this, this intensity range feels weird to do. But if we don't do it, there's just going to be a hole in the middle of the range, you know. And so I really like it.

now that we have that set in stone, we rock up, we know exactly what we're doing. I've got my spreadsheet, you know, we've got the sessions set up with a template and like it's great. And I just know, put in a couple of hours and, you know, a symbol will be preserved forever in virtual form. I mean, that's cool. And speaking of symbols, it's the first plugin library that has my signature symbol on it. And it sounds so good. It's so good. And you know what I love? Like, I went back to some of the videos you were doing, like, of like, when you, you, had solidify the design of the downbeat. What was it called originally?

Because it's the K projection now. Okay, so I wanted to originally call it the Downbeat Ride, obviously. But Downbeat magazine is a jazz magazine. And people would have freaked out. So then I wanted to call it the mega suite. Because it was essentially much like a sweet ride, but it had a three-quarter size Megabelt. And Zilden, to their credit, were so against that idea.

I was like, it's going to sell so many just based on the name. And they were like, well, we have the sweet line and we have the mega line and we can't put a new thing into that line. So let's make a new line. Yeah, which is pretty awesome. Which is fucking sick. But when it first came out, it was a concept, right? Concept shop, yeah. Concept shop.

And that would have been what we sampled. We sampled. You have the one. I have it. I have it. I very kindly left it with me, which is very sweet. Number three out of 21 lives at yours. Yep.

And that means. that if you own the sample library and you go back and watch the videos where you're all stoked because it's finalized and everyone's chosen that one, it sounds the same. It is exactly the groove, that's like the guillotine groove in the groove section, you can play on that.

It's the same. Let's hit stop and then go to YouTube and hit you playing it and it's the same. Well, this is why I was so adamant. I don't know if you remember when we signed the first thing about me doing a library. It was years ago.

I know, yeah. It was like 2022, maybe, 2023. Remember how I said it took us six years to get to the point we had our own. Yeah. Everything is. We're finally now out of that. But like, and it was because you've been mixing my stream and therefore my YouTube videos and my Instagram videos since 2020.

Which to be clear is I sent you a logic session. I don't manually do it. Yeah, he's not happy with it because sometimes I accidentally change drum or move a fucking microphone. It doesn't sound as good as it should. I know that. But the essential tone that is Craig Reynolds is intrinsically from an or amicx across the years where I've like blown up or whatever. This is 2020 onwards whenever I started streaming. So like I got offers from other drum companies to plug in companies to do a plugin company.

And I was just every single one I was like it's just not right. because that's not my sound. It's not going to be my sound. And then I spoke to you about it and we'd already talked about it a bit. And you were like, yeah, we can do it. But it's going to be in like four years. I don't care.

I just signed me out. I appreciate the loyalty and the patience. And I hope it's paid off. It absolutely has because now you load that up and it's like, I could be one of my drum videos. And we should mention to, we had your kit driven down. The Star Maple. Yeah.

Green. Custom green. 24. When you sent me the first drum roars because you had me do like, I said I wanted to do like a new logic mix for you when you got that kit i was like that is probably the best sounding kick drum yeah not only said that's the best sound and i've had other people ronnie our sound guy is but he's like that's just the best kick i've ever heard in my life it's so and and the comments from the people that've tried to plug in

have always been like that kick do you know what i noticed about it so it's it's the low end on it if you like boost the low end it's it's crazy like an a to-o-way Like you can get an 8 or 8 out of it if you just put like a little EQ curve where you really get like the resonance Which is crazy for a 14 Do you remember how many mics we had on it? I can't remember how many mics

I think it was five Five mics on a kick I think five or four There was definitely two in No there was one in And this is the other thing is that we actually used You came down with your mic That you used for the stream

Your Beta 91 You were adamant Yeah That I brought the microphone from the stream I forgot about that Yeah, because I was like, this sounds so good and this is your, I didn't want in moving your kit from your place this space as well. Yeah. You would always like, place that, however you place it.

It needs to be that. Like, it needs to be genuine. Your kit sounds amazing in the stream. I don't want to move it into a multi-million pound studio, record it with all the best gear in the world and have it sound worse. You know, like, that's, I mean, to your credit, though, that is like the level of artistry that is in everything you do where it's like, well, I don't. if this is maybe not the most correct way to do something, but it is the way that sounds what we're trying to capture. Yeah, I mean, I think maybe there's like a certain producer instinct.

And you probably have it too of like, don't mess with stuff when it sounds good. Yeah. Because otherwise you end up contriving stuff and also you end up making everything sound the same. I mean, I recall all these libraries for the most part. And sure, my ear tends to take me down a certain road, but I do make a point to switch things up as well.

And I'm, I mean, just before doing this podcast, you know, I was like an extra 10 minutes to wait around. I saw that Sounds Like a Drum channel had put up a new video on, do you know sounds like a drum? No. This is not predominantly, is it predominantly drummers that watch this? Not anymore.

Not anymore. Well, anyway, if you're a drummer, you should watch Sounds Like a Drum. It's run by two guys in New York, one of whom used to work at Evans. Okay. And they do, like, so much great educational content about how to get the best sound out of your drums. And they explore everything.

Yeah. But they just put up a video about kick drum microphones for people that have never recorded before kind of thing, like how the different kick positions sound. I watch all that stuff. Like I will watch the most basic like drum tuning videos or microphone comparisons. I don't know why, but I feel like I need to keep watching the basics and figuring out if there's something foundational I can change. So that the next time I'm doing a session, a sample session or with a client, there's like a different way I can do something that's going to be. exciting, you know. I mean, that's just artistry.

That goes back to my point. You're always looking for a way to evolve what you do. Speaking of which, did you see that photo the other day that Frederick Thorndal put on his... What, the one with the Kelly shoe on the bat side? On the bat side. That's genius. Thoughts? I mean, it took me a second and then I was like, wow, that is next level.

I mean, let me be clear. I feel like for a few years, Frederick's taste in drum sound. hasn't been super aligned with mine. But I respect that he's been pretty nasty. It's been very like kind of thuddy and woody. Yeah. Yeah. But respect.

How big do you think that kick drum is? Because can you do that with a 22? Could you put a Kelly shoe on a 22? It did look like a 24. Mate, I reckon it was like a 30 or something stupid. No. Okay. Maybe I glance.

Who makes a 30? I mix some tracks for a cross faith. Do you know how big that guy's kick drum is? I think that's... It's got to be a 26. No, mate. It's at least a 28. No, what makes a 28?

Who makes his drums? Have you seen it? I don't know. They're like a rock star Japanese band. Like, it's easily... It's easily that higher than the rim of his snare drum. What were your thoughts on the Frederick Gordon doll kick?

Well, I don't know anything about fucking recording, Nolly. You do everything. I put the mics on there and then I go, Nolly, make this sound good. But that's not true. I learned everything in 2010 from the Andy Sneak for. and that information has just stayed in my head. Like where to put the microphones, that's it.

That's all I know. You know what I keep talking about with people, sometimes on podcasts and sometimes not, is there's like, weirdly, sometimes the nuances of things just don't matter. Like, does it matter if you place the mic a bit like this or a bit like that or a bit closer or a bit farther? In a way, the essence of the sound is already coming off the drum and you're just capturing a slightly different angle.

But weirdly, the sum total of all of like, the really tiny adjustments does make a difference between something being like truly next level or not. I don't know to describe it. It's like nothing you've sent me sounded bad, even though you say you don't know what you're doing. I looked once at how to mic up drums. And then, yeah, I guess there was some, that's picking up too much high hat.

Let me move where it is and stuff like that. But for the most part, just like an inch away from every drum, inch and a half away from every drum. It's going to be fine. pointed at about that angle and that's it. Yeah. A lot of it is in how I play. Yeah.

I tend to play pretty loud and sloppy. No, you're not sloppy. I was actually going to say, I remember recording like, because when we do the drum samples, you set up the full kit like you're going to record. You know, like, it's not just like one thing at a time. So obviously, I was sound checking you playing and you'd sometimes jump on your kit and jam. There was a fun bit. Yeah.

That was fun. Got to blow off steam sometimes. Recess in between fucking school. lessons. You play really consistently, man. You do. You don't. Did you start playing Fusion?

I always, okay, so I started playing rock drums. Okay. Just playing along to Metallica and stuff like that. Then I went to ACM. Right. And then I saw one Dave Weckle video and I was like, I'm sorry, what? And then I went on the whole big rabbit hole on Fusion while I was still playing. in metal bands but most of my practice would be fusion stuff

which is kind of where my feet never really got really really fast I feel like I missed out on the hours of shed work required to get that because I was too busy like affecting my six-stroke role so it sounded like fusion songs so I went down a massive fusion rabbit hole there I think that was a good trade-off personally thanks I think that's probably what got me into stray was like when they were looking for drummers and obviously it was a bit of luck where I happened to comment on Tom's post on Facebook in 2014 when their drummer had left and he was like, oh, what about him? But it was because my videos weren't just metal stuff.

