< PreviousModern Drummer September 2021 18 Matt Sorum New Book, Celebrating Vinyl, Saving Animals, and Producing Billy Gibbons By Rich Scannella M att Sorum has had about as cool a drumming career as one could possibly hope for. In a business that can be notoriously hard, Sorum has navigated the often-perilous world of rock and roll like the professional he is. He first rose to international fame with The Cult, before moving on to Guns N’ Roses, and, later, Velvet Revolver. Sorum has also worked with everyone from Tori Amos, Poe, Motörhead, Neurotic Outsiders, Camp Freddy, Hollywood Vampires, Geezer Butler, and his own all-star band, Kings of Chaos. At press time, his latest gig was co-producing and playing on (ZZ Top guitarist) Billy Gibbons’ brand new solo album, Hardware [Concord]. If that isn’t enough, add Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member (inducted with Guns N’ Roses in 2012), solo artist, multi-instrumentalist, studio owner, entrepreneur, animal activist, producer, songwriter, author, and, earlier this year, first-time father. Sorum, 60, has also seen the destructive side of fame and fortune. His forthcoming autobiography, Double Talkin’ Jive [Rare Bird Books], is a cautionary tale that takes a hard look at the price of celebrity. But there is also a silver lining embedded amids the chaos, as Sorum chronicles the difficulties he overcame early in his life, discusses his time with some of music’s most legendary stars, and recounts how he beat down his demons to emerge as the person and consummate artist he is today. Mark Maryanovich Jason SakerlundSeptember 2021 Modern Drummer 19 Zack WhitfordModern Drummer September 2021 20 I just finished reading Double Talkin’ Jive . It’s great, but you definitely didn’t shy away from any tough topics. I wanted to tell the truthful story. It’s weird, because when you write a book like this, you go back in time. My wife even told me my voice changes when I relive those periods. I’m such a different guy now, but I tried to tell most of the stories from the perspective of where I was at the time. I didn’t want to write a mature, adult version of what had happened when I was younger. Could you set the scene about your early days in Los Angeles? Back in the 1980s, I started as a session drummer. In L.A., there was a pretty tight-knit group of guys in the session world, and recording studios were hot items. There was a lot going on. It’s different now, of course. But sessions brought me some pretty cool experiences, and I had a couple of good producers that liked me. Trying to find a record deal for a band I had put together was another thing—definitely some hard knocks. For example, I discovered Tori Amos and formed a band with her. Then, she gets signed, but the band doesn’t get signed. That was my first encounter with how the record business can be very disposable—especially for drummers. I was replaced by Vinnie Colaiuta, who is not a bad guy to be replaced by [laughs]. But then I ended up playing on the record, because they were like, “Well, Vinnie’s not the right guy for this, even though he’s an amazing drummer.” That was an early lesson that there is a right guy for every part, and it helped me clarify my destiny. Suddenly, it wasn’t like I had to be the most radical “chops” drummer in the world. I found my niche—which was that I’m a really solid rock drummer. So what am I going to do with that? Well, I’m not going to try to go after this gig or that gig. I’m going to stay in my lane and play rock and roll. After I realized that is when things started to move in a positive direction. I joined The Cult, and that, of course, brought me to Guns N’ Roses. My career has been pretty much based in rock and roll ever since. In the book, you mention that when you were learning songs, you didn’t write anything down, choosing instead to memorize the arrangements. Can you elaborate on that process? It’s interesting, because I came from a schooled environment. I was in jazz ensemble and marching band, so I could read and write charts. Then, the 1970s came along with this rock and roll sensibility, and I was also playing in top-40 bands doing five sets a night. I had to learn ten or 15 new songs a week, because the band had to follow what was hot on the charts. I would literally be driving in my car on the way to the gig listening to the songs [laughs]. What ended up happening was that it was easier for me to listen, get a sense of the song structure, and go out and play it. But if you could chart out everything, why didn’t you do that? Guys like Gregg Bissonette can write charts like it’s freehand. I’m not that guy. But I realized I could retain a lot of information, and I was able to put the arrangements into my brain by simply listening to songs. Here’s a funny story about that. In the early days, I used to play in the mostly top-40 bands that performed at Disneyland. It was me, Bissonette, and a very young Josh Freese. His dad, Stan, booked