< PreviousModern Drummer September 2022 58 MD: Can you tell me about your musical background? DV : I’m from Belgium, and both of my parents were music lovers. They listened to mostly classical music, rock, and pop. My dad played guitar and my mom played piano, and they both sang a little bit. There was always music around our house. At a young age I chose to play the violin and played that for several years. MD: Did you choose the violin, or was that the instrument they wanted you to play? DV : I have asked them that, and apparently, that was the instrument that I chose to play at the tender age of six. Growing up hearing a lot of classical music must have influenced my decision. When I was 12 or 13 years old, my family moved to Paris, and that’s where I discovered the realm of metal music. I had some friends who were into a lot of underground stuff, and we started trading tapes, and that’s how I discovered thrash metal and bands like Megadeth. MD: That’s a pretty big jump from classical music to thrash metal. Was there anything in-between? DV : As a kid, I listened a lot to the music of the 80’s. I really loved Prince and Purple Rain, and my dad had Beatles, Stones, and Zeppelin records, and I loved all of that. I was always following whatever was popular at the time. Then techno and hip-hop became popular and I really started getting into that. Bands like Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys were very beat driven. Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill became very influential to me, as did Paul’s Boutique and Run-DMC’s Raising Hell. I believe that my interest in rhythm originally came from hip-hop. If you listen to those early Run-DMC and LL Cool J records, their entire foundation is great beats. Those beats were so important to the whole vibe. A few years later, as I got into metal drumming, that original inspiration evolved into what I am still doing today. MD : Since you mentioned Licensed to Ill, I’ll mention a band that Rick Rubin produced called Trouble Funk. They were a Washington DC go-go band, and Rick produced an album of theirs called Trouble Funk Live. So many of the samples on Licensed to Ill came from that Trouble Funk Live record. When you hear Trouble Funk, which was an amazing band on their own, you’ll hear all of the original recordings of some of those ridiculous grooves-samples from Licensed to Ill. DV : That’s pretty cool! I’ll have to check them out. Thanks for the tip! That was a great time for sampling. The early Public Enemy and Beastie Boys records used an incredible array of great samples in a really cool and creative way. Then you would be listening to other music and hear a beat, a vocal or a sound, and recognize it from Fear of a Black Planet or Paul’s Boutique. MD : What was your first metal gig? DV: My parents were incredibly supportive of my passion for this Cameron NuezSeptember 2022 Modern Drummer 59 crazy extreme music and allowed me to enroll in the school (now known as) Music Academy International. I co-founded a band called Scarve with Patrick Martin because we had similar band patches on our jackets, so I knew we were both into the same types of music. That was my first band that involved songwriting, touring, and releasing records. At the same time, I also started working with other artists, filling in for other drummers, recording and touring with various bands. I sort of became a session drummer without even realizing it. All of that combined was my launching pad to becoming a professional musician. I learned to work in different settings and spent time getting better on my instrument, which eventually brought me to where I am today. In 2004 the manager for Scarve’s label Listenable Records told me that Soilwork (another band on the label) was looking for a drummer. I did a few tours with them and eventually joined the band. Although I had invested a lot of blood, sweat and tears into Scarve, joining Soilwork was the next logical step for my career. I recorded a bunch of records with Soilwork including Stabbing the Drama, Sworn to a Great Divide, The Panic Broadcast, The Living Infinite, and The Ride Majestic. We toured a lot, and that’s what brought me to the attention of Dave Mustaine and the opportunity to join Megadeth in 2016. I had already moved to the US in 2006, first living in Los Angeles, then in Ohio for a few years, and then back to L.A., permanently this time. MD : How did the original call from Dave Mustaine happen? DV : While I was on tour with Soilwork, I got a call from Megadeth’s management. They were looking for a drummer who could fill in for some shows, and several people in Dave’s entourage had recommended me. After a nice phone call with Dave, I studied the Megadeth set to learn the songs I didn’t already know, and 