It was like playing along with a fusion track. So and that was born of that one, I think the, I saw, I saw the Morgan, Agra and Frederick Thorndell video, that video before I knew about fusion music. So it was like, I saw that and I was like, oh my God, I didn't know you could, you're allowed to play like that with metal. And then when I saw fusion after that, I was like, oh, that's really cool. And then I just tried to bring that into my playing more of the like wacky fusion stuff. But it's, it's cool because there's like a control to your playing. Like, obviously Weckel is not just technically and like, you know, intellectually incredible, but very control. Like, you know, comes from the era of recording to take.

and just being a drum machine. Dynamic master. Right. Like you have really good dynamics. I think, thank you. I think the other thing with that is came from almost circling back to when it was like, I recorded about four bands when I was doing engineering.

And I realized the thing I didn't like doing was editing drums. And no one ever came prepared enough for me not to edit drums. So fast forward to streaming and getting that logic blank template from you. Yeah. It was just on my mind to just get as tight as possible because then I don't have to do as much work. Like the two hours it would take me to edit a song could just be two hours of practicing the song to get it right in the first place. Yeah. And I remember also, I think at that time you were saying that like just the act of doing the streams, just playing for a few hours and with an audience just as a routine thing did so much for like your fluency.

I can't wait to get back to that. Even like, I noticed it on this last tour, I got pre-show nerves and first three song jitters pretty consistently across the whole tour. Yeah. Whereas when I was streaming more frequently, obviously, because I've moved, it's taken a while to get the drum room. It's coming. The performance anxiety had disappeared in most tours from 2022 to 2024. Like a day-to-day thing you do anyway, right?

Yeah, because I'd do it anyway. But then also anyone watching who was a drummer who knows who I am who could possibly be waiting for a mistake or the only person that would notice a mistake in my head, I'd be like, well, those people obviously watch all my streams. They've seen me fuck up so many times. Like it doesn't matter. And then even just the thought of that sort of relaxation of like, oh, it doesn't matter, would make them make me play really good.

I mean, yeah, weirdly, isn't it? There's like a continuous narrative then in your head of like, oh, it's fine. like these same people yeah it's not a one one time occasion playing in front of a drum nerd but i didn't have that this time right it was very much like these people haven't seen me play drums in a long time yeah i've got to be good it's a new album and all that stuff i've quite a lot of jitters first three songs first one song the first track which was kubrick stair which is so busy on the hi-hats and splashes and the breakdown's crazy i would say out of 31 shows i think i've probably played it 10 out of 10 once.

I think I could tell you it was Manchester. Really? I fucking nailed it in Manchester. But there was other songs where it's just like, I haven't warmed up enough. I've warmed up too much. Warm up too much? Warm up too much.

Yeah. What, tire yourself out? Not even. Weirdly too fast. Sweaty hand. Okay. Like got to the stage. There was one show where my hair was very long on this tour

because I couldn't find a fucking barber as we mentioned at the beginning of the podcast. And I like wet my ear. hair before before I went on stage because it was didn't look good and uh I hadn't washed my hair in about a week and I got to the sticks and my fucking hands were sweat like greasy so would you say that was style over substance in that moment it was 100% style over substance living by the Nashville motto and I didn't have I like Nashville let me just put I love Nashville I'm all about it I just wish you can't even trust a yelp review here no there's there's

there's a lot of places that look fantastic and everyone's like this is the best place in town and then I go and I'm like, I've had better. Do you know what I notice when I come to Nashville? What? Everyone talks about food constantly. You meet people and all the Nashville people just talk about the restaurants they've been to. Have you been to this place? All this place.

Like, in general, I think it's more of a thing in the States, but in Nashville particularly, it's like all people do is go out and go out to. I feel like every time me and Madison bump into someone. Yeah. Like, have you guys done this? Have you got? And we're like, no, because we like tried a few of those. and they weren't great.

Yeah. And then we found our like five that we love. So we do need to try other places. But I feel like the quality in general in America, maybe it's just in Nashville. The quality hasn't been there, particularly sushi. Because Tom, Australia has lived here for almost 10 years now.

He was constantly like, I can't get good sushi in Nashville. And then now you can. Sure. You can get medium good sushi, which the Nashville natives, think is the most unbelievable thing on earth. And then there's maybe two or three spots that are like,

okay, this is actually world-class. Not going to name-drop any of them. When we were recording and you were talking about moving to the States, I felt like that was a weird, not weird, sorry. I wasn't judging your decision, but I was like, I wonder how crazy is going to get out there. I always saw you as like proper British lad. And I was like, what's he going to, how's he going to do it?

And then now, A, seeing how well you've done with it and, like, two, just thinking about it more. you're like the perfect person to move to the States. Why? Because, okay, thinking about like the things that define the American kind of social psyche. Okay. A bit of rebellious call. Someone who is clearly quite, you know what, like, I always feel like in a very good way,

you've never afraid to like speak your mind. You're like someone who's quite individualistic. I don't mean, I don't mean egotistical, but I can see you're like very self-contained. Oh, you can tell you egotistical. Well, that's not what I mean in this case You know, but it's definitely there You know But like you're a self-contained guy

You know And American dream Like you're a Griffith Not Griffith Grafter Grafter is what I'm trying to say Not Gryfter Someone who works hard

Comes up with concepts You're kind of entrepreneurial And you turn things into success It's like man you are Thanks bro Perfect American dream Why I'm fucking here Wish I could get a good fucking barber

Other than that Thanks Appreciate it Hey it's interesting Because it's A lot of those traits are not like what I think of when I think of Southern British. It's definitely not what most of the people I grew up around are like. There's a lot more meekness.

And especially, I mentioned like the calling things like you see it, not being afraid to speak your mind. That's like very anti-British kind of like so many people, at least around Bath, were kind of anti-American as well, though. Is it? Yeah. Really?

Free speech? I mean, free speeches. If I don't say anything crazy like that. that but like i think in a restaurant in america do you think p i don't know if someone's unhappy with their food in america do you think they would complain about it i guess i can go back on myself thoughts america i feel like americans are very outspoken that's like one of the most like stereotypical things about us is that we don't shut the fuck up one thing i did notice though was a lot of people like i i i don't think i've changed at all from moving here as a person

except for maybe my haircut because they couldn't do my haircut probably, right? Back to the hair, always there. But I have seen the odd comment where people have been like, someone even said like the trumpification of Craig Reynolds.

And it's just people looking for things that aren't even there. Like it's fucking crazy. Well, yeah. I mean, we've got this cappling all over the world, haven't we? Of like, there's people that want to make a comment and they're just signaling to a specific audience.

They're not even, the validity of the comment doesn't even make sense. They're just trying to get there before anyone else. Like, I call it. That's a fucking, yeah, it's a whole different conversation. Which is a shame, isn't it? Well, we're going to cut. Can I grab a monster? You can.

Sorry. Do it. In fact, Simon, this isn't the cut. I want this bit in the podcast. Just the wide angle of her struggling, struggling to get a monster. Focus ruined. Monster Zero, Bray. What are you getting?

You get in? Oh, three mean beans. Three mean beans on the go. All right, we covered the shells. Yeah. We've covered the symbols. So you start maple kit. We said the kick sounds amazing, but the tombs are amazing too.

Tom's are amazing. 12 by 8, 16 by 14, 18 by 16. But generally that kit just sounds. It's unreal. It's currently on a boat to come here. Oh, okay. Because I finished that tour. It was my Euro kit.

He didn't send on a nice cruise. No, it wasn't a... It sent it on the Titanic. No, it's on its way here. you know what's funny I'm going to have such a hilariously big kit now I'm thinking about trying to think of a way

to set it all up do you have more shell well you had the 20 yeah yeah so I have 22 13 16 over here already okay from the same kit because tamer made me another 13 and the 16 so I could fly the 22 home so now I'm going to have 22 24

12 13 16 16 18 so I'm talking thinking about going 24 with a double kick on it a 22 here just for the just for the just for the annoyance of another thing and then 12 13 16 16 tuned exactly the same so I could do a fast roll between the two and then why are you laughing I mean just that it's kind of ridiculous but yeah but like think about how I lose power here yeah going like that but I'd be able to go diga digger digger digger do Is that an engineering night there? No, no, no, no.

It's just, it's quite far away from set up. Normal. Yeah. It's quite far away than normal. It's the fact they're the same. And then an 18. Or the other option is to just go 24, 12, 13, 16, 18 and then the 22 is a gong. Yeah.

Above that. I don't know. Yeah. We'll see what looks cool. It's going to look cool. It's going to look fucking massive. You know that when people do like Ractoms like the other way around? You know what I mean?

When they do like the big, the bigger rack on them. Yeah. For a right-handed drummer. I think the guy from Adventure 7thold does that. Quite a few guys do that. Oh, Chad. Good old Chad.

Brooks. Brad's his dad. Other Wackerman. Chad's Frank Zappa. I mean, isn't that just the best name for a drummer? Wackerman? Wackerman. That is.

It's almost like when people were called like John Butcher because his father was a butcher and he's a butcher. It's like, his dad, he's a whacker man. Okay, and he's a wacker man. Well, Anyway, I don't know if he does, but I remember when we did a brief run with deaf tones, which was around Koina Yurkan, Abe had his Tom set up that way.

