The Downbeat - Adam "Nolly" Getgood - Producer

Episode Date: March 11, 2021

My guest this week is producer, engineer, mixer, guitarist, bassist, and espresso master Adam "Nolly" Getgood. You may know Nolly from his work playing with Periphery or producing bands like Animals As Leaders, The Devin Townsend Project, Architects and many more. I pretty much explained the many strings to Nolly's bow in sentence one so obviously we spoke about those, as well as his VST instrument company GGD, our thoughts on drums, drum tracking and what makes a good drummer, as well as coffee and of course: his favourite bands.

Hello there. A couple of things. Oh, that sounds really serious. It's not going to be serious. In 3-2-1, I'm going to be not serious. I'm completely naked. So there's that. If you can hear dangling.

I'll explain why in a minute. And also, is that illegal? I guess it's audio. If it was video, it would be exposing myself. But it's audio, so it's perfectly allowed. And as long as I don't say anything sexy. But, yeah, Billy Bullocks. and if there's some rustling, it's because I've got a plastic bag on my head.

So if you can imagine that scene, what it is is I'm dyeing my hair because I'm a man of, you know, a millennial man. I want to look cool. So I'm dying my hair, so I don't get dye on my clothes. I've got, I'm naked and something to do with the toner or something that I need a plastic bag on my head. Anyway, now I've set the scene. I really don't want to go into selling you anything.

What have I been up to? Fucking nothing. Making more of these and you can support this. Patreon.com slash the downbeat. Just a fucking quid. That's that one done. Or if there's t-shirts, www.

the downbby. So it spells downbeat. I don't know why I've gone slightly northern, sort of a northern area of England there. There might be t-shirts if there's not. That's out of the fucking way. If you were listening to it on the Patreon, you would have this early.

It'd be like some sort of time travel. Isn't the Patreon? Great, everyone that's on the Patreon. I actually made myself actually laugh there by fake laughing. My guest this week is I've got... My guest this week is the salmon in between my teeth. My guest this week, are these getting more insane? I think I'm drunk with power.

Yeah, cool. Professional podcaster. My guest this week is Nollie. Nolly get good. You might know him as the, he used to be the bassist in Periphery, but he's mainly known for being an amazing producer and mix engineer. And he's an old friend of mine. I think we figured out it may be been seven or eight years since we spoke to each other properly. So we just sort of caught up, talked about, he's worked with architects. He produced the and produced Holy Howe, I think, or engineered it and he engineered the drone. And he engineered the

on the new one. Can't we bother to figure out. I would say that name again, but they got number one, didn't they? That was good. Well done. We talked about working with Devon Townsend when Devon Townsend had three different drummers. What makes a good drummer? What makes a good musician? The parallels between making coffee and making music. We came to the conclusion that a drummer that we thought was fake is actually real. Yeah, just a lovely, just a lovely time. I had a lovely time with Adam Nolly Get Good on the Downbeat podcast. Wait a minute.

I've had to come back. It's me again. Because I just listened to this. And if you listen really carefully right at the beginning of the podcast, you can hear the plastic bag brusling on my head. It's the funniest shit ever. So go back and listen to that. Anyway, here's Nolly.

I'm going to count to four and then we're both going to clap four times in that tempo in that way. I will sync it up. It's not only is it a challenge, but I will sync up the, what's it called? Wave forms.

That's it. Okay, right, okay. Ready? Yep. One, two, three, four. How was that for you? Great. Click my microphone, but that should be fine.

That's fine. For me, everyone else seems out of time because obviously I'm starting it because... Yeah, of course. So sometimes you get like a nice... Sometimes you get like a nice

exactly displaced 16th note. Right. And that's when I know it's in time. Oh dear, so I wasn't in time then. No, you were fine. We felt like a good crowd clap, you know, like the kind of clap you'd want on a record, not where it's like everyone's exactly the same time,

it just sounds like one clap, you know? It's, yeah, multitracked claps. Yeah. I thought it was fine. Speaking of that, I had a big thing the other day where I was watching an animals as leaders set, and they get the crowd to clap this crazy fucking Ostenato,

and the crowd gets it immediately. Really? It's like, one, two, three, four. Do you know the song? I mean, I think it's Caffo, is the song. Oh, yeah, yeah. But the crowd, they get, like, I think Javier goes, does it once,

and then the crowd immediately gets it. And I'm just watching it. Like, we can't get people to clap Outbreak, which is 4-180 ppm. And people are like, what? Yeah. Okay, two things. Fair play, but it is one of their better-known songs, I guess. And it's a really geeky crowd.

True. And then secondly, where were they? Because different places in the world are, you know, hugely different in terms of clapping ability. I don't know if you found that. That's insane. No, I haven't. Actually, no, yeah, I think I have. I don't want to shame any countries.

But no, but this was, let me see your reaction with this. It was Brutal Assault Festival, Czech Republic. Wow, okay. Now you're impressed. That's a curveball. Yeah, no, I am impressed by that. I was going to say, I think South America really hot on it. You know, like, there's so.

What, I'm clapping? Yeah. Oh, I guess so. Like, every country, every region has, like, their own claves in a lot of those countries. I mean, whether it's Brazil or Chile or Argentina or whatever. they've all got like these national rhythms pretty much, you know, and they've all got that built into them. Have you experienced a clave clap? Yeah, I think so.

Yeah. I don't know if you know this. My wife is Chilean. I know that, but what? You're going around clapping with her or what? Yeah, man, that's what we do. You know, she took me to a clapping event on our first step. No, but there's a lot, a lot of stuff.

Like we've been to what they call like a fondo, which is like a like a, a. county fair basically kind of thing in Chile and they have traditional music and get this like the traditional Chilean dance the Quaker is it's in three but everybody claps on the two and the three and not the one and you add that into that there's like these kind of folk instruments that are done with strumming patterns which are like in quintuplets and stuff like that over the top of this and it's just normal to them it's just normal to them and the whole thing kind of sounds a bit Jay Diller, like there's like a shaker which has like, I guess, just another traditional folk instrument that's like a little bit off kilter, but everybody just gets it.

That's so sick. Yeah, and I did not get it at all in the beginning. I was like, this is weird. Where's the one? The white guy? Yeah. Well, I'm the prod guy. I was disappointed in myself. I was like, I should be able to get this. And just the fact they weren't even clapping the one. They're just going like, like. That's fucking cool. Yeah. That's great. How have you been, man? I haven't spoke to you in ages. Yeah, I'm going to...

I was thinking that before we got on. I reckon it must be six years, at least. No. I think so. Since we... Okay, since we hung out in person. That is for sure six years, because that was when I had that little drum room.

Exactly, yeah. My mom and dad's. That's so long ago. Yeah, well, we both... Well, life, six years happens, a lot happens in six years, I should say. That's fucking crazy. What are you doing?

with yourself. So I've kind of got a few different things that I do in varying amounts depending on necessity. So there's still like the mixing kind of side of things which you know, I used to do more production and have

gradually over the years gone more in the direction of just mixing. I still do like to get in on at least one day of the drum tracking on the first day if it's a project which is being recorded close by so I can just make sure that everything's being recorded kind of well. Yeah.

But yeah, mixing is just that much easier because you're not on the clock. You're not in the studio for like weeks on end. And you can fit it around your timetable that much better as well. So I've got my kind of audio mixing stuff, which I didn't even do that much of in 2020. I was doing a lot more for get good drums or get good digital, as it's now going to be called. Ooh.

Yeah. Yeah. We've recorded a lot. I mean, in the downtime, I recorded multiple drum sample libraries, one and a half of which are me actually hitting the drums, which is pretty hilarious because of COVID ruling out assistance. I do actually remember, though, I mean, six years ago, you were perfecting your rim shot in order to do this,

because I remember you sat on my drums doing it. So six years of rim shot practice, I reckon that's going to be good. I've got a good right-handed rim shot. That's fine. It's all you need to do in a sample library. It is, yeah. But I think the issue is when you're doing, like, lots of drums or lots of symbols. Like, for me, I can I can do that for maybe 20 minutes and start to get a little bit of, like, a tennis elbow-y feeling.

And then I did, I did, like... Oh, shit. I didn't even think of that. Yeah, I just haven't got, you know, I don't know. I don't even think of drum, like, drums being... Because I've done it for that long. I don't even think of them as being physical. at all. I just think of it like writing.

I'm just going to sit down and write with a pen. What kind of percentage of your energy are you putting in... I know that's a weird question. I mean like when you're drumming, not in a show, and you want it to sound good, like you're drumming full on, but you're not like trying to impress anyone with how hard you can possibly hit. How much kind of energy are you exerting? well here's the thing about me

gnolly i'm top heavy as a human right and i reckon when i'm playing the drums as hard as i possibly can i am this is not a flex because i'm about to just spin it on its head but if i'm playing the drums as hard as i physically can like if i'm attempting to be eloy

yeah with my with the top half of my body i reckon i'm probably using 20% of the end of the end of energy, but any kind of double kick whatsoever will put me into 90%. Even if it's like 150, 16th, I am completely fucked. I don't know what it is. That's like you're trying to match that intensity with your lower half as well. Yeah, and I can't do it any other way. I cannot kick lightly.

Oh, in just in general. do it. Yeah, I just can't do it. It's a technique thing. I mean, I can do like a little, like a bubub, where the first one will be light. But the minute, particularly the minute like there's another

instrument playing. Yeah. I, in my head, all that I, I think it's like a fallout from being in band practice when you're a kid and nothing's miced up. And you have to be louder than the guitars. So you're like, okay, I just need to be louder.

So now anytime I play with any musician ever, I have to just be louder than them. With the bass drum specifically. Specifically with the world, because that's the one I could never hear. So it's like, so when I actually switch to Porter and Davies for my microphone,

for my kick drum monitoring, I started playing so much better because I was feeling like, I was feeling lighter hits and being like, okay, so that did definitely happen, rather than it's stupidly gated in my ears, and that feels like I didn't do that. So next time I do that, I should hit it harder.

That's interesting. You know, I've never thought, but it makes so much sense. I guess it's a lot like vocalists going to in-ears for the first time and kind of realizing that they don't need to push and destroy their voice in, you know, a matter of seconds when they're on stage. Yeah, the other mad one for that,

that for me was having tombs in my in-ears because obviously you can't push the tom's that loud in a wedge so when I switched to it in-eers I was like wait a minute this tom is loud anyway and I'm not even striking it that hard yeah big fan of that most people don't I was just going to say like you are probably more obsessed with drums than most drummers that I know. Yeah. That's probably right. But I think that's, that makes sense.

Because if I was a drummer, I would be, it's just like, it's like another kind of side of the brain almost. It's just like, it's like a listener's perspective that I'm enjoying drummers from. And I think a lot of the really great drummers I know, at least for the beginning parts of their career, just wanted to play and, you know, just loved the actual act of playing. And it would be really annoying if on day one of learning to play drums, one sat you down and was like, okay, before you play drums, you need to learn how to tune them exactly and maintain that tuning and everything.

The fundamental note in a Bbinger 16-inch floor tom is A, B or C. That's another thing. I've said it on the podcast a million times. You are the best drum tuner I've ever met. Oh, that's very kind of you to say. Thank you. Out of anyone. And then probably, like, number two is fucking Will Putney.

And neither of you classically play the fucking drums. So it's something that just needs. never your style of drum tuning with, are you still doing it with the notes? Yeah. It's honestly, it's never failed me. Never.

It's unbelievable. Any drum kit, any player, even, I mean, maybe jazz, which I've only recorded a handful of times in my production career,

but, and perhaps jazz, you, just stylistically, especially if it's a kind of boppy thing, it is like Tom's are cranked in a way, which I would never do any other time.