10 days later, in May of 2016, I did my first gig at Rock on the Range in Columbus, Ohio. I can’t say that I saw Dave’s call coming in the least. I had seen Megadeth in 1990 as a kid, and it still amazes me to think that all these years later, I’m now a member of the band. MD: So how does a guy that grew up playing violin, listening to Prince, Run-DMC, Public Enemy, and The Beastie Boys approach playing thrash metal with Megadeth? DV: There were a few key records and players that converted my musical brain. I remember hearing Reign in Blood by Slayer for the first time. That really rocked my world because I didn’t understand what was going on musically, but I was super into the sound and the drumming. I knew that whatever this is, I love it. The same thing happened when I heard Scum from Napalm Death. When that first came out it had a sticker on it that said, “the world’s fastest band.” I bought it immediately, but when I put it on, I didn’t understand any of it. I actually wanted to return the LP, but instead I listened to it non-stop for the next year. Now it’s one of my favorite all-time records. That was back in the day when you would listen to an entire record, you didn’t just skip around and look for your favorite tracks or solos. You would absorb the whole thing. The drummers from those two records, Dave Lombardo from Slayer and Mick Harris from Napalm Death, along with Pete Sandoval from Morbid Angel and Terrorizer, are my prime influences for starting to play metal. The energy and the excitement of that music and that fast, intense drumming really spoke to me. It was new and fresh, and very few people around me were into it, so that created this sense of belonging to a scene that was “mine”. MD: I have heard that point of hearing a style of music for the first time and not understanding it, but knowing that you liked it and wanting to learn more about it, from lots of great drummers and musicians. Can you explain that? DV : I often talk to my students about that. In the end, music is about what you feel. That’s the whole point of it: we play to make someone feel a certain way. If you want to study it, understand it, and learn the technical side of music and how it’s put together, that’s cool. But it’s not a necessity. You can dig into the beats or the scales, but there is something to be said for an instinctual approach. I think that’s something that you have to remember as you dig deeper into any style of music. I have a grindcore project called Bent Sea, that I do on the side because I grew up with that style and I love playing fast. When I create the tunes, I start with improvising drums, then I improvise guitar parts over that. I am playing whatever speaks to me at that very moment. In some ways, it’s completely the opposite of traditional songwriting. That can be really scary sometimes, but it can also yield amazing results. Sometimes I listen back and can’t believe what just came out of me. MD: When you first got the Megadeth gig, you said that you studied their music to learn the set. How did you study their music? DV : Throughout my years of playing sessions and in different bands, I have really perfected my system of charting out songs. The first step is (obviously) listening to the songs a lot, over and over. I do a sort of active listening where I am really paying attention to the structure of the songs. I will chart out the structure of the song, and the beats that go with each section. I will do the same for any of the fills that I think are important. Then I will take those charts to the kit. At first, I’ll play a song seven or eight times in a row and try to nail all the big and little things that I have charted out. It’s a very trial and error type of thing in the beginning. With Megadeth, there were songs like “Symphony of Destruction” and “Hangar 18” that I had played as a kid doing covers with my friends, so I already basically knew them. But there were new songs that I had never played, and those took some time to learn. As someone who does this for a living, I can say that you have to get good at picking up new songs very quickly. You’re going to miss gigs if you can’t learn songs quickly. When I filled in with Satyricon, I had two days to learn their entire set, and that was generally more complex music than Megadeth. So, to have 10 days to learn the Megadeth set before the first (and only) rehearsal might seem like not a long time, but it actually felt pretty comfortable. MD: After hearing the new record, I have to say that you sound very comfortable playing this music. But the first thing that I noticed when I heard the new record was the drum sound. It’s a very natural drum sound that is very un-thrash-metal-like, and the snare drum sound is amazing! DV : Most of the record is