MM:  Right, yes, exactly.  That was four years back or something like that. 

K&S:  I remember buying your “Extreme Drumming” DVD and telling myself. “I have got to see this guy live.”  I guess I was lucky that you came so close to where I live.  Getting to see you live is what really got me into your fan base.  Most of what you do is usually too far away for me to catch.  The clinic was incredible. 

MM:  Thanks.  I don’t think I had been with DW very long at that point. 

K&S:  I remember the kit because it was the same one that you used in the DVD. 

MM:  Ah, cool. 

K&S:  I just sat there and watched them set up the gear.  I studied your setup and I looked over every little piece of it because I’m such gear head.  I’m just really into gear and your setup is very unique.   

MM:  I was still using the gong drum then. 

K&S:  It was just extremely interesting with the various high hats and pedals and stuff.  It is a shame you don’t play closer to this area more often. 

MM:  Yeah, that’s right.  But, you know, it just depends on how DW sets up the clinics in this case or how my touring schedule is.  When it comes to touring with bands I do more in Europe than over here.  

K&S:  We really appreciate you taking the time to tell us about your latest adventures in the music world.  KickandSnare is the new kid on the block and it means agreat deal to us that you are participating in what we are trying to do.   

MM:  Oh, hey, it’s my pleasure and it’s great to have the opportunity and also I think it’s important to have a new thing coming up, like especially with your website that you’re doing, like a counterpart to Modern Drummer.  I think it would just be good to see another magazine come up or something like that, to really give more input.   

K&S:  So you’re in Coronado, San Diego?   

MM:  Yeah. 

K&S:  You’ve got some pretty interesting things going on there with your setup with DW and Rolland V drums as well as a new project that you’re working on.  Can you talk to us a little bit about that? 

MM:  Absolutely.  I’m preparing my new CD, of course.  And also, I’m working with Mike Kenealy, the guitar player.  You might know him.  He’s from San Diego as well, so I’m going to do a little more work with him.  We’re actually doing some gigs in November and also with this bass player, J. K. Clunkens, he’s a great guy.  I’ve worked with him for two or three years.  So we are going to do some Los Angeles projects with that as well.  But as far as the drum world, the tour that I’m going to go on is the UK Drum Fest Tour which starts in October, combined with some more gigs actually in Spain.  In the setup I’m using now, I’m just messing around a little with the Rolland V drums combined with the DW drum set just to broaden my sound facility and increase my ability to compose more actually.  That’s fantastic; I mean you can have sound sources like really melodic things such as vibraphone or even guitar pedals and stuff like that which you can program.  It kind of still sounds unique without actually having this typical electronic device touch, which I really don’t like.  That’s why I stayed away from electronics for so long, because I wasn’t really a fan of electronic drum sets.  But, just combining all this, it’s just really exciting, especially for the stuff that I’m doing with independence and the soloing technique.  So that’s what I’m messing around with right now.  

K&S: Will you be using a variety of the Roland pads, like the TD20 pad setup and things like that?  Given what I’ve seen you do in the past with just your sequencing and being able to play along with those sorts of things, I would imagine the variety of sounds you can get from electronic brains and triggers would be right up your alley.   

MM:  Yeah. 

K&S:  Was it a feel situation that made you stay away from the electronics in the past?   

MM:  Yes, first of all that.  I have a studio and I play guitar as well.  I can create parts with synth – virtual guitar but sometimes to me it’s like I really prefer to just play the parts.  I work as a guitarist as well, and synth guitars and all those kinds of modeling things are okay, but it doesn’t really feel natural, like an instrument you just have in your hand directly connected to a pickup or an acoustic guitar.  And it was the same thing with the drums.  But I always liked it.  I was actually too lazy to spend the time messing around with electronics because I like to practice.  I mean, that’s the thing.  It takes an hour or two just to set up the gear and connect everything to the right place and get the sound check and then attempt to get the sounds right.   