But apart from that, like, soft it's a, light hitter, clear heads, coated hit heads. Yeah, just that tuning system, it never fails, you know, never fails. I remember when I went and recorded that VK Bell bronze kit, the cast bronze kit, and it had been with you prior, and we got it out, and we set it all up, and then I just went, gling, glung, glum, glum, glum, glum, glom, glom.

And it was like, oh, nolly's been here. That's a funny kit, man. that. It was actually difficult. I remember I couldn't tune the 16 to the note that I normally would. It was higher because the pressure of the head, sorry, of the rim, the rims are so heavy that there was like a minimum amount of tension the head was going to have just from putting the rim on it without even tightening any tension rods. But and the other thing was that it just never sounded out of tune. I don't know. I think it's just like it never got that weird wobble like you get with all drums

and I don't know if it's just that somehow those overtones just don't exist on a bell bronze kit you know like I feel like it might have something to do with how there's wood has far more inconsistencies in the actual like grain because I found out you ever recorded acrylic kits you get a good acrylic kit it's the same sort of thing like there's always always a note in there without like a

without, I mean there can still be a flub in there but even if you tuned it you know twice as low as you normally would there would still be a fundamental note that stays exactly the same that I guess that makes sense just a big big bit of fucking plastic well I think the other thing is like just the way the bearing edges are made on those

probably yeah and that's probably another similarity to like a cast metal shell I guess like the bearing edge is just perfect in a way yeah just not going to be completely perfect yeah Yeah, it's interesting actually I don't know if I've had very many experiences now You say it with high-end acrylic kits

And there's probably quite a lot of difference Between a high-end one and a cheap one Knowing that it's quite a different like construction process It's exactly the same as Like metal drums The minute you put a seam in it Not as good Right

So like the seamless acrylics sound incredible But it's like fucking if you even just visualize like to like a bell for example like a literal bell if you cut that in half and then welded it back together there's no way that that bell is going to sound as resonant so that's that's my thinking anytime a drum has a seam

yeah like the more seams the less fucking resonance Dan used to have this SJC wood acrylic wood on one drum like with acrylic middle Yeah Worst fucking sounding drums I've ever heard Because it's like

What makes a good drum Well not having as many seams Okay let's add four extra seams As well as the seams between the plies And then the seams on the acrylic It looked amazing It sounded fucking horrible The 16 and the 18

Because I don't know if it was Not like glued properly or whatever But Because it's like Maybe the four inches of drum before the acrylic, the 16 and the 18, if you hit the top of the drum,

the resonance is going, right, okay, so there's this big seam here, so we're losing some there, and then there's this much acrylic, another seam, we're losing some more there, so it never actually hit the bottom head. So the 16 and the 18 just sounded like gong, like tiny little pancake drums.

It was shit. Yeah, that's rubbish. You know, I think there's something so interesting that I haven't quite figured out still about like what shell resonance really does. Because this is a point where resonance is a bad thing. You know, like you can, there are some thick wood shells. Like I know Sona, for example, do like custom drums with quite thick shells.

And I forget, I mean, I'm not just talking about the old Bambinga ones. Anyway, you know, there are thick shell drums which sound really great and project really loud as well and aren't really lacking in tone. Then you get really thin shells. I mean, like, cheap kits tend to have very thin shells. And sometimes the shells are really resonant, but in a way that's just not a nice resonance at all, you know, very kind of like pokey and mid-rangey and just weird sounding. Yeah, it's, there's a weird, like, I personally, I know I have two of them.

But the Bambinga Tammers are my least favorite Tammers. The Maple ones are the way to go, right? The maples are fucking unbelievable. I agree. I agree. the babingas and everyone's like, oh, they tune so low. And I'm like, I actually don't think they do. I think they sound better higher.

You recorded my bambinga, didn't you, with the Devintowns and Anup used it. Yeah. Did you find, I find that I have to tune that thing higher than I want it to be? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I tuned it the way I normally did, but I didn't, I didn't necessarily. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree.

He wasn't bold over with it. It feels like there's kind of less tone on them, like less note to them. Yeah. Unless you tune them up. And the kick doesn't squish in the same way. Like for that session, I use my maple one, my gold maple 22 that's, like, every time I get a maple kick drum,

it just squishes on that attack in such a satisfying way. It's the same when you're playing it. Playing a maple kick drum just feels like you get more out of what you put in, if you know what I mean. Yeah. With Bingo, I feel like, I don't know, I feel like everyone's obsessed with it because it sounds funny. looks cool.

And it's expensive. And it's expensive. And it's expensive. But honestly, like, even some of the best tombs I've ever heard, you might disagree, those fucking, the Maypex Saturn ones with the, just the, whatever it is, maple with a little bit of walnut in it or some of those, some of the little ones sound incredible. Yeah, I agree. Hate Maypex, but, you know.

Yeah, I mean, they're not a cool brand to like, but I still. still have Matt's, Matt Halpin's Euro touring Maypex kit that I guess he hasn't used in a while now that we also recorded Periphery 3 with. It's kind of just lived with me this whole time. And I love that kit. And he's got it in everything from 8 to 18 with, I mean, there's a couple of drums I don't use, like there's an 18-inch kick drum that he used for teaching and stuff. but that kit you could use for anything, I agree. And the tom sound great. And I think those bearing edges have got quite a lot to do with it.

But yeah, those are really great drums. This is probably the most I've talked about actual drums on this podcast for maybe six months. Fair enough. I mean, is that a good thing? Yeah, I think so. I think I was, do you know what, I got a little bit of a, little bit of a bee in my bonnet about people calling it a drum podcast because I was like realistically I've done the you know maybe half and half drummers and non-drumers um and then

I kept getting like people I usually get this guy on and it was just always like just whatever the flavour of the day metalcore drummer who's got massively quantized triggered videos on Instagram like you should get this guy on and I just ended up saying to people like what the fuck am I going to talk about like do you slip edit or do you use the fucking pro tools beat detective to fix your fucking videos so it just got to the point where I actually started not doing drummers because no one really I don't know anyone that I contacted Mario from Gojira and he was like I don't really feel confident with my English and I think Eloy was the same right so and I contacted you ages ago to do this because I think a

producer side of things in general and because we're mates and I want to catch up but then we sort of just put it off and then you hit me up honestly it was the day after I started thinking about it again so I got to get nollie me got to get nollie on there that's cool that's a good good little um what made you do it because it came completely out of the blue I don't know I think I just had it in the back of my mind and probably you know yeah just those things happen where there's like something which is left undone that you said you'd do and it kind of, I don't know, sometimes you just kind of feel weird like going straight back into another conversation with that person without acknowledging the fact that you haven't done something in the past.

And you know how it is? Like sometimes you end up not speaking to people for a while because you're like, oh, well, said I was going to do that thing and I haven't hidden him back up about it. And so I'm just going to like leave it for a while, you know. I know exactly what you mean, but I'm actually probably the worst for that. I will go back to ask someone something. See that they've asked me something and I've not replied, but then I'll still ask them.

Fair enough. That's probably the best thing to do. No, but then it's like, oh, sorry, man, miss this. I didn't fucking miss it. I just didn't want to answer it. But that was a thing because I don't know if you still want to fucking do it. This isn't a pitch. But I remember, I think it was either you or Matt came to me and was like,

do you want to do a GGD pack? And I was like, fuck yeah, I want to do it. But I didn't, I was a. mate, I was living. That's another story for another time, but I didn't have anywhere to fucking do it. But now, I reckon I can't get Roland to lend me something. We could do some shit.

Absolutely. I mean, we really love doing these MIDI packs that we've been doing. It's crazy, man, because I used lots of other software for a while for years and years before we had GD. And I never saw that much point in the GD, sorry, in the, I never saw that much point in the MIDI packs. and I don't know why, but recently, like the last couple of years, it really started to make sense for songwriting.

And it's just been really cool. Like, there's been a really nice community built around Gigi now, and there's lots of people actually using it for songwriting, and now that we have these one-kit Wonder products, which are just like very simple drum sample libraries that already sound great, they pair up really nicely with people's e-kits and stuff like that. So the whole thing is just making so much sense at the moment. I'm sure we'd love to do one.

with you still. I feel like you probably felt the same way I feel about those things. Like in a weird way, I'm like, I can program drums. Why would anyone ever want to buy MIDI packs? But I guess they do. Yeah. It's just really, I guess the world's just changed so much, isn't it? In terms of people putting out content constantly in ways that they weren't before.

And, you know, so many people now able to make music at home when they're just, starting out in a way that wasn't possible before. And it's just really cool. I think for a lot of people, it's like having a jam with a drummer now. I think in the past, a lot of the MIDI packs would either be like actual songs,

like a Meshugga song, or like, they'd have some session drum and just running through songs that have actually played, which is a little bit weird to like rewrite everything on top of an existing song, basically. You'd never really feel that you'd own that song, I think. Yeah.

Or they'd be really basic, just like a whole selection of various patterns, like, oh, this is 30 second note kicks with a quarter note backbeat on the spot symbol or something like that. So what's the GGD ones then? How does it work? I think it's a lot,

it's kind of up to the people that do it. But most of the time, when we talk to the drummers ahead of them doing it, what they do is they kind of imagine a song, in a way. You know, like they kind of come up with just a cool beat and then they develop it. Like, well, if this was a verse,

then, you know, I could do it. do this for a pre-chorus and then kind of come up with variations for it. And it's a lot more about that drummer's creativity on a kind of fictional song, as it were. That makes sense. Did you do Bard? Or did tune track do that? The guy from Lepros. Oh, yeah, no.

It was us with also Seaman Sandness as well. Those two guys, they're both Norwegian drummers and they did a pack together. They're both great. The guy from Lepris is, I remember just coming across Lepris for the first time. like maybe two years ago and I was like, this is incredible. And this drummer, just his ideas are just mad. Yeah. The shit he comes up with.

And I'm like, I just, I know what you're doing. I wish I'd come up with it first. Yeah, he's really, really good, isn't he? I don't know how long has he actually been playing in Lepris? I remember when we toured with Shining, going back like six, seven years ago now. The drummer that they had at the time, I want to say his name was Tobias. was the drummer in Lepris at that time. I think maybe he's done two albums.

I think maybe he started with, is it the congregation? Is that one of them? Listen to us. We've got no idea what we're talking about. I've made an entire career of not knowing what I'm talking about. But that's the thing.

My dad sent me a link to like, I feel like a Larry King. Because Larry King died. My dad sent me a link. Larry King basically said, I just, I like to know as little as possible about everything I'm talking about because then you ask the questions that like the layman is wanting to hear. Yeah, that doesn't apply to the two of us saying,

getting lepros songs wrong, but it applies to my, that's something that when I heard it, I was like, oh, I could use that to describe my laziness in a nicer way. But actually, I'm doing this for you guys. I'm actually not researching my guest for you guys. Yeah, but I guess I guess it makes sense I mean the the idea of having to research and come up with Yeah, really pointed questions that are very specific is just

It's just another way of doing it And maybe that's what we're used to seeing from the kind of television styles and interview styles that we hear But I think this is cool This is a cool format for doing it and it feels very low pressure as well to participate in Thank you mate That's another thing I'm trying to do is the low pressure There's no pressure there's no pressure at all.

We're having a lovely coffee. I've got nothing. I got no questions. I got stuff in my head that I want to talk to you about, but I ain't got questions written down. I've done a few where I did, where I like don't know the person. I'm like, okay, I'll do this.

And then it just ends up feeling like festival fucking press. And I can hear that they don't care. So I'd never want to be that guy. Yeah. There's a bunch of those guys. I'd rather not be that guy. No, this is cool. I'm sure that's why people listen to

to the down. beat, that's awesome. What I do want to ask you, seamlessly into a thing, before I forget, I've actually got, because I've got a Patreon now, so what I'm going to try and do is, there's some questions from the Patreon, we'll do those at the end. Everyone's very happy for Nollie to be on the show. Sweet. But what I want to ask you is, like, number one, on the Devon album that you did, did you mix it?

