K&S:  So, tell me what you’ve been doing lately?

KP:  Working with a new singer.  As it turns out, he’s going to wind up being our new singer and guitarist.  We’ve been trying to get him trained with vocals, and our guitarist left, so on the flip side; we’re going to need him on the guitar too.

K&S:  You had mentioned something to me about your bass player possibly moving back into guitar, so would you be getting another bass player then?

KP:  We’re discussing moving a friend of ours that we used to play with years ago up to bass.  Right now, Billy and this guy are working together.  Billy’s showing him all the parts on the bass.  Billy’s been picking up his guitar, working on it, and getting his licks down.  He’s been playing bass for over two years, so there’s a lot of work he has to do.  Then we’ll pull it together as a group and work on some of the older stuff, because we’re going to keep a few of the songs, and then start writing a new album. 

K&S:  I’ve listened to the old material and there’s a lot of heavy stuff on there.  You mentioned the possibility of going in a direction that was even a little heavier stylistically.  Knowing you and having seen you play, i can say that you’re a pretty heavy chop monster already.  You said that this heavier style was going to influence some things about the way that you set up your kit.  Tell me a little bit about that, about how different setups change the way you think about your playing behind the drums.

KP:  I think a lot of it for me is mental.  I like everything to be as close to perfect as possible.  I’ve been playing on the kit now for about two years the way it’s set up for Veiling Iris.  When I sit in on somebody else’s kit, I feel different, you know, the positioning of everything makes a difference.  Stylistically, I think different, and I want to approach things differently.  With the older Veiling Iris stuff I kept three toms on top because I did so much tom work.  Now that we’re not going to be doing the songs that require that, I don’t need so many sound sources.  I want to get back to a simpler kit.  Mainly because I haven’t had a drum tech in about six or seven months. 

K&S:  Schlepping around your own gear is kind of a pain.

KP:  Toting those drum cases in and out is a pain -- thank God they’re on wheels.  So, I’d like to get into something a little simpler.  I’d like to change my approach.  I’d like to change my thinking up some.  I’d like to approach the kit from a different perspective.  I’d like to be able to change the way I play my kick patterns, the way I think up top.  I’d like to take away some of the drum clutter and add in some new sound sources as far as cymbals go.  I want to get into a little more independence.  I want to be able to flip between two different sound sources with one hand and play something over here, you know.  I don’t want to say it’s tricked out, but I want to do something a little more than your two and four, you know. 

K&S:  Yes, and speaking of your kick patterns, you mentioned going in a less traditional direction versus the straight double bass onslaught -- using it in a more rhythmical fashion. 

KP:  I’ve always been a big fan of fast, fast double bass.  Joey Jordison, Derrick Roddy, Raymond Herrera to name a few.  I’ve always been blown away by their ability to just bust out with blast beats, and they’re so fast and so precise.  I’d like to be able to break away from that just a little bit.  I’m not near as fast as I used to be.  I used to have a little bit of speed on me.  But I’ve heard some other drummers come along.  Chris Adler with Lamb of God, he breaks out.  Matt McDonough with Mudvayne.  They break down their beats.  They play them slower.  They’re more of a pattern.  They’re not just blazing, they’re chopped up and more groove oriented.  I’d like to be able to accomplish that.  I’d like to be able to sit down behind my kit and have everything in a comfortable reach - not have my ride way up here like Mike Portnoy.  I’d like to be comfortable, relaxed and be able to focus on my feet instead of focusing on everything around me. 

K&S:  Tell us about how you got into drumming. 

KP:  It’s almost like a fairytale, I guess.  I was thirteen years old.  I was in Boy Scouts.  We opened up a tent, out popped a tape -- Stryper.  I’d never heard of these guys.  I didn’t know anything about them.  They were kicking it around because it was Christian music, and they were dogging it.  I was scared to stand up and ask if I could have the tape because I didn’t have any tapes of my own.  Where I came from, we didn’t have any money and we didn’t ask for anything.  I pulled a guy off to the side and asked for it.  He wound up giving me the tape.  I took it home and listened to it.  I guess back then it was considered heavy metal.  I got curious.  I didn’t think they were Christian at first.  Something kept telling me " dig into it - dig into it", so I pulled out the lyrics and started reading them.  As I was reading the lyrics, I was being touched.  There was actually a message behind it.  I felt one night when I was praying -- I did a lot of praying when I was a kid simply because my mom and dad split up and my world had been rocked -- like the Lord was pressing on me that this was the way I needed to go.  This is what He wanted.  He wanted me to go out as a drummer and I knew nothing about drums.  I knew nothing about music at all.  The only thing I knew how to do was turn the stereo on.  I didn’t have a music background.  No one in my family really plays any music but the Lord specifically told me that he wanted me to pick up the drums.  Why, I have no idea.  There was no way I was going to be able to afford a kit.  As time progressed we went to Baton Rouge, where I’m originally from, and met up with some old friends down there.  The lady that we were staying with had a daughter who just quit playing marching snare and she gave me her sticks.  So there was my first pair of sticks.  I got to tapping around on everything, listening to Bon Jovi, Stryper, anything that I could think of that was a little heavier than the norm, because I grew up listening to Boston, which back then was my number one favorite band. Time progressed, and around the age of fifteen or sixteen, I got my first kit.  Somebody gave me a kit that they had sitting up in their attic.

