< PreviousModern Drummer September 2021 86 IN MEMORIAM W hen it came to the artistry of drums, musicality, creativity, and imagination on a session or a gig, Kenny Malone offered up his soul every time he touched the drums. When he spoke to you, he also offered up his soul. COVID took him and all that beauty away on August 26. He recorded with so any artists, including Dolly Parton, Carl Perkins, Ray Charles, George Jones, Johnny Cash, Don Williams, Merle Haggard, Charlie Pride, Kenny Rogers, Michael Johnson, New Grass Revival, Bela Fleck, B.J. Thomas, Emmylou Harris, Ricky Skaggs, Chet Atkins, and Paul Williams. The first hit he ever played on was Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away.” “We worked most of the night, and that was our last take,” Malone remembered. “It just kind of happened. We had so much fun, because the song was so strong. It’s like a classic now.” Malone began playing at age five, got a cheap snare drum two years later, and, by the age of nine, he was playing with the Denver Junior Police Band. At 17, he joined the Navy and became involved with the music program, soon landing a spot with the 18-piece jazz band. Eventually, he ended up on sea duty with the Sixth Fleet, performing all around the globe, and living the phrase “music is the universal language.” He taught within the Navy system when he returned stateside, and, in 1970, he finally broke those ties and moved to Nashville with his wife Janie and their four children. I met Malone in 1985, to conduct an interview for the July issue of Modern Drummer. Today, as I read my intro for that article, I’m struck how my observation never changed from the day I met him until the last brief phone call I had with him a few months ago: “The one thing that Kenny Malone wanted to communicate most during our interview was a sense of joy. He told me so, although he didn’t have to. His whole make-up—who he is as a person and how he approaches music—is joy. I knew it the moment he walked into the room with his strong gait and hearty laugh. “Kenny Malone is the ultimate artiste constantly pondering music—its sound, it’s attitude, its emotional life, its texture, its dance. He considers all those facts before putting a stick, a brush, or a hand to a drumhead.” “I’ve been studying the effects of music and rhythms on our emotions,” he told me. “I’m trying to use sound and music intelligently to stimulate and create positive emotions in people, and to make them want to dance.” This was a drummer who analyzed frequencies and tones, and once explained he wouldn’t use an open snare drum with someone’s voice, because it would interfere with the quality of the vocal. He told me he spent years finding the right texture of snare drum to use for Don Williams. He always considered song keys and harmonics, and he was a master tuner who took into account the variables of every studio he worked in. He was a seeker of the perfect sound. He once played singer- songwriter Joe Allen’s grandfather’s spurs with a quarter on a song about riding a horse. He said he got a perfect ring. Other times, he’d use various saltshakers and dime-store bells strung together. “I’ve played leather chairs,” he said. “This was for a song about an old jalopy, so I was trying to get a Model-A effect. I used four fingers, and it sounded like it was missing on one cylinder. It really sounded effective. They faded in and faded out like it was this old Model A coming around the corner.” Bassist David Hungate loved working with Malone from the first time in 1983 for the George Jones single “You’ve Still Got a Place in My Heart,” to their final performance together two years ago. “We played in a Dixieland group at our union’s Life Members party,” says Hungate. “His level of musicianship was so consistently high that it’s difficult to recall one particular session that stands out above the others. Most of us tend to be musical snobs to some extent. Not Kenny. He seemed to put the same degree of devotion into the lowliest demo he did or the most prestigious master recording. He simply loved to play, and he tried to make something musical even when there was little or nothing to work with. He found music in the most unlikely places. An engineer once observed him tapping on a wall. After finding a sweet spot, Kenny asked if he could mic it. “I find it hard to believe he was in his 80s. He was one of those rare souls who never seemed to get old. He was always the same guy I met in 1983—which makes it that much harder to accept he’s no longer with us.” Not only was his musicianship high, so was his integrity. During our interview, Malone confessed there had been a couple of times he had felt stale and tired in the studio and had to take lengthy breaks. If he couldn’t feel it, he couldn’t and wouldn’t fake it. When he realized he had to balance studio sessions with live playing, he put together a jazz quartet, and decided he wouldn’t schedule more than two sessions a day. Another time, he and his wife took off and drove around the country. He painted. Around 2012, Malone got deeply into hand drumming and put together a DVD called Drumming with Your Hands. Do yourselves a favor and go online and take whatever lessons there are for the taking. He was a master. Sounds, rhythm, feel, soul, manner, art— there are not enough adjectives for Malone’s greatness. But the one that sticks out most is joy. The world is missing a deep canyon of joy with the loss of Kenny Malone. Kenny Malone August 4, 1938 – August 26, 2021 By Robyn Flans Dave PomeroySeptember 2021 Modern Drummer 87 M etal maestro Joey Jordison—who had a seismic impact on aggressive rock as a drummer, guitarist, songwriter, and band leader—passed away on July 26, 2021. He was 46 years old, and had suffered from acute transverse myelitis since 2010—a neurological condition that temporarily caused him to lose the use of his left leg and cease drumming. Jordison fought his way back with intense physical rehabilitation, and, at press time, no