Def Leppard's Rick Allen, Part 1 Exclusive Interview: Modern Drummer Magazine

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Def Leppard's Rick Allen, Part 1

Rick Allen

Rick Allen has been playing drums all his life, and nothing was going to stop him from doing what he loves to do. Nothing.
By now we all know the story about Rick's terrible car accident on December 31, 1984, which resulted in the drummer losing his left arm. One could only imagine the horror. The future of Del Leppard started to look mighty cloudy.

Def Leppard's Rick Allen, Part 1

by Billy Amendola

Rick Allen has been playing drums all his life, and nothing was going to stop him from doing what he loves to do. Nothing.
By now we all know the story about Rick's terrible car accident on December 31, 1984, which resulted in the drummer losing his left arm. One could only imagine the horror. The future of Del Leppard started to look mighty cloudy.
But only a few short months after his accident, Rick miraculously began a whole new approach to playing, with the help of family, friends, and a special electronic kit made for him by Simmons. Two years later, he was out playing live again.
The band from Sheffield, England returned even bigger than before, producing hit after hit and going on to sell well over 45 million records in their 25-year career. Their record-breaking album Hysteria sold over 17 million records alone and produced six Top-20 hits, which resulted in its becoming the 39th best-selling album of all time. (Check out the DVD Classic Albums' Def Leppard's Hysteria for more on the album.)
Recently Def Leppard released its tenth studio record, simply titled X. We caught up with Rick Allen the day after the band played a blazing record-release concert at New York's Irving Plaza.

MD: You guys were incredible last night.
Rick: Thank you. I really appreciate that. It makes it special when I get to talk to someone after they see us play. To me, sometimes the words get in the way. Sometimes I just want to give people the experience of hearing me play and being around the way I play. It's a constant learning curve for me. I'm always learning new things about the way I can do things, the way I can play.
MD: What is your current setup?
Rick: My current setup is an acoustic kick and snare, with a snare sample that I can fire with my left foot as well. From left to right it's snare trigger, hi-hat, kick drum, snare drum, and tom-tom on the floor--all on pedals. And then the top tier is pretty much a carbon copy of that: I've got pads that correspond, sound-wise, to what I've got on the floor pedals. The cymbals are all real, but I've got a couple of tricks that nobody's really figured out yet.

