The 9 Most Influential Drummers (Todd Sucherman)

in 1982 I wrote Steve Smith a letter through Modern drummer magazine and you know you never know if that's going to hit [Music] to the mailbox and lo and behold there was this big thick envelope from Steve Smith and he wrote me back a handwritten six-page letter including transcriptions from the Jeanette Ponte record [Music] and you know you couldn't found a happier 12 year old boy it's one of the sweetest things in life is to have some of your Heroes become friends it's it's overwhelming to you again [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] everyone [Music] is [Music] the truth [Music] [Applause] foreign ladies and gentlemen Todd Superman Todd welcome back to jeromeo man thank you so much Brandon it's uh it's been a great week and it's been amazing to be back here yeah it's I think this is the fourth time we've had you here so fourth time it's like Todd is our longtime drummio friend you're more than friends you're all family now that's at this point that's right and to the whole drummio Community really it's it's like you're all over drumeo the rock drumming Master Class the drum solo on the mountain your Spotlight show it's uh taught us everywhere on drumeo so it's so good to have you back thanks man and uh for any of you who don't know Todd Superman please go check him out online Todd you've been playing with sticks for 26 years you have a new record out called crash of the crown and you actually just played the title track off of that record that's right and you also recorded your own solo record in 2020 called last flight home which is the great experiment yes oh it's incredible like Todd you do all the vocals on that you play all the drums and did you have anyone else help you on that right yeah JK Harrison he did most of the heavy lifting uh on that he played almost all the other instruments and background vocals along with me but yeah that record would never have happened without him pestering and cajoling me into doing a record and I said look man it's very sweet that you think that I can do that and he said I've heard you sing I know you could do it let's do it so finally I found myself in Los Angeles for the eight days with like four days off something like that and I said okay let's get together and hang out and see what happens we started writing songs and it was It was kind of scary it was like well I guess I have to see this through that's awesome yeah that's called uh last flight home so make sure you go check that out as well like I mentioned Todd has a ton of stuff on drumeo including his brand new Spotlight show which is really what we're talking about today uh so these are basically like feature documentaries that Todd puts together entirely by himself they are incredible uh and you can check that out for yourself let's get right into this all right I guess why don't we just start by talking about what is Spotlight and then we'll get into some of the the heroes that we're going to be talking about yeah so Spotlight came about initially when I was doing the coach streams last year I knew it was going to be on the road so I started putting together little documentaries of things to be aired instead of me being actually live streaming and we sort of came to the conclusion you know like hey that might be a good idea to have a show like that where every month there's a different featured drummer or groups of drummers or something like that so that that was the The Genesis so to speak of of the idea and when I started putting the Steve Smith one together I I'd amassed like over two hours of things and I said to Dave I said do you want one like Godfather length you know debut episode or should we you know knock this into two episodes he said no definitely knock it into two episodes and then there was so much I wanted to talk about his work in the 1970s 1980s so that I just honed in Steve Smith in in the 70s and 80s part one and part two so those are the very first two episodes of of Spotlight and something that I'm trying to do if there is a story to be told or if I have some sort of personal connection or personal story to the subject I I like to share that and in this case with the Steve Smith episode in 1982 when I was uh 12 years old just about to turn 13 something last 12. I wrote Steve a letter through Modern drummer magazine and you know you never know if that's going to hit yeah and uh some weeks later I went to the mailbox and lo and behold there was this big thick envelope from Steve Smith and he wrote me back a handwritten six-page letter including transcriptions from the Jeanette Ponte record um and you know you couldn't found a happier 12 year old boy on the planet and this was right in the middle of Journey hysteria on their second Escape Tour of having a number one record so um I whenever I'm writing a younger drummer I always think of uh Steve's kindness and how that ripples over the decades and hopefully through me to someone else so that that's a that's a lovely thing very cool well to kick this off we're going to be checking out a bunch of clips of the drummers that Todd's going to be talking about so this first one let's check out a video of Steve Smith from I believe in the late 70s it really is this this would be 78 with runny mantras awesome let's check it out foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] fish ing [Music] [Music] so I I chose that clip to play today because I I find it exciting having um you know been a fan of Steve Smith but I never saw that so being able to go back and hearing uh him play ideas like that just before getting the journey gig I find that exciting to see