You talk to death tones? Periphery death tones. Yeah. Damn, that's cool. It must have been 2014. Are you still in periphery? No. But. But I'm not in the band.

You are like involved? But not in any real way. Just recording? Yeah. Just recording and friends, you know. I still, I'll play on their records. They don't seem to want to have another person. So you play the.

base on their records. I do. And you're still involved in recording. Yeah. But you're not in the band. No, I just get to do the best bits. I cherry pick the bit that I like. And you don't like touring.

I don't have to run a company. On the road. Yeah. I wonder how the other two do it. Yeah. Yeah. I fucking hate it. Well, I mean, Peripery hasn't been super active.

I mean, they've done some tours. I mean, three tours this year, I think. I think this is like the most active they've been for a while. Is that way quick? you didn't like touring. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And plus, I don't know, it was just that age.

I'd met my future wife. Nothing to do with her wanting me to, but like I was kind of like already thinking, I want to do the studio thing. When I have the opportunity, I was starting to get banned opportunities to work with and fitting it around touring wasn't really working that well. I kind of felt like I wanted to dedicate myself to that.

And then, you know, met my future wife and still didn't have a place of my own back in England because I was putting so much time in the state. And you lived in the South, which is very expensive to live. Sure. Yeah. It just felt like I hadn't quite gotten started on the adult thing. I'd just kind of been away all the time.

And so there was just enough factors, really. That's what it was. And plus the fact that it was a cool conversation with them. That it wasn't like slamming the door and never going to speak to you again. It was quite the opposite. It was like, actually, we're all open to figuring this out to where. Slap him on the MacBook. Yeah, which is fine.

I think they've actually used my bass sample library. Really? For some of the live backing tracks for older songs. Oh, I redid it with... Yeah. Because I did... When I left, I did... I played through all the songs that were in the live rotation.

I did like a new performance of them, which is across multiple albums and kind of with one tone, so they could use that. And I think a couple more times when they added songs, I'd track something. But then I think beyond that, they either use, like, the album tone for the most recent stuff or for the old stuff they've just done me as middy. Can I share a little cute story?

I hadn't seen you. I hadn't seen you in about 10 years since when we recorded this library. I don't think I'd seen you in 10 years. I think we figured it out. Eight years, 10 years or something. Yeah, because you were still living in Reading. Yeah, you'd only just met your future wife. Yeah.

I have to share this story because it was very cute. and I think I remember telling Madison immediately. So I get in the car, you pick me up from the airport. I haven't seen you, you know, obviously by this point you're married and I know all that. But I get in the car. She phones you, start speaking Spanish. And I remember going, that's kind of crazy. And then you just speak fluent Spanish back.

A whole conversation, like 10 minute conversation in the car in full Spanish. And then you hang up. Sorry about that. And I was like, bro. you all flew in Spanish and you were like, yeah, I, you know, when we started getting together, it was like I wanted to learn our language. You learned her entire language. That's like the most romantic thing I've ever heard. Oh, that's really sweet. I mean, you know, we didn't have a plan when we got together as to like where we were going to settle. So it wasn't, I mean, we ended up settling

England, but it could, I guess, have gone the other way. And yeah, she was better, she spoke pretty good English. She's now, of course, are pretty fluent. My Spanish was you know, AS level passable and hadn't been used for a long time. It's still pretty high though. Well, yeah, like when we started, but then duolingo was pretty recently a thing and I was on tour and there wasn't much to do and then I'd be like trying it out and

yeah, I don't know. It's, it's, yeah, it's something I'm proud of for sure. Like learning fully, fluently. Well, it's a dialect of Spanish as well, She's Chilean. Yeah. Chilean Spanish is like the Scottish of English. Really?

It's a very thick accent, a whole different vernacular of slang. So your particular Spanish speaking is Chilean? Is Chilean, yeah. And it's, I mean, it's quite slurred as well. Like some accents are very well pronounced. Much like the Scottish. Yeah. So literally, like, I think it's a place that people go

that are considered advanced speakers that want to really test themselves. Yeah. Because it's like you have the least. auditory information to work on. So I'm proud of that. I mean, I speak with that dialect because that's what I've learned, you know. But you'd appreciate it's a bit like, yeah, like you're meeting a partner of one of your friends, and they just sound fully Scottish and they use all the slang.

And then you're like, oh, cool, they're Scottish. And then they're like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm German or something. Yeah. I often think I can pick out, I'm pretty good at picking out people's English accents. So if someone is speaking in English but they're from, say, Germany, I can pretty quickly pick up like, did you learn English in Birmingham? And then they'll go, I learned, yeah, I lived in Birmingham. And I was like, yeah, I can hear it.

Like, it's funny. That happened to me the other day. My personal best ever was someone speaking, it was in Holland. and they were talking, they were speaking Dutch, and then they were speaking English. And I was like, are you Dutch or are you from New Zealand?

And they were like, oh my God, no, I'm Dutch, but I like, I learned, I moved to New Zealand for three years and that's where I learned English. And I was like, yeah, I'm fucking, fucking, just, pooh, fucking get it. Completely useless talent, other than just, like, kicking up a good conversation with someone.

Well, you know, they do say that, like, being able to pick up, like, Linguistics are pretty related in a way to musicality as well. Really? Ability to, yeah, if you think about it, it is the brain interpreting sound in a way. And the kind of mimicry that we do with our instruments, like hearing something and being able to replicate it,

is obviously, you know, using your voice in that case, but there's a listening skill there that is related. That's so interesting. Yeah. Because I can do it when we're watching a show. Yeah. Like another personal best, Madison, or remember this.

What will be watching? I'm just flexing my absolutely use as talent here. we were watching pretty often we'll be watching something and someone's got an American accent and then I'll go

sounds like that person is actually from Bristol but they're doing an American accent and then Madison will Google it and she'll be like to quote Nollie's hometown she'll be like, where's Bath? And I'll be like fucking right next to Bristol

and I fucking nail it Every time. The accent's very different. I mean, don't let me take away from it. It's a southwestern accent. Yeah. It's a man, the UK's crazy, isn't it? Like, you can drive from like...

Two hours. Bristol to Bath, which is 20 minutes. Yep. 20 minutes. Yeah. Different accent. Yeah, it's so different. I mean, I don't think I can pick those two apart, I don't think.

Yeah, you could. Bristol. Sound like a pirate versus... Pirate? Yes. The pirate accent is the Bristolian accent. I guess, yeah. But you know what's funny?

I always think it's really funny is Redding. Redding is literally. Literally, if a Bristol accent and a London accent had a baby. We have some of the same. All right, guys. Like, we have that. We have that. Yeah.

But we've all, oh, I, mate. Like, it's still London in there. I always feel like Rennings less than, like, an accent and more an attitude. Renning fucking sucks. I love it. So, the same, Madison's from Cleveland and has this, like. There's just weird deep pride that you have. You have to have it.

Especially from Cleveland, though. I've got that about Reading. Yeah. Reading, Cleveland. Very similar. I mean, Redding has spawned some really big bands. And I always thought it was like close enough to London, but small enough to have its own. He's big.

Well, Silasus is now. Tessaract? No, wait, Tessaract is not the Keynes, aren't they? There's some Redding in there. There's some Redding in there. Yeah. Oh, that's why, yeah. Just outside.

And, I mean, there was obviously you guys had by At a certain point. There was a redding scene, yeah. I think Siloises is the only true Reading export that really made it out. But at the time there was like exit 10, M4, massive. I mean, Newbury, if you include Newbury in that, you've got Jordan Fish. Yep.

You've got, you know, other than that, we've got Ricky Jervais and Natalie Dormer. That's about the two. Oh, and Jeremy Kyle. Jeremy Kyle, he's a Redding boy. Fuck, yeah, without that. Jeremy Carl was our odd Madison looks so confused

Jeremy Kyle is our Jerry Springer I was more like Natalie Dormer Yeah from Hunger Games I love that bitch Shout out Natalie Shout out Natalie

She's redden She's redden oh Kate Winslet as well Really I played the drums With Kate Winslet's dad in a pub once Like a jam night in a pub It was like anyone can get and I did like a little blues jam

with this old lad on guitar and after a song was like, you know how that is? I was like, man, we're like, that's Coe Winslet's dad. I was like, fuck yeah, that means I was in Titanic. That's as much as that.

Oh, we need to talk about the plugin more and then I need to ask you other things. All right, sure. We haven't talked about the snares. Yeah. What do we use? Well, the one that you really wanted to make sure is in there was your bellbrass,

wasn't it, your timer? With the VK hoops. With the VK hoops, which are suicide for a drummer to play those. I honestly, think I've broken my thumb once just from playing that hoop too much. I mean, it's outrageous how heavy they are. And there's no shock absorption.

No. It just goes straight to stick. Because people go, I think because of this whole like bell brass thing, people think that brass and bronze are really similar, right? But bronze is a whole different thing. Yeah, bell brass is technically bronze. Yeah. I think that's just one of those like Japanese company kind of using some.