K&S:  The learning curve, I guess. 

MM:  Yeah.  This stuff takes so much time and I’m really into just sitting down and playing.  I really want to play and achieve new things and so I didn’t take the time.  Perhaps it doesn’t have anything to do with being lazy because I work hard to achieve goals.  It’s actually pretty much the opposite.  I really want to play instead of working on machines.  But I don’t know, I guess now the time is right for it.  I just felt it actually, and I always had the idea to really combine these things.  When Roland approached me years ago, I really didn’t want to do it because I just didn’t seem to be an electronic player and that’s what I actually told them.  But I think the time now is really right to combine these things.  First of all, they wanted to send me on a tour just to play the V drums without any acoustics, but I’m still not ready for that.  It feels kind of weird just seeing someone playing electronic devices.  It is like there is something missing—I guess I can’t get away from the looks, sound, and feel of an acoustic kit. 

K&S:  Yeah, I just don’t see it as being a replaceable thing, but at the same time, you take guys like Neil Pert, he used to mix the electronics in and occasionally play a whole tune on them.  But they were always in conjunction with his acoustic kit, which is cool.   

MM:  Yeah, that’s what I like too.  And that’s what I’m messing around with right now, and it feels fantastic.  It’s absolutely phenomenal.  The mixed kit design I have been toying with is my regular DW setup, which is 10, 12, and 8 inch toms with 14 and 16 rack floors and a 22 inch bass drum.  I’m still not sure if I will bring back the gong drum or not.  I was thinking about fewer cymbals, maybe just four or something like that and then mix it and have all the V drums on top of my drum set.  Maybe like three V drums on the right side and three on the left so that I have like six toms above my cymbals where I can still switch sets.  I would have a complete TD20 stacked on top of my regular setup.  I’ll probably use some of the TD-7 kick triggers too.   

K&S:  Oh, with the reverse beater.  You can fit those just about anywhere.   

MM:  Exactly.  You can fit those anywhere and that’s a good thing, so I’m actually integrating these into the regular set as well.  That way I have two complete setups where I can play all my solo arrangements.   

K&S:  Well, it sounds like you’ve expanded your pallet then.  You are one of those drummers whom we wonder what else you can possibly do.  You’re just taking things to the next level.  You have furthered the art and are capable of things that a lot of players can’t do. 

MM:  Oh wow.  Well, you know, I never looked at it that way.  Thanks for saying this actually, but my intention was always to do something where I could push myself in a new direction.  Sometimes I get bored of buying CDs and listening to CDs because there’s some point where I say I know this already.  I mean of course, if it’s AC/DC it’s fantastic.  They do their thing as they always do and it sounds fantastic.  It’s still great.  A couple of my favorite drummers of all time are still John Bonham and Stuart Copeland. 

But for myself, for my practice routine and just for moving towards a new direction I look out for new things and for new inputs without getting bored with myself.  It’s the same with my CDs.  They never sound the same.  There’s an electronic CD which I did, one with just regular rock songs on it, and then this thing where I just did this Monty Python version.  I don’t know if you heard the “What Have the Romans Ever Done” piece.   

K&S:  Yes, I did.  I remember at the clinic how you talked about one way to build up the ability to do odd phrasing is to play along to sound bites of sentences.   

MM:  Yeah, right right. 

K&S:  You’ve become very good at this to the point that you can pretty much make a song out of an entire conversation.  

MM:  I really wanted to do that.  I saw the movie and I knew it by heart and I just felt like, wow, let’s do a whole chapter of that thing.  And meanwhile, I played along to the screen.  Actually, I started bringing the movie with me.  I did this on the Bozio-Wackerman-Minnemann Tour actually, and it worked out well.  The people were like, “Whoa, what’s going on here?”  At first I was kind of insecure about it and I wasn’t sure what people would think but it went great.  And also it proves that every kind of speech has a rhythm.  It’s all independent.   