K&S:  What kind of kit was that?

KP:  I have no idea.  It was held together by duct tape.  That’s when I met Randy Garner and his wife, Debbie.  A friend of mine recommended him to me, so I called him up and he came out and re-headed my kit.  I had this tom swapped over here, my thirteen started first, then my twelve, then my little sixteen, I mean, it was all backwards.  So he wrapped the kit for me to make it look good, put new heads on it, tuned it up, and talked to me a little bit about how to take care of the kit.  I had cymbal stands, I kid you not, that were so brittle and loose, and I had milk cartons stacked up with duct tape to hold them up.  You hit it too hard it was coming over.  And that went on for a while.  My grandfather, who was a big part of my life, thought I was wasting my time with music.  I was sixteen when my mother and my grandmother got together and decided they were going to buy me a kit for my birthday.  They bought me a white five piece Sonar Force 1000. I was floored.  I did my first show after getting the kit.  I got a call from a friend of mine who knew somebody.  The band’s name was Ash at the time.  I played with them for a little while, my first gig …

K&S:  And that was your first band?

KP:  Yes.  We lived in an apartment complex so I rarely got to practice on my drums.  I knew early on that I wanted to be in a Christian band.  I don’t want to play in something negative.  I want to play in something positive.  I want to play in something that God’s put together.  Once in a while I would go play with some secular people just to play.  I’d get conviction and I’d have to wind up walking away.  I’m sure I made a lot of people mad by quitting.  There’s one particular guy that helped me grow a great deal as a musician.  His name is Britt Cloud.  He was a drummer.  He wound up taking over after I left Ash.  He really helped mold me into a drummer, and we played together.  He actually played guitar.  He was a better guitarist than he was a drummer.  We actually played together for a while. 

K&S:  What kind of things did you guys do?

KP:  He actually got me into the double bass stuff.  He’s the one that got me into the metal.  He was real big into that.  That’s why I started learning all these different bands, the black metal, death metal, and stuff like that.  That’s where the root of it actually came from.

K&S:  Is that where your stylistic influences were drawn from early on.

KP:  Yeah.  He got me into the metal scene, and we worked and worked.  He’d call me up when he couldn’t find a drummer.  Back then I wasn’t very good, but I was there.  I was there with my drums at hand, ready to play.  Moving on from that, I played in a couple of other little bands, and then I worked sound for a band for a couple of years.  Then I started working sound at my church and playing drums there again.  I got an e-mail from the lead singer for Veiling Iris at that time, and they wanted to audition me soon.  They were in the studio cutting their first album, and they already had a drummer come in and lay down the drum tracks.  They didn’t want to slow down production or anything so there was no chance for me to learn the material and get on the album.  I just had to wait that one out.  They’d already laid down the bass tracks and most of the guitar tracks.  They asked me if I knew a bass player because they didn’t have a bass player either. 

K&S:  So when you first came in to play live for them, you were pretty much copying what was already on the first album.

KP:  Yeah. 

K&S:  How much artistic license was there?  Did they let you incorporate yourself into the music?

KP:  I went out that night to the studio and watched them lay down some vocal tracks and got a copy of the music to start learning the it.  The drummer that recorded the tracks did a phenomenal job on the drums, but there were some things that I wanted to do a little differently, some things that I heard that I felt might change the sound of it just a bit.  There would be more of a hint of me.  I didn’t want to go in and just copy this guy note for note.  I wanted to add some of me in there.  At first they wanted to keep it as close to the album as possible because the album had not been mass produced yet.  So I played it as close as possible to the other drummer.  Billy played the bass as close as possible to the bass player and we just started adding our own stuff later.  As shows went by and the album started selling, I started adding more of me in there.  A little more of me and a little more of me, until finally we started writing so much more material that it didn’t matter.  I was doing whatever I wanted.  I kept the basics the same and just hammered over the top of it. 