the evolution and where they where the drummers come from and as fate would have it Steve had moved to Los Angeles after the Jean-Luc Ponte gig he auditioned for Freddie Hubbard and Ronnie Montrose he got both gigs and he thought well I've never really played Rock before so I'd like to have that experience so that's him playing rock for the first time and his fate would have it Ronnie Montrose would open up for journey and the guy said Journey got to see him play every night and they they went yeah we want we want him in our band um and also I've met you know the late Ronnie Montrose a few times because ricky phillips our bass player at Stix had worked with him and produced his last record and um oh can I quick tell a Ronnie matcha Story please because this is this is this is really great this is one of the best stories about someone getting fired oh man so Ronnie Montrose had played with uh with Van Morrison and this would have been some point in the probably the mid 70s and he happened to look in the paper and said oh you know Van Morrison playing at the Paramount Theater next month oh so they called up man said van hey it's Ronnie and Van goes ah Ronnie looks like rain yeah okay so I see we're playing the Paramount next month he goes no Ronnie I'm playing the Paramount next ruthless so that was a beautiful story that Ronnie shared with me uh Brandon looks like rain I guess you don't want me here anymore I guess I should hang up the now it's over oh man it's uh it's so cool because like Steve Smith was just out here recently and hearing him play that rock stuff and him just talking through the lens of a jazz musician and then to see him do what we just watched is just mind-blowing that he can do kind of excel in just both of those worlds well that was to me in that letter from 1982 as he started saying check out Tony Williams and Alvin Jones and Max Roach he you know he he said I come from the Jazz World which is why I don't sound like quotes just a rock drummer yeah that was huge uh advice for me because you know you could fate will blow you down certain roads and luckily for me I I got that advice from my hero and so I started to delve into these drummers who I'd heard about but I didn't really know yeah and that helped me as a musician and as to become a well-rounded as well-rounded as I could be versatile to be able to play different kinds of music to to be a working musician and not just doing one thing yeah and that was great advice from Steve so when it comes to actually playing the kid are there any ideas any vocabulary techniques that you grab from Steve or stole from Steve that you actually like use all the time or well you know when he transcribed uh the group to enigmatic ocean I know I've talked about this before but that's the first thing that comes to mind that was the thing that opened up the whole world of ghost notes and fusion drumming and then I could have a better understanding what guys like Lenny white and Billy Cobham were were doing so he had written the transcription just bass drum and snare drum and then said the right hand goes with the bass drum or on all the ands or whatever ostinato you want yeah but the groove on enigmatic ocean is [Music] so what that did for me was open up the whole world of just not even having to play that many ghost notes and have it be a fusion thing but [Music] yeah it just it just kind of it it gave enough of a workout to my left hand to be able to play those you could do and uh and Steve helped make me a man from a boy we'll let him know I love that moving right along here so the next drummer we have is Lenny white and you've labeled him as one of the pioneers of fusion music so right now let's check out a clip of Lenny white and then we'll chat a bit about how he's inspired you so before we move on to the next drummer I just want to let you know that we have so many amazing lessons from Todd available inside of drumeo we have Todd's Rock drumming master class we have his Spotlight show which we're talking about in this live lesson and a ton of other amazing lessons from Todd so if you want to check those out you can head over to drumia.com by clicking the link right below this video and you can get a seven day free trial [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] ER brother Paul had a romantic Warrior that uh chicory the return of forever record and that scared the heck out of me when I when I heard the record okay so and that's actually a good segue because Having learned the enigmatic ocean Groove that that fast group that Lenny played is very similar with one of the the bass drum notes displaced somewhere else which changes the the face of the groove so whereas Steve was playing uh Lenny was playing [Music] so then having had the experience of learning enigmatic ocean I could go back and listen to that and go oh that's what but there's the there's a difference in the in the bass drum uh ostinato or Cadence whatever you want to call it but within the spotlight episode of the pioneers of fusion there's probably 19 or so or more drummers that we look at from the birth of fusion and you know you realize that the musicians that came out of Miles Davis's group and if you were in and out of Miles Davis's group or recorded for him that was sort of the Big Bang um that so many of the fusion Pioneers composers and or drummers had passed through miles band obviously at Tony Williams Lenny white Billy Cobham all those guys were in the employee of miles at some point um John McLaughlin yeah the guitarist uh the Korea Jose you knows Donald does weather report chick Korea does chick Korea and and a Return to Forever John McLaughlin does