October 2020 Issue – Volume 44 • Number 10
Articles in October 2020
Chad Smith
The longtime Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer is enjoying a wave of great reviews for his work on the new, critically acclaimed Ozzy Osbourne album, Ordinary Man. The takeaway? If there’s one contemporary drummer on the planet who wholly embodies…
“Getting the Sound”
Detailed tutorials for recreating classic recordings from a drumming, engineering, and mixing perspective. We first checked in with Hoboken, New Jersey–based session drummer/engineer/online educator Dylan Wissing back in November 2013, when he had just gotten his studio, Triple Colossal Studio,…
Joe Morello
Chops Master and Musical Poet Joe Morello inspired thousands of drummers during his long career, which spanned from 1957, the year of his first recording session with Dave Brubeck, to 2011, when he passed away. Morello’s legacy reached a wide…
sE Electronics - V Pack Arena Microphone Kit
A perfect set for capturing the punchy, full tones of a five-piece drumset. Chinese musician/composer Siwei Zou started sE Electronics twenty years ago in an effort to improve the design of some of the microphones that were coming out of…
Deep Purple’s Ian Paice
Of all the remarkable rock drummers to have originated in the late 1960s/early 1970s, none was more astonishing than Ian Paice. If John Bonham was the zeppelin, Carl Palmer the tank, and Nick Mason the perpetual clock, Ian Paice was…
Covet’s Forrest Rice
The drummer, who’s honed his skills with a number of math-rock groups, brings ever more sophistication and fire on the new Covet record, Technicolor. MD interviews him and also chats with the band’s compelling guitarist, Yvette Young, to learn about…
RECORDINGS
Haken Virus The U.K. prog-rock sextet’s latest album may adhere to a lyrical narrative, but according to drummer RAY HEARNE, they’re still dedicated to evolving their sound. Embracing the mystery of their curious Cockroach King character, Haken’s new release, Virus…
Philly Joe Jones
Miles Davis was the only group I gave up New York to go out with. That was in ’54, and it was my greatest experience in the music business.I don’t think I’ll ever be associated with four people like Miles,…
Beat Displacements
Exercises for Internalizing 16th-Note Permutations Displacement is a beat-editing tool that can make a groove sound glitchy. This is achieved by shifting the groove in such a way that what was originally played on beat 1 is now landing somewhere…
Rick Shutter
“Day by Day,” the gargantuan hit single from the Grammy-winning musical Godspell, gets by with some tasteful cymbal swells and tambourine shaking—until drummer Rick Shutter blasts the ride-out with a driving rock groove. It’s a classic moment on a timeless…
What Song Are You Working on Now?
“Metropolis—Part I” by Dream Theater .@ptrlcc “Chemical Warfare” by Slayer .@nickkcuevas “Hemispheres” by Rush . The first section is so tough on the hi-hat.@mconrad332 “Around the World” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers .@_rywill22 “Just like Heaven” by the Cure…
Nektar’s Ron Howden
The progressive-rock elder statesman has survived life-threatening medical issues to celebrate his iconic band’s fiftieth anniversary with a fine new album. Throughout its five-decades-long lifespan, Nektar has generated a cult following, sending music listeners on mind-bending conceptual sojourns. Likewise, the…
The Next Best Thing
In his cover story this month, Chad Smith says, “It’s great to play in a room and record yourself. But…to me, to truly be playing music you have to be playing with other people. That’s the fun part, the human…
Trivium’s Alex Bent
The metal phenomenon has an irrepressible drive to succeed—and he’s done so stunningly, slaying two of Trivium’s best albums to date, earning a Grammy nomination, and touring Europe and the U.S. extensively since 2017. Alex Bent has lived many metal…
In the Studio With Miles McPherson: Touring Pro Turned Session Ace
Miles McPherson moved to Nashville in 1986, when his father, Jerry, relocated the family there so he could work in the studios as a session guitarist. Miles was expecting to be a guitarist—until he sat at a drumset for the…
Remembering Neil Peart
Part 2: “De Slagwerker” Drum Solo Neil and I often talked about improvisation. He told me why his solo in “De Slagwerker” was so important to him. What follows are some of Neil’s own words, taken from his Drum Channel…
Sugar Percussion Snare Workshop
Transforming Raw Planks to “Perfect” Circles It all started with a few innocuous text messages: “How would you like to attend one of my snare classes and maybe write a little article about it?” asked Jefferson Shallenberger, founder and master…
Iúri Oliveira
The Portuguese percussionist has made an art out of creating unique hybrid sets for each act he supports—but sometimes a lone shaker is all he really needs. During a recent phone conversation, Portuguese percussionist and drummer Iúri Oliveira was a…
Chad Smith’s Three Basic Beats to Infuse with Your Own Thing
You can get ten different people playing on a basic drumset, playing a basic rock beat, and they will all sound different. We each have a signature, and that’s a beautiful thing. It’s not “my way or the highway”—it’s about…