my signature Tama snare that I have been using for several years. It’s a SLP Bronze shelled 5 ½ by 14 drum. MD : It sounds fantastic. It’s resonant and very warm. I can tell that you used that drum on the songs “The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead!” and “We’ll Be Back.” Dave Lombardo from Slayer and Mick Harris from Napalm Death, along with Pete Sandoval from Morbid Angel and Terrorizer, are my prime influences for starting to play metal.Modern Drummer September 2022 60 Chris Coleman DV : Yes, I believe that’s my snare on those two tracks. We tracked at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, and they have an incredible stable of Keplingers, so of course I had to use one of those on a few songs. I think there is a mandatory Black Beauty on there too, but my signature drum made most of the record. I used the SLP Dynamic Bronze on Soilwork’s The Ride Majestic too, before turning that snare into my signature model. MD: Let’s go through the tracks for the new record. “The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead!” has a nice sparse but a HUGE groove. It’s not the type of drumming that I would expect from Megadeth. DV: As I recall it, my approach to that song was to support the riffs and provide a nice driving feel. It didn’t need me to go all out and create a complex drum part. MD: How do you create drum parts and specific grooves? DV : The first question I ask myself is: what is my place in the song? What do I need to bring to it? That really varies from song to song. With Megadeth, I take into account the history of the band and the drummers that helped write it. I really spent time studying the drum parts of Gar Samuelson, Nick Menza, and Chuck Behler. Those are the guys that created the legacy of the Megadeth drumming sound and style. Their work informed my approach to creating my parts for the new album. Of course, there’s some of me in there as well. But as a fan of the band first, I know what I would expect to hear from Megadeth drumming if I picked up a new record, so I kept that in mind. Gar came from a jazz-fusion background, and he could also lay down a really solid old-school groove. Nick Menza played somewhat more sparsely and had a really strong attack. Nick’s parts were always very well thought out. I was sort of thinking of his approach for the title track. The band really reached its first peaks with the records Peace Sells.. but Who’s Buying, with Gar, and Rust in Peace with Nick. Those two records hit the scene pretty hard and they’re the defining records that I still look to today. I was fortunate to tour for three years playing all those classics before we did any sort of songwriting or recording together. MD: How loose does Dave let you get with the drum parts from previous recordings, and how closely does he want you to stick to the recorded parts? DV: He was super cool about that from the very beginning. There were a few things that I hadn’t heard correctly, and we fixed them over time. After I was in the band for a little while and getting more comfortable, he suggested that I go back to the original recordings and really study them to hear the details that I maybe hadn’t originally heard. He had all the drum tracks sent to me so I could hear them without the music. I discovered various things that were maybe somewhat buried in the mix, so I went back and redid my charts with more detail and memorized everything I had previously missed. Of course, there’s always some of my interpretation of any older drum part that is “mine,” and Dave’s cool with that. I focus the most on really trying to simulate the FEEL of the songs. MD: It’s refreshing to hear that you have really worked to learn the history of the drumming approach in the band, and how it fits into the legacy of Megadeth. DV: That’s because the drum parts are really essential to the overall sound. For example, the way a drummer plays the hi-hat is (to me) a defining element. Hats are very expressive and personal. Nick Menza played them differently from the way I naturally play them. I really try to bring a bit of Nick’s feel by adjusting the way I attack the hi- hat on songs like “Trust” and “Symphony of Destruction.” MD: What were some other things you heard when you heard those solo drum tracks? DV : Sometimes it was cymbal stuff. There are certain cymbals that stand out in the mix; however, you can easily miss a cymbal that’s a bit more subtle or that’s being played where you weren’t expecting it, for example. Gar’s parts were recorded with boomier drum sounds, and because of that, there are details that can be hard to discern. There is a beat I call “The Gar Beat” where the snare is on the beat and the kick drum is on the second and fourth sixteenth note (E and A). It’s used in songs