mahavishnu all those musicians that were in that orbit were uh Herbie Hancock were the ones that laid the groundwork for the music that was to come in the late 60s the early 70s and how it sort of carried on in his technology uh with you know better synthesizers and whatnot bigger or better drum sets more symbols um it's it's cool to look at look at it under that lens that like everything kind of came from Miles Davis who's often thought of as a jazz guy it was a jazz guy but he also created this uh electric thing that was a was a big bang so to speak even when you hear like what Herbie was doing in the 80s and even miles in the late 80s it's crazy like the evolution from the small quintet to all this other crazy stuff like the Michael Jackson covers that he was doing and stuff but but even you know uh like a drummer like Mike Clark uh in the head hunters um you know that's 1974 you know Billy doing spectrum that you know the the double bass quadrant four there's a lot of things There's real quick a story about that so the the first time I heard quadrant four my my older brother Paul was taking piano lessons from this uh uh famous piano teacher in Chicago and I went once and the the teacher's son was home from college he was a drummer and my mom left me there for an hour this is back in the days when you could just leave your kid with a stranger for an hour apparently but you know it's got a drum set and a stereo and he was like hey so what what do you like and I just learned because it was 1976 I just learned the groove to Detroit Rock City oh no so you know that's like it's cool you know I'm not not dissing that at all it's a cool group and then he said oh you like that here check this out and he puts on quadrant four and you know I'm six years old my mind just goes yeah what this is possible on the drums I guess so yeah how do I do that yeah no that that's that scared me that's crazy man and then my memory the rest of the day ends right there because I just walked out of there his brain was melted when he left that lesson that's awesome the uh the next drama we're talking about this is a drummer that's not talked about probably enough uh this is Mark brzicki and let's watch a clip right now and then we'll chat a bit about Mark's playing [Music] where Fades of friends [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign you know for me coming of age in the 80s I guess Mark was one of the most unique voices in rock music along with like a Stuart Copeland Manuka Shay that he was right in the in the middle of those two he was also a session drummer you know playing on a bunch of Pete Townsend records the cult Roger Daltrey uh mid-year but he was the drummer of big country and they had a lot of hit records over in the UK in Europe but over on this side of the ocean they're not as well known and those first four Big Country records are just Treasure troves of incredible unique drumming that has his own personality his own heartbeat his own feel his own sensibility there's this definite britishness or Celtic something to it yeah um but it just it excites me it makes me feel happy I tell the story in the episode of Spotlight um in 1989 he was touring with Simon towns and Pete's younger brother and I couldn't go to the Chicago show or I lived at the time I drove up to Madison Wisconsin where one of my best friends was going to college and we went to the gig and I I so desperately wanted to meet him I'm not suggesting that anyone does what I'm about to say um because you will get thrown out of a place but uh I I said I have to meet him I have to tell him how important he was to me and I want to shake his hand and meet him and so I just it was a club I just walked backstage that's something I've never done to this day I just walked backstage walked into their dressing room he could have said up security or I could have you know there could have been a big dude there that would have just lifted me up and tossed me in the alley and I introduced myself and he said oh yeah cool it's like just give me 15 minutes meet me out in the back we'll have a chat so I walked back to my friend uh Dale I said all right let's go to the back alley so we went to the back alley stood there mark came out and chatted with me for close to a half hour until the really the point where the other guys had got in the car and they're like Mark Mark we got to go and so he he split I met him again a couple years later uh when he was playing with Procol Harum and uh a buddy of mine got me into the after show party there who's working for uh Warner Chapel at the time he totally remembered the Madison Knight invited me and my drummer buddies back to the hotel for drinks we sat there and we hung out you know until two o'clock in the morning and uh you know in in the show again there's that personal connection the first real gig Mark ever went to was uh Brand X with Phil Collins on drums and he met Phil and he said he said you know I hope to one day be a famous drummer like yourself and Phil said to him well you got to keep the dream you know keep keep that alive I hope that happens to you you know Mark was like that to me I was just a kid he didn't you know I'm 20 years old or whatever uh and he was so nice nice to me and such an inspiration and his his playing like he was sort of the first guy it's commonplace now can I just do a little hi-hat thing okay please yeah you know he was one of the first guy first guys to kind of [Music] all that stuff is so commonplace now but this is I'm talking 1981 1982. 