Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
As far as being a drummer, to me it's a positive that he's my father. To be mentioned alongside him... I mean, you Google his name and mine comes up, too - wow! Not too shabby.
I don't care about technique. I have kind of been pigeonholed as a technical drummer since I was in Dream Theater for all those years, but it's actually very far from the truth.
Every drummer I've ever spoken to or read an interview with - my dad is always in their top three. I'm honored to share his name and represent him all these years after he's gone.
Don't get too caught up in the typical ideas of what makes a good drummer. Those things are sort of unattainable, and they're not always creatively your most useful things to know.
Ronnie Spector's hair was taller and meaner and scarier than all four Shangri-La's combined, plus the drummer from the Honeycombs. You just know her rat-tail comb was a switchblade.
You are never, ever gonna get a drummer to dis another one. It's part of the drumming rules, as important as being able to keep pace or smashing up hotel rooms. Drummers do not dis!
Everyone knows Mike Portnoy's reputation. He's a great drummer, and he helped us out in a great time of need. He really helped us get back underneath our feet and continue this band.
It was probably when I met Jeff Hamilton, the drummer I've been working with for the last 20 years. He's the one who brought Ray Brown to hear me sing at a restaurant in my hometown.
There's only one drummer. We all travel to his beat. Well, I couldn't sing his song. Because for me, it wasn't a truthful statement. Well, Linda sang it, and it was a monster for her.
Every drummer that had a name, had a name because of his individual playing. He didn't sound like anybody else, So everybody that I ever listened to, in some form, influenced my taste.
Playing drums feels like coming home for me. Even during the White Stripes I thought: 'I'll do this for now, but I'm really a drummer.' That's what I'll put on my passport application.
We have big limitations by not having a drummer. It instantly informs a lot of our musical decisions when it comes to writing. What we end up coming out with is not very cerebral music.
The Little Drummer Boy was playing in the background for what seemed like the third time in a row. I fought off an urge to beat that Little Drummer Boy senseless with his own drumsticks.
Lars Ulrich is not a jazz drummer, but he grew up listening to jazz. Why? Because his father, Torben - an incredible tennis player - loved jazz. Jazz musicians used to stay at their house.
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
I was born and grew up in the Deep South, and I must say it wasn't easy for me. I always marched to a drummer, I had different views about politics and religion and I had them relatively young.
A bass player has to think and play like a bass player. A drummer has to play and think like a drummer, and stay out of the way of the vocalist. The guitar player has to respect everybody else.
You hear it in the great musicians, whether it's a drummer or a horn player or a guitar player - you hear them take those breaths. You can feel that there's something they're trying to tell you.
Without a drummer, you've got that sort of running, chicken-chasing, rhythmic thing happening with the banjo in the top end - it's what gives our music a lot of its momentum, a lot of its energy.
Buddy Rich was one of the most incredible technicians in the world, on this planet, but the only people he could really impress, who knew what he was doing was another musician or another drummer.
Keith Moon was amazing as a drummer, but he was also a nut, and it reflected in his drumming. And the great thing about Who records is that you can almost get hold of the vinyl and feel his heart.
I was a drummer in a group called Three Plus. We were performing at a club in New York, and my mother signed me up for tap classes. I fell in love from the door... so you can blame it on my mother.
I used to tour with this band. I was a drummer. I would tour a bunch for about 10 months out of the year and act for about two months. I would make what I needed from acting and would stretch it out.
Being the drummer of Fall Out Boy, and any other project I've ever done, is most importantly about playing for the music. Staying out of the way when it's needed and playing more when it makes sense.
It's hard to sing really well when you're playing an instrument, but it'd be great to try and sing really well and have vocal effects and one drummer on a real drum-kit, and one on an electronic kit.
Yes, I always say that we're a National League band. What I mean is, if you play an instrument, you have to sing. So I always call our drummer up. Even the drummer has to take a turn on the microphone.
I was drawn to it much to my father's dismay. He wanted me to be a pianist like he was, but I had coarser tastes - like that old joke: What do you call a guy who hangs around with musicians? A drummer.