like “The Conjuring” and “Peace Sells”. Early on, I mistook that for a standard double kick beat with the bass drums playing all of the sixteenth notes, because it was hard to hear what Gar was playing in the original mix. I was doing it wrong until someone in the band alerted me to it. Those are the types of things that make drummers unique. The devil is in the details. Every drummer has a natural groove. These days, when mostly everyone is playing to a click, that groove can sometimes get a little lost. I understand the reasons for using a click, especially from the producing and engineering side. But there’s something to be said for playing tunes together in a room, doing full takes, like Megadeth did on Youthanasia. It adds that extra pizazz that I find lacking in some current-day recordings. MD : Let’s get back to the new record. On “Life in Hell” you play some nice breaks that leave some space. I don’t usually notice space in speed metal drumming. I also like how you set up the transition to the half-time feel. That might be my favorite track on the record. DV : When I was younger and in bands like Scarve, my modus operandi was often to fill up every space. Now, I’m trying to play more for the song, to lay a solid foundation. “Life in Hell” was actually a song that I composed and brought to the band. Dave had asked us to contribute, so I brought that demo in and Dave added his swagger. He made the riffs much better. Of course, I’m no Dave Mustaine on the guitar- no one can play like him! He’s a genius when it comes to that. I’m glad that you heard all that stuff on “Life in Hell” because I’m really proud that that song made it onto the record. MD: I swear I didn’t know that was your tune. The advance version of September 2022 Modern Drummer 61 the record that I got didn’t have any songwriting credits on it. DV: There are a lot of little drum details that I have to learn, for when we play it live. MD : So it’s not only other people’s drum parts that you have to learn, but sometimes you have to learn your own drum parts from a recording. People never talk about that. DV : True! I was listening to the record and thought “Damn, I’m going to have to figure out how I did that!” MD : How do you (not the band) write? DV : Some people say that they need to wait for inspiration to come. I understand what they mean, but personally, I like to think that I can write at the spur of the moment. If I’m feeling excited about music and I have a few hours, I can sit down and write something. It doesn’t always yield a good result. Sometimes I’ll listen back a few days later, and just say “nope!” But other times I’ll think, “Yeah, I can do something with this.” Then I’ll spend some more time on it. But it really comes down to making time for it. Life tends to be consuming, and there’s always something going on. So if you keep pushing the writing away for whenever things aren’t busy, it’s rarely going to happen. I just carve out a little time here and there to record some beats, put some riffs on top of them, and see what happens. I do play some guitar. I probably wouldn’t play it in a live setting, as I don’t consider myself a “guitarist” in the proper sense of the word, but I can play enough to write and record. And in the case of “Life in Hell” I was trying to write a good old-school Megadeth song. MD : Was this record done with a click? DV: Yes, but we use a dynamic click. That means the click speeds up and slows down at certain sections of a tune. Making the dynamic click feel natural is another drumming skill that you now need to have. A lot of playing with a click has to do with learning how to play not only “with” or “on” the click, but “around” it. MD : Do you guys play live with a click? DV: Yes, mostly because of the video content that’s happening during our show. The video makes the click necessary. But we do have a great deal of dynamic clicks live too. We adapt the album tempos for the stage. For instance, a song like “A Tout Le Monde” is sped up when we play it live, compared to the album version. Whenever we introduce a new tune or a tune that hasn’t been played live for a long time, we spend time finding the right tempos, tweaking them during soundcheck. It’s an intricate process, but it makes for great live show where everything is played at the optimal tempo. MD: Any tips for playing to a click live? DV : Don’t have it too loud. I keep mine just above the point where I can’t hear it. That way if I’m on, I can’t really hear it, and if I get off slightly, I can adjust back and make it unnoticeable. I use the click as a guideline more than anything else. I rely on my inner tempo. But it’s also good for those days where you have a ton of energy, and you feel like playing everything 20 bpm faster. The click is there