1983 like in in it would develop and I heard that I'm like no one's playing the highest like that of course there's a little bit of Copeland uh uh influence and then Manu came around and you know 86 and then like every smooth jazz drummer in the world is you know hi-hat Bonkers um from the the 90s on but his drumming was just so unique and his his Groove I just I it's a a great pleasure of mine to try to share the great Mark proziki with other drummers that are unaware of him because it's always been like this little secret Club of those who know yeah and now you watch the show you'll know too yeah we all know yeah there's no excuse I love that uh next up we have Danny Serafin German for Chicago so let's check out this clip of Danny [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] at me time to take you away we [Music] live for today [Music] foreign [Music] so a couple things about that particular clip um you know I'm making some of these shows while I'm on the road and I wanted to demonstrate how hard that is and that guy I know there's a million guys around the planet that are now like with their feet but Back in 1970 if anyone remembers you know 70s fashionable fashionable Footwear or the petals we had back then playing on a hard floor like that's an amazing clip because Danny doing that live but I remember I literally had that record when I was just above an infant I mean literally a toddler in diapers and I would listen to that record and as I grew up that was The Benchmark for me to try to play bass drum so I had like 12 days in Las Vegas when I I made that that clip so I thought I'd have some fun with different Footwear um so there's a little bit of fun and uh there's a bit of fun in games in the show but but Danny other than my father he was sort of sort of my first drum hero and is playing on Chicago too which is a record that my my mother brought home and changed the lives of her three sons for the better great music great Arrangements great lyrics uh Melody Counterpoint Harmony and the drumming you know Danny's swing is legit when he's when he's swinging that band and he plays Rock like a jazz drummer yeah with with the kicks and the Jabs and the accents and the Counterpoint um so he was a great first role model in in hero as a little kid and along with the Beatles you know those early Chicago records helped formulate those uh earliest musical ideas and Notions in my head and so yeah Danny's playing on those records so just really great yeah is there like a favorite Danny Groove that you have or like any idea that has always stuck with you yeah you know it track old days his bass drum pattern is really hip for like a radio kind of kind of happy major key you know friendly song and of course it starts out with a bucket of fish bucket of fish yeah it's like the beginning of it [Music] foreign that was again one of those benchmarks for me as a kid be like oh okay I can do it I can do it I can and now it's starting to hopefully feel good yeah yeah uh next up we have Jerry Morata so let's check out a clip of Jerry and then we'll chat a bit about him foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] that's one of my favorite songs um so good yeah his feel on that is just Sublime so far behind the beach so fat you can't grid that that's just human feel that's just beautiful Jerry is a wildly unique mind on the drums and stubborn and headstrong and opinionated uh and I love him for that when when I got plays live when that record came out even though I was aware that Peter Gabriel records prior that was the one that really made me wake up and his concept of how he played time how he played with drum machines which is still sort of in the infancy back then of course it's total commonplace now what he played and what he didn't play was really important and people always say oh he didn't have symbols you're doing symbols he totally had symbols just one record that Gabriel said no no symbols that was a third record melting face yeah Phil Collins plays two songs on there too and no one says Phil Collins never use symbols so it's kind of a weird thing that Jerry got attached to this stigma he totally well you heard symbols there right yeah yeah symbols but the cool one of the cool things that Jerry does bring is his tribal thing there's a darkness that Jerry is able to tap into on the drums that's kind of heavy and almost like Voodoo scary a little bit which is why I included that first clip of him in a recording studio uh you know of not too long ago yeah but Jerry really matched some of Peter Gabriel's darker things and made him even over the edge into Super darkness and very very murky yeah yeah um you know like a Groove like um lay your hands on me from security 1981. hey I'll I'll do my best to try to play it um [Music] this is a great tribal thing with you know you got a Tony Levin you know I'm just going to skip doing this he got David Rhodes and you got Gabriel's about to jump in the audience it's the whole thing is just like it's almost a religious experience you know hearing that and seeing that through a a twist of fate I got to meet Jerry through Lauren scowan who's been in Stick since 1999. and Lawrence had done several records with Jerry and Tony and and David Rhodes the first time Jerry came out to see sticks it was in somewhere in Upstate New York September 99. I was thrilled to meet him because he's sort of like a he's not like The NAMM Show hangout guy or drum Clinic guy so it's kind of like meeting a unicorn right just Jerry Moran he's not everywhere he's like the anyway so he was lovely funny warm and he kind of did the the the prereq prerequisite Showbiz like hey I might not be here at the end of the night that I you know saw him before the show and then at the end of the night there he was backstage