So I've worked on two. I recorded the drums for Transcendants in Canada with Devon. Yeah. That was with Ryan on drums. And I mixed that record. And then on Empath, I recorded the drums again. And we kind of all went to Mono Valley and had various stations. Like there was Nathan Navarro on bass.

He was tracking and Devin was tracking stuff. It was a really cool experience, kind of like a holiday camp. and Devin wasn't sure what he wanted to do mixing-wise with that and then during the session he leaned he leant he he leaned towards me mixing it and he came back to England again a few weeks later and we mixed the record and he was really really happy with it

and then he got home and sent me a text I guess from his car while driving from the airport back to his house he was like I'm just listening to the mixes that we did which we worked like 18 hours on by the way. Like it was it was a very intense mix session. And he was like, oh, you know, there was just something about the demos that was more weird. And I like that weirdness about it. And so like he started by asking if I could send him like stems, which I did. And then he was like gradually just kind of like supplementing the stems I'd sent him with like his own fader

moves he was doing on the raw tracks on his end. And over the course of I guess a month or so, I think basically he ended up just using my drum stems and mixing everything again on top. So what you hear, the empath that got released is Devin's mix. And actually, I think whenever I'm in the studio, I do a mix down of the edited drums after the tracking that day usually so that everyone can get excited about hearing what's been recorded that day, sounding all pro. and I think he actually used some of those, which were MP3s,

as the drum stems. Like he preferred those to my actual mixes that I did later or something. Holy shit. So that's pretty interesting. I don't know, Devon, but that sounds like the kind of thing that he would do based on his public persona.

I'm just like, ah, I'm just going to fucking do this because I like it. But what I was going to ask you about that is, was mixing three different drummers all with the most insanely different. the different playing style is impossible, but I guess. You know, it was not as big a deal as you might think, because the stuff that was more similar, like there was a lot of Samus,

of Sam being comped in with Anup. And it would be just like, it's like really microcomps of Anup doing a beat and then there'd be like a split second of Blas beat, which would be Sammas and they'd be back to Anup again. that's crazy I mean those were recorded back to back in the same live room we literally like pulled down a noop's kit

Sam has arrived from the airport on the day that that Anup finished and we set up Sam's rental kit with all of his symbols and just literally moved all the microphones back into place a couple of extras because he had a bigger kind of array of symbols so like nothing really changed in terms of the recording method it was different drums and a different drummer

but it wasn't too bad. And then the Morgan Agrin stuff, we did much the same, but Morgan's setup is just so weird and different. Is it? What's he playing? He played the Gretsch kit, which was, like, belonged to the studio, which was an older 70s kit with like a... The 24?

No, I want to say it was a 22, which he has directly in front of him. But then he also rented or had provided to him a 24, which had like a coated ambassador on each side with no muffling. And it's way out to the right in front, like diagonally to the right. And he's using just the slave pedal of a double kick to access it. And it's mental. Because he records himself at home and he has these really weird techniques,

which include a stereo pair of microphones on that kick drum in front of it. So where you'd normally have a kick out, he has two hard-panned. and it just sounded absolutely mental in the room, like just completely wide open 24. It sounded like, yeah, just crazy, boomy, orchestral kind of thing. Is it in the mix? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it is.

Especially if you listen on a song like Sprite, there's, that's a fully Morgan song in terms of the drumming. and you'd almost think there was a layered sample coming in or like another sound effect like a boom but Morgan's just such a unique player and he doesn't play like other people play he's got that slave pedal for the 24 right next to the single pedal

that he's got on his main like on the 22 and he will sometimes kick on both simultaneously and stuff so the 22 is really dry like just full of pillows and then sometimes he'll kick on both to get a boom and and like the attack. And then sometimes he'll only do the boomy kick. And he plays with two ride symbols on his right

and like a tiny china and some big hats. It was like just not at all what most drummers in our scene play. And obviously he's not from our scene. You know, he's a zapper drummer. He just did that one video with Frederick that we all know. And so we all think that he gents. Yeah. Well, I mean, and the crazy thing.

And that video, though, that video changed my fucking life. Honestly did, because I'd heard Meshugger and everything. And obviously, I loved Meshugger then. But just the jazzy drums, if anyone doesn't know what we're talking about, is Morgan Agron and Frederick, what's his second? Thorndale. Thorndale. Thorndale from Meshugger.

And it's Fred's solo stuff. And it is essentially fucking jazz drumming under Meshugger. Yeah. And it was. I understand it. It was a show called Trump in Sweden, which is like a drumming show. And I don't know, but Morgan normally plays with this keyboard player, Mats, and they kind of do like a boppy, kind of quirky, jazzy thing.

So I don't know if Morgan's a regular guest on that show or was. What's happening? But whatever it is, like metal was not the usual thing that was played on there. So I think actually Frederick is the odd one out in that recording. But to everyone that knows him is sugar, it's, yeah, it's crazy. And I remember Morgan talking about that when we were there. He was like, it's so crazy that. He didn't think anything of it.

And he's a really, like, in the best way, kind of childlike character where he's just like totally humble, totally just stoked about drums. Sound checking him was the easiest thing because you literally just put him in front of a kit and he will play indefinitely. I mean, ask him to hit anything twice in a row on purpose and he's just not going to do it. Like you'll hit the Racton once and then kind of get distracted by something else. A true jazz spirit. Yeah.

But it's amazing. And yeah, he spoke about how like he didn't think anything of that show. And it like made his career really in terms of like. That's how I know who he is. Yeah. Honestly, it made me, I think it was after that I figured out the six stroke role. Because I think I asked my drum teacher. I was like, this thing he's doing here.

What is that? And then he was like, oh, it's a six straight well And then he taught me, I was like, okay, I'm overusing that. And what stage were you as a drummer at that point? Met up, crap. I think I was just in punk bands at that point, I think. I must have been 15. I was crap at the drums until I got into a music college

and I was still crap at ACM. And then I was like, I'm going to fail unless I get relatively good. And I just bought an electric kit and I just sat on it for like, four years straight. Really? That's so crazy. I actually never realized that you'd gone to music college.

That's awesome. Yeah. When did viatrically happen in all this? Was that after music college? That was after, yeah. I was already, already had a degree in music, and then I joined a death metal band.

Because I think the first time I became aware of you was under the context of, like, Reynolds is a sick metal drummer. And you were blasting, you were doing your stupidly fast. single kick blasts and stuff like that. That was back in the day. Can't do that now.

And I can still blast. That's one thing. I could still blast without practicing blast. I could still knock out a 230 blast. No problem, even if I'm not doing it. Single-footed? Probably not 230. I think there's a video on the internet of fire actually playing in India

and we're playing Drainning What Remains, which is 240. And I'm jet-lagged and I'm one-footing. it and you like the guy goes and takes a video of my foot and then it goes but and i had to switch to two it's almost like the pressure yeah the pressure of him doing that but feet my feet are just fucking i don't know what's happened they've never been good but lately they're just just awful speed okay you've recorded rudy a million times like the amount that that man has to practice and warm up to stay at his speed. Like at some point in my life, it sucks to say it,

but I did like risk assessment with my time investment. And it was like, so I need to practice and warm up for two hours every single day if I want to be able to maintain a consistent 180 BPM to 220 BPM double kick. Have I ever earned three hours worth of wage from that in my life? Probably not. Like financially, this is a complete fucking waste of time. So I just stopped fucking doing it. And obviously when you stop doing it, you get worse at it.

But it clicked. There's the same one I started recording bands. You know, you know I know a little bit about recording because I had that grand intentions of, I'll just record drummers or whatever. I learned how to record drums. and then it was, I was teaching drums in the same little room at my parents' house that you know. And it would be, you know, I'd be teaching drums was like 30 pound an hour. If I did three in a day, that's 90 quid.

And then, or I'd be recording a band who the drummer hasn't practiced. And they'd be in there all day for 75 pounds. And then when they've gone, I either have to edit everything or play it again myself anyway. and I did do like per hour on that and it was like 17, 18 hour days for 75 quid. I was like, I'm making £3 an hour and I've cancelled a week of £90 a day drum lessons to do that. Right, that's out as well. I don't know where it came from, just my... I mean, that makes a lot of sense, man.

You're saying like it's a sad thing, but I think if you loved it, if you loved death metal drums, I mean, Rudy loves that stuff, and he thinks it's super, super cool to be able to do it. I don't mean that. Weirdly, that sounded like a knock when I said that. I didn't mean that. I mean, like, he loves how it sounds when he's able to drum like that.

So he's willing to put that work in. And I think for a while, because he used to be faster before, I think there was like a turning point when he filled in for monuments, where he suddenly became really powerful hitting and kind of like, I think he actually lost some speed then. And I was going to bring that up.

God, this is a very convoluted interjection on my part. But I was going to bring that up with you talking about your speed. You know, I think there's definitely this thing where if you are a drummer who likes to kick hard, there's definitely a ceiling to how fast you can go. Because the guys that have the ultra, ultra, ultra fast kicks, and I'm talking faster than Rudy does, are playing, you know, they're either training, like absolute madman guys guys like crim for example who's running like marathons every day or something like that guy's in incredible incredible shape um or they're just tapping and triggering which there's

you know if you're achieving those speeds and you're getting really nice consistent sounding like machine gun kicks i don't i don't mind at all if you're triggering that's super impressive you know if your timing's good at those speeds but i think there's a point where you just you can't get a bass drum to sound really great by being kicked hard and play at those speeds anymore. Like it just can't be done. You can't. And I literally today I had, I've got a thing where I'm doing Twitch now, right? And it accidentally became two reaction videos, which I didn't want it to do.

But I just watched two videos on YouTube and then I just reacted in a normal manner. And I was like, okay, I'll put these on YouTube because it'll be, it'll be funny. And I'll just put some mad clickbait on it. but the amount of people, because I said in one of the things, it was an Eloy Casagrante video, and it was him doing a slip-knit. Have you seen him doing Heritage. The recent one?

Oh, yeah. So popped it on, and there's a bit where he's doing insane double kit. Obviously, it's Heretic Anthem. And I, like, stopped it, and I was like, look, that is probably one of the best, if not the best metal drummer in the world right now, playing kick drums, real kick drums. You can hear the inconsistencies in the notes because that is a real drummer playing real drums very, very well.

And if you think that, and I can't remember who I called out, I think it was that slaughter to prevail band. And I was like, I think if you are watching a video, right, and it sounds like a perfect sample every single note. and it's faster than that, you are being deceived. I'm not saying that the person isn't playing it, but there is some trickery making it come, you know,

come to your ears. Before it hits your ears, there is some trickery somewhere, whether it's triggering or quantizing or whatever. And the amount of people that are very triggered by what I said. And they're coming at me with like, you're a pathetic,

loser that thinks that people's hard work and the fact that you can't do it means that they're cheating. And then reeling off like lists of drummers, this one guy listed five drummers out of the five drummers, three of them, well known for 100% triggered kick drums,

and the other two, I think two of them were actually like quite legit, but out of those three, all three of them double-striended, strokes triggered as well. Yeah. It's like, you're not listening to what I said. Yeah.

