Big Drum Thump

Drum and Drummer News and Photos

Category: Drummers

  • A Big-Ass Mike Portnoy Interview

    Portnoytes, rejoice. Living Legends Music has posted an 8-part vid interview with Mike. It was recorded on May 31, 2008, at Hard Rock Live, and in it the drummer chats about the beginnings of Dream Theater, the band’s extraordinary success, and all kinds of extraneous miscellanea that is easy to listen to because Mike himself is so engaging.

    From the fourth vid comes our drumming quote of the week: “I’m not at all a technical gear guy….I just love to get up there and beat the crap out of stuff.”

  • Abe Cunningham Fills Us In…

    Well, not us specifically, but anyone who peruses The Deftones’s blog. Here’s the straight poop about the band’s upcoming album:

    Hey all, we’re almost finished tracking our record up here at The Spot and we’ll head up to Terry’s studio in Seattle next month to add the final touches and begin mixing. We’re all excited about how this record is taking shape, and can’t wait to share it with all of you! In the meantime, we want to let our friends in the Phoenix area know that we’ll be headlining KUPD’s End of Summer Scorcher Sept 20th in Peoria, AZ with our good friends Alice In Chains. Tickets go on sale this Saturday, AUG 2nd at all local AZ Club Tattoo locations. They’ll also be available online beginning Monday, AUG 4th via Tickets.com. Check it out at KUPD.com.

  • Vadrum vs. Tenacious D

    Aww yeah, a new Vadrum video! And this time it’s doubly freakin’ sweet because Jack Black is in it.

  • Travis Barker Talks X Games

    We promise this isn’t a site devoted solely to his Travness, but dude is constantly in the news lately. He recently spoke with Metromix Los Angeles about the X Games and his future drumming plans. Surprise, surprise: Blink-182 ain’t much in the cards.

    You know, to be honest with you, I haven’t spoken to Tom [DeLonge] in five years. I speak to Mark [Hoppus] every day, he’s one of my greatest friends, so…that’s the status of that. I think everyone would have to be friends, and I think we’d all have to want to do it in order for it to happen.

  • Travis Barker in The Game’s “Dope Boys” Video

    We posted a studio vid of this song a month ago, but now the real deal is out. And, yep, Barker is definitely banging Zildjian’s Pitch Blacks.

  • Lenny White’s Signature Stick

    Every Tom, Dick, and Travis has a signature stick these days, so it’s about time living-legend Lenny White got one too. With an appropriately white shaft, his Vic Firth signature whacker is 16″ long and has a .580″ diameter, which is somewhere between a 5A and a 5B for those of us who don’t speak metric too well.

    Vic Firth has also posted some really interesting vids of Lenny jawing about drums and drumming here. There’s even a classic live clip of Return to Forever from 1976.

    [Update 2022: Damn it, the vids are no longer active on Vic Firth’s site.]

  • Elvin Jones and Mike Portnoy at Hudson

    Elvin and Mike aren’t actually hanging out together (primarily because the great Jones has already given up the ghost), but the two do feature in recent postings from Hudson Music.

    A good, though fairly staid, bio vid of Elvin is available here. Even if you already know everything there is to know about the jazz drumming legend, check it out for some great performance clips (yes, we know those same clips are available on YouTube, but the sound quality is better in the Hudson podcast).

    Portnoy spends five or so minutes chatting here about his drumming, what’s in his iPod, and who his favorite movie directors are. It’s not the most essential reading on the Net this evening, but if you’re a die-hard Portnoyte and have already combed through all your favorite porn sites today, you should click on over.

    [Update 2022: Alas, alack, and goddamn it. These videos have been removed.]

  • Neil Peart Sucks at Rock Band

    Wow, so much for the theory that diligent Rock Band practice can make you a superstar drum stud. Here’s a vid of Neil and the boys butchering “Tom Sawyer” on expert level. It was caught on camera before their appearance on the Colbert Report last week.

  • Lionel Hampton Library Collection

    After jazz drummer, vibraphonist, and all-around-legend Lionel Hampton died in 2002, many of his papers and scores went to the good folks at the University of Idaho, who later established the International Jazz Collections. Lucky for all of us jazz-historian thumpers, the collection devoted to Hampton is now available online…for free. The site includes pics, videos, and a searchable database with over 100 pages of scores, photos, and other coolness that lifelong students of the instrument will definitely want to check out. Why? See for yourself. Here’s Hampton dueling it out with Gene Krupa and Chico Hamilton.

    And you didn’t really think that John Blackwell invented stick twirling, did you?

  • Gene Hoglan Interview at Sick Drummer

    The mighty Gene Hoglan spoke with Sick Drummer recently about drums, Dethklok, and the untimely, unfortunate death of Michelle Meldrum. As always, Hoglan manages to be affable, cheeky, wise, and passionate all at the same time—and all in about 1,700 words. Give the interview a read posthaste, and then check out the vid below of Hoglan playing a Meldrum tune.

  • Rikki Rockett Bitch Slaps Joe Elliott…

    Verbally bitch slaps, that is.