and I'm like hey you're still here he goes that was great I I couldn't leave and that was a compliment like yes I'll always I'll always remember so the last time I saw him I gave him a hug and I said every time I see you for the rest of uh the rest of your life I'm going to tell you that plays live changed my life very cool well before we get into the second half let's play a track okay another one of the Styx tracks called coming out the other side off the new record yeah I also also want to mention that all these drummers that Todd is talking about there's full documentaries on these inside of drumeo uh if they're not out right now they're going to be coming out this year so make sure you check that out drumeo.com forward slash trial and yeah Todd take it away all right this one is mostly a 9h and then the chorus is in four for you keeping score at home nice [Music] foreign [Music] times it's hard to see in the fogginess in me but the truth lies [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] I think we found our way [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Laughter] I love that track man it's such a cool group thank you yeah we haven't played that live yet and I hope we will at some point but it's it's sure fun to play it here uh let's get right into the next section so this is the drummers of Steely Dan Jim Gordon and Jeff picaro [Music] his own three way down to your golden ring no precious stone five nights without a bite no place to lay his head [Music] gonna wear no socks and shoes [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign so I chose those two clips here today because even in the show I go through all the classics Steely Dan records from 72 to 80 that were the yeah the the classic records from a camp by a thrill to Gaucho and talk about every drummer that played on any of those records so with with this Jim Gordon was a a session drummer that had a staggering discography and Jeff picaro one of his Heroes was Jim Gordon and everyone made such a big deal out of uh like it's not a great group his groove on Black Friday but he would always say I'm just doing what Jim Gordon did on Charlie free like the album before like I'm just doing that but both drummers are amazing and of course you know what can you say about Jeff Recaro every bar he played was just a magic million dollar groove on a million dollar bar a million dollar back Beat Just fantastic and that's definitely something that all the drummers of Steely Dan had in common even going back to Jim Hodder who played on the first uh two records I mean um reeling in the years I mean come on that's the first group the chorus if you were playing on a Steely Dan record every bar of every song just had to groove it had to be great and a great sense of applying back but when it was time to hit an accent or kick you know to have a little bit of a jab behind it tremendous drumming from all drummers on all of those records yeah I remember I was at a clinic with Peter Erskine and he said he was working with them and he said he had his metronome one BPM shifted ahead or something and they could all call it out they all knew that it was a little bit too fast and Peter's like are you serious they can tell but I'm not surprised yeah well it's like someone with perfect pitch I suppose someone can hear that and just go well nope it's crazy but yeah uh I I actually do uh showcase one thing from the the live record because Peter's drumming on third world man is just Sublime and in that [Music] like in that hole you could just drive a semi truck right through that hole The Fill comes in yeah it's just absolutely gorgeous that's awesome next up this is one of one of my favorite drummers as well Tony Williams in the blue note ears so let's check out this clip first and then we'll come back thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] it to me he's like the father of the school of drumming that makes me feel like fall off my chair laughing or just just the stuff that's like the it's closest to the Bone the closest truth his absolute authentic self and again when I was a kid I was hip to Vinnie and Terry and Steve before I really got turned onto Tony and then someone played believe it from 1975 and I'm like oh this is where that all comes from you know because Tony was their guy Tony was the hero of my heroes and then um 1985 Tony signed a blue note records he'd taken a bunch of time off a bit to study composition and so he released a string of Records like 85-93 this is the Blue Note years his quintet which is largely always the same band Mulgrew Miller on piano Wallace Rooney on trumpet Billy Pearson sax and there's three different bass players uh Robert Hurst Ira Coleman and sharanette moffatt but I would go down to the Jazz Showcase in Chicago when it was at the Blackstone Hotel Tony would come through with the band twice a year Wednesday through Sunday and I would go down at least for two of those nights and stay for both sets I'd watch the first set from the front and then where you're sitting to me that's where I sat and watched Tony and like 20 times I'm so jealous playing with this band with that music which was great and I I'm really excited I'm putting the show together right now it's not quite on the timeline yet but his he blossomed into one of my favorite all-time Jazz composers with musicians that were just brilliant and it was a band you know so to have seen those shows and had those nights and had those records and had those experiences those are some of the most exciting moments I've ever had as a listener of Music sitting there when Tony would start to play especially in the small room in the