But technically we're using a bronze now. It's a bronze snare, yeah. But it's a bell brass. But because they call it bell brass, it somehow feels like it's on a continuum with like a black beauty or something. Which is absolutely not. No. Bronze is really hard.

Yeah. Like, that's why there was a bronze age and people made weapons out of it. But they didn't do that with brass, which is really soft. There was no brass age. So, yeah, smacking a chunk of bronze. I'm pretty sure I broke a thump, like just a stress fracture from streaming on that drum for so long. It's kind of why I retired. tired it for a bit.

And even now, I think, I think undoubtedly it sounds better with the hoops on. That's why we did it. You get that, I mean, you hit those hoops on their own

and they make a Zillbell sound. So transfer that to a rim shot. But I've put the die casts back on the bell brass now. Just because my hands can't take it. I don't know if I'm getting old. Because I've got a VK with the bronze hoops and I remember at one point being like,

this thing is so rigid. I wonder how many, like, tension rods. they actually need and just started taking them out you can literally just have two i'll tell you this the bottom of my vk or the bottom of my bell brass that had vk hoops on it there was about four on they'd fall out and i wouldn't even notice you wouldn't notice yeah it's just it doesn't move we cranked that guy pretty high yeah we did yeah that was the highest tune one we did doesn't it and i'm super stoked on that because i don't think there is a lot of drum plug-ins out there with that kind of ping yeah

From like a metal library. I'm really happy with it too, actually. I think it's come out really balanced sounding in the plug-in, really articulate. And it's, again, with a bell bronze, one of the cool things is you still get body. Yeah. Like it's really high, but it's not like it's gone all thin and choked out. Well, I remember when me and you shot out the DW bell brass, which is technically actual brass, the Tamabell brass, which is bronze, and the Gretsch one.

We shot them all out. and it was really, really interesting to see the waveform. Do you remember? We looked at the waveform and we shot them all out in my parents' house. Yeah. And the amount of information in the waveform for the bronze, the tamabell brass, was so much more. It was just thicker.

It was crazy to just see. Yeah, I mean, I guess they make bells because that material generates so many overtones, right? Like it makes this really loud slang. It's crazy. So that's the main snare. That's the main snare. And then I fought to have a second snare. So we recorded four drums and we picked...

Four snares. Yeah, sorry, four snares. And we picked the two best ones. Well, initially it was just going to be the one best one. And I really fucking was not happy not being able to have two. Context. It's called One Kit Wander. There's no option.

But they were so good. I mean, look, I back it. So there's two drums in the plugin. Yeah. They were both actually sampled in the main snare position. Yes. So although the second drum, which we'll talk about in a moment, is off to the side, as though it's one kit.

Yeah. When you hear it, it's basically another main snare sound that you can use. So it's kind of like an alternate snare sound. Yeah, and it's lower chained. It was the lowest of the ones, I think. Oh, no, maybe the copper was lower. The copper was lower, but this one, so this was a, it is a variation on a star reserve. Aluminium.

Aluminum. Aluminum. Different hoops. different strainer some modifications to it maybe the modifications will become a different thing with my name on it one day but we did that and they were just those two were so different but so good i loved that ummaning snare like i feel like aluminium is on the way up you know stocks in aluminium snares what i really like about it is it's essentially a bell brass but made with aluminium is three mill shell.

I don't know if it's cast, but it's... I think those are. Yeah. I think aluminium's a lot cheaper to cast than bronze. So it's like it's ugly little brother. But it's got, I guess because it's lighter weight, it resonates a lot more. And where we tuned it, I loved how it sounded when it came out because it just like, there's such like a kind of meaty, like, cock sound underneath it.

It's really. It's like when I was doing the grooves for the pack, some of them, I don't know. I think I probably put them all on one drum. Yeah. But I think when playing them and when using the plug-in afterwards, I was moving some of the like bigger, beefier drum beats to that second snare instead because you just get that low end from it. Yeah, and they're still in a similar sonic world.

You know, it's, I do really like. I feel like that thing of having two different main snare sounds makes the plug-in, it gives it like a longevity and like a versatility. Oh, yeah, for the price it's going to be at, like, you are getting essentially, in my head it's the one with the aluminium snare is like your, you know, super processed metal core beef sound. Yeah. And then you can, with the bell brass, you can get that sort of dirtier, faster, more aggressive,

ping on it. And you do use both of those kind of tuning ranges. That was what sold it on me. It's like I know from your streams, you do change out your drums. Sometimes you will have a higher tune thing. Sometimes you have a lot of music. Not by design.

It's just it goes out of tune. And I just leave it. And I go, that sounds kind of good. Or I changed the head. And I'm like, this is tune pretty low. It's quite nice. What do we use? You use the heavyweight drys, isn't we?

Heavyweight dry on those. We use the... Which I really like. UV. Twos on the Tom's and the UV. for the UVEQ 4 the UVEQ 4 on the kick which I desperately want them to make a two-ply version of

do you go through them? I can't use them live because I go through them yeah but in the studio I have just the standing up bits yeah I broke two sets of pedals on it store okay fair enough yeah I broke a pair of vinecobras and I broke a pair of dynosynos actually just to talk about the 127 thing you were saying that you gained an appreciation

for like where you actually play and it is interesting. We do this on every session. Get the drummer to just demonstrate the drum. So we have a reference point because this might be two years before we have the plug-in. It's nice to have a little played example. And something to, yeah, compare once we do have,

just make sure all the articulations are sounding right. Get them to play at their normal intensity and then you start sampling. And it's like, all right, give me a hard one. And their, like, proper studio playing is here and then the first sample is like that. Yeah. That's what I really,

My programming changed after doing that. I was like, oh, I've been programming at 127. I'm wondering why it doesn't sound real. Yeah, because it's like, with program drums, there's no extra effort in programming at a higher velocity. And it does get punchier, but it also changes like the frequency curve a lot. Everything gets edgier sounding.

It definitely sounds less real. Sure, yeah, as well. I think there's two drummers in the world that I think accurately play 127. and Eloy. Most. Eloy and Matt Gilemo plays for that band, and he was placed for the Acacia Strain.

You ever seen him play the drums? I'm trying to think. He filled in for me on a stray tour. The guy hits harder than anyone I've ever seen. Even harder than Eloy. It's fucking crazy. That's nuts. I mean, Aaron Gillespie back in the day.

Yeah. I mean, still, probably. But I remember the videos of light, light videos. And I remember when, was it? Dave Eilich played with Mars Volta. He was really going nuts, yeah. Because, I mean, like, if you think about the drummers that are, like, held up as, like, the best sounding drummers, like, a Jeff Piccaro or a Gavin Harrison, like, look at their stick heights. Oh, yeah.

I know we're talking about a different style of music, but Jeff Piccaro is playing soft. Or, um, shuffly dude, the guy. Bone and Purdy. No, actually, I shouldn't have said that. He's the guy, though. He is the shuffle guy. the guy who played in Steely Dan, I know Bernard, also played in Steely Dan.

Come on, this is like one of the... Steve Smith. He plays the Yamaha recording custom. Steve Gad. Steve Gad. Steve Gad. He plays whisper quiet. Yeah.

You know, and when you then make that louder, there's so much body that's there. First pair of drumsticks I ever bought Steve Gad signature. Yeah. The black ones of the white tips. Yeah. Because I thought they were Larses. Speak of the devil.

Oh, he's got it. This is an actual Lars played stick. No way. Yeah. Didn't sign it, though. Motherfucker didn't sign it, did he? Yeah, it's quite short. I don't even know what you would.

That's touched by the hand of God. Got two of them. What else have I got? I got tortilla man from Slipknot. That's when he hears he threw that at me during the show. Yeah. Didn't sign it. There's a real issue, right, with my goat.

giving me shit and not signing it. The other day we were at, what are you, Warp Tour and Travis Barker's drum tech, while I left you a gift from Travis in your green room and it was one of his practice pads, like one of his new, but didn't sign it.

I could have went and fucking bought that. I'm very grateful because I use that practice pad all the time. It's very good, much like the reflex stuff, but sign it, please, Travis. I'm just trying to think, well, I mean, either I guess they're just humble and don't necessarily think that someone, wants their signature on something or maybe they know that there's a high probability that that

gift might just end up on eBay or something. I mean, I'd like to think it is, I'd like to think it's like, oh, he's my contemporary. I'm not going to like, you know, I wouldn't, if I was giving someone I consider the contemporary something, I wouldn't sign it. It would be arrogant. However, fucking sign it because you're way above me. Please, Travis. How do you feel about signing things in general?

like not do you hate it but do you feel weird like conflicted uh-huh syndrome-y no i love it i love getting recognized i fucking love it so much it's a nice feeling but you just like especially with like the bases or something like like when someone wants me to take a sharpie to it i'm just like really do you really do you get that i mean i'm not you're the guy that made the fucking base of course they want to sign it it's like yeah i guess like i mean intellectually it's like having a Mona Lisa and being

But it's not that's the thing It's me, it's not You know I bet he didn't think he was anyone Yeah I don't know He was that Divercally I'm not

Dauvinci Who did Mona Lisa Dvinci? Dvinci? Dvinky? Who did the Mona Lisa? This is probably going to be a cut Simon

because I'm fucking a moron It's not Michaelangelo Is it? It might be Michaelangelo Duvinki. Devinci. Oh, yeah. It's not a cut time and I'm fucking, I got an E in art.