Zack WhitfordSeptember 2021 Modern Drummer 21 the joint. Gregg was on the big stage, and I played over in Tomorrowland, and we would sub for each other. One day, Gregg asks me to sub for him, and he says, “Hey Matt, I left the charts for you on the drum stand. Just go up there and you’ll have everything you need.” So, I’m on the drums, the band is ready to kick in, and the song is something from Miami Sound Machine that I had never played before. I’m going up there cold in front of a big audience, and the charts blew off the stand [laughs]. At that point, it was, “F**k the chart thing!” It actually made me more nervous to be staring at them all the time. I didn’t want to have my head in the charts. I like to listen to the band. Specifically, though, how does listening manifest itself in playing the right parts for the song? I used to jam a lot. I’d go to jam nights at the Central in Hollywood, and I started learning how to jam. You don’t go up there with any structure—you just listen. I would listen to the bass player, and that connected to my foot. My foot was with the bass, and my upper limbs were playing along to the vocal and the guitar. Listening to the band helped me develop a musical sense of how I wanted to approach the drum kit as a team player and a song guy. You don’t step on the vocals. You don’t step on the guitar solo. You lay out when you need to, and you can play some cool fills when they are necessary—such as for intros, ramping up the outro, and things like that. Back to the book. You state, “After Velvet Revolver, I was once again left with no idea what to do.” For drummers who have been in similar situations, and who are attempting to navigate the difficulties of a career in music, how did you deal with that period? This will sound crazy, but I just had to have absolute and complete faith in myself and the universe. My journey has been filled with hills and valleys, and the more I trusted the valleys, the better the hills were. You have to believe in yourself. You have to know that you’ve already done a bunch of cool sh*t, and that you’ll just keep going. For me, there was also the reality that I don’t have a lot of other talents I can rely on. If you love playing music, and you love being a drummer, you simply manifest yourself into the next thing. I’m a manifester. I used to be the guy who was out on the town pretty much nightly. I was always networking, talking to other musicians, and working on the next thing. That’s really what I did for my entire career. You can’t just sit there and wait for the phone to ring. It’s not going to happen. You recently produced, co-wrote, and played on Billy Gibbons’ latest solo album, Hardware. What was that experience like? Well, that’s another example of what we just talked about. When I had the side band Camp Freddy with Dave Navarro [2002—2014], we got into inviting people to come play with us. Then, I formed a supergroup called Kings of Chaos, and I picked up the phone and calling people to guest star. Billy came in for most of the 2014— 2015 run, and he played tours in North America and South Africa along with Robin Zander, Steven Tyler, Steve Stevens, Duff McKagan, Nuno Bettencourt, and others. Billy would always turn around to me, and say, “I really like your backbeat.” Then, around two years ago, Billy’s producer, Joe Hardy, passed away, and he was trying to figure out what he was going to do next. I said, “Come over to my recording studio. We’ll cut some tracks.” He goes, “Let’s do something like ‘Purple Haze’ meets ‘Foxy Lady,’” and we recorded “S-G-L-M-B-B-R”—which is a weird title. After we cut that song, I said, “Let’s make a record.” But the pandemic hit, and it was like, “What the hell are we going to do with ourselves?” Fortunately, I was out in Palm Springs, and a friend of mine found a killer recording studio in the Joshua Tree area of California’s high desert, and I finally got Billy to come out. I had always wanted to Matt’s Hardware Here is the gear that Sorum played on Billy Gibbons new solo album, Hardware. Drums Gretsch Broadkaster: 9x13 rack tom; 14x14, 16x16, and 16x18 floor toms; 14x22 and 14x24 kick drums. Snare Drums Gretsch Broadkaster (wood), Gretsch Bell Brass, Gretsch Phosphorus Brass—all either 6.5x14 or 7x14. Cymbals Zildjian 16" K Light hi-hats; Zildjian 18", 19", and 20" K Light crashes; Zildjian 20" and 22" K Light ride; Zildjian flat sizzle. Drumsticks Zildjian 5A (wood). Berndon WeyersModern Drummer September 2021 22 make a record in a place where you can live, record, and sleep. You’d see those old videos of the Rolling Stones in a castle in the South of France, and Led Zeppelin in some mansion in the English countryside. Our version of that was, “Let’s hole up in the desert and live in Airstream trailers.” [Laughs.] We’d wake up in the morning, and go, “What have you got?” We all pitched in with riffs, grooves, or lyrics. I was playing with the great Billy Gibbons, and I was sort of