K&S:  I find that a lot of people don’t want to go to a show to hear the album anyway.  The album is what gets them there, but they expect a live performance to be a little bit more live.  That must have been an interesting challenge right off the bat, to get into something like that.  Sounds like you handled it well. 

KP:  Yeah, they were very, very anal about it at first.  I mean, this is the way they wanted it, and this was their project, I was coming in new so I respected that.  And I played it for a while; I’d say for the first three months, like they wanted it.  Then I started adding more of me in it, and before you know it, when you listened to the album, people would say that’s not Veiling Iris.  Go see the live show, that’s Veiling Iris, that’s what we’re used to hearing.  That’s what we want to hear.  The album that they produced didn’t capture the fullness of the band.  It was too pretty sounding. 

K&S:  Have you recorded with the band yet?

KP:  We went back in the studio again about a year ago at Fossil Tracks Studios, about 45 minutes southwest of Fort Worth. 

K&S:  Did you use the Premier Genistas

KP:  Yes.  Every time I’ve been in the studio, the engineer has flipped out over the sound of my kit, and they might not even be tuned yet.  This last time we had just got done with a show and loaded into the studio, and I had not even retuned my drums yet.  They were still out of whack from the show and this guy is flipping out.  The engineer’s name was Chad.  We went through a few snares.  He didn’t really care too much for my Pork Pie 12 inch.  It was really high pitched.  I had it really tight.  So I loosened it up a little bit to put a little more body in it.  We got away from the real high pinging sound and that’s what you hear on the album.  It turned out great. 

K&S:  It’s always a good idea to go in the studio with as many snares as you can muster up.  Speaking in terms of the gear, a lot of drummers come from basically rags to having good quality gear.  What do you think about the new technology, the things that they’re offering now?  The different manufacturers are starting to get fancy with different drum configurations and customizing and that sort of thing.

KP:  I am really impressed with some of the newer equipment that’s out there.  I mean, there are drummers out there playing lower line kits that sound better than some of the premium kits that I’ve heard.  I know a lot of it has to do with tuning and drumhead selection.  Some of these new kits they have come out with have phenomenal finishes, pro-line hardware, and they have excellent sound.  I’ve spent a really good bit of money on my kit and everything that I have.  I don’t use half of my kit when we go out.  To see some of the stuff that other people are coming out with, I get jealous.  I wish I had the money to go back and do it all over again. 

K&S:  Have any endorsements?

KP:  I’ve had one solid endorsement offer and that was from Pork Pie.  They offered me the standard deep discount endorsement which would have worked out to be a pretty good deal but I was not in the financial position to take it.  I would have had to sign a contract stating that the badges stay on the drums and that the logos stay on the kick head.  Any time I did an interview, I’d have to talk about the product. 

K&S:  Of course.  Once you do finally get settled with the first endorsement, you probably experience a tumbling effect where certain other endorsements will come on line.

KP:  I think a lot of what helped too was that we were charting overseas.  We were number one over in Sweden.  We were number six on the metal chart, which was kind of ironic.  We were also charting here in the states. 

K&S:  How do you keep the drive going to become a better drummer – a better musician outside the context of a band?  How have you dealt with the peaks and valleys of your own playing?

KP: I got to a point where I said to myself “Okay I’m playing, I can hold my own, I can play with a band but now I want to start working on something different."  For a while I got really focused on my sound.  I wanted to create my own sound.  Neil Peart has his own sound.  You hear the drums, you know it’s him.  Mike Portnoy has his own sound.  You hear the drums and you know, you don’t have to hear the band, you just hear the drums or something he’s done and you know it’s him.  I got to a point where I wanted—I guess I got to that level of professionalism where I wanted to create my own sound.  I wanted a tight snare sound and a real good tight low end kick, and I wanted my groove to be, you know, in your face.  I want to be creating my own sound, become my own drummer, and get away from everybody else.  I grew from there after doing that.  I accomplished some of it.  I’m not 100 percent satisfied with it.  Moving on to the next level is basically to make myself a better drummer independently, away from a band setting.  I wanted to broaden my horizons.  Tommy Upchurch, who is a drummer and drum teacher in the Minden, La. area has been on me for a about a year and a half about teaching lessons to take over some of his work load.  I just didn’t feel that I had enough knowledge to become a drum instructor.  I just felt as if I really needed to go back to the basics and get a better foundation.  Time, rudiments, independence, and knowledge of other styles were all things I should have been focusing on from the start.  You and I sat down and worked on the double stroke roll.  You helped me a lot with it.  It’s not something that I was really into.  I wasn’t really into a lot of the technique and the mechanics.  I just wanted to play.  Now I’m to the point to where I wish I could go back and do it all over again.  You can only go so far without this foundation.  I think that’s the mistake a lot of younger drummers make.  They get out there and start playing in a band and they think, "I’m just going to hold a two-four beat and I’m going to rock and my hair is going to grow long and I’m going to get earrings and we’re going to travel in a van and we’re going to be cool."  Well, let’s stop and think for a second.  If the band folds and you haven’t made a name for yourself as a drummer, you may not get work anywhere else.  Yeah, anybody can get up there and just sling away, hammer and destroy stuff, bash heads, crack cymbals, but there’s a different side that people look at. 