Anyway, Devinci probably was like, he probably thought, who goes to fuck about this smiling face? I don't know. It's a really bad analogy, but I love signing stuff. I love getting recognised. Fucking love it. Publix down the street when I'm with her. Yeah.

Buying fucking eggs. Someone's like, are you got, I know, I don't get a photo? I'm like, fuck yeah. You just made my fucking day, but. Let me get the eggs in. I'm on the other side of the fucking man. Everyone's like, I'm really sorry for disrupting you. I was like, you made me look really cool in front of my girlfriend.

And then you've just validated my, I feel like when I get recognized over here, it really validates my move here. Sure. I'm like, oh, fuck, like a random person in a fucking grocery. We went to a dispensary in Cleveland, Ohio the other day. And we're doing the sign-in thing, give them your ID so you can go buy weed. And then as we do it, the guy's,

like this is the one I get all the time though which I almost love more than when they know who I am they go because it means I'm I'm out there they go are you the podcast guy and I go the podcast yeah and I go fuck yeah I'm the podcast guy and that means that person has maybe not listened to the podcast but it is big enough for the general public to start infiltrating your household face that's what I want I fucking know if you see me fucking come say hello. I love it so much. I think for me, because like I was saying right at the start, like I don't, I'm not in places where I'm getting recognized all the time,

not playing live. There's been a few times I've gone to like trade shows to represent companies. And it's really, it's nice for a few days. And it does make it very real because a lot of what I do is just on the internet. And it's lovely. I can log into social media at home and post something and get all the adoration, you know. And that's lovely. and, you know, super huge amounts of gratitude

and genuinely very cool to know that it's affecting people's lives in a positive way if, you know, they love something that I've done. But it's a whole different thing when people are coming up to you and you kind of see like on a real personal IRL way. And it just, it just, again, I love how small time it feels when I'm doing the thing.

And then sometimes those moments are like, I'm just, that deal. I was just in my kitchen, like, cooking pancakes with my daughter. Well, you don't, I'm just, you know what I'm just. Yeah. I still have that feeling of I'm just a guy. Yeah. But it's like, I don't know.

I think maybe it's when the interactions go down the route of them being like, where within the interaction that you see them realize it, oh, he's just a guy. Like, then I'm like, oh, that was fucking sick. Sure. Because that means that person had me on this pedestal. And then they met me and was like, oh, he's just a guy. But they still wanted the photo, if you know what I mean. So it kind of.

levels me in a weird way as well as giving me that little ego boost of my motherfucker, no motherfucker knows all around. Yeah. I love it, big fan. Before we do anything else, I want to talk about hard hitting.

Matt Halpin. Go on. That guy hits so hard. He does, yeah. He does hit hard. Sometimes the drummers that do the biggest, you know, caveman arm swings

are not even the ones that are actually generating the most volume. Yeah, he's very, very, uh, what's the word? refined in his playing. It's that whip, just the weight and length of his arms. He's a freak drama.

Because I think for sampling, I've got it, with my right hand, I can hit a pretty mean 127, right? But I'm still nowhere near. You know, him actually putting all his effort. He's just like,

unless it's a heavyweight head, there's going to be like a crater after every hit. And, I don't know, just the, The volume. Big sticks as well. Yeah. His stick is like the only pro mark stick,

but I think it's good to be honest with you. It's weird that it's as big and kind of like, big shoulder. It's kind of like a rock. It doesn't have like an even bigger tip and like even like shorter taper. Like it's that chunky. I think you can't get much shorter than the rock. I think the tape is pretty similar.

And it's a barrel tip as well. Oh, okay. Big, big fucker. Yeah. Like that's the only pro mark stick where I've picked it up and been. I could play this. The rest of them are very long, a bit Harry Potter,

exactly, a bit of a wand thing. You recently worked on sleep tokens, even in Arcadia. Yeah, just the drum recording to be cool. Just the drum recording. The credits on all credits.

Dot com, whatever it is, say additional production. I know, which is very generous. What does that mean? I think it means that they like to keep it so vague

that they prefer, to upgrade my credit. Yeah, okay. Then specify that I did the drums. So that makes sense. So you just engineered the drums? I'd like to say that it was a production worthy credit. Because it was,

what was really enjoyable is that two is an amazing improvisational drummer. And there was a lot of, not not cajoling to make it happen, but just pushing together. everything exactly as they wanted it to be on the recording you know and so I'd like to think that it was like a it wasn't just a button press it was it was like really working together to make sure that you know the parts were as good as possible and that all the flourishes and improvisational bits were exactly as they should be and kind of you know for a record of that

stature and a drummer of that stature as well they had the full songs and it was just for you to record Yeah, which is not that much in terms of minutes. If you listen to even in Arcadia, the songs might be eight minutes, but there's a minute and a half and two minutes. It's the only one that I like. Okay. Not like I dislike the others,

but I think the direction they have gone down was the bits of their music that I did like the most. Before that, I was a little bit, I'm not really sure what's happening here. And then now I'm like, oh, I understand this as,

as a band now. I really, really like that album. I think it's really solid and it's, it's, I know it's a bit Marmite as anything that gets that big and that is so much a fusion

of pop and metal, but I think it's, it's easy to see why it's as big as it is. I like the way they're named more into the pop. I think that the pop parts with the bits that I was like, this is awesome. Yeah, I think it's well done.

And I think lyrically it's, it's quite like, Like the songs like caramel and stuff like that. Like, I don't know. It's, I think it was really cool to be a part of that record. And I mean, I hope I will be a part of future records as well. It seemed to go really well. Can you imagine what it would be like to be in a band of that size

and not have to do social media. It would be amazing. It'd be amazing. Just think about what the vessel is doing. Day to day. It's got nothing to do with being in front of millions of people. He's probably getting recognized less than me. Yeah.

which is crazy. Yeah. Billboard number one. Do you get anything for that for additional production when they got a billboard number one? Do you get a plaque or anything? I don't think so. Maybe I could request it. Sometimes with these things you kind of, you can request.

But the Grammy nominations should, I've got, I got a thing when the periphery got nominated for a Grammy, I got sent a thing. A bit of paper. Like a little medal thing. A little metal thing for the nom. A man, you'll, you'll fucking win it. year if you do get the sleep token nod well i don't know because have you seen turnstiler in like six categories yeah and haley williams is in a bunch yeah this is true and sleep token and what best

rock song with caramel up against best rock song it's not even hard rock from metal i think it's best rock song and oh i'm probably going to get this one of the other ones the album i think like metal is it metal album i just feel like the categories they're in there would be other contenders in those categories. Even if taken as a whole, I feel like it's enough of a cultural phenomenon that it should win something. But yeah, I do also feel like with the Grammys being as fucking fixed as they are, I said that, not gnarly. Whenever someone gets a debut Grammy nomination, they rarely win it, especially in heavy music. And then they do three or four years of always being nominated, always the bridesma, never the bride. And then

eventually they give them one, a bit like the Oscars. I do think it would be, remiss of them not to award something. Oh, it'd be a snub. It was number one. It was the most... And huge. Like the... The biggest metal album in the year.

Yeah. But I mean, even, I think shows-wise, it really moved the needle. I like the way they have single-handedly forced Americans how to say caramel correctly. Oh, my God. I didn't have very even thought about that. Madison, will you say caramel for us, please?

Carmel. Now, imagine that song. Now, they need to write a song called soldering iron. Why, what are they? Can you say solder? Solter? They call it solder here. There's no Ellen.

A solder. Sardering iron. I mean, it's the same with Craig. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you go down ordering water in restaurants here? Have you given up? Do you just do the accent? No, but I have, I've given up my name.

Okay. I will say Craig because it's just far easier. Sure. And there are certain words, I give up, because I don't want the conversation where I'll say I don't know I can't even think

Madison can you think of anything that I say American just because I can't be bothered with the conversation my name is a big one not like happen in like day to day conversations but I will say garage is one that you have

committed to say I feel like garage and schedule are easy ones to slip into schedule is actually one that I have started instead of schedule. Do you want to know something I found gutting?

Go. The original English words for autumn and aluminium. Fallen aluminum. Crazy. So we're wrong. We're wrong, crazy. But it's crazy because they write the word differently for aluminum. It is spelt aluminum.

Yeah. And I think that's how it was even in England. I don't mind. I will give up garage because Mirage. I can't think of it. the word that ends in AGE, that has the same as garage, really.

Yeah. I can't think of one. The one that I really... Sewage. Sewage. Oh my God. You might have put me back on Team Garage. Say sewage.

Sewage. Yeah, it's not sewage. Oh my God. I'm back on Team Garage. I'm going to start saying suage instead. But the one thing I really can't concede is Fahrenheit. I mean... I do.

do it because I have to be able to convey to my very chilly girlfriend what the fucking temperature is, but water freezes at zero and boils at 100 seems to be pretty fucking logical to me. If you're basing the system off water. Yeah. I mean, I agree. What is Fahrenheit based off? That's a good question. 200, what, 207?