I'm not saying it's cheating or whatever, but it's like the people are being deceit. I've got a massive beam of on it about it. Like, it's my equivalent of, you know, unrealistic expectations that young girls have of models because of how break thin they are, like genetically impossible. The YouTube quantized, you know,

there's a guitarist that we both know that did it, Like that is not healthy for people to fucking to think that that's real. Yeah. That's a really good point of comparison, I think, to kind of body image stuff that happens. I mean, I think the difference, though, is that I think a certain amount of naivety for musicians can sometimes lead to them achieving things that other people haven't tried to achieve in the past. Like guys like Rudy, guys like Malian. I was just about to say, I think this is why Rudy. is quite so fucking mental

and quite so good at drums because he's maybe when he was a kid when he was on the internet being really fucking good at drums he had those unrealistic expectations and then he it caused him to push the envelope so I'm

I don't want to cut you up there but I'm like I'm with you but half of me is like this is evolving drumming but the other half is me how can these people be that stupid to think if that's real

Yeah, it's weird And I mean, in guitar it's happening too With the Instagram clip videos Where people are like They're posting stuff that sounds like guitar pro You know And as you say There's people that have been doing this for longer

People doing it longer than the person That you and I are referring to I mean that necrophagist album You know, what's it called? The Necrophages album Yeah That's pretty much all done Punched in note by note

Or like half speed or whatever And I mean fair play live They sound really good when they used to play live, you know, Mohammed can clearly play. But like this Insta thing of like all these guys doing just mental runs. Have you seen the Dubstep one? The new guy on the block. Tom Morello shared.

Oh my God. Tom Morello retweeted it. And I was just like, fucking hell. That's that buried alive guy, is it? Oh my God. I've not checked it out, but I've seen people talking about it. I'm sure. that the guy is good at guitar.

I am sure that creatively, he has come up with this new thing, which is very creative, and the noises are all creative. But people, especially someone like Tom Morello, retweeting it as if, like, what they're seeing is 100% real.

It's like a fucking UFO video. Like, 100% undeniable proof that guitar, this is the best guitarist on earth. I don't know what I'm annoyed at more, people being fooled by it or no one really, no one really admits like this is, this is not how I play. This is what I make and this is what all your favourite fucking artists make. None of your favourite artists other than fucking jazz and maybe animals as leaders like sound like they do on fucking record 100% of the time. Yeah. I think it's just about honesty, isn't it?

I think the triggering thing is when you're aware that there isn't an honest conversation being had. And I think this applies to everything in life, really. I think if everyone's just honest about what's going on, it's totally fine. But it's the idea that someone is holding back information in order to dupe the people that are witnessing or listening to them. And they're getting credit for it that's just very triggering to people that are involved. in the field and realized that when it's done for those reasons, that is essentially a cheap trick. Have you seen, so this is one that I'm really not sure.

It'd be interesting to get your view on. Have you seen the Chris Turner guy? I was actually just, he was in my mind when you were saying that. And I think it's taken, I mean, I guess I accepted a few years ago, but I believe that it is real. And I've heard from a friend that have taught. with him and producer friends who've had, you know, private conversations with me

where they swear that it's real. But my instant reaction was like, what is this? Yeah, I was the same. I was the same. That new one, right? And then I went back through it. Because I've seen him play live and he is fucking amazing. But the, like, it was the fact that he came out and said,

there's no sample replacement. That was the one that just made me go, what the fuck is happening here. And then, but I went back through it this morning, right? Because I'm posting all this stuff about drummers that I think are fake. And everyone is like, yeah, he's so adamant that it's real.

Which one puts me off a little bit because I'm like, the lady doth protest a little bit too much. But I went back through it at half speed today on YouTube. And I think it might be real. I think it is real, you know. I think it is. It's crazy. I mean, it also doesn't help that the visual is kind of...

Polished. Yeah, but what I meant more is like his playing style, like how he looks when he's playing drums. He looks like, falling in, falling off. Especially in the beginning. I remember the first time being like, where has this guy come from? Everything is set up weirdly on his kit,

and he's striking really. strangely and looks very like, I don't know if stiff is the right word, but, I mean, I don't think he actually looks so much like that anymore, but... He looks like, no, he does. He looks like somebody, but I mean, I guess you have to play like that. He looks like somebody just got a fucking, one of those Japanese, like, fuck dolls, and they went, okay, let's put some midi in this thing.

And then he just fucking sat him down. And it was like, okay, stick that in there. But I am honestly, I'm going to have to admit this. I think I'm going to do it on stream later on today. I'm going to have to be like, guys, because I originally swear I went, fuck off, there's no way that's real. And I've gone through it with the fine-toothed comb.

And I think it might be real. Yeah. What's your views on the, in terms of like a sample replacement? You think there's no samples there? I'm willing to believe it. You know, I went from being like, this is wrong. looks like he's not, like, he's not a stereotypical amazing drummer in how his kit's set up, in how he's sitting, how he's playing. And I've gone from that to like, I think this guy actually

has got one over everyone else. Like, he's figured out a way of doing it and it doesn't look pretty, but he's gone for it and he's developed it to this obscene point. So having taken the, you know, the fact that I think he is really doing it, I think I accept it at the same time that there aren't samples. I mean, if there's no samples, he's somebody, him or other people have been incredibly clever in the samples that they have chosen and the amount of variation they've put into them. You know what I mean? That's the thing I know is when I watched it at half speed, I was like, because the easiest thing to do is to put a YouTube video on at half speed and on a blast beat, you can very easily

here that every single snare drum sounds like a Phil Collins snare drum. And you're like, okay, so that that's sample replaced. But this one, fuck, yeah. It was literally only this morning. I was like, oh, God, this is, I think this is real. But that is like, I almost don't want to admit that I think it's real because then everyone's going to come out with these fucking double-stroke drummers and being like, well, you've said that it can be done.

So why isn't this guy that's fucking tapping? Like you can see that that Chris guy is not tapping. No. He's fucking stood up pretty much. Yeah. I'm with you, man. If you go out there, I mean, put it this way. We're both, we've both been duped if it happens.

And I'd like to think that between us, we'd probably catch it if it was being done in any kind of traditional way that most people are faking stuff. Yeah. It's like, I mean, I said it when the first time I saw it, I think I watched it on the street. and I said, either this is fake or he's the greatest drummer that's ever lived. And I feel like I'm going to have to fucking concede

that I think this might be the greatest drummer that's ever lived. And I don't think, it's not my style, that's not my favorite style, but in terms of like accuracy, if that doesn't have samples, imagine how easy he would be to track.

Yeah. Come in for fucking two hours and we'll do this whole album. Yeah. No, fair play, man. I think it's real. I think it's real. I'll go there. Because I've seen, I remember, I remember being not skeptical, well, skeptical. I remember being skeptical of Rudy. And when I didn't know him and you were recording him and you sent me the stems to his obscure a song. And it wasn't on the grid. And I was like, oh my God.

No, yeah. It's super impressive. This man is crazy. Yeah, it was one. I mean, For those, I was staying at his house for like a week and we recorded a bunch of stuff. And to be in his basement, which is just a small room where he plays drums, to be like sitting there in front of the kit and feel him blasting. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Feel the sound pressure in there is really, really impressive. He's unbelievable. He's poor mum. Yeah, he's born mum upstairs. Yeah. Fair play to her. Yeah, I think Yeah, he's

He's just had a good situation I guess And the right mindset The right kind of obsessiveness And you know He's put a lot of work Into the physicality of it as well Which I know you have

And so many drummers in this style Can't have to do right I've put no way near as much into him As into it as him I'm just so glad he's in like Whitechapel now Because that's a good band for the longest time Yeah, it's perfect For the longest time

I was just like Seeing my friend Put all the this fucking working and you know still fucking it's not a

shameful thing and it was you know it's the starving artist but just still at his mums

and I was just like this man is one of the greatest fucking drummers in the world why doesn't he have the

fucking the gig that is using him and I'm just glad he's I'm glad he's in watch Apple yeah

I mean the poor guy had a lot of false starts you know a couple of bands that really should have taken him places, at least within the kind of music that he wanted to play,

and both collapsed pretty badly, one of which you know plenty about. The big collapser. I feel like he should be fucking, why isn't Rudy in Slipknot, though? Let's be honest. I mean, you know, again, I agree with you. I think Rudy's amazing,

but I think Slipknot requires a certain amount of messiness that Rudy doesn't have. Impossible to be messed up. Yeah, just getting drunk. It's a rudy drunk. I mean, don't get me wrong. Jay is perfect for Slipknot now. It's like you couldn't, he's probably the closest, like, Joey.

You know, Joey style. You were just talking about the Eli video you just saw. Come on, if he wasn't in Sepultura. Oh, I would have Eloy in every band on the planet. But I think I said that in the reaction video as well. It was just like, just put him in every single fucking band. Who's your fact, let's go. your favorite

who's your favorite drummers wow you're really putting me on the spot um gosh I don't know I love okay this this

this we'll cut it who who's your favorite drummer's style and then I'm going to ask you don't need to give me like a number just give me a few in terms of style

or like uniqueness and then in terms of tracking yeah I think a drummer like fucking beasts I have. I've been very lucky, yeah. I would love to track Garska again.

I think unbelievably Matt. What am I saying? I think Matt is definitely right up there. Oh, I fully agree. And I'm talking on like an all-time list, really. Because he's totally got like the Vinicola Yuta thing down. He's totally got. So like he can do so much of what so many classic drummers could do.

I got to spend some time with Benny Greb About 15 months ago or so Before lockdown Did you? What did you do? Yeah. Oh, I can't say I can't say because he hasn't said Fuck yeah But I'm going to fucking

I was supposed to have him on the podcast And then I didn't end up going to the festival That we were supposed to do it And I'm going to email your doppelganger Norbert And message him and say just hook me up with Benny because we're all at fucking home. I'm sure he's got a fucking microphone. Yeah.

So maybe he can tell me about that. But that's cool. Was he, I mean, he's my favorite drummer of all time. Yeah. Yeah. I know he's,

he's amazing, yeah. It's so, again, a bit like Morgan Agron, like to hear someone, um, like sound checking,

basically, so musically and creatively. And of course, it's such a different world to anything that, that I normally record drummer-wise. And the way he utilised the kit, like for me, his drum kit was quite analogous

to, like, a guitarist with a crazy pedalboard that they can get all these crazy sounds out of, you know, by combining things. And, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of things in there that draw from a history of other drummers, but the way that he treats all of his symbols like they are a crash, a ride, an accent symbol, you know what I mean?

And the way he, utilises that cranked rackton with the super floppy floor tom. I'm getting a fucking chub on, just thinking about Benny. Benny Redd playing the fucking drums right now. But yeah, it's mentally. Like if he, again,

maybe he's talked about this in videos, but he showed me, like flipping off the wires on both the side snare and the main snare. And then using it like, I think it's main snare, racked on, low snare,

floor tom, kind of sounds like a, like a 10, 12, 14, 16. Oh, shit. kit or something like that, you know. So I just think it's super cool and so specialised and his feel when he does the the kind of Cascara stuff or the really kind of pushing the drunk drumming thing. It's amazing.

Yeah. His fucking, I feel like Matt, Matt is the bany of metal in terms of what he's bringing, what he's bringing in from the different, like the amalgamation of different, like you said, like Vinny and stuff. and then being able to stick it in metal. Some of the stuff Matt comes up with,

how did you ever come up with that? Yeah, that guy, I mean, I remember going back a long time with recording Joy of Motion. At that time, he was living with a friend of Tocin and Javier's. And I remember there was conversations about how it was problematic how Garska was playing like 10 hours a day in the garage, you know, just like non-stop drumming,

just everything. every day hours upon hours on the kit. I guess you've just got to piss people off to get that good. Most people would go like, for example, I can hear my fucking neighbor hoovering for the third time today. Most people would have stopped hoovering after the first time and thought, I better not do that because it's probably fucking annoying. But the same with drums.

I've actually heard that about Matt during tours. People say that he just fucking sets a get up. and just shreds on it all day. Yeah. And I think... I mean, that's how you hate someone, right? That's how you come up with those things. I guess so.

Right, okay. So, what, Ben is up there? Yeah, Garska's up there. I think Federico Paolovich, do you know him? I met him. He did that clinic with Matt Halper. Yeah. Amazing drummer.