K&S:  When did you first discover that playing along to speech was a good way to build up the ability to play odd phrases?   

MM:  You know, first I just really liked the idea of doing this.  It was a little scary at first.  I put the conversation from the movie into Cubase and was listening to it over and over again.  Then I started to notate the sentences and the words, which really didn’t work too well because I had to put it into a frame, and a conversation is something you don’t want to put into a certain frame like a click track, because then you’re forced to notate everything in this particular tempo.  And that didn’t work too well.  There was far too much concentration going on there.  So instead of thinking in terms of quintuplets or septuplets or seven over five, it was much easier to just take some phrases and put the guitar on top.  Actually, at that stage it was already kind of locked into my brain, because when you listen to this one sentence over and over then you just have it and then you can just nail it.  It’s like when you’re watching one of your favorite movies and can just speak along with a sequence that you really like.  Well, this sequence was three minutes long.  So it took a while to get into it.  I think it took me four or five days or something like that.  But then I had it.   

K&S:  It must take a great deal of focus to be able to quickly identify what time signature you are going to phrase in.  You must be very disciplined. 

MM:  I think the most important factor is just the fun rather than understanding or trying to get into it as hard as you can.  I think if the idea is good then it plays by itself.  If you really work on this kind of topic with heart, then it’s not that difficult anymore, because you dive into it with all of your passion and all these kind of things.  How can I describe it best—I mean, something has to really make you want to learn it.   

K&S:  Yeah. 

MM:  That’s the thing.  After that, it’s just like the work, you know.  With all the things I work on it still comes in slow moves every day.  Each day there’s some pattern coming up and I work on that and as soon as I can play it, maybe in half an hour later, the work for the day is done.  It’s not like I work my ass off on these things, you know, like eight hours a day to try to play thirteen against nine.  I just see this as a kind of pyramid thing.  If you have all the letters actually on the bottom and you have all these combinations and you’ve learned the entire first row, then the second will get easier, and when you go to the top, there are maybe two words or two letters, and this is a good thing to look forward to.  Once you achieve five against seven or seven against nine, the other things will come easy.  If you keep this balance and keep your practice routine working on these things for at least a couple of hours a day, and just achieve one new little item a day, which takes maybe fifteen or thirty minutes, then you’re doing pretty good. 

K&S:  How do you work in a practice schedule as busy as you are? 

MM:  That’s always the struggle, thinking to myself, “Oh, my goodness, I should practice more”.  I try to do something about two to three hours every day, plus composing maybe two or three hours a day.  Sometimes a little less, but sometimes a little more.  I just see it like having a meal or having dinner.  It’s got to be there at some point to first keep up with your chops and all, and then to get further on in your abilities.  When I’m on the road, I always carry my practice pad and sticks around, and independence exercises can be practiced anywhere.  You don’t necessarily need to have a kit with you.  You just can practice actually with your feet on the floor or with your hands for the practice set, and you can do something like a double stroke with the left side against a single stroke with the right side.  No problem.  If you know the movements and you can kind of capture this, then it’s fine.  This is actually a good thing about the V drums of course, because actually right now, they’re pretty crucial to my life.  I’m looking for an apartment right now.  Actually, we’re looking for a house because we just moved here.  We’re living at a friend’s place and I don’t have a rehearsal space right now.  So, here comes the part where I’m really thankful for having this TD20 sitting here, because I can practice on this every day without disturbing the neighbors. 

K&S:  Most of us would like to have a setup where we could practice whenever we want without causing a problem.  To be able to practice for hours each day is just not possible for most of us, but I know it takes a lot of time and dedication to get where you are.  It is not an overnight process.   