to remind you to chill. Cameron NuezModern Drummer September 2022 62 MD : What click sound do you like? DV: I use the Cubase beeps. Most people hate those, but I’m used to them, and they work great for me. I tried a cowbell sound, but it doesn’t cut through the volume of my drumming enough. MD: Is the whole band hearing the click? Or just you? DV : Everyone hears it. Recently I also started slating, which is recording myself saying the song title at the start of each count-off. That way, if anything ever goes wrong, I know what song is being counted in. Because as we all know, no matter how prepared you are, things can go wrong. Dave always makes sure we address anything and everything we can think of during pre-production, so everyone that spends their hard-earned money to come and see Megadeth gets a KILLER show! MD: Your internal balance on the entire new record is really wonderful. I know the record is mixed and produced, but it sounds like if I was in the room hearing you track, it would have sounded very natural and sort of “pre-mixed” coming directly from the drums. DV : Wow! I’m glad that you heard that. I have respect for all types of production and mixing, but for me, the best records are the ones that sound just like you said, like you are in the room listening to the performances. Every time I go into the studio, I try to achieve that. I realize sometimes it’s not what a project requires, and other times it’s simply not what the artist or producer wants. But IF there is a possibility, I usually push for that. We spent a lot of time on this record to get a natural drum sound. A lot of it comes from consistency in volume and attack. But I like to play dynamically, and I use a great deal of contrast and things like ghost notes in my grooves. Some of that can really get lost if it’s not recorded, mixed, or treated properly. Dave and Chris Rakestraw (co-producer of the record) and I talked about that extensively, so I’m glad it stood out to you. MD: You also get a nice cymbal sound and have a nice touch as well. DV : I try to play with a lot of dynamics. I think a lot of swing comes from dynamics. When I was discovering extreme drumming and developing my playing, I was also listening to people like Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tim Alexander of Primus. Those two guys are all about swing. How the cymbals are being played, the ghost notes, the accents, the push or pull of the kick versus the snare- all of that creates a feel within the beat and that creates swing. When I was in music school, I attended jazz lessons, and I went to see a lot of masterclasses by jazz-fusion drummers. I had a great teacher in Franck Agulhon who taught me about the basics of jazz drumming. That really opened my mind. Also, Sean Reinert was a huge influence on me. For those who don’t know, he was the drummer in Cynic, and he played on the Death album Human (together with bassist Steve Di Giorgio, who incidentally recorded the bass on the new Megadeth album). Sean had a huge influence on the entire extreme metal scene back in the day. He was so ahead of his time. He brought splashes, dynamics, and a wonderful touch to extreme metal drumming. To this day, I feel that Human is an unparalleled masterpiece of drumming. Last year I was fortunate to be able to play at a few tributes to (Death singer and guitarist) Chuck Schuldiner, and because in the last years of his life, Sean was a very good friend to my wife and me, that was very emotional. But it was also an opportunity to really study his drumming again. There are so many amazing ideas there, it’s amazing to think that he created the drums on that record when he was only 19. It’s maybe not a very “metal” thing to say, but swing is everything. I was literally just sitting practicing some jazz stuff before this Cameron NuezSeptember 2022 Modern Drummer 63 interview, I’m not kidding! MD: What type of stuff were you practicing? DV : The jazz ride pattern and breaking up ideas between the snare and the kick drum. Reading figures with the kick drum and filling in the spaces with the snare drum. I wouldn’t say that I could fill in with a jazz quartet, but it’s great stuff to develop your balance at the drums. MD : By balance, do you mean the inner dynamics of the drum set and how to balance the sounds while you are playing? DV : Yes, absolutely, that’s what I’m talking about. In this last year, I went through a huge period of listening to Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck almost daily. There is just so much greatness in their music! I remember my dad showing me “Take Five” when I was 16 or 17. At the end of the day, good music is good music, and it’s always beneficial to open your mind, no matter what music you are playing. I think it’s a huge