Jazz Showcase where it was back then Tony would start to play the 24 inch bass drum that you know three floor toms big rack Toms and it was this tribal thing like the hair on your arms would stand up it was this fight or flight feeling it was Voodoo tribal scary he'd start to play he'd always open with a solo and you had to be in the room to know what that was like I've been fortunate to see almost all of my heroes hey Steve Smith and I were talking about this just a couple weeks ago to be in the same room there's no record there's no video clip there's no YouTube on a laptop that lets you know what it feels like to be in a room he had something that was entirely another level of just magic whatever you want to call it magic witchcraft Voodoo a light whatever but he had something that I've never heard anybody do I got to see him like 20 I would say 25 times that's incredible uh at the Jazz Showcase and again I'd always be like I could I could have reached out and touched his hi-hat like if I if I wanted to just one of the greatest education that I ever got was seeing him and I hope to expose uh those that are interested in watching the episode of Spotlight what an unbelievable composer this music is great it goes beyond just his amazing unique drumming um which of course that is but the songs music yeah just like amazing wow I'm sure there's a million things you've learned from Tony but is there oh God one thing you want to share with everyone how much time do you have two three four minutes okay pure film only would often play themes um with the three floor times leaving one drum silent the way you'd play like a Triad on the keyboards [Music] his his flams were otherworldly the blush dough which I call the cabbage because blood sugar sounds like this blows to blows to blows to blush but a good blushes completely completion completion [Music] sounds so pedestrian sorry opinionated moments it's cabbage I'm going to change it start saying good place and it's on the books [Music] foreign [Music] foreign stuff all the the drag stuff [Music] I I I I want to talk to 10 minutes about each thing so I I got to keep it moving here but if you want to see a full uh hour-long session just on Tony maybe we'll bring Todd back just to do that I would sit through that I I I'd like to see uh I'd like to see Steve and Vinnie do that happily join the Deus and try to hang yeah oh man well let's uh let's keep moving on here so next up we have Terry bozio let's uh check out a clip of Terry the USA [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Music] there we go to Jones all right so that was that was Terry posium that was uh from uh Missing Persons from the uh the US Festival in 1983 after spring session M their debut record came out on Capitol Records and tapes um I had to take the Terry episode and kind of formulate it 1977 to 1984 because they there's so many eras of Terry that it could have been four shows yeah you know if I say Terry bozio to any musician or drummer they might think of the guy from Frank Zappa or the guy from Brecker Brothers or the guy from UK or the guy from missing persons or the guy from group 87 or the guy who you know with the giant drum kit or the guy who invented the slave pedals and the spokes and all the short symbols and electronic drums in 1984 on the missing second missing person's record the guy who does solo drum shows in you know classical Sonata forms and stuff like that he's he's a super deep dive um but for me everything changed I want to say 1981 the records had been out for a couple years but the UK record danger money that came out in March of 79 and then the live record uh came out in September of 79. and my brother Paul came home with those records and it blew everything that was on my turntable just off the turntable so what's going on here without the UK stuff if you're a fan of prog rock and you're not hip to those UK records and I know what some of you are thinking well what about the UK record with Bill bruford yeah that's a great record too okay I'm not dissing bill bruford but it's a total different different thing it's a different animal it's sort of like Gabriel erogenesis and Phil Collins Erie it's the same but it's a different animal I had never heard someone you know phrasing flams in in five and a new double bass drum uh vocabulary with a young fresh energy and attitude and I remember talking to my buddy Victor Salazar who saw them live in 79 open for Jethro Tull saying that he was so animated and the symbols are up high and he would do all you know all this stuff because we didn't have the internet back in those days you had a record in an imagination so yeah he he's in an incredible incredible drummer and again there's a lot of lineage with the flam stuff that you hear him do were Tony was his guy yeah um but just an absolute a huge seismic shift in in my playing and my listening with those two UK records and then the missing persons stuff came out were you know it's was definitely a a Post Punk synth pop uh thing but with uh virtuoso musicians you know Patrick O'Hearn and Warren cucarillo were in Zappa's band The Chuck Wild on keyboards and a lot of people had it up you know a problem taking Dale bozio's vocals but I gotta say this totally unique no one else sounded like her and guess what that's the way she she sounded live which is a lot more than I could say for probably a thousand modern day pop stars who can't make a recognizable sound without technology and nine producers helping them so cheers to Dale bozio it might not be your flavor a cup of tea but at least that was her it was authentic you know if you check out the episode and dig the missing