MD: I like how you kept going back and forth between the hi-hat and the ride cymbal.
Rick: That creates forward momentum for me. When I lost my arm, that was the thing I was missing--my left foot playing the hi-hat and creating some sort of push and pull between the right hand and left foot. So that's kind of a way that I can re-create that again. In the past I've also used delays on certain drums. Now what I do is create these two-beat, three-beat, or four-beat phrases with percussion elements like tambourine or shaker. Then I'll make two-beat samples from those phrases, and I'll fire those from triggers that my drum tech Jerry Johnson developed, which attach to the bottom of my real hi-hat cymbals.
In the past I've used sequencing and all kinds of stuff. But I didn't like that because it meant that I was tied to that tempo, or I was tied to that length of a song, or that length of a section. Doing it this way makes it a lot freer with the rest of the band, because there's more room for improvisation.
MD: You wear headphones live. Are they for listening to the loops?
Rick: Yes, exactly. For seventy-five percent of the show I use what I call "a base kit," which is everything straight--no loops, nothing. It's just as I would play with one arm and two feet. And then for the occasional song that I think needs to be carried by some kind of percussive element, I'll use some of the triggering devices that I was telling you about. It makes for a very musical approach to using percussion.
It's annoying to me to see a band where it's all canned, either on a hard-disk recorder or this or the other thing. It kind of ruins the vibe. It's too much of the studio following you. I'd rather use the studio for what it is and then take the elements I want from the studio, but be able to use them in the way that I want to use them, not the way they want to use me.
On some of the slower songs--like "Love Bites," for instance, I've basically got all the percussive elements in a two-bar loop. So every time I trigger the two-bar loop hitting the trigger on the real hi-hat, I play over the top of that loop that I've created. I find it fun this way.
When I go into "Rock It," on the hi-hat trigger I've got a percussive two-beat pattern. And then because the tom-tom loop comes in on the "&" after 4, I trigger that on the upbeat with my left foot. So I'm playing that and I'm playing the percussive elements on the hi-hat. Sometimes it gets kind of complicated, but it's one of those things I get used to doing because it's something I've created for myself.
MD: Remembering all that must keep it interesting.
Rick: [laughs] Well, I generally don't get bored.
MD: You had a big smile on your face during the show. You look like you're having a great time performing.
Rick: You know, I can't help it these days. I realize how blessed I am, especially playing drums. It's like it really charges up the spirit. It's a great way to transfer that energy to people, just to be able to play drums and really enjoy it and the intention behind it. It's very powerful.
MD: Do you get time to practice?
Rick: Absolutely. The kind of drumming I've really been getting into more than ever these days is more of an acoustic approach. That's what I grew up with, that's how I started when I was ten years old. I actually started on an old tambourine with a skin head. My best friend got a guitar, so of course I went home and said, "Mom, Dad, can I have some drums? John and me need to make music." And of course they said no.
But my mother was smart. She said, "You know what? I can't give you drums, because we can't afford it, but I'll buy you some lessons." So I ended up studying with Kenny Slade, one of the original drummers with Joe Cocker's Grease Band, because he's from my hometown, Sheffield, England. He had a rich musical background, and I kind of tapped into that from an early age. We started out doing all the rudiments, and he gave me classic books like Stick Control. I got every book that's in most drummers? repertoires.
MD: What's your practice routine like?
Rick: Independent exercises starting out with triplets, leading off with right hand, right foot, left foot, and then going into double strokes. Sometimes it's clumsy having to play all the different pedals, and it's more difficult for my left foot. So I've tended to develop my right hand. It's a lot more fluid now than when I had two arms. So I'll do that kind of independence exercise--double strokes, single strokes, and then going to threes, fours, and fives, just trying to keep it as consistent as I can.
MD: When you were growing up, would you practice exercises with just one hand anyway, to develop your weaker hand?
Rick: I was always trying to develop my left hand. Kenny Slade would always encourage me to play traditional grip, and it was great. I loved playing traditional grip because of the amount of drag that I could get on the stick and all these really cool rudimentary exercises that I could do. As a rock drummer it was unusual to be able to use that style, but I liked it. The calluses I developed on my hands from playing that way were outrageous. It obviously doesn't matter now, because that arm's gone, but I think it was a good introduction to drums. It was really a solid base for me to work upon, and I tap into that all the time.
MD: Now when you play, you're triggering your snare drum mostly from your left foot, correct?
Rick: Yes.
MD: And then you come off your cymbal or hat with your right hand onto your real snare for fills?
Rick: Yes, that's exactly it. I'll play right hand, left foot, and again where I can't play cleanly with my left foot, I'll compensate using my right hand. But I'm still developing my left foot as much as I can.
MD: What are you practicing technique-wise to develop your left foot?
Rick: About ten years ago I stumbled on this Steve Gadd heel/toe-type technique on the kick drum. I've been trying to imitate that with my left foot.
MD: So it's like a rocking motion?
Rick: That's it. On the downbeat you come down with your heel and then on an upbeat you come up with the ball of your foot. It's unusual, almost like tap dancing. So now, when I sit down at an acoustic setup with two kick drum pedals, I'll go back and forth between my right foot and my left foot, just trying to match the two up as best as I can. It gets there slowly but surely. I've developed this over many years with my right foot, but I've only used it with my left foot in the last four, five years.
MD: Who were some of your influences growing up?
Rick: Stewart Copeland was a huge influence on me. But Ian Paice was my first, because my brother loved to play air guitar to Deep Purple. We only had one tennis racket, and I had to air-drum because my brother was bigger than I was. [laughs] So that was the beginning of my drumming career.
Recently I started getting into Tool with Danny Carey. I love his very natural use of odd time signatures. It flows in such a way that it's very natural, very fluid. I've heard from people that he's a lovely guy, and I'd love to meet him.
Steve Clark introduced me to listening to Led Zeppelin. To this day I still listen to Bonham and dabble with his beats. Who doesn't - I just got a copy of the Led Zeppelin BBC sessions CD, which is really good.
MD: Did you know Scott Phillips from Creed was at the show last night?
Rick: No, I didn't. If I had known that before the show I would have been nervous.
MD: I was wondering if things like that affect you or not.
Rick: You know what? It does a little bit because I'm a perfectionist, just in the way I present what I play. It's pretty alternative. I can't really consult with the book of one-arm drummers. But I do kind of develop or adapt certain exercise routines to the way that I do it. You know, it's like what they say in the Stick Control book: You can try different combinations with any exercise, and that's just what I do. Just because it's written as a left-hand part in the book, it doesn't mean that I can't go right hand, right foot--just kind of do things the opposite way and challenge myself.
MD: Let's talk about the new record, X. Are you involved in the songwriting?
Rick: Yeah, we all got involved in the songwriting on this one. In the past we'd always work with just one producer. But on this one, there were many different elements that came into play. We decided it would be good to shop out certain songs and collaborate with different songwriters. It was interesting.
Marti Frederiksen kind of set the tone for the record. Then we went up to Sweden and worked with the same producers who work with *NSYNC and Britney Spears [Andreas Carlsson and Per Aldeheim]. Now, you've got to understand that the contemporary sound isn't really in our DNA. So I don't think the idea of us trying to do it all ourselves was realistic. I think that it's good to embrace somebody who does it every day for a living, and that's really what we wanted to do. We wanted to embrace the new sound--not by completely using machines, but by using live percussion, creating loops - it's almost like musical collage. It was something I enjoyed doing.
MD: You can hear it on the record. There's no doubt when you hear the songs that it's Def Leppard, but it also has that contemporary sound.
Rick: That's cool, because that's really what we wanted to do. To be honest, that's how we've been successful on some of our biggest records. Everybody's like, "You're a rock band," and we're like, "Well, yeah, but we have a pop sensibility." There's a melodic sensibility about the band that crosses over.
MD: Very radio-friendly.
Rick: It is. I'm more of a team player. I listen to a song and I hear where I can fit in, not where I can obliterate the entire thing. With what I do with Def Leppard, I have to show restraint. I have to decide where I don't play. Some of our songs are more like anthems, and the simplicity of them is really the charm. It's a positive sort of experience going to a Def Leppard show. And that was always our thing--entertainment, trying to make people smile and give people a light-hearted experience where they feel good. But when you go deeper than that lyrically, the songs do mean a lot. They've taken on a whole energy unto themselves.
When we worked with Mutt Lange in the early days, more than anybody he taught me more about songs, and rhythm, and just creating a mood. Sometimes that would only come to me after the fact. We'd be working on an idea and it would be so far ahead of where I was in terms of my experience, I'd listen to the records after some time and go, "Oh, okay, now I know what he's trying to do, what he's trying to tell me." That guy is a genius.

Next month tune in for Part 2 of our interview with Rick, where he talks to us about recording X, tapping into "basic knowledge" with the Raven Drum Foundation, VH1's version of the Def Leppard story, and much more! Click here to enter to win a DW Edge Snare drum autographed by Rick!


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Web Exclusive Interview Def Leppard's Rick Allen, Part 1

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Def Leppard's Rick Allen, Part 1