benefit to have broad influences. That’s what Sean showcased on Human, and that’s a lot of what made it a GREAT record! MD: You can hear a stark difference between your drumming approach in “Life in Hell” and “Night Stalkers.” “Night Stalkers” seems like a more typical thrash metal tune and approach. DV : Absolutely. But it’s also a very complex track. There are a lot of layers to this music. When uninitiated people hear loud, fast metal, at first, they tend to just get struck by this wall of sound. But there’s a lot to it once you develop your ear. Dave is a genius at arranging, including little melodies that he calls ear candy, and creating smart song structures. There are so many times when you will hear little things in a Megadeth song that you hadn’t heard when you first listened to it. MD: That’s my definition of great music: music that, upon repeated listens, reveals itself to you over time. Music that, although you might have listened to a song thousands of times, you will always hear something new and wonder why you had never heard it before. That applies to everything from Stravinsky to John Coltrane to Prince to Cynic to Megadeth. DV: Absolutely. I learn a lot watching Dave arrange songs. The way he approaches songs makes them exciting to listen to, not only the first five times, but the first 25 times. MD: The groove on “Junkie” is pretty cool, where did that one come from? DV: The working title for that song was “Gran Torino” because it had this “driving a fast car through the desert” kind of feel. Coming from Europe, I think of that as a very American thing, so that groove was my interpretation of what that would feel like. Dave has written a lot of car songs, so I was trying to bring that type of vibe. That riff has so much character, bite, and swagger that it made me think of the Stones, like developing something similar to how Mick and Keith interact on stage. MD : The mention of Gran Torino makes me think of Grand Theft Auto which reminds me that you have done some drumming on a few different video games. How did that happen? DV : A good friend of mine and amazing keyboard player, Kyle Morrison, put me in touch with the people at Epic Games. They had me play some stuff for Fortnite. Ra Diaz from Korn and Suicidal Tendencies played bass, and it was fun to do something that was completely different. MD : How is video game music different? DV : The musical director that wrote the Fortnite music came up with pretty precise ideas about how the song should evolve, and what the structure should be. He gave me a demo, but he had a very specific vision of how the song would work once we would be recording the “real” parts. We also did a few songs that were really short, like 30 second jingles. Although I have done 30 second grindcore songs, I hadn’t ever played on a jingle. It was interesting to figure out how to tell a story in such a short time. It’s about adapting to the narrative of a video game and telling that story instrumentally instead of lyrically. Usually, I will ask the composer what the game is about, and ask for some screenshots, just to have a starting point. MD : The same way that we might ask about the lyrics of a song to help us create a drum part. DV: Exactly. MD : So maybe in the end, it’s not really that different from creating music for other situations. DV: You’re right, and I would guess that being a musical director at a video game company would require understanding a range of musical styles, which brings us back to the benefits of developing an open mind towards different types of music. MD : Back to the new record. You get a nice tom groove on “Psychopathy,” and you are getting a very nice drum sound. What kind of drums are you playing? DV : I have been with Tama since 1995, and with Megadeth I’m using a Starclassic Maple kit. Before that, I played a Birch/Bubinga Performer, but to me, Maple is the sound of Megadeth. Nick Menza played Maple Tama’s, and my first Tama kit was a Starclassic Maple, so I went back to that. The drums are 22x18” kicks, 10, 12, 13” rack toms, 16 and 18” floor toms, and my signature 5½ x 14” bronze snare that we talked about earlier. Tama built me a gorgeous custom matte black kit featuring our mascot Vic Rattlehead. My cymbals are Meinl. I use Classic Customs Dark crashes, secondary hi-hat and china, combined with Byzance Brilliant Heavy Hammered ride, main hi-hat and china. Those models work great together. The dark crashes have a perfect attack without being overpowering, and the Byzance Brilliant ride and hi-hat are my favorite cymbals in the world. MD : “Killing Time” has a nice feel. DV : Kiko Loureiro wrote the foundation for that song, and we went in as a band and finalized it together. It’s very melodic, which is in my opinion one of Kiko’s biggest