MM:  It’s not but on the other hand most of us like me, Virgil, and Thomas- it is our life.  I’ve been on tour with Terry and Chad, and they tell me they hardly ever practice.  They always go “no, no, no, you don’t need to practice.”  It’s interesting, seeing Terry for instance, like setting up this big drum kit and spending weeks without playing, just designing his drum kit.  I think, “man, you should practice on it.”  No, no, it’s okay, it’ll be fine.  Then he takes like maybe half an hour to get into his routine again.  I recall the last time we were on stage and played, he hadn’t practiced in a few weeks and it sounded a bit stiff.  But after thirty minutes, it was like a memory card or something like that.  It all comes back into your system and it works.  It has been a little difficult for me especially right now because I just moved over from Germany and had to pack containers and do all this other stuff and I didn’t write a song for about two or three weeks, which is pretty off of my schedule because I work on these things every day.  Also my practice routine went down a little bit but now is kind of back to the right balance again because I’m here sitting with these V drums at least.  But yeah, it’s a tough thing.  But sometimes it’s good to take a break from drums and come back fresh to the music you know. 

K&S:  I have always been an advocate of getting some kind of practice even if you just sit in front of the TV and run the rudiments.   

MM:  Yes. 

K&S:  Your kit now isn’t the same kit that I saw you on a few years ago.  You had what looked like an exotic wood finished kit the last time I saw pictures on the net from the BMW tour.   

MM:  Right.   

K&S:  Anything new going on in the acoustic setup besides the dropping of the gong drum?   

MM:    Yeah, actually, it’s getting simpler.  I think I still used the gong drum on the BMW tour. 

K&S:  I think you did.  I really like the gong drum.   

MM:  Yeah, I think I still will keep it actually.   

K&S:  When you get into a fat groove and then use that gong drum it definitely sets apart from the kick.  It is real interesting.   

MM:  It sounds good.  I think I will keep it for the tour since I like that.  But I was experimenting in Germany the last time I was there in my studio setup.  Instead of the gong drum, I replaced it with two concert toms because they add more melody actually into the playing.  But yeah, as far as the evolution of my setup in the last four years-- I got rid of some cymbals and I don’t play with china cymbals anymore except on occasion.  I just have seven cymbals but not any chinas stacked above the set like Terry does. 

K&S:  Yeah, he’s got an all special design cymbal setup.   

MM:  Well, you know, like he has 72 cymbals or something like that.  It’s amazing just to see him setting up his gear while we’re on tour.  I remember the first gig when we were setting up the drums and our drum techs were all there on stage, and I thought we should help them a little bit, you know, to get that monster kit setup. 

K&S:  I pulled a video off of U-tube and I linked it in my offbeat page.  It’s a time lapse of Terry’s kit getting set up, and it’s real interesting.  It looks like about six guys setting up his kit.   

MM:  Yeah. 

K&S:  How long ago was it when you moved over to Zildjian from Meinl? 

MM:  It was two and a half years ago.   

K&S:  Okay, and so tell me about that.  Why Zildjian?   

MM:  They’re better in my opinion.  That’s the only reason.  The thing is when I really started to get professional in drums and I started to play in drummer fests I was getting approached by different companies wanting me to play their gear.  Meinl was the first ones to really sponsor me, and I have to thank them a lot for getting me into the scene.  I liked the cymbals in a way, but you know, after a while, I found myself just doing studio recordings playing Zildjian cymbals because some of the Meinl stuff just didn’t provide the sound that I was really looking for.   

K&S:  What sound were you looking for? 

MM:  If a cymbal is too cold or produces too much high EQ I really don’t like it because it always speaks into the microphones and it’s just cutting through all the time.  I mean, it’s not bad if a cymbal cuts through, by all means, but in kind of a warm way.  That’s what I was looking for all the time, and there was a point actually in my career where I thought I didn’t really want to be just a promo guy, finding excuses to play some instruments and telling the people yeah, I really like that, they’re the best, when I don’t mean it.  This was definitely the point where I thought every time I tell someone “yeah, get the Meinl cymbals”; I kind of felt bad about it so I really admitted at some point that it was time to move on. 

K&S:  And I think the drumming community would appreciate that honesty because you have a lot of guys looking up to you and stuff like that.   