I am absolutely unbelievable drummer, but do you know what? I got like He went in too hard on the clinic I just fucking No one understood anything Fair enough It was like

I think I've heard that And his level is just so much higher Than human being thinking That he was like trying to explain What he thought was a very simple Displacement idea With a solo And it was like okay

So it's gonna be this One two three four And then just ripped This fucking like dotted eighth note displaced full drum solo to a click. And it was just like at no point did he fucking let off the gas at all, which I guess I kind of respected, but it was supposed to be like a learning clinic.

This seems like there's a very insular scene within Italy where Federico's from. And there are amazing musicians there, like amazing standard of drummers and stuff that never leave the country musically, like, or maybe don't come to English-speaking parts of the world. much. But yeah, I know that Federico is like pretty much just on call for whenever there's a son or artist doing like a clinic run through Italy. Like there's, there's some videos with rubbish sound quality of him shredding with Chris Coleman.

And that's another drummer that we should talk about in two seconds. But Federico is, he's keeping up 100% with Chris. But yeah, Chris Coleman, that's a pretty... Ridiculous drummer? Such a fucking nice guy. Like, I had like, I feel like him. I had that, I went to that minor drum festival where it was like Chris Coleman, Benny Greb and like other fucking mad people.

And I think I'd met Benny before. Like we'd had dinner at like a, I can't remember if it was before or after the UK drum show. So I knew Benny and I knew that he was just a flat out legend. But then Chris Coleman, again, just. blew me away with just how you can be that good and then not arrogant and it's weird there's like a

like a level of transcendence when you're that fucking good and then you're just a fucking legend as well it's just like oh that's how everyone should be yeah that's amazing that's why I'm not that good because I'm fucking an arrogant cunt well I mean the States has this gospel thing that we just don't have

and it's ridiculous I mean there's there's probably any number of gospel drummers that if I knew their names or watched them would instantly be on the list I'm trying to tell you now but it's crazy isn't it

the output from the gospel scene in the States and how good the musicians are and then they're all multi-instrumentalists like Chris Coleman's a sick bassist for example and probably rips on keys as well it's like I guess it also comes into the like

what I'm saying about him being such a nice guy like that whole gospel scene is i mean i imagine i'm fucking never been in it in my life but i imagine it's like just showing each other licks and there's no like well i ain't gonna show you that one it's like oh that was fucking sick what did you play here it is i'll teach you it and it's like a whole like almost like how drumming probably started someone just playing on a fucking like a rock or something and then someone else going oh well you do you do that you're doing on that rock and hey go i'll show you you know i mean like yeah just like a communal communal like learning of the instrument which yeah we don't have here at all yeah i mean say what you want about

christianity or whatever but that exactly is just saying like the community aspect of of of the gospel stuff as far as i understand it and the aspects of like family and humility and if you actually watch them playing actual gospel music not just like the gospel shreds like they're just holding down beats with great feel. And, you know, they've got the choir there and everyone's singing along. And it seems like it's just such a good background for building that kind of, you know, those kinds of drummers that can go on and then play essentially a drum loop for 45 minutes straight without playing a single fill and then shred like you've never seen before.

What's happening with gospel chops at the moment? I feel like I'm a bit out of the scene. I mean, I was never in the scene, so I have no idea. But I remember, like, when we used to spend more time chatting about drummers and stuff, like, six, seven years ago, a lot of, like, the cool stuff that was coming up was from the gospel scene. And even guys, like, Matt Halpin in periphery, like, when periphery got big, it was like, wow, this guy who's using, like, gospel chops. He's playing ghost notes, which at the time seemed really unusual in metal, you know, and now, of course, every drum is doing it. But I wonder, like, as someone that is tapped into the drum scene, you know, gospel drum is being. kind of seen as much as they were

four or five, six years ago? I think it changed the game so much. That's why you get some people that are quite bitter about it. It changed the game so much and changed modern drumming that

I feel like almost every drummer is playing something gospely now in terms of like the big name drummers and that is why you get some some people are very annoyed with I guess it's a valid argument, like the appropriation of the gospel culture by fucking people like me.

Just going, I'll learn that lick. I'll have that. You did it better. You invented that. I'll have a go about that. And it's fucking been done for centuries of other music and stuff. So I get, you know, fuck. But that's how music evolves, I guess.

So do you think they're not standing out anymore like all these gospel players in the same way? because people have kind of heard it. I mean, they definitely are, because they definitely are, but it's like a metal drummer now. If you don't play like a gospel metal drummer, no one likes you. Yeah, it's true, isn't it?

So, I mean, there's still, you know, sticks Taylor, he plays for Justin Bieber now. Like, like, some of the gospel guys, you know, they're still getting the big jobs. But I think, the trail that they blazed is now just in modern drumming. Yeah, that makes sense. And I feel like, to the, sorry, the lesser point,

almost like in the 90s when double kick metal was around, that made its way in. You had like Vinnie having a double kick, playing on a fucking Megadeth album. Like that changed modern drumming. So like, Chris Coleman's got a double kick. You know, like just for little,

little bits here and there. I don't know what I'm going with that, but you know what I mean? I think now and again, something comes along and it just is so cool that it becomes the common stock. Yeah. Yeah, it kind of diffuses out, right?

What do you think is like the new version of that? Or it has nothing come up yet? That's what I was just Just trying to think Do you think it's like the J Diller kind of Like weird drumming thing I mean I would love it to be that Because it you

You can't program that It cannot be programmed I would love I mean that's the thing I haven't really heard that in metal The only the closest The closest thing I could think of In like theory is

there's a beneath the massacre song with a really late snare drum in it and it's like da-da-da-da-d-d-and and like the snare is really really fucking like do you know the song I do it's called Nevermore yeah and live they do it even more extremely don't they yeah that's the only thing I can think of like deliberately out-of-time metal drums I'm gonna fucking do it there's um well there's that band Heikin do you listen to Haken I just I the first time I heard of them was that Rudy cover

the other day. Oh, cool. They're an amazing band. Really, really sick. And of course, think about the fact that Rudy's playing these parts

which were written by Ray, the drummer in Haken, who's a beast, is a really amazing drummer. In fact, everyone in that band is incredibly talented, but their new record,

because I've mixed both of the last two records they've done. One of the songs called Carousel has a break in it where admittedly, it stops being metal.

It kind of goes into like a fusion er-n-B aesthetic. But he's doing that. Yeah, because I mean, is Prague in the sense of before Gent was Prague in everyone's mind?

So they really do kind of go off into other genres and have like little moments. A bit like, you know, even more recently bands like between the Burydemy and stuff like that with throwing little, you know, strange honky tonk moments and stuff like that. So he's actually an amazing drummer that people need to know a lot more about.

Does it get quantized, though? The quirkiness. Well, not in that part. I think on not the most recent Haken record, but the one before it, Vector, sorry, one before it's Vector, yeah. The one that Rudy covered a song off of. That's relatively unquantized.

I'm not saying there's no editing, but you can hear, and I remember hearing one mixing it, you know, that there's plenty of kick to snare, flams left in if there's double kicks and stuff not totally on the grid. I feel like the new album is more gridded, but honestly I think it's more the other instruments that are grid. And I think the drums are still not just totally on the grid. And certainly for those breaks, they're not at all.

I tell you who I've just thought of who is sort of doing the weirdness. And not many others are the contortionists. Oh, really? I can't remember his name, the drummer for them. There's on their last album and all their albums, there's like, there's just like symbol placements, which is just like, okay. I don't know where I would go on the grid or what to put that in. And that's fucking cool.

Yeah. Yeah, no, he's not Bobby, is it? It's the other one. It's Rob, Robbie. No. I have no idea. Joey, Joey and Rob. Joey, is Joey?

Joey? Joey, yeah. I think so. Anyway. But like, I feel like people are too scared to do stuff like that because people now think Bran Dalea from Mastodon is not good because they're used to hearing fully triggered,

fully fucking sampled. Do you know what I mean? The perception, because of all these fake videos, is that some of these drummers that are fucking unbelievable and incredible, but just choose not to polish their shit, the perception is that,

they're not good. So I feel like people leaving... I guess Bronn comes from like a slightly different stock within metal as well though, doesn't he? He's like a bit more of like an old school approach. And to be fair, the number of fills he throws in is definitely

at times questionable. In the early stuff, like I remember the first time I ever heard Leviathan, I was like, okay, there's a fill every bar. And at first I was like, I don't like this. And then I was like, I love it. Okay. I love this now. But look, that's the thing though

if you if you triggered him it would sound fucking horrible yeah it would just be someone sliding up and down the keyboard with like drums on it yeah well actually just coming back to the drummers that are doing I reckon Bard from Lepris is doing it to an extent

oh fucking absolutely some of the weird kick high hat placements that he does yeah do you think maybe Quintuplets is the new thing actually. I feel like it's the new old thing.

I feel like that's been going for about five years. Oh, fair enough. Damn. But that's, I feel like that's people that's almost the fucking glitchy thing. The minute you put anything in quintuptus, it goes glitchy.

Do you remember the first time hearing like death of a dead day by sixth? I'm just thinking it was out of time. The first time I read it You know the The ending section of Blandstreet Bloom That first song Yeah

I remember like spending Weeks listening to it being like Wait is that trip? No I don't think that's trippler is it Exactly the same Yeah I just didn't know what it was And then of course it does the weird

Tempo change Oh you thought it was just Yeah I thought it was just somewhere between I was like this sounds cool But you know I don't think And, you know, who knows, maybe had the internet been more of the thing there, I'd have left a fucking YouTube comment.

I would have been those guys. The kick drum is not really nailing it on the kicktracks. It actually is. It's just fucking far elevated to your level. I'll tell you what, I have the raw tracks for Blan Street Bloom on my computer. The real-life raw ones? Yeah. Far the, they're, heady heights being a producer.

Yeah. Before I worked with sixth on their last. record. I did a mix test and they just sent me Blanstreet Bloom to remix, which was really surreal. Because if anybody, well, yeah, if anybody knows me, they know that sixth is, was pretty much, well, it definitely was a life-changing moment getting into sixth. And I spent a lot of time learning their stuff on guitar and tabbing it and stuff. And that record was the one for me. So it was, it was really crazy to work with Sixth in the first place and then to like actually have the tracks and work on it. I mean it sounds a bit dated now and there's all sorts of stuff.

You know, now that I know Weller, you must know weller pretty well, you've worked with him and stuff. And, you know, hearing him talk about what a nightmare it was doing that record and everything, you know, it's not the same when you're behind the curtain. But the drumming is definitely nothing you can turn your nose up. It's amazing. I always feel like he's another one where I was just like, I'm just like, you're so good. Why are you not massive? I think, you know, I don't know Ford actually.

I've not met him, but from everything I've heard, he just really doesn't care about the exposure or anything. Like, he just loves drums. What's he doing? Like, is he teaching or? I don't know. I mean, that's what I mean. Like, I hear nothing.

And but there was a time where he was all the fucking drum festivals. And I was just like, this guy is just going to be one of the, next fucking real big ones. You know, it's fine if he doesn't want to be like that. I just, I hope he's satisfied in life because he really could have done anything with his drums. I hope he's doing what he wants to do. That's what I get on that.

That's what I meant about Rudy as well. Yeah. When I just know the amount of practices putting in in my head, I'm like, to not be in threat signal. Fucking hell, I'd have given up. But Whitechapel really is the kick fit. him. I was thinking about it. I was listening to Whitechapel the other day and I was like, this amalgamates both sides of Rudy's drumming of like...

That's perfect. Like the powerful slow groove thing and the fast kind of widdly-widdlies as well. And the quite traditional approach to Phil's and stuff? I just really hope then... I mean, they're nice guys. But I've really hoped they're not taking advantage of how much he loves being in a metal band. Because it would be... In all fucking music, it is really easy to... take advantage of the people who love music.