person stuff like look at it under that lens of the time 1982 1984. um it was uh very very amazing drumming and bass playing guitar in a pop framework and I remember hearing windows on the radio and there's some Wicked drum breaks in there that are just one there's a roundhouse where he goes like straight 30 second notes down the times but there's one whack on the snare on the way on the way down that used to be on the radio folks crazy in the great old days of actual human beings making boy I sound like an old guy now we walked through snow to get to the gig and we loved it you're uh you're talking about some of those flam-based ideas that uh Terry plays do you have any examples of that kind of stuff yeah he well he would do like you know [Music] foreign that's just the idea where he would play a flam into the bass films [Music] Terry was one of the first guys to kind of do the whole like [Music] yeah you know the hand to foot answered back and he did that back in in the Zappa days and I remember hearing that idea like oh that's cool he's playing an idea with the hands engine back with the feet back and forth and that became an exercise of well Kent what what can I do can I do this you know and and sort of treating the feet like another pair of hands in a way that's awesome uh moving right along here we have Phil Collins up next so let's check out a clip here of one of my favorite Genesis Tunes so check it out [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] Collins is a hero on so many levels he's such an incredible drummer drum part composer player his Groove his ideas much less you know blossoming into the the singer that he he blossomed into and his voice took on a particular richness around 1980 and the Duke uh the Duke album and that tour but that that first clip I mean I think Phil is probably 22. there but it's it's one of the greatest stories in Rock and Roll history that is too good to be true and I always use this as an example I mean Peter Gabriel was such a huge Persona and with all the costumes and everyone assumed it was him and their stories about you know Genesis doing gigs and like the record company people would like rock walk right by the other guys and go hey Pete Nice show great show like you know like they walked by Diana Ross's band to talk to Diana Ross you know what I mean yeah so yeah just yeah later guys um so when Peter Gabriel left Genesis they were left for dead and the fans The Rock critics whatever they're like well that's it so they went through an audition process to find another singer now Phil had sung backgrounds with the band and he actually sang More fool me uh lead vocals on that was on Selling England by the pound and boy there's another one on a nursery nursery crime his first record it's escaping me right now um for apps and Friends perhaps and friends came back to me right like that so he Phil was teaching the other auditioners the parts and and you know Banks and Rutherford are like what sort of sounds better when when you do it so the fact that Phil Collins but well okay I'll I'll give it a go trick of the tail or first post-gabriel record is in my opinion an absolute prog rock Masterpiece from the beginning of the end it becomes the most successful Genesis record to date this would be like Bono quitting you two and Larry Mullen Jr going um I'll I'll give it a go and then the next U2 record with Larry Mullen Jr as a singer is the the most successful U2 record it's an unbelievable story um but getting back to his drumming again like any drummer that has a a long career there's different periods and different arcs and and things um the Gabriel era Masterpiece in my opinion is selling England by the pound I think that from beginning to end is a a masterpiece and his drumming on Dancing over the moonlit night if you don't think if you think Phil Collins is the studio check out the track dancing with the moonlit Knight track one from Selling England by the pound and if you don't think that guy's a master I can't help you it has one of the heaviest verses I think I've ever heard with the China oh God yeah man yes smashing that China so good so good yeah it's if if that doesn't make you if you listen in the car you're going to be going 100 miles an hour before you know it you're dead it's one of those I highly recommend uh checking it out I haven't put the the at the at this point right now of the moment I'm speaking uh I'm I'm just Gathering the the assets for the show and I think I think Phil's going to be a two-parter I could I could see that is there uh you want to demonstrate a few things that one thing that you've gotten from Phil I'm not playing the In the Air Tonight Phil um play us a deep cut let me think um well he had uh [Music] foreign [Music] and then the Dynamics he was able to play that and keep that uh that that burn really really light and then build up with a hacking the way that he built that it's just if you don't like that you don't like ice cream there you have it folks right there with that let's check out the very last uh feature here this is Ulta forma foreign [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign ER record which is Antoine faffard JK Harrison and myself this will be um I recorded all the the recording sessions yeah I did I think every song was was in one take because I was wildly prepared as I like to be I'm not surprised if I'm given the chance so yeah it's uh it's all all nine tracks um uh and the the band came apart or came apart we've broken up right now the bear came apart the event came about is what I meant to say where I had played on Antoine's record uh boreham Odyssey 2018. and although there's