Yeah, but that's because it's not really designed around water. It's designed for other reasons. Hit me, math, girl. Have a little Google. But in the meantime, the water thing, I just, it, it, it, it, it, it, it's, it. shocks me so much that the context, imagine the situation. You're sitting in a restaurant.

You're the only Brit amongst some Americans. The server comes over and takes your drink order and you say, oh, just a water, please. Yeah. Context, come on. Yeah. Like just, uh, it's probably implying it's something very... I mean, you even pronounce the tea.

Yeah, but that doesn't help. Really? The number of times I get at, what? And then like, a water? What? Water. Oh, I'm like, really? So now, now I'll just do that.

You'll do the accent. I can't wait to see that later. I can't wait to see it later. I don't go for dinner. Oh my God, that was good. I mean, I get it, but it's because I say water. I don't have that tea. Water.

But I think maybe Americans are so used to the bottle of water meme that they understand water more than someone actually saying the tea in it. Yeah, it's just water. It's not like inability to comprehend it. I can understand if it's a double take. Like, what was that? But then, like, with repeated clarification of we're ordering drinks. You write off.

That it's just surprising. Fahrenheit. 2.12 to boil water. Okay. What was it based on? What's Fahrenheit's history? I mean, this might be cut. It might be fucking pointless, but I'm quite want to know.

I don't, yeah, I don't think it's based around someone going, hmm, let's think about water and call that 30, whatever. When the German physicist, the Daniel Gabriel, Fahrenheit, developed his scale, In 1724, he used different reference points. The first one was zero degrees, was the lowest temperature he could achieve using a mixture of ice water and ammonium chloride, which is like a salt brine. 96, originally 90 or 100 somewhere in between, was set as the approximate normal temperature for the human body,

and the freezing point of pure water was observed to be 32 degrees on this scale. So it was based around body temperature. and water, yeah. I mean, still, that sucks. Thank you, but Celsius. But I just think the counter argument of the boiling and freezing temperatures of water on the Fahrenheit scale doesn't track is a good criticism

because it wasn't intended that way. Fucking half the earth, bro. Water. Yeah, I know. Is it more than half the earth? Probably three. I mean, diehard Celsius. Don't get me off.

Kelvin, if you like, actually. Wow. I don't actually measure things in Kelvin. 5,600 Kelvin on these lights. Just leaking my daylight there. While we're on the subject of production and producing, explain to me what producer points are, because I don't really know what they are.

It's a way for producers to get in on future payments. On the royalties. Yeah, it's just a way of getting in as though you were like part of the songwiser. Is it a normal thing? It used to be. I think what used to happen a lot is that a label would call up a big shot producer and say, we've got this debut record to do for this band. And the producer might not think it's necessarily going to be a hit back in the day when,

well, not that rather, but they don't know. It's not sure fire like working with, you know, on the third album where the second one's done amazingly. And then it's six months work for them kind of thing. They're kind of taking a punt, you know. And then to sweeten the deal, the label might say, well, you basically get like a little bit of this. You get invested a little bit into it. So if you think it's good, then you can go for it and trust that you'd actually make more rather than just a one-time fee. A bit like Star Wars, a new hope, you know, the story about that.

What the fuck was the guy's name? The guy that played Obi-Wan Kenobi. Ben, who's this Obi-Wan-Kan-Obi? Alec Guinness. All of the actors for the first Star Wars were offered a fee, or they could take 1% of the net or gross for Star Wars, the franchise, and he was the only one that took it. Made more money than anyone in the Star Wars world other than George Lucas.

Of course. So that would be the other time that a producer point might come up if a band doesn't have the budget to meet the producer's normal budget. And they say, well, you can make some off the back end. Do you take producer points? No, generally not. I don't really consider myself a producer. Really?

That's what I was getting at. You kind of suck. No, no, no. You don't, you like mitigate conversations about production to engineering quite a lot of the time. That's because a lot of the time I'm working with bands that have, I think of a producer in a traditional way of someone that is helping to create the whole branding, if you will, of a release where they're coming up with the sonic concept. working with the band as a creative muse.

They're deciding on how the record is going to be recorded in the way that's going to be most creatively optimal and generate the right vibes. And they're involved in writing the songs or at least making suggestions on edits to songs or cutting songs. You don't think you do that? I do it in a small way. I'm not saying I'm not, I'm not Steve Albini who literally refused to call himself a producer. It's not that.

But it's just realistically my involvement in records doesn't tend to be that. deep in such a way as to say, I really put my blood and soul into this and, like, I need to get some points. Is that through choice? Yeah. I mean, I just don't really have time. And as I say, I think the bands which I work with, that aren't really looking for that thing. They're pretty fleshed out already. Yeah.

There's been a couple of occasions with bands that, actually, in one particular case, it was, I'd done one record with them, and their budget got cut for the second record that they wanted me to do, and they offered. They were like, well, we can't pay as much, but you can get some points. And I mean, I wanted to do it anyway. The points wasn't the thing that... But did you take the points? I did, yeah. But, I mean, it's not like it's made me...

I don't think I made very much. It wasn't anything. But... Massive. You know, we spoke at the start about, like, how I do lots of different things. And really doing records for me is like the... It's the, like, fertile period for everything else that I do. It's like where I get to really do the thing and work...

with outside influences in a way that then connects me with new ideas that I can then use in the other outlets. So in a way, it's almost a lost leader. I'm not saying I don't ask to get paid handsomely in some cases, but I'm not doing it where it's my only income and I need to make sure I'm always hitting a certain amount. Are you at the stage now where you can pick and choose who you want to work with? Yeah, I mean, just logistically, I only do a couple of records, you know, a couple of records a year. This year has been the first year I've taken on more mixing again since my daughter was born. So four years.

She'll be four in January. So when she was born, I was like, I can't have my company and also bands all over the world needing annoying mixed revisions while I've got a newborn baby. And then like, you know, she's she's old enough now where there's more normality. And GGD has just gone over this massive thing with releasing on our standalone player. and I'm feeling inspired to do client work. So I'm doing more of it. But I mean, I just don't have time to do very much of it. Because of GGD and fatherhood.

And frankly, I probably wouldn't want to just do back-to-back records. I see the people that do that, and they love that process. And it's something I enjoy, but it's not necessarily what I want. What's your favorite thing that you do? Favorite thing that I do. Out of all of the list. I'll give you the list again if you want. No, no.

Yeah. No, I'm going to give you the list again. Okay. I'm going to give you a list I want you to tell me what your favorite thing is I can tell you what my favorite thing is

and I don't think it's on the list but go for it I mean give me that afterwards but give me out the list unless it's something I'm missing from the list guitarist bassist producer mixer engineer plug in designer

I guess and signature artist that's about it I think out of that list weirdly it would be plug-in designer but because that is it's the process that's involved in that of distilling basically the things that are learned from all of the other things yeah i just get really i have to figure something out if if if i've heard a sound or coffee or whatever like

taste something you know what i mean if there's something which like sparks my inspiration of like that's amazing. I need to know how to do that every time. Then I am just fully committed to that journey and I can't help myself from being obsessed with that. And product design is what is the amazing thing that happens at the end of it. Having gone through sometimes a really annoying and frustrating process that could take a really long time, finally figuring this thing out and then it's like, wow, I now know how to do this thing. thing that, you know, I didn't know how to do before and maybe it doesn't seem like many other people have figured out as well. This knowledge can now actually be monetized in a way

that gives me, you know, remuneration for it. And that's that thing where it feels like, it's so much my passion that it's kind of like almost a joke that I get paid for it. But it's like it's in the process of doing that is more enjoyable to you than any of the other things. It's more in my very soul. I can't, that is a character trait. And do you think it comes from problem solving? It's a problem solving kind of mind say, yeah. Yeah, like you come across something that doesn't exist yet or usually, as I was saying, it does exist, but for a fleeting moment, it's like the first time you hear, the first time you heard metal and got inspired by it or something. But I mean when you're designing a plugin in particular.

But this is the beautiful thing that I think from my perspective is that the products come afterwards. I never am sitting down like, okay, guys, we need to fill out our product portfolio with this thing. Okay, so give me an example. Okay. The guitar cab software's we've done, I got so obsessed with figuring out why the metal guitar tone of like the early to mid-2000s sounded the way they did, which was my era of getting into metal. guitar sounded a certain way and I could never replicate it, even though I seemingly could put all the bits together that I knew were being used, it just never sounded right. And then that

led to basically like a year and a half of more of investigative work, like talking to producers and engineers and people on forums to figure out the serial codes on the cabs that sounded best, to then track that to the particular batches of speakers that were used in those, which are technically vintage 30s, which is a speaker that's been here for 35 years, but there was a particular time period where the voicing seemed to shift, and that happened to be the time period that the cabinets that were used for these tones. So the particular year that the speakers were made. A batch within the year, yeah. And you tracked those down. I did eventually. And then that plug-in came from that. And then it was like, wow, I was just swimming in this movie oversized cabs.