reason for his death had been given. Jordison found world-wide fame as the co-founder, drummer, and songwriter of Slipknot, and he also performed with Metallica, Rob Zombie, Korn, Ministry, Murderdolls, Scar the Martyr, Vimic, and Sinsaenum. He influence on drumming was such that he was the subject of several articles and two cover stories in Modern Drummer. Jordison was a master of the blast beat, and although he didn’t invent the speedy, aggro, and often metronomic technique—echoes of the groove can be heard back in the 1970s, from drummers such as Tony Williams, Bill Ward, and Carl Palmer—he helped bring the style to commercial metal music and wide acceptance during his tenure in Slipknot. “My bass pedals are double-chained Tama Iron Cobras,” Jordison related to Jeff Perlah for his January 2002 MD cover story. “I have them tensioned very tight. They’re really hard to push down, but if they’re not tight, I can’t get the right bounce back from the head to be able to play fast. That spring tension also helps to keep my feet and legs in shape. Slipknot’s stage show is pandemonium, but we thrive on it. And we thrive on pain. Once this band is comfortable, it will cease to exist.” Jordison’s commitment to groove was never cast aside, even when he was focusing on writing motifs and parts for guitar. “When I write a riff, I never have to think about what the drums are going to do,” he told Billy Brennan for his January 2011 MD cover story. “I already know. The way I write riffs, they’re very rhythmic, so I never worry about the drums at all. Man, I hate saying ‘I,’ because it’s not about me, but to be completely honest, a good majority of Slipknot songs have started with my guitar riffs. But we won’t finish a song until we look each other in the eye and no one’s lying. If not all nine of us feel it, then it won’t exist. It doesn’t matter who starts the song or who wrote the riff, when all of us get together, it needs to be complete destruction at all times.” He could also adapt to the music whenever the need arose. When he played all of the instruments—except keyboard and guitar solos—for Scar the Martyr’s self-titled debut album, he decided to work with a click track. “It’s something I usually don’t do,” Jordison admitted to Ilya Stemkovsky in January 2014, the last time he was interviewed for MD. “I think click tracks take away from the overall human feel of the song. In Slipknot, I don’t click anything—it’s just a full-on rager. But as I demoed these songs without a click, I noticed that the way a lot of the riffs are structured—they’re so pummeling and hooky and trance-y—if the tempo is fluctuating too much, it doesn’t hypnotize you. So, a lot of the riffs really needed to be to a click. They sounded better spot on. There are parts where I turned off the click and raised the tempo— like my usual style—but about 75 percent of the record was done to a click.” Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Jordison got his first drum kit when he was just eight years old. His formidable style was influenced by Keith Moon, Gene Krupa, John Bonham, Lars Ulrich, Charlie Benante, Dave Lombardo, and Buddy Rich. Although his virtuosic and theatrical drumming helped Slipknot gain massive popularity, his later stint in the band was alleged to be complicated by not just physical, but also personal challenges. Both camps stayed relatively quiet, but Jordison revealed he had been fired by the band (“I would never abandon Slipknot or my fans,” he insisted in a statement). Similar issues were hinted at by his last band mates in Sinsaenum, who stated in an otherwise heartfelt tribute: “Joey also had his demons, and nothing hurts more than knowing that we did everything in our power to help and couldn’t get through to him.” But, whatever his troubles, Jordison earned massive respect from everyday music lovers and other musicians—whether famous or not—and he was quite enthusiastic about drummers just coming up in the industry. “Have ingenuity and perseverance, and practice a lot,” he counseled in his January 2002 cover story. “That’s the only way you’re going to make it. And don’t just be a follower, be a leader. A lot of players don’t realize what they have. To me, the most important band out right now is the one in a garage somewhere obsessing over their music—just like we did ten years ago. We were those kids. We haven’t heard of them yet, but they’re the ones with the vision. As far as I’m concerned, those are the most important musicians right now, and they are ones who are going to shape the future.” Joey Jordison April 26, 1975 – July 26, 2021 By Michael MolendaAND MUCH MORE! COMING BACK THROUGH THE STACK M O D E R N D R U M M E R M A G A Z I N E • • YEARS Of Excellence 4545 THE WORLD’S #1 DRUMMING RESOURCETHE WORLD’S #1 DRUMMING RESOURCE “On The Power Station album, I’m beginning to approach what I’m shooting for. My drums sound bigger than life, and I’m getting to play so much—really blasting off, but still working that funk groove. There are a lot of drummers who can play that fancy Billy Cobham stuff—play the chops, pull off odd meters, and deal those polyrhythms—but when it comes down to laying that two and four in there, some of them are not convincing enough. I like playing two and four. My heart is in everything I play. Sometimes, you have to bust loose—that’s normal—but settle things for everybody else first, and then go for yourself.” Tony Thompson December 1985 moderndrummer.com/archive Celebrating Charlie Watts 1941-2021 Lissa WalesTAKE YOUR PLAYING TO THE LIMIT, AND BEYOND. Gergo Borlai always takes his playing into uncharted territory. His musicality, finesse, and facility are at the top of the drumming game. The art form and the instrument inspires him. Now, let it inspire you. Introducing the Gretsch U.S.A. Gergo Borlai Signature Snare Drum. An expressive brass drum born from pure passion and built to take your creative expression to new places. 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