MM:  Absolutely, and I can’t do that.  I was always like recommending other cymbals.  They would tell me “hey, what’s the best ride cymbal you can get,” and it’s like “well, actually to be honest, to me, it’s the “K” dry ride.   

So I had to make a choice and Zildjian was actually very happy and very helpful to do this thing.  Meinl was not as happy, of course.  But yeah, that’s life.  What can I say, I mean, it’s a setup I really like, and this is what I want to play.  The other thing is that Meinl does a lot of aggressive promotion stuff, and they really do a good job in that, but this is not everything.  It seemed as if I saw myself in almost every Meinl ad and I’m simply not this kind of guy.  There is nothing wrong with promo, but not this kind of marketing strategy.  I don’t like it.   

K&S:  If you believe in the product and you’re getting it under endorsement, that’s great.  Are there any signature series Zildjians in the works?   

MM:  I was in on the development of the ZHT mini hi-hats.   

K&S:  I saw those at NAMM in Austin.  I was thoroughly impressed with the ZHT line.  The whole line just sounded good, from the flat rides all the way through to the various hi hat models.  So the mini hats were your deal? 

MM:  Yeah.  It was my deal.  I flew out actually about three or four times to the factory and worked on these cymbals with them.  It’s a pretty affordable range.  These cymbals needed to really cut through because these are mini hi-hats.  They needed to have a more sharp edgy kind of sound to work with hi-hat applications that I perform.  I think they’re doing pretty good.   

K&S:  Is there going to be any kind of sequel to the Extreme Drumming DVD?    

MM:  Yeah, actually a Buddy Rich big band project. 

K&S:  Tell me about what’s going on with that?  I never would have figured you to be a big band kind of guy, but I think it would be interesting to hear your take on that.   

MM: It’s interesting because I’m involved in a lot of live projects and studio projects as well, which most people don’t know.  They mostly think of me as the independence guy.  But I do a lot of pop and rock productions.  I’m a rock guy.  My favorite bands are like Zeppelin, Queen and The Police and all this kind of stuff.  Well, as far as with the big band, you know, I used to play a lot—well, I still play a lot of fusion as well as jazz, but of course, I never worked with a 17 piece big band before.  That was really exciting.  That was like a crazy experiment, just throwing me into the cold water, to see how it sounds.  I did this one song called “Time Check” that I played a few times on stage and during my clinics, but now there was a real big band all of a sudden.    

MM:  I have a lot of solo CDs out and I really thought, wow, this is actually what I really like to do the most.  You know, writing songs, is actually the first step.  Before I record drums, I write the song.  I consider myself a composer as well as being a musician and technical player.  But most of it comes through composing.  And the new DVD says that actually, because what I did there was just play with a few bands.  I had a punk band project in Italy which we recorded.  I had some of my more complex songs, played by Mike Kenealy, Bryan Beller and myself as a trio.  And then I did the Buddy Rich big band thing, which Don Lombardie from DW organized and arranged.  He knew Bobby Shue who used to play with Buddy since 1968 and so he actually arranged the whole big band.   

We recorded another four songs, then I did a lot of drum soloing.  I think I did three or four different drum solos, like on different setups and different locations, and with different attitudes.  So this will be the new DVD.  There’s a little bit of teaching on there where I explain patterns.  There’s commentary to one of the solos where I go into detail while you’re watching and explain what I’m doing.   

K&S:  Oh, that’s cool.   

MM:  So, it will be a different kind of DVD.  I really got tired of being like a racetrack.  Always seeing who’s got the fastest chops or who’s the guy with the most incredible, independence.  I don’t know, I never wanted to be there.  All of a sudden, of course, I got into it, and I’m really thankful for that, and I hope it will last, of course.  But I only saw myself as a creative musician or a creative composer.  It’s not like I’m sitting here and working on a new concept right now that I think is just going to blow everyone away.  I just want to put out something where I can take a look at it and think “yeah, this is great”.  This sounds musical, and yeah, technically I could improve this and this and this.  That’s all right.  But I’m never trying to be like a racecar driver or something like that.  And the new DVD states that pretty much.   