And are you being paid at this point for that? I'm buying. It's just. That's why I'm saying like it's almost a joke that then becomes. Yeah, but I mean, it really is because you're doing quite a lot of work based on the pure love of the sound. Right. It's just pure passion. And then being able and that's like that rings true. I guess for anyone like, right in writing music, anytime a small band asked me like, oh, have you got any advice on like how to make it? And I'm like, I'm so far removed from like. I haven't started a new band yet. But like how are you even market that stuff so my answer is always the same it's just like make music that you love with every single part of your soul and people will either like it or won't like it but you'll like

it so it doesn't matter and that's essentially what you're doing is just chasing this thing yeah and then at the end being like oh fuck i monetize this yeah it's kind of cool it's so cool i mean what a privilege to be able to do that and to be able to raise a family and and and you know have a company that also pays employees that can hopefully raise their families. And you know what I mean? Like it's crazy that there's an ecosystem built around this. And I'm in no way am I taking this in like an arrogant way. It's just like genuinely like, how fucking cool is that?

Like it's such a weird thing to look at from the outside and think about. I was going to. I couldn't be any other way as well with those passion things like you're saying. I was going to ask you if like there was anything yet to be done that you want to make. But it's like, I guess it's leaking stuff that has. come out yet. No, I mean, I, I love drums, genuinely. Like, I really, really love drums. And I'm always learning about new drums and symbols, or like, sometimes old ones. I've been on a premier drums kick at the moment. I don't know if you're... I, Logan, my drum tech on this

tour was like, knowledge just asked me for another, to drive another kit. Yeah. From Aberdeen or something to Bath, which is like a 10-hour drive. And I was like, what kit is it? And he was, like, what kit is it? And He goes, there's a Premier. It's a premier. And he didn't tell me which one it was, but can I guess what it is? I don't know. Can you tell me what the year is? It's a 90s kid.

So it might not be... Okay. Late 90s? No. Is there something special about it? I just think they're great. And I've been tracking them online looking for one that's... Is it an APX?

No. What is it? It's a Signia. Oh, yeah, I remember those. They were like the flagship back in the day. They were the flagship. Yeah. And it's like...

They just sound really good. I've got Signia snare. It's one of those, like, if you know, you know kits. Yeah. Almost like if you fuse the best aspects of like a Yamaha recording custom with a DW. It's funny how Premier just went obsolete. Yeah, I mean, well, they're owned by Geoff Music now, I think. Really?

Is it, no, maybe it's not Geoff. It's one of the big companies has revived the brand. They still make drums? They do, yeah. Still Luginistas and everything. But I think whoever bought the company, has exclusive rights. But, you know, like, so towards,

when I was just getting into drums was like the last gas was Premier and they'd hired Rob Kio. Koff? I don't know. Amazing. He used to do K.D. Custom.

Wait, was that, they were always Birch? Maybe. No, I'm thinking of, I'm thinking of Halapino. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They were great. They were great sounding drums.

Yeah, crazy. All brass. Yeah, mental. So I've probably actually got that name wrong. That's not his name. It's Keith something. Keith something. Anyway, he got hired.

He was a custom drummaker. He got hired by Premier. Yeah. And did these, like, ultra-deluxe custom shop kits. And then Premier folded, and he got tapped to create British Drumco. Okay. So basically, like, the things he was doing with Premier towards the end became the beginnings of the range of British Drumco. And he's recently left British Drumco, but, like, he's, he's, like, he's, he's, like, he's, he's,

like a really great drum builder that I guess Premier was just kind of fading at that point. But the Signia drums thing, you can find them online, it's just this guy in Aberdeen was selling a really good condition one with all the sizes I want for cheap enough that I was like... Cheap enough to warrant paying Logan to drive it

all the way down. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. Yeah, it is a bit crazy. Probably by the time... sample it, obviously. What a great... Look, I've got the best excuse. I can't just go reusing drums. That's true. You know, you and I know that you put different heads on and tune the same kit differently and put different mics on it.

It can sound just as different as another drum kit. But it's just passion, love of the game, man. I just want to hear it. Yeah, you really do love sound more than anyone else I know. It's kind of cool. Yeah, it's geeky, but it's cool. Yeah, but it's good that you don't have like, I don't know, you could be one of the most prolific music producers of our time.

I don't know about that. 100% you could. I'm just not passionate. I'm not passionate. Yeah, and I think that's cool that you have seen that and been like, okay, that bit's not for me because you could make a quick buck.

Well, that's the thing is I don't think it's quick either. Again, like what you were saying with the bands, it's the exact same advice that you were giving to the bands, like do the thing that you're super passionate about. I think when I was younger, I thought that there would be a way, maybe it's a British schooling system, telling you that you need to,

you know, if you just tried harder, you could be really good at something. and I kind of learned some wrong lesson that you needed to try and feel differently about things in order to be able to do them. And then at some point I was like, no, you don't get to choose. You're just passionate about something.

And if you are, then all the hard work and the hours. It's not even a choice. And I used to feel that advice like you just don't want this enough meant that you needed to try to want it more as opposed to like, no, that's actually just saying

there's probably something else that you do. It's funny because I'm at a weird period with music where like we were saying earlier, someone asked me if I'd be willing to join a band purely on a touring basis and not as a creator. And it was presented to me pretty much for the first time since Stray breaking up. And I had just my immediate thought was,

I really want quite the opposite to that. Like I think I love playing the drums and I love creating. music i don't love being on tour not to say that i wouldn't go on tour again but touring would be a payday for me i would much rather play i need to be paid quite a lot to play music that i didn't make yeah to the point where this person they didn't have the budget to do that yeah and i think that's the road i'm on now although i like i love making stuff as well i love fucking supplement company fucking podcast.

Yeah. The plug in. Well, that's why it's also hard, I'm sure, for you to be like, I'm just going to be away from having all this time and make all these other things that I want to do way more difficult. Yeah, it's a nightmare. But I am looking forward to, like, I don't know, making music with no,

uh, no like, okay, this has to get big enough to tour so I can make money from the tour. It's going to be kind of the first time in a while where I can just be like, you know what? I, because when I'm writing for stray, It has to sound like stray.

Sure. But like now, once I get settled into this post-Stray life, I can be like, I think I'm going to do a death core EP and just speak to some friends. You want to do a death-core EP? It's so perfectly a place to do that. And then just put it out for no reason. And then people will like it.

I'll be able to play it on stream. It'll be some things. But then it's not like, what's next? The big, like, we need to go on the festivals. I've got, no. How long before Downbeat Records? I mean, really. we've done all these delicious collapse as seen here.

I don't think... I've thought about that and I've thought about management and it had been presented to me. Like, oh, you'd be quite a good manager and I don't think to the same thing. I don't think I care enough about anything quite egotistically. I don't think I care enough in... music for anything I didn't make enough to warrant me being in charge of the business for it.

I think I have like a weird arrogance in, I love stuff that I make and I'm willing to give that 100%. But I think if I did a record label or something managing a band, I don't think I could give it what it deserves. I think a label if you had some other people around you, that could be something that you would be good at. But I, I understand. stand with a management situation. I mean, being a manager is basically a lot of the time, like you, I know you don't really suffer fools, right? And a lot of the time you're putting out fires, putting out fires as a manager that really shouldn't have been set in the first place. And I think you'd just get so frustrated.

Yeah, the band would be off every major festival or anything immediately because I'd get in a fucking bad mood. Although some of my best friends that are the hottest headed people, even more than me, make great managers because of that. I guess they're used to their, like the temperature being up here. They're not going to put up with it. I don't think I'd ever do a label. I am very, I love doing the collabs for the same sort of reason, same sort of problem solving reason.

Like every downbeat collab we've done, I've managed to put something I love, which is death metal artwork, obscure mental, gory death metal artwork. And if you're in a band like dying wish or knock loose or whatever, you have a certain aesthetic that you can't stray away from for album artwork. But doing a downbeat collab, you can get a bit silly with it. So I think I'd like to do more of those. And I'd like to do more collabs with clothing for bands.

I think there's a huge, huge hole in band merchandising where someone else is either pulling the strings or let's just stick a logo on a t-shirt or less. And at the same time, there is people are buying thrifted. did clothes way more and they're buying vintage bands shirts and stuff like that and bands are getting annoyed at bootleggers because they're bootlegging certain you know albums or whatever and in my head I'm like you should actually if you're a band you should just be making that so that people could make it and I would like to start doing collabs with bands where it's like hey let's make something really fucking cool yeah I have the warehouse I have

the factories so like we can make whatever you want and then do it as a club it's a great idea That's next on my list, I think, and a death core band, and a technical death metal band. And I'm looking forward to doing metal again, to be honest. Oh, yeah, yeah. Thinking about learning doubles. Feet doubles. Just for fun.

Because I've never had the time to do it. Because we're always, like, maximum of two months in between straightours, not enough time to learn, like, such a different technique, and then be able to go on the road and play your normal technique. And now I have no reason to it. Yeah. bit like learning Spanish the thing that got me to the point

where I was fluent was doing it every day as part of daily life and if it's just like this weird little hobby that you've got on the side it would be hard. And you can't shift like shifting back for drumming especially if I was learning doubles and then I have to go play a straight show

I wouldn't be able to do it. So I don't know what I'm going to do. Here's a good one. You've recorded many, many, many drummers Yeah, two from Sleep Token. Matt Helper, Craig Reynolds. Who else you record?