Yeah. It's so easy to underpay them. It's so easy to get them to fucking do things that is almost a violation of human rights. Like, all in the name of loving music, I feel like Rudy might be like susceptible to being like, yeah, I'll do that because I fucking love 230 BPM single stroke double kicks. I think Rudy got to a point, and I hope he doesn't mind me talking about him. I think he got to a point where he realized that that was screwing him over. I'm not even saying he did that particularly much, but I think he got to a point where he was a bit jaded, really, with music.

As you would be, coming from the fucking, the failure machine. Yeah. Yeah. I think I hadn't spoken to him for a couple of years much, and then he and I have been chatting a bit more during lockdown. And I get the sense that he's doing well and that he really enjoys being in Whitechapel and that he really gets on with the guys. So I'm fairly sure that combine that with his desire to have the right things in place to be treated right in a band situation. And also knowing a couple of the options that he turned down from other bands that on the surface sounded really good and he sniffed out some things that didn't seem right about it.

I think his continued involvement in Whitechapel probably speaks to him being treated well and really enjoying it. What a fucking clever. What a clever answer. You're such a clever guy. I want to talk about one more thing that I just like to do with you. And then we're going to do some Patreon questions. Cool. If that's all right with you.

But what I am also going to do is really quickly look for my wired headphones because my AirPods are shitting a brick. but please um tell you what before you go any further I just want to mention one name which is Brody Simpson before we move on from drums

love him met him in Perth Australian guy yeah carry on well I was going to say you know of all the Instagram

drummers that I follow I'm not calling him an Instagram drummers of all the dramas of all the dramas I follow on Instagram his videos are the ones that like bring a smile to my face more than anyone else

it's just so great incredible yeah Like the mix, the weird fucking drums, whatever drums that he's doing. Yeah. Anyway, I just didn't want us to go on without mentioning his name. I can tell you a Brody Simpson story. Yeah.

I landed in Perth, Australia, on Australia, on Australia from the path tour, stupidly jet-lagged. It was after we just done, I think we did. You'll know the slog of Europe, straight to a month. America, straight to Southeast Asia, straight to Australia. I'd never done, I've never done such a horrendous

combination of tours in one go, to be honest. So by this point, I mean, by three weeks in, I play like absolute fucking dog turd anyway, no matter where the tour is, probably from the aforementioned kicking too hard. But we landed in Perth, and then

I got a DM from him and was like, oh, I've wanted to, like, as we followed each other on Instagram, we said, I want to come to the show. And I'm like, yeah, of course. Like, he comes, meet him, lovely guy. I play, like, absolute fucking shit. Maybe one of the worst times I've ever played. And then, like, afterwards, I sit and have a drink with him,

and he's got his mate with him. He was like, oh, my mate, Steve, blah, blah, we're just talking, whatever. And then Steve was talking about not being off tour or whatever. And I was like, do you play in a band? And he was like, yeah, that's a band called. Carnival and I was like, oh, I've just been terrible at drums in front of Steve Judd and fucking Brody Simpson and I was just like, oh, fuck, say. Oh, that's bad, man.

He's another drug, like, yeah. Just guys that just think on a different level, he's in there. Absolutely. You know, I think it just like the lack of output from Carnival is probably the only reason he wasn't on my mind more like before. But as soon as you said Steve, when you were telling the story, I was like, oh, God. Steve John is definitely one of those guys. Australian Steve.

Other than Steve Irwin, the most famous Steve in Australia to me. But he was like, man, on like both of those sound awake, particularly when I heard it. It was just like amazing. But just some of the like his symbol placements. Yeah. Are just crazy. There's that middle section on, I don't even know the fuck. I don't even know song names anymore.

It's a middle section on one of the songs on The Ascendency. And what's the fucking... That's a Trivium album. That's a Trivium album. What's the fucking... Damn, you played on that. Do you mean asymmetry or do you mean... A symmetry.

Asymmetry is what I mean. The Ascendancy. It's no fucking Steve Judd on Trivium. That'd be sick. I just got Matt Hafey on the brain now on my Twitcher. But no, there's a song. I can't remember the name of the song, but just... It all cuts down and he's just got this...

It's just like a very... There's a subtle vocal. and there's just this ride bell pattern that is just not right in the nicest possible way. Yeah. Yeah, it's stunning stuff.

He's so, so, like, musical and cerebral and plays all dynamics so well as well. Yeah, unbelievable. Yeah. So this is the last thing I wanted to officially ask you. Some people might not know that you

you run a popular YouTube channel. Do I? Drummers Review. Oh, yeah. So I'm not actually involved in that anymore. What? Yeah, so Drummer's Review was something I got approached to do by a man who is running it,

who's an editor, previously has edited some of the UK magazines in the music experience. No, no, no. So we got hired, my wife and I, who's a videographer. And we did it for about two years. And then for a number of reasons. one being just simply that it stopped being as enjoyable because, you know, there's only so many different things

before you start kind of repeating yourselves. I felt that we started to get a lot of the same brand, like a review session, we'd end up being lots of one brand or something like that. Like the magazines. Yeah. Now the whole thing started out very much, and I believe with every intention still continues this way,

to be like an unbiased review platform, which is what I really liked about it from the beginning because I didn't realize how bad it had gotten in magazines because I haven't bought or read magazines in a long time but apparently it's crazy. It's literally like here's a review and then the next page is like a double page ad spread for that item and of course it's got like a five star review or whatever

because they've paid to be in the magazine. Yeah. Honestly towards the because I wrote for drummer for a bit and like just towards the end of magazine's lives, which let's be honest, magazines are dead and or dying. Like,

covers would only be people who the drum magazines have put, and I think to an extent still are, covers would only be people who that drum manufacturer has put the most money in that month. Right. And the reviews, well, never see a two-star review in a magazine. No.

It's like, I feel, It's one of those things that I do feel sorry for people who have lost jobs or whatever, but printed magazines need to get in the sea. Like, it's not impartial because you are run by the people, you are funded by the people who are paying for the fucking advertisements. Yeah. Yeah, it's really sucks for consumers, I think.

So. Oh, 100%. But the internet exists, luckily. Yeah. To an extent that's not happening. Yeah. And I think Drummers Review has got a really cool idea. You know, we decided when we set it out that we were going to, on day one that we started

the project, we were going to define the microphones and the gain settings and the place that we recorded it at and then keep that absolutely the same for every review. And I was tuning all the drums. And either, either if a representative from the brand wanted to come and tune, that's totally fine. Or if not, I would tune it or whatever. And we put it through an equal place. playing field kind of test.

And I really enjoy it. And we were very critical on some things, including some pretty high profile or expensive gear, like ANF stuff, for example, which... That's the Brody Simpson stuff, isn't it? It is, which, you know, I think in the context he's using it makes a lot of sense. But becoming the Emperor's new clothes,

as it kind of did, because of the aesthetic, you know, kind of turning them into such lustworthy items, especially in the UK where the markup with the import and everything was insane. Unbelievable, yeah. Yeah, like three and a half grand for a snare drum where the hoops were bent and the whole thing kind of left weird metal dust on your fingers

and couldn't be tuned and stuff. It was a bit like, this isn't right. You could get Alan Van Cleef to do it for you. Yeah. With none of the aforementioned problems. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, we were very critical on some things. And it was really interesting.

It was a hell of experience to like, especially to see what, like, mid-range kits can be like because they can be amazing actually. Yeah. And we did a few really cool back-to-back tests as well, like Tom heads. We did snare heads.

I didn't think we did as many when we did the snare heads or we did snare rim, like batter rim comparisons. I watched that one. I watched all of them actually. And I did notice there was a different guy recently. Yeah. And I thought, I was so sure it was you that you had done it because

because YouTube revenue and obviously you just love drums. Yeah, I mean, I did it because I love drums. I wish I saw some YouTube rearing of it. I don't think there was very much anyway. But yeah, so now they have a whole new team. It's not my wife doing the video work. It's not the same studio.

I used to all be done at Middle Farm Studios, which is kind of a studio which has become super well-known within the scene that we exist in. Isn't it? I think you're responsible for that. I don't think I'm fully responsible. Because Pete Miles, Pete Miles recorded my first band's EP. back in the day

but he got out of metal a long fucking time ago yeah I think you brought it back to you brought it to middle farm maybe yeah I think I think it was just

kind of right time right place for that kind of thing and it's an amazing sounding drum room we used it because it was not too far away and it was a lot cheaper than other places

and it sounded great and we liked Pete but it was a lot more bare bones when he started going there like five six years ago and now it's really amazing there's this one guy that does a lot of

of woodwork around there and he's created all of this amazing furniture and spaces and they totally we did the kitchen and it's so comfortable and cozy now and yeah it's got i've never been no you should go man you should go now i'm in glasgow it is so far away i would be fucking flying for definite well we were actually going to see if you i guess i can talk about this we're recording some stray stuff oh yeah um but when covid happened and will putney was like Nollie's the only person in the UK that's doing it if that, if it comes down to that. Really? Oh, that's really cool.

I didn't realize he thought of me in that way. That's awesome. But I think we're just going to wait out the pandemic and fucking do that. But I was excited. And I'm sure it will happen at some point. Yeah, if it does, just, you know, I would love that as well. But I know that Stray has their team and they do an amazing job. We are going to do some Patreon questions.

is this a new, new thing, a new thing that I'm doing. Is this the first thing or is this just to give back? Generally new. Well, I actually just asked for a pound off everyone on the Patreon. I was like, listen up, motherfuckers. You ain't getting any perks. Just give me a pound because you like my podcast. And people gave me a pound.

And the more people that gave me a pound, I was like, I guess you do deserve some sort of perk. It literally says on the Patreon, don't give me more than a pound. You're not getting any perks. Wow. Well, fair play. That's honesty. You see,

that's what is needed in the Instagram musician world. Yeah, give me a fucking quid. I'll continue doing what I'm doing, but maybe slightly better. Anyway,

but then I was like, you know what? Okay, you can get the episodes early because not first give me the video early. So that's fine. And then now you can,

now are you getting a question time? Perfect. So a lot of these I've already incorporated into what I was wanting, I wanted to talk to about anyway, because people are asking very simple questions. Well, maybe I can give simple potter answers

because I feel like I've rambled a lot. No, you've been great. Here's the best one so far. This is simply from Connor, and this is something I also want to know. Walk us through your espresso set up. The shots you post on your Instagram are gorgeous. Where do you get your beans?

And then he's just popped in, why do your records sound so fucking good? forget the last bit because we've already talked about that but yeah you've got like a manual espresso thing yeah yeah yeah I do well thanks for the compliments anyway the I have a manual machine made by rock or is it ROK I don't know I have no idea

my wife got it for me about four and a half nearly five years ago as a present and I've just kind of stuck to that I really I love it and when I first got it it was an older design where it required more pressure and it was actually quite difficult to get really great espressos out of and they kind of said not to put too much pressure it's made out of really solid steel but i guess some of the things like the screws holding the bolts holding it together maybe it'd be under too much stress um so i struggled to get really great esposos out of it

unless i was like you know going you know really shaking trying to try to push this thing with extreme force and not sure I should be doing it. But then they released an update which has like a, they've redesigned a certain part of it and it's retrofitable to my older one. So that's made it a lot easier to get great espresso. So that's been about year and a half or two that I've had it like that. And I've got a sage. It's fully manual.

You're responsible for pushing through. Yeah. Yeah. You fill it with water in the top and you kind of lift the arms as you do it. And it flows past the seal to fill the chamber above the port of fill. and then you squeeze it down. So you have to boil the water in a kettle and pour it in. Do you think, I believe we might have talked about this really quickly before,

but do you think there is, because every musician I know who has like an attention to detail or who is like accomplished in their field, almost exclusively every single one of those loves coffee and loves bougie coffee and bougie coffee preparation. Do you think there is a A dopamine-fueled, skill, reward situation happening that's similar to playing an instrument, like practicing, and then you nail the lick,

and you're like, fuck yeah, and your brain goes, here's some dopamine. That's how I feel with coffee. Like, when I get the espresso right, when I get my full extraction, I get my 40 grams in 30 seconds on the fucking, dot, then I froth my milk correctly, and then I pour a lovely, lovely rosetta. I, um, it's the same as nailing a drum part.