K&S:  Well, in talking with some different guys around here, one of the things I’ve noticed is that different drummers go through different phases.  I wouldn’t look at this as being a down step for you but more like a growth process for sure.   

MM:  Thank you for saying this, and actually to me, this is something I would like to impart to the new musicians out there.  I think the ability to excel in a given musical talent is not always necessarily evolved through rehearsing eight hours a day but in just following your musical instincts and doing your thing the best you can, and to play with all your passion and all your heart.  That’s the thing.  If I want to achieve a seven against nine thing, which is technically challenging, I will do this, and I will sit there for about two hours and when I have it, then its okay.  But, if I really want to have a fat groove with a good sound, I work on that the same amount of time.  I think this is really important.  I just recently went to see David Gilmer, and it was fantastic.  He plays simplistically combined with a cool light show and I was blown away by that.   

We were on tour with AC-DC and I was talking to Phil Rudd.  I was going on about how I can mount my fourth pedal in the right place to really get this one shaker going with my right foot on top of this other sixteenth header, which is of course a thing that I care about a lot.  And Phil said something which was so cool.  He has this running gag actually, sort of like a joke, with Angus on stage.  On the end of thirty beats he always does this one flam, like a single snare to introduce a big crescendo ending.  And he said, “When the sound is good, then I just do a single hit with one stick.  When the sound is bad, then we just look at each other and laugh and I do a flam, so he knows I got a bad sound in the back.”  I thought this was great.  I didn’t think of that.  I just thought about my fifth pedal.  But maybe I should care about this— just returning to the simplicity thing.  

K&S:  When you were doing the big band project did you use a different setup or your regular kit? 

MM:  I played a Buddy Rich style kit by DW.  I had a 22 inch bass drum, a 14 inch snare drum, and then 14 inch mounted tom and two 16 inch floor toms and that was it.   

K&S:  Probably in a pearl white finish, too. 

MM:  Yeah, I think it was something like that.  It was just great.  They even did the front logo head with an “MM” sign and stuff like that. 

K&S:  Oh that’s neat.   

MM:  It was fantastic.  It was just great fun, and wow, for me it was quite a challenge. 

K&S:  Being behind a different type of drum set like that, knowing the music is a classic type of big band feel; did it automatically change your approach to the drums? 

MM:  Oh, absolutely.  And this is actually where the fun really begins, you know, because when you always rehearse on your same drum set, it makes you feel comfortable of course about the stuff you learned and that you want to represent.  But sometimes playing all your technical ability out on some new instrument that you’re not familiar with can be the most fun thing.  You know, just being inspired by that big boomy bass drum and the feel it gives.  I have to play with a different kind of motion, a different dynamic.  And this is always a challenge.  It’s great.  I like these things.  So that’s why I’m always looking to evolve my set up and my playing, especially now with the V drums. 

K&S:  Did you use any traditional grip on the Buddy Rich project? 

MM:  Yes, I tried.  I’m not a traditional player.  That’s the thing, you know, because I learned how to play with this independence stuff all the time and I set up my drum sets that way.  But on some songs I play traditional a little bit.  The top of my snare drum is not angled the right way to really switch all the time between these two grips.  Simply put, I’m a match player.  

K&S:  I’ve always been one to preach that there’s really no wrong way.  You see somebody like Carter Beauford and he holds his sticks way down on the ends with the back end of the stick in his palms but who’s going to say that’s wrong when you listen to Carter.   

MM:  That’s right.  Stuart Copeland, he tapes his hands.  He tapes his hands with duct tape because he had so much pain or he was so stiff while playing.  That is what makes each of us unique.  These are things that cannot be taught.  We all learn from somewhere but a lot of it has to do with self-discovery.  Everybody does something different. 