    It seems that all is not well in the Land of Old Rocker Dudes. During a June 6 press conference at the Sweden Rock Festival, Def Lep vocalist Joe Elliott made a kinda snippy comment about ’80s glam bands:

    …[W]e were never driven to do the mascara thing or whatever these bands did. They didn’t have any substance musically, I don’t think, in comparison to us, so we didn’t feel we needed to do it. Bands that do that are doing it to cover up the fact that there is no substance in their music. The only band—and I’m not saying it because we’re here—the only band that did pull it off was [Finland’s] Hanoi Rocks. I thought Hanoi Rocks were a good band, and they looked….Michael Monroe [Hanoi’s vocalist] was one of the best….I would have shagged him. [Laughs] I like Michael, I think he’s sexy, and I’m not gay. And I think Andy McCoy [Hanoi’s guitarist] does the best kind of Keith Richards…so much better than Motley Crue or Poison or any of those bands. They [Hanoi Rocks] were real: the rest of the guys, it was all a bit fake for me.”

    Poison frontman Bret Michaels politely responded the next day by essentially saying, “Look who the fuck is talking,” and Rikki Rockett, fresh from his exoneration megafete, added this on his MySpace page yesterday:

    I know, it’s kinda old news at this point, but I must say a few words about Joe Elliot (Def Leppard) talkin’ some smack about Poison and Motley. Mainly because he is continuing to talk smack in other interviews as well.
    Now, I’m sure Motley can defend themselves, so I’ll leave that alone and Bret did cover it rather well. However, I was talkin’ with some friends last night and we were shaking our heads wondering when Joe became a rock historian. Well, Joe, when did ya? Do you think saying bad things about another band makes people like your band more? Oh, no. Can’t be it. Let me guess, “You were JUST being honest.” Look, I have always enjoyed Def Leppard. But, as of late that pre-programmed, Mutt Lang live record you guys are doing out there on tour is anything but “substance”. JUST being honest.

    Joe! I’d be hurt if this were coming from John Lennon. Listen up, you are not quite that important there fella! Ya know, just like you I put my pants on one leg at a time, but when I put mine on Joe, they are cooler than yours! But, does it really matter? So it takes about 1 minute and 45 seconds to put on eyeliner. I suppose during that same time you were writing the next “Imagine”. In the words of the great Aerosmith, “Get a grip!” Oh, and by the way, just to add to your royal information pool of rock history, Sir Joe, in the 70’s it was “Glitter Rock”, in the 80’s it was Glam Rock.

    We shall await Joe’s retort, which will probably at least sound clever because he’s got that awesome English accent.

  • Travis Barker Interview on Young Hollywood

    The big T recently sat down with Young Hollywood for a 2:45 interview. It’s billed as a think-piece in which Trav “tells us all about his music, family, and fashion sense,” but it’s really pretty much about his tattoos, always the hallmark of a great drummer. The one interesting bit—completely missed by the interviewer—comes when Barker is asked about his plans for the future:

    I want to retire playing jazz.

  • Chad Sexton Loves It Live

    Chad Sexton and his 311 mates may be in the thick of writing and recording a new album with Bob Rock, but the drummer knows what is ultimately important to his band’s longevity:

    I think we have the same appeal as a band like the Grateful Dead….We have some Deadheads in the band, and when they stopped touring, Phish kind of took over for them, and maybe Dave Matthews Band has some of that same appeal as well. We can jam on our [songs] like those bands, but I’d say we’re kind of a band between—and I’m not comparing us to these bands, but just in the level of status and accomplishment, and that they’re still together—U2 and Phish. It’s somewhere in the middle of that, and we’re hoping to define that a little better over the next couple of years. It’s a weird phenomenon: We keep playing, and kids are having a great time every summer….We wanted to make sure we tour every summer, regardless of our records, because we’re here to play live music. We don’t want to spend a summer getting away from the people.

  • Lars Ulrich Talks About Covering Iron Maiden

    If you’re anything like Web-worshiping us, you probably let your U.K. magazine subscriptions expire long ago. Who needs the overseas shipping charges, not to mention all that extra paper?

    Well, dear thumpers, that was a big, stupid-ass mistake because the upcoming issue of Kerrang! will include a CD of Iron Maiden cover tunes performed by Metallica, Machine Head, Trivium, Avenged Sevenfold, Dream Theater, and lots of shreddin’ others. How cool is that? According to Lars Ulrich, about 10% cooler than you first thought:

    Iron Maiden are 10 percent cooler than every other band….From their relationship with their fans, to their album covers to their stages, to their live presentation, to their photos—whatever they did was always cooler than what everyone else did! I have always had an incredible amount of respect and admiration for them and obviously getting a chance to be part of this CD feels like that has come a full circle. We played “Remember Tomorrow” as it was basically the blueprint for songs like “Fade To Black” and “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”, and some of the more epic ballady type of songs that Metallica had done later. We had so much fun jamming with this! We put a bit of an intro on it, to give it a bit of a Metallica stamp, and we are super pleased with how it has turned out.

  • Matt Cameron’s New Band

    It’s called Harrybu McCage, it’s a jazz trio, and it’s pretty close to AWESOME. Check out the band’s MySpace page for a two-song sample. The self-titled debut goes on sale tomorrow in stores, but you can order it now if you manage to successfully navigate the labyrinth of Pearl Jam’s online store.