Chad Gracey
Not Quite As Live As Usual

"The thing I'm most particular about is the snare drum," Live's Chad Gracey says during a recent interview, answering a question about his drum sounds. "Right now I'm using a - God, I knew this was going to leave me. Oh, man, I'll think of it!"

Though Gracey's memory is apparently on the fritz at the moment, his performance sure isn't, as best evidenced on Live's recently released V. Gracey banged out all his drum parts in a couple of weeks, and contrary to the band's moniker, the recording session for V was anything but live. (Basic tracking sessions for the band's earlier releases were always recorded with the full band.)

"This time Ed [Kowalczyk, singer/songwriter] went in with his ideas and laid down scratch tracks with a click track," Gracey explains. "Then I went in and laid down the drum parts afterwards by myself. That was amazing for me. It freed me up from having to try to play the whole song all the way through. I could do everything I wanted to do and not worry about messing up."

As for the snare drum Gracey couldn't remember. Thanks to the latest in technology, he was able to fire off an email message a few minutes later: "I just called my tech and found out the name," he says. "It's a Keplinger snare. So there you have it."

Waleed Rashidi

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