I've recorded. Allie Richardson. Gatska. Matt Grasco. You've recorded... Greb. Benny Greb. Holy shit. Ray from Haken is really good. You've recorded some of the goats. Yeah, I guess I have. Morgan Agron.

Morgan Agron. What can drummers do in preparation for the studio that can help them deliver the best performance and also come away, not feeling defeated? Oh man that's hard because different Different bands demand different kinds of like Execution in the studio With some drummers I think really two things I guess

Which are more general but One would be really understand What the band as a whole is looking for From the drum session from demoing to final thing Like are they looking for you to elevate what's in the demos Or are they as a whole? because it is ultimately a whole band decision looking for you to execute

as closely as possible to what they're expecting because I've seen a lot of heartache go both ways. Either a drummer's come fully prepared having learned the demos really clearly and then the band are like expecting them to pull stuff out of the hat and they're not really the kind of drummers do that. That was just bare bones and yeah. And then also the other way where the

maybe even the conversations haven't been super clear where the drummer's kind of told like, yeah, yeah, you can kind of do your thing, but then when it comes down to it, they're recording and the band are like, whoa, what's happening? Yeah. And it's tough because...

I feel like I've been that guy before. Yeah? Yeah. I think that's really a communication thing, isn't it? You know? And then the other thing would be to record yourself lots, but that's a general thing that I think would really help drummers. That said, you know, Matt Gasker doesn't have a problem with this.

You know what I mean? I'm kind of lucky in the way that I've recorded really great drummers that are capable of kind of doing... So what makes? It makes them so great when they come in, exactly what you said, well rehearsed, well, they know what is expected of them. I mean, I think, I think, like, people maybe underestimate how much rehearsal time is necessary to come into the studio and execute as though you've been playing the songs live, because most of the time that's not what's happening. You know, I've done a few sessions. I mean, Allie's really good at coming in very well rehearsed.

when we did Sleep Token, I think I could say, the two came in extremely well rehearsed. But what that affords both of the sessions I'm thinking of, both those drummers is they can bash out a version that's good to go really quickly, and then we've got all of this time to sprinkle some fairy dust and try options out. Let's say you're doing that with two or Allie Richardson,

and you get a take, which is good to go, and then you sprinkle the fairy dust. Do you then, does that all of those stems go to whoever is mixing or producing the track for them to pick from? Or is it you guys sprinkle the fairy dust and then you say, okay, this is it? Yeah, almost always with the bands I'm working with,

especially in metal. Like the parts are so specific and the comping will be done with the drummer there, making sure that everything that they cared about is represented in the film. like in the take and I'll be making I mean recording someone like Matt Halpin for example I think was probably the best

in terms of being challenging way to go about it because he's so free on every take he's getting different symbols on every take trying to stitch those performances together gets really tricky you're trying to edit something like two very free-form things together and you get really good at doing that so because the classic thing is symbols cutting out

when you go from one thing to another because the drummer hit a different crash or whatever with Matt that's just just like standing, you know what I mean? So I'm always really hands-on comping both so the drummer's satisfied and I know that technically it's as clean as it can be. And then the edit will be gone over really carefully. And I just, when I'm just a mixer,

I don't want to be thinking about, is that the right take for this section? You know, like that I don't want to be thinking on that level. I want to be just seeing it as kind of pure sound. So you do have quite a big creative control there. Yeah. Because it leaves the studio with what you and the drummer does. I can't imagine the whole of sleep dog were in the studio.

No. No. I think I would, I definitely feel comfortable saying that most of the time when I do a drum session, which is often what I do when I'm recording with a band, they might track the rest themselves, that I am there in a production capacity. I do feel like I'm there with them coaching or suggesting or I don't know, just, yeah. I do think I produce for drums, but I guess what I was pushing back on before, was the idea of producing like an album where I'm doing that.

Yeah. But on everything. On every instrument. That's that serious. To do that well is like months of work. I'm just never doing that. To enjoy every instrument that much is fatiguing. How do you feel about AI in music?

I mean, there's always going to be stuff that pops up that's like, oh, that's too close to, like, that, that is scary. But for the most part, I feel like, the most part, I feel like, the. most generic commercial music has already been generic and boardroom created and panel created in a way that I just, I don't care if it's a group of, well, let me, let me be clear. I think there are aspects of music, of popular music that I don't care if they become fully AI, because they're not my preference anyway, and it's already so manufactured. I think that it's going to create, is creating a kind of in a smaller amount of people maybe a minority of people but a desire

to look for authenticity and I think that it's actually going to play out that and he's playing out that big bands to set themselves apart the flex is going to be doing it more real like I have wondered that myself and the thing is like if an AI and I know AI could expand to include very realistic humanisation and error creation and stuff. But like, ultimately, if a band spend six months in the studio with lots of money, with humans creating something, they're going to want to leave some of the imperfection in so that there is like a mark of a creator.

Yeah, like a watermark of being real. And I think that people value that. And I think that people, I think that people value the narrative behind the thing they can see me. If you imagine, like, a camera turning off. That one. That was. I think we ran over with that.

If you imagine you're, we're both into coffee or like if you're in a restaurant and you order some wine, it's a very different experience if someone tells you a bit about where this thing came from and the process that was involved and there's a nice story about it. I don't mean that has to be like super fancy, but just to have a bit of knowledge about the origin of this thing that you're experiencing really transforms the experience. And AI is just not, AI created things are just not going to have.

have that. Like I don't care if AI creates like the most punchy snare ever. Like it's not going to be as interesting to me as a slightly less punchy snare that's real and that I know atoms were moved in a space and picked up by microphones and a human tuned it and stuff. Like there's like a I think you're very quickly going to reach the point where there's no objective better within AI and everything is like playing God mode on on like playing computer. games of God mode, it's like, okay, there's not really any value in this. I mean, I agree. I mean, I hope you're right.

And I hope there is a grunge-like rebellion against it. Where a turnstile, stuff like that. But I do worry with the rise of the anonymous bands that, that it will be very easy to create a completely AI band. Yeah. That, I mean, yeah. And the gaming of the system is, worries me. I'm not too worried.

The game, like the Spotify. Socially, systemically, AI, I think is going to be super chaotic. And I'm not looking to that. I have the almost the opposite opinion as you like. I worry about it very, very much from music because the ability for people to just create rip off bands, stick them on Spotify. We're seeing it. And they make thousands of dollars in revenue.

And then maybe you mention it gets pulled. Maybe it doesn't. Whereas in the grand scheme of things, I feel like with, everything being able to be faked like you have in especially in the US you have the people that watch CNBC and you have the people that watch Fox News and they all the people that watch CNBC believe everything on CNBC and everyone obviously not everyone but the majority and everyone who's watches Fox News believes everything on Fox News when AI becomes so ingrained in society that everything can be fake I

I really feel like people are going to start distrusting everything. But I don't think that that's the route to a healthy world, unfortunately. I agree with you. I think distrust, unfortunately, is where people with genuine ulterior motives start to step in and really take advantage. That's what I'm scared of. I feel like it would be more, my opinion is people will start to question everything more. I think there's positives to that.

Yeah. I'm just worried about the divided we're conquered aspect of it. I mean, on the positive, I think medical stuff is probably going to be hugely improved. They promised us that was the fucking main thing and they seemed to have just started with the arts. They were like, okay, we're going to like cure cancer. We've already like discovered that some cancer's super early

because of AI. But it's like, oh, by the way, here's this crazy studio giblified version of whatever. But the other thing is I'm, I'm jeed up by seeing how negatively things are seen when they're found out to be AI. Yeah. And I don't think it's just the creator community. I think that the general public do not like finding out that something they didn't think was AI is AI.

I can't believe when I see creators using it and they're like so far removed from their audience that they think this will be fine and then they do it and the comments are fucking crazy. So at least I think it's kind of getting policed a little bit, you know? Yeah. I do hope it continues to get policed because I fucking hate it. But I could use it for

drum editing. I'd love that. Slam it through a fight. But then even then, I'm saying I'd love that. That is taking someone's job away. It's taking a drum editor's job away. That's a fucking conversation for another day. It is. Nolly. Thanks for coming on the downbeat.

Buy our fucking plug in. It's called One Kit Wonder, the downbeat and it's really fucking great. He's happy, I'm unhappy. Madison's bored as fuck. Let's get some food. Thanks, Nogli. I'm gonna.

And, like my music, my baby is my baby can't be able to continue my rhythm. For so, Potion Nine, of Sebastian Professional has everything

what my hair needs. Nutrition Profunda. Protection against the encrespaid. 99% less of rotura and punas

abirtas under control. New Potion Nine of Sebastian Professional, the secret professional of who

not are tendences, but of who they're the people.

Convient your passion in a business with Shopify and bat records

of the business with the form of the world. You've heard

the good. The good thing. It's a good thing. The same thing, it's not a thing, it's

euro at one euro at most in shopify.com.s bar records Thank you