First off, I’d like to thank Modern Drummer for asking me to blog. I’ve been a huge fan of the magazine since I was a kid and couldn’t be more stoked to be a part of this great drum site.

My band, To Speak of Wolves, just released our sophomore album, Find Your Worth, Come Home, on Solid State Records. The whole process, from writing to recording to the release, has been awesome, and we are really excited to be releasing this new record.

We spent the past two years on the road almost nonstop in support of our first album, so when it came time to start really focusing on the new material we just exploded with ideas. We had a few riffs and parts we had written while on the road, but we went back over everything, making it better and trying a lot of things we wouldn’t normally have done, in an effort to really make this record something that will stand the test of time.

The songs on Find Your Worth, Come Home are faster and more complex, using a variety of different time signatures, which enabled me to try a lot of new things drum-wise that I wasn’t able to do on our last record. For example, the opening track, “Hivemind,” starts in 7/8, then moves to 4/4, and then in and out of 5/8 and 4/4, all within the first few sections. On top of that, it’s the fastest song on the album. It’s a ton of fun to play live, and the ending section is a pretty cool buildup with a few faster fills in it. The entire song “Oregon” is in 5/4, which was fun to write and play, as we’ve never written an entire song in five before. And on the ending section of “Voidwaker” we experimented with a three-layer polyrhythmic section that incorporates all three instruments. Advertisement

For the recording I also added a few items to my normal four-piece kit, including a second, 18″ floor tom. I also used a second 20″ crash, which on a few tracks I swapped out with an 18″ China cymbal to give me a few more options for accents and sounds. We also used a secondary kit for some auxiliary drumbeats that consisted of a 14″ snare, a 14×26 kick, and an 18″ floor.

I’m really stoked on everything we did with this new record. I hope you check it out and come see us on the road some time!

 

For more on Phil Chamberlain and To Speak of Wolves, go to facebook.com/tospeakofwolves. Photo courtesy of To Speak of Wolves.