K&S:  You have some interesting techniques with the way you use the Moeller method and finger control on your one-handed tom rolls. 

MM:  The musical concept, still always returns to that point.  When I write a song and I  can’t execute it on the drums, this is the point where I sit down and think I want to learn it and of course I’ve got to play it.  And a lot of people ask me if I have heard of this or that technique.  As long as I can play what I want to play, then my goal is achieved and if there’s something new that can broaden the whole experience, then I will sit down and learn that.  Of course, I agree with what you said about teaching.  When I teach people I can teach them what I play but nothing different.  I can say in my opinion the finger control technique works for playing fast sixteenth notes on the hats or you have the full on control of playing on the floor toms with the same precision or balance.   

K&S:  What is in your CD player right now?  Or your MP3 player? 

MM:  What is in my CD player right now?  Led Zeppelin and Queen.  You know, when I moved over from Germany, I had to make a choice of my favorite CDs to bring that I can still listen to while I’m here and I picked Zeppelin, the best of, which I made myself and my Queen CDs.  It’s interesting, isn’t it? 

Then there’s Frank Zappa, of course.  I have to mention that.  I put together another best of CD with Frank Zappa. 

K&S:  Who are your top 3 favorite drummers? 

MM:  My three favorite drummers….  that’s a tough question.  

MM:  This is like picking your favorite person in your family.  I would say John Bonham because of the sound he provided and the statement of groove he did actually years ago.  Nobody really sounded like him, not even close.  They tried to come close, but you know, when you listen to “Houses of the Holy” and all those kinds of songs, it still sounds so up-to-date and so timeless.  And his ideas for drum breaks and drum fills and grooves— they were just simply amazing.  And he will be one of my all-time favorites.  Of course, I have to mention Buddy Rich.  Just for his control over the drum set and for his drive and I don’t know, always when I see him play on the DVD, there’s not a single sign of insecurity or anything like that.  Just like this unbelievable force and entertaining factor as well.  It’s like it seems so natural.  It’s unbelievable.  My third favorite drummer is a toss up between Stuart Copeland and Vinnie Colaiuta. 

I would probably go with Stuart, you know, just because of the stuff he played on Synchronicity or just for the band chemistry and just for his unique and unusual way of grooving. 

K&S:  Stuart taught me how to play Reggae feels.  100’s of hours of free lessons out in my practice room with my Police records.   

MM:  This is interesting, and all the drummers I’ve mentioned have a totally different vibe.  John Bonham is more like a back beat kind of guy.  Stuart Copeland is kind of more of a rushy, kind of aggressive drummer.  And Buddy Rich, well, what can you say. 

K&S:  Inspired the hands of millions, that’s for sure.   

MM:  Yeah, well, you know, he was just technically and musically fantastic.  But on the other hand, imagine Stuart playing a Led Zepplin song or John Bonham playing a Police song or Buddy Rich playing Casmir.  No, that wouldn’t work. 

K&S:  I’ve always done that.  I would imagine one drummer and put them in another drummer’s gig and say, ok, how would you handle something like that.  How would you play that music?  I know it wouldn’t sound the same.  In some cases, it could be a disaster, and in other cases, it could be very interesting just to see what the approach would be.   

MM:  Yeah.  I think so, too.  But, you know, what would be challenging for me would be to jump into some stuff that I don’t really listen to.  Recently I played at the Outreach Festival in Austria and there was a Latin band there.  I’ve never, ever played in a Latin band before, so that was very scary for me.  They didn’t have another drummer, and they asked me if I could jump in and play, and to me this felt like the total opposite ofwhat I’m doing.

I learned that in every kind of music there is good and bad stuff.  There were some songs that just played by themselves, and there were some songs, you know, that just sucked.  And that can be in rock music as well as in jazz or Latin.  I believe as long as the song is really good and makes musical sense and the band is musical that different drummerscan interpret it in their way and make it sound good no matter what.

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