strengths as a player and composer. It turned out to be a really cool song. MD: On “Sacrifice” you introduce the groove in pieces. You start with a snare drum, then the bass drum, and then the cymbals. I don’t hear stuff like that on many speed metal tunes. DV: I really like to tell a story within a song. I like to have a beginning, a middle, and an end to my drum part. As I introduce the drumming in the choruses, I like to add a little more each time the next chorus comes around, so that when I get to the finale, I can be playing some I really spent time studying the drum parts of Gar Samuelson and Nick Menza. Along with Chuck Behler, those are the guys that created the legacy of the Megadeth drumming sound and style. Their work informed my approach to creating my parts for the new album.Modern Drummer September 2022 64 really crazy stuff. When a song is an AB, AB, lead, AB kind of structure, it tends to suit that approach. Building things up when the parts come back around helps me tell the story. That often (as you said) means starting off more sparsely, so there’s room to evolve. If you go all out from the start, there just isn’t anywhere you can go. MD : I always call that approach “playing the plotline.” DV : That’s it exactly. On the other side of things, we have songs like “Dogs of Chernobyl” where the structure is A, B, C, and nothing really repeats. That means I have to tell the story in a different way. In a certain sense, that type of structure gives you more freedom because you are not beholden to the verse-chorus concept. It’s an opportunity to bring different colors and different nuances with every musical section, which is fun too. MD: What is the writing process like in Megadeth? Does Dave bring you complete demos? DV : For this record, Dave started things off by selecting a number of guitar riffs from his vault, which spans decades of ideas. I went to his house and tracked drum ideas to each of the riffs he picked out. He would give me suggestions or instructions. For each riff he’d ask me to play a straight beat, a busy beat, a fast beat, and an adventurous beat. That way, we’d get to hear which approaches worked and didn’t work with each riff. Kiko came in to learn the riffs and sometimes add harmonies. Then, we got together for several months in 2019 and started fleshing things out. As the songs started taking shape, Dave would sometimes get more specific and ask me to play a certain idea at a certain time in a song. He knows what he wants and he’s a very good arranger. In the end, I did compose all of my drum parts. I love that I was in on the songwriting process from the beginning. That gives you a sense of familiarity so that by the time you’re in the studio, you can perform with confidence and work on every detail. When doing session work, you don’t have that luxury most of the time. Dave is really fun to work with. He has been depicted in the past as some kind of “tyrant.” But he really is just a guy who cares a lot about his band and about what he does. He wants people to take it seriously, and he really wants this to be a BAND where everyone gets a chance to shine. He lets me experiment with drum parts and he wants everyone to contribute music. In the end, does Dave have the final say? Of course. Megadeth is the band he created back in the early 80s, and it’s going stronger than ever. MD: That’s great to hear. It’s so refreshing to hear about someone who cares so deeply about what they do, and demands high quality in his workmanship and art. There is nothing wrong with that. DV: It’s tough being a bandleader. Whenever something goes wrong in the public eye, the responsibility falls on Dave. Leading a band is a difficult and multi-faceted job with new challenges almost every day. I was managing Soilwork for a while, and believe me, things can get tense. It takes a strong personality to fill that role. MD : As a drummer who really has his business together and has been around for a while, can you give young drummers some business advice? DV : Outside of being the best on your instrument that you can be, which is (as we know) a lifelong mission, and being easy to get along with, I think it’s really important to be a good listener. You have to listen to what’s going on around you. That doesn’t only mean while you are playing; it means at the drums, and away from the drums… Be a good listener and ask questions! You can get valuable advice from almost anyone in this business. Ask questions of managers, agents, producers, engineers, and other musicians, especially those that have been in this business longer than you. Any information is good information. MD: You can always filter whatever you are told. DV : Yes, and then you can build a library of knowledge that is going to play to your