relearning how I wanted to play with him. I couldn’t be the heavy rock hitter, so I went for more of a ‘70s approach. As drummers age, do you feel they have to make adjustments to their playing, either physically or mentally? It depends on the player, I guess. You can’t really escape the passing of time. When I played the big stadiums with Guns N’ Roses, I was hitting hard. But I didn’t really feel the pain back then, because I was a pretty good drinker in those days [laughs]. Today, I feel the repercussions of the overexertion and hard hitting that I did for years and years—just smashing the drums. My hip and my shoulder have taken a bit of a toll. When I play with Billy now, it’s a relief, because I can simply lay down a good pocket. I don’t have to be this rock showman—like when I was in Motörhead. I had to be up there slamming, otherwise, it looked like I was taking a dinner break. If you’re in a rock band, you better rock. You don’t want to be tickling the drums up there. Do you ever find yourself counseling younger players to consider the longevity of their playing? Not really. I mostly talk about style—especially in the studio. I started producing a lot of young drummers, and they come in and just smash the cymbals, but they’re not really hitting the kick and snare. There’s no evenness to their playing. If you look at guys like Bonham and all the great drummers of the ‘70s, they would mix themselves in the studio. There wasn’t this overplaying of cymbals. Bonham would actually hit a crash cymbal pretty light, because he was listening to himself and considering how the drums would sound on tape. Young drummers tend to be all about cymbals and upper body power. I was always the opposite. I give as much power to the kick, snare, and backbeat as I can, and then I finesse the cymbals. What’s going on with your rig these days? For the Billy Gibbons project, I played Gretsch Broadkasters. I love Gretsch, and those drums sound really great. I also like traditional sizes again. Remember the “power toms” back in the day? When I was in Gun N’ Roses, everything was big and deep—12x13, 13x14, and so on. Now, I’m back to a 9x13 rack tom, and 16x16 and 16x18 floor toms. Sometimes, I use a single 14x14 floor tom. The kick drums are 14 inches deep—old school. I mix it up with the snares, depending upon what room I’m in. Sometimes, I just want to use the Gretsch Bell Brass—which is a little bit dark and funky. Then, I had a Phosphorus Brass made, which has a little bit more of a crack to it than the Bell Brass. If it’s a dead room or stage, I’ll put up the Phosphorus Brass. If it’s a live stage, I either go with the wood or the Bell Brass, because I want more of a warmer sound. The Broadkaster wood snare is seven inches deep—which is like the Valley Drum Shop snares that Jeff Porcaro used to play. Do you use the Broadkaster kit for everything at present? No. For the rock gigs, I’ll break out my Gretsch USA Customs, which produce a more aggressive and defined perfection of sound. I also have some Brooklyn Series kits. They have a character that’s in the vicinity of a 1970s kind of vibe. I like having these three Gretsch series kits for different environments. Two passion projects of yours are Animals Asia and Experience Vinyl. Can you tell MD readers about them? ExperienceVinyl.com is like an online vinyl emporium that I started with my business partner, Seth Frank, who is one of the biggest distributors of vinyl records. We’ve established a vinyl community, and we’re doing really well. We have a newsletter and we spotlight a record of the month. I’m a big vinyl enthusiast. I play a lot of vinyl, and I love vinyl records. I am proud to be a United States ambassador to Animals Asia, which is a big sanctuary in Vietnam and China that rescues bears from gruesome stuff you don’t want to know about. I’m also on the board of the Dolphin Project that rescues dolphins all around the world. I’ve been working with them for about ten years. Then, there’s my charity, Adopt the Arts Foundation [adoptthearts.org], which is a response to the budget cuts to music and arts programs in the Los Angeles school system. Now that live concerts are opening up again, what does the immediate future hold for you? I had my first kid two weeks ago, and I just turned 60, so I kind of want to stay home with my wife. It’s crazy to say, because Kings of Chaos was getting bookings, but I got my buddy Kenny Aronoff to sit in for me. He’ll jump in and get it done. I’m going to take it easy—although there’s talk of me making a record with Kings of Chaos. I hope that happens—probably in the fall—and I may pick up some one off-gigs here and there. Billy and I have something else brewing that will come out soon. I have the book, and I’m releasing a beer in California that’s called The Drummer. I thought that sounded cool, and hopefully it will go nationwide in the next year or so. I’m working on a bunch of cool projects. I keep busy. Rich Scannella