there was no vocals uh In that clip it's a it's a vocal record and Antoine had started writing these songs and asked if I knew someone that would be a great singer or someone to collaborate with and having done my own record with JK Harris and I said well you know what he's the best collaborator you could ever hope for and he has one of my favorite voices on the planet so I connected those two guys together boom nine songs came out I I recorded the record and I'm really really proud of this music so it's a it'll be you know it's fun fun to share this with with everyone and just real quick there's a pretty uh I remember when Antoine initially sent me the middle section which is all on quintuplets so I just sort of figure out how to play that along with the bass so what that is you know fives are [Music] so I played it foreign that took a little bit of time to try to get that solidified and feeling good and and sitting in with the track so that but that's a fun challenging yeah heart uh in that song very cool I think it's cool too that like all these episodes are focused on your Heroes and your biggest influences um but to take the time to focus on your own music and I mean all of these influences play into the way you play drums and for all of us everything we listen to affects the way and what we play on the drums and I think this is cool to shine the spotlight on yourself and see how you put all this together into your own music well thanks for allowing me the Opera opportunity to take a spotlight I'm just gonna go oh just over here for a quick second right um yeah I I do this too no you know we are what we practice and and what we listen to helps feed in to what we say on the drums and I believe there's also experiences that we have whether it's a walk in the park or a trip to the museum or a life experience or you know a loss of a loved one whatever all the things that make us who we are you know we bring that to the drums again even though I I know all the subjects in Spotlight but to go through them again it's like watching a movie that you love that you never get get tired of and then I have to pick out the scenes so to speak to share and talk about why why it's cool or why it's special or listen listen to this and I want it to be as much as like you know when when you're hanging out with your drummer buddies and you're doing like a picatune session you're all playing stuff here check this out it's like you're you're hanging out with a pal and that's what I wanted to show to be and it's fun to try to make it like that when you know what it's like to be in a room with just a camera yeah and you have to make it engaging that's that's the fun of it I I strive to to have that sort of feeling like you're you're hanging out having coffee with a pal yeah and checking out some music and maybe you're not familiar with it and your pal is going hey check this out and I'm going to tell you why this is important or special yeah I love it so in a few minutes we're going to actually watch kind of like a highlight reel of some of the First episodes of Spotlight thank you so much for being here man dude thank you for having me it's been a great few days here um it's always wonderful to be here especially after the last two years to be here uh is is particularly sweet so thank you and thanks for watching at home yeah I love it so right now this is a highlight reel of some of the First episodes of Spotlight please go check it out Todd put so much time and energy into these and they are absolutely brilliant I watched I literally watched them like while I'm eating dinner it's great you learn a ton you get to hear a bunch of new music and like you've seen throughout this entire live stream Todd has so many insights into all of these different drummers many of them who you know personally I'm I'm uh it's it's it's one of the sweetest things in life is to have uh some of your Heroes become friends it's it's it's overwhelming yeah so yeah amazing very cool so check that out it's andromio you can get a free trial just click the link right below this stream here on YouTube and right now let's check out some of the highlight reel foreign there was a person from the local music store came and demonstrated all the instruments and for some reason you know I said I want to play the drums welcome I'm your host Todd Zuckerman and today we're going to look at Steve Smith in the 70s and 80s part one in 1977 jean-lippany released the record enigmatic ocean with Steve on drums that featured Daryl sturmer and guitar who would join Genesis the following year and guitarist Alan Holdsworth now this record plain and simple changed my life foreign [Music] drumming profoundly affected me and has been an influence on my own playing since I first heard him when I was 12 years old his beat construction his song building Concepts fill ideas hi-hat work his overall heartbeat and attitude has informed my own choices and decisions over several decades there was a seismic shift in rock and pop drumming in the 80s and Mark brzicki along with Stuart Copeland and manukashay with three of the most unique and original voices in drums in the rock music world at that time today we put the spotlight on Danny Serafin foreign [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I could hear you cry [Music] thank you [Music] mystery [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] amen [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign

Channel: Drumeo

Views: 101,849

Keywords: drums, drummer, styx, todd sucherman, drum solo, journey

Id: mzX469bMGPA

Length: 76min 7sec (4567 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 18 2022