Hey there! My name is Allison Busch and I love music and playing drums. I’m sure you do too if you’re reading drummer blogs. I play with my best friends Johnny and Max in Call of the Wild. We have a record coming out today on Kemado Records called Leave Your Leather On, and then we’re going to try to tour all over and play your town. Hopefully the place we play at will have a pinball machine. I think playing a game or two of pinball is the best warm-up for a night of drumming. It’s a good activity for hand-eye coordination and it also requires a sense of rhythm. One of life’s little pleasures is getting multiball. So all you kids out there, tell your folks to get a pinball machine to put next to your drumkit if they want you to improve. I’d recommend Monster Bash. The theme is that a group of monsters are forming a rock band. The Wolf Man is the drummer! Wouldn’t you like to see that? A werewolf playing drums!

Playing live is my favorite part of drumming. I like the excitement and energy involved, and I think it helps me play my best. I’ve been spoiled in that I’m always in bands with my good friends and we get to have a lot of fun on stage. When we’re not playing together, we usually hang out and listen to records and tell jokes. Our favorite records as a band would probably be Thin Lizzy’s Fighting, Motörhead’s Overkill, and Cock Sparrer’s Shock Troops. Tuff stuff! When the guys aren’t around I like to throw on Dionne Warwick, Bobby Womack, or reggae. Don’t tell! But it’s good to keep an open mind with music as with life, eh?

I actually wanted to ask a bit of advice on how to get my snare to sound louder. I really want to get it to pop out and snap like the snare on the Ventures’ “Walk, Don’t Run.” Any ideas? Thanks, World Wide Web! Music is the best—play hard! Advertisement

Check out Call of the Wild’s song “Autobahn,” from their debut album, Leave Your Leather On, here.