is the drummer for Jon Bon Jovi and the Kings of Suburbia and Tonic. He teaches at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. He can be reached at richscannella.com. Mark Maryanovich Modern Drummer September 2021 24 “Stillness” is not a term typically applied to percussion. Stuff gets hit, walloped, thrashed, pounded, and otherwise pummeled, which suggests motion and dynamic kineticism. But on her debut solo album Toinen/Other [Bandcamp], Finnish experimental-percussionist Minna Koskenlahti explores minimalist, dream-like vistas of atmosphere and emotion. Like a surrealist film director, she utilizes space, mystery, and, yes, occasional bombast as characters in her solo-percussion compositions. To create the sonic landscapes for Toinen/Other, Koskenlahti used just two percussion instruments—a frame drum and a Spanish tambore—but she also called into service metallic objects, plastic, paper, and a whistle. With these bits and pieces, she conjured a whole bunch of cinematic moments: Ominous finger Minna Koskenlahti Casting Musical Spells By Michael Molenda Photos by Mitro HärkönenSeptember 2021 Modern Drummer 25 scratches (“Havittaja/Destroyer”), soft-to-explosive dynamic shifts (“Tunto/Sense”), sorrowful groans that sound like a ship breaking apart as it sinks into the ocean (“Varjostaja/Shade”), a percussive “conversation” of questioning and affirmation (“Massa/Mass”), silence punctuated by chilling brush work (“Pura/Unsettle”), and a mournful flute (“Viimeinen/Last”). In fact, while listening to the songs, I was reminded of another minimalist opus—Simon Fisher Turner’s found-sound score for the moody 1994 arthouse movie, Nadja. While Toinen/Other establishes Koskenlahti as an experimental percussionist with magnificent artistry, she isn’t solely a percussion player. In 2018, she graduated from Sibelius Academy’s folk- music department (University of Arts, Helsinki) with a master’s degree in music. She plays a full drum kit and flute in the folk- jazz-improvisational band Barlast, lends her talents to several folk and world-music groups, performs percussion and voice with Perpetuum Lokomobile, and contributes voice and percussion to avant-garde violinist/composer Meriheini Luoto’s ensemble, Metsänpeitto. She also finds inspiration in social themes and literature—an added creative platform that imbues her music with depth and purpose. Who are some of the influences that informed your compositional approach? Norwegian percussion player Helge Norbakken has been one of the greatest influences. He was my teacher when I studied in Sibelius- Academy in Helsinki, Finland, and he opened my eyes and ears to listen and see what percussion music can be, and how it can be done. I think his playing is magic. Another one is Susie Ibarra. I admire her sounds and work a lot. A big part of my music is inspired by extra musical ideas. I have been puzzled by themes such as colonialism, post-colonialism, violence, power structures, and otherness, and my music is informed by my thoughts and feelings about these themes. Literary works by authors Sara Ahmed, Edward W. Said, and Frantz Fanon have been important influences in the music of Toinen/Other. How do you cast specific percussion instruments to manifest your musical themes? For years, it had been an ongoing process to find a good pair of drums which share the same kind of timbre, but are still somehow opposite to each other. For example, the frame drum has a great spectrum of overtones, whereas the tambore reveals less of them. When I put these drums together for the first time, it felt like there was something inspiring in their sound. There are endless ways to search for their limits and limitlessness. The music in Toinen/Other is a part of my journey with these two drums, and they are the core of the music. When crafting experimental or hypnotic music, how do you evaluate when you are weaving a seductive spell, and when a composition starts to drift into obscurity or boredom? I record myself a lot during the composition process, in order to try to make things clear enough for the listener. I think as long as there is something I want to tell the listener, and I dare to put myself all in when doing so, the music will carry. How did you typically use rhythmic structures and dynamics to tell a story? The music in Toinen/Other goes in repetitive circles. A bit like my thoughts did when I was thinking about the themes behind the music. One thought would lead to another, and then came back to the point where it all started. These circles of thoughts had different kinds of intensities in them—just like when you’re speaking to someone. I wanted to have those shifts in intensity in my playing, as well. In some parts, the dynamics changed naturally when I moved from one material to another. For example, going from metal chains to plastic, or moving from a scratching kind of playing on tambore to frame drum gave me a lot of ideas about how to use