Issues to be Addressed

First, I'd like to thank everyone that is participating in the forum. This is a big part of my vision to offer any knowledge, ideas, suggestions, and share them with the drumming community. It has taken a long time to gather the courage to present ideas to such high demanding players in the scene.

I feel that we must clear up some things about extreme metal drumming in order for us to improve our playing as a whole. The first thing is speed! This is somewhat of a touchy subject because most of us feel it is necessary given the type of music we play. I can only speak of personal experience so, this may not be everyone's point of view, nor should it be. I can honestly say that I never worked on being fast. I don't sit around and play to a click to see how fast I am or enter the world's fastest drummer contest because I simply don't care. It doesn't matter. I know plenty of drummers who are fast but they can't play “back in black”.

By working on speed, we're missing the entire point. This is what I see happening… we say to ourselves that we want to be faster and we're going to sit on the drum kit and practice working on speed. We set a goal for ourselves that will never be achieved. What I mean is… how many of you want to play faster?? All of you right?? Well, that's the thing that will never be achieved because no matter how fast you play you always want to play faster and there will always be someone faster. It's a never ending circle. We give up on our goal because the speed never seems to get better with any consistency because we're so focused on speed.

This is simply because your body doesn't progress that fast and your mind does. A weight lifter doesn't come in and say this week I'm going to lift 100 pounds, next week 200, the week after 300, your body can't do that nor can it move up 10 bpms on the metronome per week! Meanwhile, the drummer that plays music and doesn't really care about getting faster has had all that time to work on cool things that only he does and that make him different from everyone else in the scene.

By doing this and playing music with a band, the speed came naturally and he created an identity for himself. I feel that too many players are brainwashed by this illusion that speed makes you a great drummer. Here are a few things that I think make us believe this.

# 1. There are too many musicians that are writing music to drum machines, at tempos only a few of us can play. They think “I'll just call Tony, John, Nick or Tim and ask them to record”. Meanwhile the drummers that are available are intimidated by the tempos and the drummers they hear on the disk. Extreme metal musicians need to learn to write music (with a drummer) within all of their capabilities. Are there bands anymore or just musicians wanting to hire so and so to do their records? They only hurt themselves, they go out and misrepresent themselves live because so and so couldn't make it and they're stuck with whoever they could find to do the tour. I'm not saying all the drummers suck; I'm saying that's too much to ask of anybody in short notice to achieve good results. Whatever happened to having a great band?

#2. (I'm going to get in trouble for this one) there's way too much editing going on these days in the studios. Not all we hear on record is what was played. Even some of the records you guys are talking about on this very forum!!!!!!!! I've seen it first hand! You can take somebody that doesn't even play drums and make them sound like a god. You can fix bass drums or entire drum parts that fell apart during the recording, you can play the kick drum in half time and go back and add the other kick notes by hand, and the new big thing is “punching in” to achieve more consistent tempos. Why do most metal musicians write music they can't even make it through in one take or make it through it at all! And how could you be proud of something that you know deep in your heart that didn't really play??????? Anybody that knows me knows that I'm really against punching in and editing drum parts. I had to punch in on Nile's “black seeds” record because I had 2 days to learn and record 7 songs. I wish I could have had the time to learn the music and write some good drum parts. Maybe then I would have been more satisfied with the end result.

I know of one recording (which is mentioned on my forum as being “some of the most extreme drumming ever!!!” The infamous drummer came in played 4 bars of every type of blast and double bass beat known to man, along with various fills. The entire record was assembled by looping the drum parts together with pro tools! Yea, that's brutal. If something doesn't sound humanly possible to play, you have to say to yourself that it probably wasn't. You really get a good idea of how drummers really play by seeing them live. You can't fix anything then.

#3. I hate seeing so many drummers out there that are discouraged that they can't play to these songs. Then what's worse, is the non-drummer musicians that won't give any up and coming drummers a chance in their band because they can't play double bass at 250 bpms. Hearing all of these guy's so worried about how fast they are makes me wonder how long it will be before you worry about becoming good drummers. I really feel that not putting so much effort into practicing speed and playing music and working on things that make you different will give you the advantage to the guy that can “just play fast”. I'm not saying that you shouldn't work on speed but, do it within the context of music. A lot of the time it's not an issue of speed but more the endurance. I remember when I was young trying to play chapel of ghouls; it wasn't that I couldn't hit the tempos; I just couldn't make it through the song. Sitting in your practice room playing double bass at 220 is totally different than playing a song at 220. Playing music at these tempos is a lot more difficult. I still think the best method of wanting to achieve certain tempos is to play to music at that tempo, not to sit and play to a click. Keep playing the song until you get it. Or if your band is writing music, be conscious of your progress until you reach the tempo desired.

I guess I'm trying to say that by playing music and working on songs with other people is what makes us better players and allows us to be able to play what we want, no matter how fast it is. We just need to change the idea that every band needs to be faster than the next. Only then can we see what the musicians in the scene really have to offer to our music. Find a band and play music. If you want to get faster the only way it will happen is by playing music. Now all we have to do is change our focus from speed to making better and more interesting drum parts. Personally, I could give a crap about a fast drummer if the bands songs suck or sound just like someone else! Or if the guy that recorded the record told me that the drummer played the songs but it took him 3 weeks to edit the bass drums. Makes me wonder why we even bother to play in the first place.

I hope that by acknowledging these misconceptions, we can focus on what really makes this scene so much different from all other forms of music. That overplaying, speed, and all out nonsense are all accepted openly and these are things that will get you fired in other forms of music. But not acknowledging the basic rules of all music (which is consistent timing, good feel, great technique, and the all important having your own voice on your instrument), can we ever produce something that the scene can benefit from and we ourselves can be proud of. Continue to set your goals but do it realistically. Focus on music. Focus on being a better drummer, not a faster drummer. I guarantee that you will reach your goal with better results than practicing in a room by yourself hoping to find a secret to playing fast. If you don't have a band, find one! There are plenty of bands that need you. And if you happen to write songs at 260 bpm, so be it! And with-in that song, you can't play the 16th note double bass pattern you want to play (because that's what Tony Lauren would do), then find something that's your own that you can do at 260bpm. Nobody will fault you for that, if anything you'll be the guy everyone is talking about.