Yeah, I think you're definitely right with that. There's a huge satisfaction in the process, isn't there? I think that's why I really like espresso as well, rather than filter. I like filter, but it doesn't excite me to prepare it. Whereas, like, there's days where, honestly, my excitement about making the espresso, like, Actually, I'm like way more excited at the thought of it than I am even about the flavor of it when I have it. I'm like, oh yeah, espresso is really strong and kind of bitter. Like I almost forget in my excitement based on the visual, you know.

Do you get excited about it before you go to bed? Do you get excited about making it in the morning? Sometimes, yeah, if I've got some fresh beans, yeah, maybe. Sometimes I say night to my machine. I'm like going. I'll just be like, see you in the morning, babe. Because I can't fucking wait. And do you know what?

I'm out of fucking beans. No way. I had to have a 14 gram. 14 gram espresso. That's just not right, mate. There's no satisfaction in that. It was horrible. How much did you extract?

Did you do like a 24 gram? No, like a 34 gram? No, so because I need the caffeine, I tamp too hard on purpose because I only had 14 grams of beans and I did 50 grams in 30 seconds from 4. 14 grams of coffee. What does that taste like?

Horrible, but I needed the caffeine. Yeah, fair enough. So I was like just fully overextracted because I didn't have enough coffee to get enough caffeine. Yeah. My morning one was nice, though. Fair enough. Where are you going to get your next beans from? So I walked, so we were talking about origin.

Yes. My local, there's two local places here. One of them was run by the guy that was in that band Flood of Red. market and they sell I think it's called tin soldier beans they're pretty good but then there's one down the road which I walked to today which sells origin and I was going there

and both of them closed on Wednesdays oh wow so I'm fucked so it'll probably be probably origin I always go I'll pick up a bag of origin or this I think it's called tin soldier it's like a Glasgow roaster but it's really good while I wait for my

standard union revelation because I've just got I've got it dialed in so well that I can't nothing more annoying than getting some beans and it not being nice.

Yeah, I agree. We spoke the other day because I got, you know, we were talking about has been and yeah, I got two Costa Ricans. One of them is pretty nice but I've got a feeling that both of them would be better as filter than espresso, so I'm slightly regretting that. And I'm just finishing a bag of origin,

which I've really enjoyed, a Kenyan one, which you can't get any more. They've run out of it. It was annoying. I got that, and I got an El Salvadorian from Origin, and both of those have given me the most insterworthy Kramer, like really dark. I even had someone like, that looks overextracted, but it's not. Like, the texture is really fluid and fine and rich. So I'm really annoyed, but I've got a couple more bags from them, which are totally different arriving, which I'm looking forward to. I think Union for espresso has potentially been my favourite. Yeah, I'm the same.

I've had some really good beans from a local roaster called Triple Coe that are based in Bristol. I've also had some really good beans from another local one. These two roasteries are probably equidistant on either side of me. It's called Round Hill roastery. But I've kind of stopped doing theirs as much. I don't know why. I think maybe there was a time where they didn't have much turnover

or they were getting like a lot. I think it was a point where they were just only getting Colombian beans in. And I'm sure they all tasted very different and whatever, but some part of me wanted more variation in the name of my coffee, which is probably stupid. No, I know what you mean. Yeah. It's like, I feel like it's the closest thing to being into toys when you're a kid.

When you're an adult, like this one's the same as the other one. This is just Donatello with a different outfit on. I want Michelangelo. Right, come on, I should probably ask some musical ones. What is a piece of advice you'd give to people recording from home which can transform mixes slash projects? Do you think this guy's asking about drums specifically? No, I don't think so.

Okay. I mean, if it's not about drums and it's about guitars or vocals or bass, just getting the performance is absolutely nailed. I don't just mean like on time and, sorry, on the grid and in tune. I mean like the character of everything being awesome. I'm currently mixing a project which has lots of contributors. It's not a traditional band. So there's like different DIY files for guitar players being sent from different people and stuff.

And it's pretty amazing. There's one drummer. All the drums are done in one session. Sorry, there's two drummers actually, but they recorded in the same session. And some songs come together so easily because like the guitars on the bass are done with such great character. They're recorded so well in time. Everything's in key. But they're like, they've got swagger, if that makes sense.

Like they're really performed like you hear on an amazing record. And there's a couple where it's obviously been done a bit more amateur. And like you look on the grid, it's in time. There's nothing you can complain about there. It's, you know, it's pretty damn in tune. But it just sounds kind of a bit limp or... Was it like the attack of the note? Yeah, it's like the attack.

And I mean, guitar is very expressive, distorting guitar like catching just a tiny bit of finger or changing your pick angle, you kind of get different ways that, notes can bloom and experience players kind of do that very intuitively in a way that sounds amazing. But yeah, there's like a certain level of playing which is functional but doesn't doesn't do that thing when you then construct the mix together. It all just sounds a bit flat and lacking energy. So I guess maybe energy or commitment or there's a word which I'm reaching for that I can't remember. But yeah, essentially like committing to the part with the performance. not being complacent with what

you put down. Yeah. Yeah. Not like, oh, that will do. Yeah, but even beyond that, like not being afraid to give it some swagger. You know? Nice. Actually aiming for that. His other, let's assume he was talking about drums,

recording drums at home. Now, we can answer that really quickly. I'm fairly sure we're on the same wavelength here. Unless you have good shit, just program them until you can get into a studio. Maybe, yeah. I think unless, yeah, unless you've got...

It doesn't need to be the most expensive mics. I don't think mic preamps make much difference at all unless you're distorting them, which you don't really need to do. Oh, that's an interesting bit of info because I'm actually in the market for a new interface because the Mac have just fucking destroyed. I did one Mac update and now my interface is dead.

Right. So... And I'm like, do I get a focus right? Scarlet for fucking 300 pounds or do I get a universal audio for 3,000 pounds? Yeah. There's honestly not going to be a huge amount of difference if you are running them clean. It's, I think that microphone preamps are probably the, one of the biggest, like, snake oil things in the recording industry. The CBD of the recording industry. Is that right?

Yeah, it's like, I think there's a lot in music in general, in instruments and equipment, which comes from days when things were way less good to where people would have very strong preferences. Or production lines, brands have very limited range with quite minor differences between the things. So those different points were quite meaningful at that time. But now I'm thinking of things like guitars, like people obsess over the body wood of an electric guitar. I'm not saying it does nothing, but in no way does it define the sound of an electric guitar over

so many of the other, often electrical components or hardware on the guitar. These days there's so much variation and also the standard in general has gotten so much better that a lot of the comparisons that people draw are between incredibly minor things that don't have much appreciable effect, especially within the kind of music that we do, because there's no way that using a Neve preamp instead of an API preamp on your snare bottom is going to mean that the mixer is going to do anything different to that signal, and there's no way you're going to really hear the difference in context, to be honest.

I've been down that rabbit hole. You were maybe one of the first people that showed me just what you can do with like just fucking in the box plug-ins because I remember you came around to mine and we did a little thing and then you had a little just fuck around and whatever I was using at the time, Cubase or whatever and just made it sound incredible. And a lot of people actually when they asked me about recording drums

still to this day on the podcast, on Twitch or whatever, but I always just say go and get Nolly's creative live thing because he really isn't holding back. Like some people, like the Tom, the Tom, the Fab Filter Tom trick is game-changing shit. And a lot of people would keep that shit to themselves. Maybe that's cool. You think so. I mean, yeah, I don't know if it's just naivety on my part or what,

but I'm very happy to share those things. And I guess doing it quite a few times now, there's two things, which is, one, I get to actually then interact with some people that have found those tips to be useful and have used them to really great ends. And I get to hear cool sounding music that wouldn't have happened in the past. I mean, that's like, that's very self-serving kind of thinking about it. And then on the other side, it's like, well, maybe two more points. One, it kind of forces me to come up with something different, even if it's not. like moving away from that. It's like finding something else that's new.

And then secondly, you realize how much of like your sonic signature if you're a mixer or an engineer comes from just your ears and all of the tiny adjustments that you make, which are not really method, like to do with any kind of weird method. It's just you reacting and doing your thing.

And even though you can give away lots and lots of tricks, nobody else is going to do something that sounds exactly like you. Maybe they can do something which sounds exactly like a given recording in the past, but they can't do something which is going to sound like the next thing that you do that they haven't heard and analysed it. They can't steal the brain. Okay, we're going to do some rapid fire ones.

Yeah, sorry, this is moving long. There's a, no, no, it's not your fault. There's a 36, so I'm not going to do all 36, but a lot of them I've already asked. But one, here's a good one. I like this one. What's the album with your favourite mix? the go-to that you... I guess this is two separate ones.

This is from Phil Blaney. Okay. What's the album? He says with the best production ever made, but I'm guessing he means like mix. Yeah. The go-to that you put on to test a studio set up. So are they going to be the same?

I wonder. I don't know. What do you ring out some speakers with? You know, honestly, you could look at this as arrogant, but I like to hear something I've worked on because I know what that sounds like and I know how my ears react to it. That makes sense.

It's not so much about like, oh yeah, I want to hear my work really loud as much as I just know what I'm doing, you know, what I'm hearing. But the, geez, I don't know, the best ever done. God, I don't know. Or your favorite, not like, doesn't have to be.

Something which I just love to hear. Do you know what I do? test. I actually use one of yours to test things when I want to see if like a new, when I just got, I just got hooked up with a bunch of son-os stuff. I mean, didn't get hooked up. I paid for it, but as in I hooked my house up with a bunch of the son-os stuff. And I put fucking Doomsday on. Oh, yeah. Just that snare, the snare at the start of Doomsday. That's a fucking snare.

Oh, thanks, man. Yeah, no. That's a snare. I was really pleased. You're lucky this, you're lucky. It's a flam, isn't it? Is it a flam? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're lucky it's a flam, though. He's Captain Flam. He's Captain Flam. You're lucky, though, because...

You're lucky, though, because... It would have been stolen. It would have been like the Paramourst now, because everyone's had that. That's true. I never even thought about that. Yeah, that's true. Do you mean, by the way,

the single version of Doomsday, or the album version? Because they're slightly different. I believe I mean the single version. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I mean, because we did... We retracted the drums for Holy Hell as a record because we recorded the single about six months before that.

But we kept all the rest of it from the original Dooms Day, but redid the drums. So the one on the record sounds a little bit different. But, yeah, no, Dan Seale loves a good flam. There's some points where it's just like flam after flam after flam. I remember because they're a band that specifically want samples on their drum sound, like they don't want it to sound

natural so I had to go through and make all the trigger points so it did it accurately and for some reason the process I was using never picked up on flams I'd have to manually add the second snare so I remember just at times like being incredulous at how many flams I actually had to like set up the trigger points for in a given song because it would be like part of the part anyway yeah I don't know honestly the answer to like the best ever um I wish I had an answer to that man. There's so many sounds that I appreciate over the history of recording from Beatles through Electric Light Orchestra, through Steely Dan, through maybe not so much stuff in the 80s. Just give me one. All right. From the world of metal, I think Gajira's Art of Dying stands on a pedestal. Fuck, absolutely.

Fuck, yeah. Agreed. Especially for the time. Agreed. Who is it that had him mixed something recently, and it does sound a lot like it? Was it believing with it? Or did they get you to mix it? He did mix something for Bleed From Within, but that's a few albums ago, so I don't know if that's what you mean.