dynamics. Do you notate every gesture explicitly, or is improvisation a major part of your compositional process? Improvisation is the starting point of my compositional process. It is a tool I’ve learned to use over the years, and I feel the freedom of it feeds my eagerness to create new sounds. I do write down things such as the structure, or the starting point for improvisation. But both the structure and the materials I use are likely to change as I follow the improvisation. Modern Drummer September 2021 26 Does the purpose of space change along with each of your themes, or do you use space as the same character or voice in all of your work? I’ve noticed I tend to make music with a lot of space in it. I like to think listeners can fill in the spaces with their own thoughts. Space in music also gives me room to really dig deep into what I’m doing—to concentrate more on each individual sound. What inspired you to use plastic as an instrument in “Varjostaja”? It was the sound of it. I went through quite a few different kinds of plastic before I found a piece that was soft enough to fit the rest of the sounds in “Varjostaja.” I wanted to create a continuum of sound—even when the used material changes quite drastically. Using plastic is also a reminder for myself that the world is drowning in plastic, and I am as responsible for it as anyone else. Do you feel certain percussion instruments “speak” to the emotions of an audience—much the same as a cello, violin, or timpani might conjure images in a classical-music audience? Absolutely. I think the key is that the audience is willing and ready to listen with an open mind. When you play on a drum kit, you are very much supporting the other musicians with rhythms and punctuations, while also managing to keep a groove going. What is your approach to performing on a kit, and how does it relate to your percussion performance? My background is in Nordic folk music, and there the focus is melody—even when you are playing percussion. This has affected my drumming a lot. I’ve learned to support and follow melodies with the drums as closely as possible. You must be really awake when you’re following the melody, because you have to get into the groove the melody player has in their playing. I feel my role as a drummer changed when I started to go from simply performing beats to supporting the melodies. I have to be more in the front, and I must be more active. With percussion, my focus is still the melodies, but I don’t tend to follow them as precisely. I’m more interested in complementing the melody, and creating a kind of counterpoint. Does your flute playing also inform your approach to rhythm and percussion? I like the fragility and the soft dynamics of the flute, and I tend to seek those qualities on percussion instruments, as well. I think of rhythms as melodies, and melodies as rhythms. At one point, I worked a lot on translating speech rhythms and intonation to percussion instruments. That gave me a fresh approach to rhythm, and got me playing new kinds of things. Where do you draw your rhythmic ideas from? Indigenous music? Folk? Rock? Jazz? Classical? It is probably a mixture of all of those. More than specific rhythmic ideas, I get inspired by certain qualities that I like. It might be a well- calculated approach to rhythm in a pop song, or a minimalistic piano texture on a jazz recording. Then, I pursue those qualities in my own music. But while I have been listening a lot to indigenous peoples’ music—Khanty, Mansi, Nenets, Korjak, Yakut, and the Samí people—I am always aware of the fact I’m an outsider. I wouldn’t take their rhythms or melodies and try to make them mine. Outside the sphere of music, I draw ideas from everywhere. Last summer, I spent one month in a forest playing with trees. You could hear all kinds of fascinating rhythms made by birds and the wind. When you compose, do you visualize a theme that you want to articulate in a performance, or do you first look for rhythmic parts that interest you, and then follow them wherever they take you? My compositions are based on improvisations where I am trying to capture a given theme. But I have my ears open for rhythmic impulses in everyday situations, and those rhythmic ideas might find their way into my improvisations—which, again, give me impulses to something new. So, it’s not so easy to distinguish between the two approaches. What can drummers and percussionists who perform other styles of music take away from absorbing a work such as Toinen/Other ? I embrace the whole spectrum of percussion music—be it a loud rock and roll band, or a minimalistic piece. Music can be so many things, so trust yourself and trust what you’re doing. Koskenlahti’s Percussion Gear Schlagwerk 24" frame drum. 18" Spanish tambore, custom made by Juan Carlos Requena. Swedish Månmarkapipa wooden whistle, made by Gunnar Stenmark. Everyday materials such as plastic, paper, and pieces of metal.craviottodrums.comNext >