K&S:  How do you facilitate this new urge to learn and expand?

KP:  I want to turn myself into the best drummer that I can possibly be.  I want to take myself to the next level.  I want to challenge myself.  I have purchased many instructional videos over time because I am a very visual learner.  That has helped me see what else is out there that other people are doing.  Some of the stuff is just off the hook you know—Thomas Lang, you watch that guy and you’re like “oh man”.  You’re either going to want to throw your sticks down and walk away and never play drums again or you’re going to want to go out there and be like a sponge and absorb everything that you can.  You’re going to do everything that he shows you to become the level of drummer that he is.  Thomas Lang is a great example of being an independent drummer and making a name for himself without riding the coattails of a band.  Another thing I’ve done is called on various friends like you and Tommy Upchurch to get some direction on the things that are not common or second nature to me such as swing, shuffles, and Latin styles.  Somebody will give me something and I’ll go home and work on it and practice it out.  I think I’m a slow learner.  I am a slow learner, so I have to take things and process them a little at a time.  It takes me a little bit longer to catch on.  Take the double stroke roll for example – my guitarist asked me to play a double stroke in part of something we were working on a few moths ago and I could not pull it off cleanly.  That is only because it was not something I ever worked on.

K&S:  This is all part of that foundation you missed out on in your early years?

KP:  Yes.  I didn’t get into practicing at home.  I still don’t practice as much as I should at home to be the level of drummer that I want to be.  But the double stroke roll is what really turned my drumming around.  When I realized I could not do a simple thing like a double stroke roll it threw up a red flag.  I needed to strengthen my technique.  I needed to learn some things.  So I sat down with you and a couple of other people and started working on this double stroke roll for starters.  You had a practice pad that I fell in love with, the bounce, the feel, it was just phenomenal.  So I ordered one and I worked on it all day long.  I work out things on the pad whenever I get a chance.  We just did a show back in December.  We were up in Hot Springs.  I had a great night.  I don’t like to sound boastful or anything, but I was actually blessed with a great night.  I was kind of nervous.  I had an opportunity to do a drum solo that included some of the four way independent things that I have been working on.  I actually wound up doing a great job of it.  Billy, my bass player, was very impressed with the way it turned out.  There’s been one or two times before that I’ve tried to pull this solo out.  I started doing the solo and I could not get anything to work.  I couldn’t get my hands and my feet to act right, so I took it all back to the drawing board.  I started reworking the drum solo.  My problem was that I was getting in too big of a hurry, so I slowed it down and started working on my four way independence. 

K&S:  It’s always good when it all comes together. 

KP:  I was impressed.

K&S:  Let’s talk gear.

KP:  A lot of drummers don’t take pride in their equipment.  They don’t take care of their equipment.  You know, even if you have a $400 CB 700 kit  you should treat it like it’s the only kit that you’re ever going to own.  Make it nice.  If you can possibly afford it, keep good heads on them.  Make sure they’re tuned up.  If you can’t afford another set of heads, like me right now, then keep them tuned as best possible until you can.  I don’t beat the snot out of my heads if I know it’s going to be a while before I’m going to change them again.  I try not to hit my cymbals the wrong way because I am a hard hitter.  I transport and store my gear in proper cases.  This is a must have investment.  If I take care of my gear, I’ll have it a lot longer.  I’ve been playing now on this kit since 1995, and I’ve done nothing but add to it and make it bigger.  It is still in great shape. 

K&S:  If you were trapped on an island and you could listen to only three different bands, three different drummers who would they be? 

KP:  If I had only three drummers to listen to it would be Neil Peart, Thomas Lang and Mike Portnoy.  Those are my three favorite drummers. 

K&S:  Those guys are all over the top type players.

