Dave Witte
(October 2009 Issue)
Municipal Waste and Burnt By The Sun Drummer Dave Witte: Exclusive In-The-Studio Performance
When photographer Scott Kincaid shot Municipal Waste drummer
Dave Witte for the October issue of Modern Drummer, he brought along his video camera and filmed Dave
playing along to two tracks. Here Dave gives us the rundown of his approach to
tracks by Municipal Waste and Burnt By The Sun:
Municipal Waste: “The Divine Blasphemer”
This song has a ton energy and catchy riffs. The main goal
here was to support the song energetically with fast beats, while not getting
in the way.
Hanging back during the mid-paced section really makes the
hook stand out, so I did that and accented the riff every other measure to add
dynamics. The fills are structured to help move the song along to get maximum
impact during transitions. The intro needed to be strong and powerful right off
the bat, so I used simple quads to fill of the space without overdoing it. View the video clip here.
Burnt By The Sun: “A Party To The Unsound Method”
This is a very aggressive song with a lot of groove as well.
The riffs are gargantuan, and Burnt By The Sun tunes to C, so in the studio I
dropped all the tuning down and used bigger drums to match the heaviness of the
band.
As always, I have the riff in mind, so in order to achieve
maximum impact for the song I don’t overdo it with the drumming. At the
beginning I’m doing a traditional 1-2 thrash beat, but playing the hi-hat in
half-time so that the beat takes on a swing feel. Then I double up the kick to
increase intensity. It sounds crazier than it actually is and has a great
effect.
Double kick is always good for intensifying “the next part”
in my mind. I ground the tune with groove to support the riff between fast
parts, then propel with double kick to transition to the big part. Lots of pounding, spacious drumming here,
a.k.a. “the big beat,” with lots of crash cymbals. The chorus is a monster of a
riff, so I hang back big time. Towards the end of the song I use some dynamics
to make certain parts of the song/riff stand out more, to achieve more emotion View the video clip here.
The music of Burnt By The Sun has a lot of emotion to it, so
the drumming is heartfelt and not clinical. (Look for the mistake, ha ha.) The
end of “A Party To The Unsound Method” required the heat to be turned up
full-blast, and what better way to that than to use the blast beat– one of my
favorites! For more on Dave Witte, visit www.myspace.com/davewitte.
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