advantage. Listening to and learning from other people is important in all aspects of life. MD : And isn’t it amazing that being a good listener is also what makes someone a great drummer too? DV: That’s so very true, good point! MD : What is the drumming inspiration for “We’ll Be Back?” DV : That’s an old school scorcher. It has that vibe from back in the day when speed and thrash metal were nascent, exciting, and new; when nothing had been done that sounded like that. I have a few little tributes to previous Megadeth drummers in that tune. In the beginning, when I am hitting the kicks and cymbals at the same time, I do the cross-handed thing that Nick was famous for. Later on in the song, I play a fill that goes from the snare to the toms, but before I go to the toms, I put in a few open hi-hats, which is something that Gar loved to do. Both of those things happened very instinctually and organically, but I am really happy that “We’ll Be Back” became the first single, because I care deeply about the tradition of Megadeth drumming. MD : What can you tell me about the tune “Célebutante?” DV: For me, that has a real Motörhead meets Megadeth feel. It has that kind of energy. We dug into Dave’s vault of riffs and found some cool ones that we thought fit together, and just started jamming on them. MD : It’s so weird that you mention Motörhead because when I first heard this record, I wondered, “When did Lemmy join Megadeth?” DV: You’re not the first one to say that. I think Dave has found a great new voice since beating throat cancer and his neck operation. That tune really does have a Motörhead on steroids kind of feel. There is a lot of technical and challenging drumming on that one, some off-beat accents and intricate fills. I like to challenge myself in the studio and subsequently on stage, and that song will definitely be challenging to play. I wanted the drums to match the urgency of the riffs, that excitement I felt as a teenager discovering this kind of music. It also occurred to me that if I wanted to honor the jazz-fusion approach that Gar created on Killing is My Business and Peace Sells…, then “Célebutante” might be the perfect song to do that. Dave’s riffs left the space for me to do go a little crazy without everyone wondering, “What the hell is Dirk doing back there?” It’s like we said: in the end, it’s all about uplifting feelings and giving the people who buy the record or see us live something to get excited about. That’s what creates that magical loop of energy that makes everyone have a great night at a concert or have fun listening to a record. This is a great time to see and listen to Megadeth. We are firing on all cylinders, The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead! is great, and the band is super tight. James LoMenzo is back playing bass, Kiko is awesome, and Dave sounds fantastic. We are really bringing it every night. MD : And the drummer is absolutely killing it!!! DV: Thanks. I am super proud to be a part of Megadeth. It’s maybe not a very “metal” thing to say, but swing is everything. I was literally just sitting practicing some jazz stuff before this interview, I’m not kidding! Modern Drummer September 2022 66 The Daru Sessions Vol.2 David SwansonSeptember 2022 Modern Drummer 67 Influences and Hip Hop Drumming By Mark Griffith Daru Jones and I have returned with the second episode of The Daru Sessions. Daru Jones has just released a record called Daru Jones Play the Breaks (Live at Layman.) On it, he plays 25 grooves that he has recorded with other artists, and he explains their origins. The project comes with a book that has an introduction by the legendary Breakbeat Lou. It is a perfect source to create loops of Daru’s drumming. Daru just released another project with producer Kev Brown called A Daru State of Mind featuring Eddie Sancho. Like Daru Jones Play the Breaks (Live at Layman,) this is also an entire recording of classic Daru beats and grooves. These records feature some great drumming. Some of the beats are sideways, some are straight up and down, but they all have that Daru “swag” that makes them special. All of Daru’s various drum influences come through on these records. This time around I wanted to see if Daru could dive a little deeper into his many musical and drumming influences. MD: You ended our last conversation by saying, “I am still learning and developing, but I think that I have developed a noticeable drumming identity and voice.” It’s interesting to hear you say that a drummer like yourself in your early forties, you feel like you are still continuing to further your voice and identity on the drums. I run across young drummers every day who are 15 or 18 years old who say they are finding “their voice” and identity on the drums. Can you Vol.2 Next >