KP:  There are a lot of really great drummers from way before these guys that are really the founding fathers of the drum world and I have tons and tons of respect for these people.  But my influences are from closer generations.  My influences were in turn influenced by these other drummers.  The vibe gets passed down as each new generation of drummers comes up. But I’d say Mike Portnoy, because most every drummer is a fan of Mike Portnoy for some reason or another.  Neill Peart, definitely.  But Thomas Lang has to be a real high favorite.  I like his style, I like his dedication, and I love his approach.  I guess it has to be something really strong to catch me, to catch my attention.  And it has to be something over the top to grab me. 

K&S:  Do you draw inspiration from the possibilities when you see somebody breaking new ground like these guys have with the ability to play multiple time signatures on different limbs at the same time?

KP:  Yes, but the inspiration, I think we all draw from that, saying hey, this is possible.  I would venture to say if they can do that, I can do that.  I could start to work on that and dedicate myself to it.  Eventually I want to get off into the independent realm.  I want to start doing drum clinics. 

K&S:  But what’s the future hold for you as far as what you plan to do to perpetuate this learning process?   How will you begin incorporating some of this over the top stuff? 

KP:  The first thing that I need to do is develop a real strict practice regime so that I can work on these things.  I’ve been real lazy here lately.  The last two and a half years has just been hammering.  I've just been going 90 to nothing.  I’ve wanted to settle down and take time to do certain things, but I’ve been managing our band.  I’ve done most of all our booking for our band.  Here recently I’ve been doing a lot of our web stuff too.  I’ve had a lot of stuff on my plate on top of my job, and I do want to take time away and just work solid on drumming and technique.  I’ve been looking for a full time  drum instructor to go to because I believe, just like any other drummer, that you need that push that someone from the outside can give you.  I really want to study with somebody who will really challange me and not listen to any of my excuses.  I’d love to go spend a twelve week summer course at Berkley.  I think that would be a turning point.  I think it would be ground breaking to just go there and spend twelve weeks with all those drum instructors, showing me what I’m doing right and what I’m doing wrong.  Then I could improve my strengths and focus on my weaknesses.  These are the things that I need to see  and hear for myself so I’ll know what changes need to be made.  I don’t like to say, "Well I’m not doing a double stroke roll right so I’m going to start doing this or that."  I want somebody to break it down for me and show me what I'm not doing and what I need to be doing so that I can accomplish these things and be able to pull off that double stroke roll.  Now I can pull a double stroke roll off pretty decently.  You and I sat down and you broke it down for me and I’ve worked and worked and worked, and my double stroke rolls aren’t that bad now. 

K&S:  When an experienced drummer goes back for instruction, it tends to be more of a coaching situation. 

KP:  There’s always a challenge. 

K&S:  It sounds like you have lined out some very specific goals.

KP:  You know, I’ve always wanted to get into some sampling and adding some electronic stuff to my kit like controlling some new sound sources.  I want to be able to get into all of that.  I’m not easy to satisfy.  And I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, because I’m very grateful and feel blessed for everything that I have obtained over the years.  But as a drummer, for my own personal accomplishments—people say that you ought to be happy with the way your life is, you know your job, your wife, your kids.  Man, I am super blessed.  I count my blessings every day.  It has nothing to do with that.  This has to do with Keith Pennington’s personal accomplishments in his life.  I didn’t go to college.  I graduated from high school and decided I didn’t want to go to school.  I wanted to play music.  I should have gone on to college for music.  But these are my personal goals.  My wife, she has her personal goals.  She went to college and then grad school for her masters.  She’s a mother with two beautiful children.  She’s working a great job.  So, she has her personal accomplishments that she can reflect on and be proud of.  I want to be able to sit back and say, “Ok I’m actually proud of myself”.  I actually did something good.  It’s very rare that you’ll hear me compliment myself... like that solo that I did up in Hot Springs.  It’s very rare that you’ll hear me compliment myself on something I’ve done.  Usually I do the opposite.  I beat myself up.  If I can keep myself down and make me want to prove myself wrong, I’ll work harder. 

K&S:  But that is your drive.

KP:  Well, my grandfather was always telling me that I needed to put my sticks down… that I’d never amount to anything with drums… that nothing would ever come of it.  But I stuck with it and I worked through it and I kept going.  One day as I was leaving the practice room he asked me to come up there and talk to him.  He said “I was out there listening to you play.”  I was waiting for his “You don’t need to be wasting your time.” drum speech, but he actually told me “You know, you sounded good.  I take all that back.  I take all that back about you not being able to play drums.  Don’t put your sticks down.  I don’t ever want to hear that you put your sticks down.”  It wasn’t six months later that he passed away.  But it was great, you know, all this time I’d been getting this negative feedback from him and, you know, he did give me this one positive thing. 

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