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Jimmy Degrasso
(August 2005 Issue)
Drumming Hero A couple of years
back, while Jimmy DeGrasso was in Europe playing drums with Alice
Cooper, he
got a call from an old friend, Megadeth's Dave Mustaine. The
band needed a drummer, was DeGrasso up for the gig? "It
was a surreal
moment," he recalls, "to sit down at breakfast with Alice and say, 'I
have to leave.'"
DeGrasso joined the popular speed metal band on the cusp of recording their 1999 release, Risk.
"They wanted to
do something adventurous, a huge departure from what
they had done previously," he explains. "Unfortunately, I wanted to
join
Megadeth and play Megadeth music, as opposed to this
experimental rock album." While Risk picked up some new fans
for the
Megadeth camp, it certainly alienated some old ones.
With that in mind, Megadeth dispensed with unnecessary
studio gadgetry for The World Needs A Hero,
their first new album in two years. "This time out," DeGrasso says,
"we
basically streamlined back down to what we are. It's metal: guitar,
bass, and drums - no effects or loops. We just
wanted to do what we felt
like doing."
Most of the songs for The World Needs A Hero were written during
soundchecks on the Risk
tour. DeGrasso believes the band's unorthodox approach yielded exciting
results
that are easily heard on the record. "When you write songs at
soundcheck," he says, "standing on that stage, you have your
full
sound. The guys are playing through big rows of Marshals, I have this
huge drum wedge behind me, and the bass drums
are at about 135
decibels. There's a certain presence there that inspires you much more
than when you're in a
rehearsal space with padding all over the walls.
I think that lent a live vibe to The World Needs A
Hero."
Gail Worley
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