The drummer in my first band was killed in Vietnam. He kind of signed up and joined the marines. Bart Hanes was his name. He was one of those guys that was jokin' all the time, always playin' the clown.
I have to give my family credit for putting up with the racket, because as some of you may know, its not the easiest thing in the world to live with a kid who's trying to become a rock and roll drummer.
I had this fantasy. I would be at the Paramount Theater in New York and Louis Prima's drummer falls sick. The theater manager asks, 'Is there a drummer in the house?' I run up on stage and bang instant fame!
I've often thought that my background in rock 'n' roll has gone to waste in film work. My background was that I was a rock 'n' roll drummer and I don't think I used drums in my first ten years of film scoring.
I'd just play 'til my hands fell off. My parents would yell at me to stop because they couldn't stand the noise any more! I was terrible! It must have been hard for them to listen to me as a beginning drummer.
But I've always liked to be the kind of drummer and musician who likes to go outside of what's expected of me, and I've always been able to do more than you necessarily hear with every band I've ever played in.
I was playing in bands and doing gigs from the age of 14 on. I stopped at the age of 28. Technology replaced me. As soon as I saw what computers can do, I didn't think there would be a point for a live drummer.
Almost the moment he died, they put him in Playboy as one of the greatest drummers, which he was - there's no doubt about it. There's never been anybody since. He's one of the greatest drummers that ever lived.
That's the nice thing about being in Mr. Big, is I'm not only the guitar player. I'm the background singer, and so I get to do both of those things. Sometimes we even switch instruments and I get to be the drummer.
We had an incident back in 2001 where our drummer threw out a drumstick into the crowd and it hit someone in the eye and they were going to sue us. You just always have to be really careful with that kind of stuff.
I remember the first time somebody played me Janis Joplin. My friend Donna put on Janis Joplin, and she said, 'You're like her.' At the time, I wasn't even a singer; I was a drummer. I just wanted to play the drums.
I'd really like having a couple days of being a rock star, although I'd rather be a backup - like maybe the drummer for Muse... It would also be fun to be gorgeous, like be Charlize Theron, just for a couple of days.
I had a drummer I really wanted to move to Nashville with me, and he's like, 'Naw, I can't go, man.' He never could pull the trigger. It's a big move. You just gotta be diehard - you gotta give it your all, you know.
When my son was in his teens, he was a really fine drummer. He was asked in an interview if he would consider going into the business. And he said, 'Why would I ever go into the business that took my mother from me?'
Drummers haven't managed to develop their individuality quite as well as guitarists have. We can be so focused on the nuts and bolts that we overlook the importance of individuality - the broader picture, if you will.
If you come in like a typical modern drummer who is used to playing only with tricks and double kick and, like, big, big, big, fast rolls, but you can't play a swinging shuffle, then you can't play in Ghost whatsoever.
I think you get to a point where you watch something just to enjoy it. I don't think it's really done so that you're supposed to feel, Oh, he's the most wonderful drummer. I think the whole lot is what's more enjoyable.
People like Art Blakey and Buddy Rich, you look at them playing music, and it's just like looking at a heavy metal drummer. I mean, they're playing with the same amount of ferocity. It's not to say all jazz is like that.
When I joined Nirvana, I was the fifth or sixth drummer - I don't know if they'd ever had a drummer they were totally happy with. And they were strangers. There was never much of a deeper connection outside of the music.
But figuring out Saddam Hussein was one our greatest mysteries. He marched to his own drummer and frequently as this unfolded he made decisions which were sometimes inexplicable to us and sometimes didn't look very smart.
I tend to think about so many different things on a recording. I'll be trying to tune into what the drummer's doing, trying to keep everyone playing the groove and other things like making sure the piano's in a nice pocket.
I found out I got 'The Little Drummer Girl' and my BAFTA nomination in quick succession, and I just didn't expect it to be like that. I thought there would be a lot more time in between. It's been an overwhelming experience.
I've heard the stories. Like, Eric Clapton said he wanted to burn his guitar when he heard Jimi Hendrix play. I never understood that because, when I went and saw a great drummer or heard one, all I wanted to do was practice.