I think I remember hearing that, I mean, recently for me is like five years ago. This is going back beyond, but yeah. Quick Fire. Favorite album that you've produced? Oh, Jesus. From Billy Grove. Billy Grove, what are you doing to me, mate? I don't know.

I really like, let's just look at something recent. I really like Carbom's record and I really like Haken's record I think those two probably also in part because they were incredibly easygoing and the band

Wait did you mix mess What's it called? Not meta no, Mordial I mixed Which one's that one? The recent one before that one The recent one? Yeah I don't think I've heard that

Which is the one with the fucking I mean I literally only got into them two years ago after ignoring them for 10 years. Right. I don't know why. And everyone was like, check this band now. It's like,

nah. And then whatever that fucking song is, you know the one with the fucking meow noise. There's lots of them with that noise, the one that's from meta with the piano noise. That was like,

wow, this band's fucking rips. Check out the new album. It's amazing. And you know that they track without a click, right? Yeah, I've seen,

I saw, they recorded it in, silver chord didn't they the Gojira place I saw a video and they're just old school guide track drums

that's fucking sick Elliot's fucking phenomenal drummer he's unbelievable man he's one we should have mentioned earlier he's like a different octopus brain all right okay the top rated question because I got people to just like other ones if they wanted

is literally about the doomsday snare. Really? Okay. How much time did he spend and getting the first

snare hit of Doomslay to sound absolutely perfect? But you've just told me it's a sample, so. There's some sample. The single version is actually more sample, and it's specifically using quite old school

samples that were used by like Andy Sneep and Colin Richardson in the early 2000s because of Josh Middleton being in the band and telling me that he wanted it to sound a bit like that. What, the slate snare Zip 1 or something like that.

It's the Elysses D4 like drum machine which those guys use. I actually have one but I also have just like the wave files as to... You just ruined a bunch of people's lives there including my own because I fucking

put that on. I mean the whole mix is good though. But it's blended. There's a real snare in there and it's got a lot of the middle farm room sound as well. It's just on the single version if you hear that like that top end like white noise that's what the song. is doing in there.

I mean, this one's, this one's going to be long, but. Okay. It's highly, it's highly rated. This is going to be the last one. Because I'm late for streaming. I don't care because this is fine.

Well, just your entire experience, this is from Ben Moran, who isn't asking for much. Okay. Just your, just your entire experience of working with animals as leaders, particularly from a production point of view

when the sounds are complex, new and multi-layered. Thanks. Yeah, sure. I guess I can step in without going into too much detail. It was a really interesting process. I think it was probably what I'd consider to be the first of the professional, first record I did as a professional engineer, but I was in no way really prepared for it.

It was quite overwhelming because I flew from Australia, director at LA and we went from the airport to the studio I want to say and annoyingly Garska had been in the day before that wasn't the annoying bit but the engineer who had already set everything up

and kind of it was just the way it was apparently and he'd totally messed up the snare top microphone he was running it through a tape machine and you just put it through in 1176 which doesn't do much apart from make the bleed a lot worse and the snare sound more ringy. Gnolly hates preamps.

I love it. Well, that's a compressor. But then he slammed that onto the tape machine to the point where the snare top really sounded like a monoomole hates analogue. Yes. Nolly hates analogue. That's what I meant, man.

Yeah, it was rubbish, man. I think that one, the fact he did that caused me years of anguish because I'd never liked how the drums came out and it was partly because of the snare. I didn't even realize that that's what it was really like because I was a bit overwhelmed. I was jet lagged.

It was a nice posh studio with a console, and he was talking so romantically about all of the amazing gear. The man was talking. Yeah, you know, he was talking. And, you know, it was on a console, and he had the room mics really loud, so we were monitoring. Everything sounded like Led Zeppelin, and I was like, oh, I guess this is cool. This is what they do in L.A. And it wasn't until I got to mixing. I was like, why does the snare top sound like a mono overhead room mic kind of thing?

So what did you do? There's a lot of sample. There's a lot of sample. Yeah. I mean, I love the way that record sounds. Do you? The symbols sound like... Weird.

They're made out of tobacco. Yeah, good. Yeah, that sounds about right. But I love it. Oh, cool. It sounds like it made out of tobacco recorded in a fully wooden room. I like it.

And it made me in like an inner sauna. Recorded inner sauna with the temperature, kiln drum. ride symbols. Yeah. I mean, I just, I wish I could go back in time and do it again, I think it's the point.

I don't think it would be as good. I think you captured a time. Really? You captured a moment, yeah. What if I went back in time and did it again with my knowledge now, then it would still be a moment,

you know? Yeah, but it would be fucking the doomsday snare on that. Yeah, that's what it should be. I'd just use the doomsday flam sample on every hit. But that's my favorite, That's my favourite sounding animals album.

Yeah, I mean, there are a band that's always tried to do things themselves wherever possible. And I think, if I can say this, I think it's sometimes to a fault. I mean, for example, in terms of band management, like they've typically not had management most of their career. And I think that's fine because there's three of them. But I think that if they were a bigger band that had to split money more ways, they would have lost out on serious income by not having professional management. I don't know if that's going to inside the working.

There's a bunch of the DIY proggy. Yeah. Proggy scene where there is, I'm not saying that animals do this, but there is an element with a lot of bands where they're like, well, I'm this good at my instrument, so I obviously know more than a manager about doing this thing. I'm not saying animals is like that,

but I know some prog bands like that. Really? And they end up fucking shooting themselves in the foot. Yeah. The reason you're that good at your instrument is because you haven't spent the amounts of time figuring out the business side of things. And that's probably why I'm not actually that good at drums.

Right. But I'm doing okay, Nolly. You're doing great, mate. You're doing great. It's going, there's like, there's a trade-off at some point. Right, okay, come on. Rapid fire. I think it's in so much trouble for being fucking late

to the stream. Oh, this one's nice. This is Holton. What's your perfect Sunday? Perfect Sunday. Lying a little bit. Have a decent brunch. Hopefully the weather's good.

What's on brunch menu? Maybe some, like, eggs with actually Ali from... Benedict? Eggs Benedict. Yeah, could be. I'm not very good at poaching eggs, but I do love them. But Ali from architects showed me this thing with Heinz baked beans, but with lots of sage and garlic in there

and it's so tasty. He cooked that up for me for breakfast. You just chuck a load of like crushed up sage and garlic in there and let it stew for a long time. It doesn't taste like Heinz baked beans anymore. That with some nice sour dough and either like some, I don't know, sausage, anything brunchy. Sounds glorious.

Yeah, I'm hungry now. So I might, so I'm not going to fucking really. I've wrap it this shit up. Yeah. Wait, what were you going to say? I was going to say, walk a dog, watch some TV, not have to do any annoying chores, and feel energized for Monday.

That's Sunday. There was a wholesome answer. Yeah. If you had, I mean, this one, why am I picking the long ones? I'm supposed to have asked you the top five bands as well, but I don't, can you give me your top five bands quickly? No.

No? No. Okay. Top three. Give me your top three. I don't know. Maybe 6th has to be up there. I feel like there's so much that I'm not reaching in my brain whenever these questions get asked that I just can't think of. Let me just look at a list of bands that I listen to a lot.

Ask me the next question and then come back to this one. Okay, okay, okay. Dream kit and snare combo to track with from Dan Patterson. I mean, I think a Tarma, Star-Elasic Maple, I'm not saying it's a dream, but, I mean, it sounds amazing. You know it. Yeah. I mean, they're great kit. It's not, it's not like, you know, if a genie appeared, that would be what I'd wish for, but it would be amazing.

Well, that's what he's fucking asking, Ollie. He's asking Dream Kit. But then there would be some weird thing. I really like, I really like Evatt's drums. Yeah, Australian. Yeah, I reviewed a couple of those. Normal drums, though? Yeah, they do kits.

I thought it were just snares. No, I reviewed a kit with drummers. view and it was unbelievable. Okay, that's the fucking answer then. Yeah, yeah, fine. You're giving a small company a little bit of coverage. That's true.

Okay, what snare, though? I almost shed a tear and I'm not joking, but I was really, really sleepy at the time when I heard somebody playing my new Q Drumco Gentleman's Brass snare, which is like an eight lug,

slightly deeper, black beauty, slightly thicker. And he just, tunes so well and it had like just a little bit of moon gel on it but it felt so lovely and dry with just the right amount of overtone and yeah I was really cracked out. It was a really tough session

and it was near the end and we had a lot of problems and we whipped that snare out and I literally did shed a tear but not going from like just happy state to crying but like just a lot of relief and enjoyment involved. I once cried

just shed a tear from the Papa John Sinai pizza. You ever have one of those? It's basically, it's a dessert, but they make like a cinnamon roll, but on a pizza base. Okay. And, you know, first bite, little tear. Really?

They're just unbelievable. I mean, I'm salivating, thinking about it. It was insane. Give me fucking two more bands you like, and then we're going to go. This has been lovely, though. Yeah, okay. I'm literally just scrolling.

Ocean size. That's a band I'd like to mention. Absolutely. All right. One of my old-time phase. Yeah. Nice. Absolutely, yeah. But they're not still going, are they? No. What do any of them do? Do anything?

The lead singer has done some solo records that are amazing. He's called Venart. That's his surname. And he's also just set up a Patreon, which I started donating to, where he's talking a lot about the old ocean-sized recordings and doing, playthroughs of them and talking about the way the parts are structured, which is really interesting. They have three guitarists and yeah, fascinating. How much is it a month though, Nollie? How much is it a month?

I forget. I think it's like a five or something. It should be a pound. Anyway, one more, one more fucking band. You've paused my video, but I don't care. We're both hungry. I want to cry at the Sinai and I have to go straight to a stream. Okay, all right, all right, all right.

I'm just looking. Tigra and Hamassian. Oh, fuck yeah. We could have done a whole podcast talking about it. him. Yeah. I wish he did more with Arthur, though. Is Arthur not drumming?

Did he do another album? Well, he did one album, mock route, didn't he? Yeah. And then didn't do anything for two albums. Has he done another one since then with Arthur? I don't actually know. I think I just assumed that Arthur was on the new one, The Call Within. Is he not?

Oh, maybe he's back for that. I do remember seeing something, but I haven't heard it. but I had brunch actually with Arthur once. Did you? And he had a lot of interesting things to say, which I won't say in public because there for him to say. But fucking amazing drummer, amazing musicians.

Yeah. Going on there. Yeah. Oh, I'm going to listen to, I think you showed me mock route, actually. I never heard it for. I got shown by Toeson when we did Animals as Leaders. He put me in his car and played it and it blew my mind. And he's on the new record.

You put me in your car because I believe we went to Nando's or somewhere in town. And you put it on and it blew my mind. Wow. And I'm pretty sure I put it on and blew someone else's mind. So that's the car. What was it called? When you pass something down? Like a lineage.

A heirloom, yeah. It's also viral growth, isn't it? Imagine if people are listening to this podcast in their cars, maybe they're going to then put it on in their car and have their minds blown and then show someone else. The podcast. Tigran Hamassian Mokroot. Put it on, blow your mind and show you whoever's next to you.

Right. We're fucking done here. This has been wonderful though. It has. I wish we could keep going, but I also wish we could stop. We can do another one. We'll do a follow up. Yeah.

Send me a file. We'll do. It's been a pleasure, mate. It has, yeah. Great to catch up. It's kind of funny that it's all caught on podcast. Now, yeah, exactly.

That's literally just the funny. These are my favourite episodes. I did one with actually Ali Architects the other day and we just caught up and it was like, that's the best. Oh, what a great person here.

And now we can actually, it's the best. Now we can actually speak to each other on WhatsApp without you feeling like we have to do the podcast. That's right, yeah. Well, I'm very pleased that we made it happen.

Nice one, mate. Take care. Yeah, you too. mate you too bye bye bye bye bye