< PreviousModern Drummer December 2022 18 product. Because the TD-17KVX2 has an additional cymbal pad, there is also an extra balanced quarter inch cable in the box. Playing Experience Once the TD-17 module is powered on, the first drum kit preset is immediately available to play. The pad volume, sensitivity, and response adjustments are pretty good right out of the box and the internal sound samples are smile-inducing. The TD-7KVX2 comes with Roland’s new thinner V-Cymbal pads, and combined with the rich, high quality sound samples they are an absolute joy to hit at the end of a drum fill, play light colorful ride patterns across the bow and bell, or even choke the edge like a traditional cymbal. The performance of the VH-10 hi hat when paired with a standard hi hat stand is impressive. I was able to easily use nuanced hi hat techniques and sounds like heel–toe splashes and sloshy open hats. I won’t go so far to say that the hi hat feels completely natural, but it does feel very familiar, and I was able to dial-in a better response by simply increasing the sensitivity within the TD-17’s interface. The KD-10 kick drum pad feels nice whether you bury the beater or let the beater rebound. The one I was testing had a little more movement than I would’ve liked, but again, that is easily eliminated by a good drum rug and secured pedal. In my opinion the PDX-12 snare pad adds value to this kit. The larger size is reminiscent of an acoustic drum and the rubberized rim is at just the right height to allow a comfortable rim shot. The fact that you can adjust the tension of the double-mesh head makes it that much more appealing. Each of the PDX-8 tom pads mount nicely to the rack system and can be maneuvered into a comfortable playing position with minimal effort. They also have mesh heads, rubberized rims, and the same great response as the PDX-12. The shallow depth of the pads can be advantageous in situations where overlapping the lower drums will reduce the overall footprint of the drum kit. Working with the TD-17 Sound Module At first glance the TD-17 sound module looks very simple. It is indeed really simple to just plug it in and start playing with the library of preset drum kits including the 20 new kits that have been added to the TD-17KVX2. The interface is clean and some of the most used features are easily accessible from the knobs and buttons on the face of the unit. However, there are also some very powerful features hiding just below the surface. These tools make the TD-17 a great tool for building better chops, crafting your own unique samples, and creating great music. For example, the built-in coaching features are great for all skill levels. I personally love the Quiet Count feature, which loops an audible click for a specified number of measures, followed by a measure or two of silence until the loop restarts. This can be a real wake up call for drummers who assume they have good time but aren’t used to practicing to a click. Other coaching features include Time Check and Warm Ups, which are definitely useful and worth exploring. If you’d rather practice or play along to music, you have a few options. There are several songs embedded into the unit and you can change certain parameters such as tempo and mix volume. You can load and save songs via the SD card port on the side of the unit. Of course, my favorite method of playing along to music is simply pairing with an external Bluetooth source such as a smartphone or tablet and just streaming my favorite playlist from a music app such as Spotify or Apple music. For this application, the TD-17 module has a convenient recessed slot at the top of the unit to hold a smart phone while you play. If creating unique sounds is your thing, you can manipulate the sampled sounds that are assigned to each pad by tuning, muffling, adding effects, layering and more. The possibilities are endless. You can also import your own sounds if desired. Once you’ve perfected your sounds, you can record a performance using the physical record button on the unit and export the recording to an SD card. Roland also boasts that you can further develop your playing and time with the free Melodics for V-Drums software. You can also expand your range with sounds, samples, and artist kits, from the Roland Cloud. My Experiment Let me preface this by saying, the following is in no way a practical use for the TD-17KVX2 due to the cost of the unit, but it was a fun experiment. Anyway, because the PDX-12 snare pad is similar in size to my Real Feel pad, I decided to try using it as a practice pad while on a day trip. I also brought the TD-17 sound module which I was able to power using a power inverter. The pad sat firmly on my lap and was actually very comfortable to play. The pad plugged in to the aux input on the module and I was able to assign sounds, play with head tensions and other settings to dial-in the best response. I also used the coaching features to practice. This time also gave me a chance to dig deeper into the multi effects and explore the layering features which allow triggering of multiple sounds per pad at specific sensitivity levels. In Conclusion The Roland TD-17KVX2 is a great option for someone who is looking to practice, perform, be inspired, and rapidly improve their skills. It’s perfect for someone looking for full-featured electronic drums that sound great, feel like acoustic drums, have a smaller footprint, and are reasonably priced. Here is an additional unboxing and set up video of Modern Drummer reviewing this set. The TD-17KVX2 currently retails for $2,099. Roland.comAvailable in print and digital format at moderndrummer.comor from your favorite music retailer DIGITAL DOWNLOAD CODE INSIDE 80 pages of extensive and new in-depth interviews Exclusive Erskine Recordings Pictorials of Weather Report, Peter And Friends, The Early Years Peter’s analysis and insights on 40 + pages of drum transcriptions Digital Download Component EXCLUSIVE PHOTO SECTIONS! DIGITAL DOWNLOAD CODE INSIDE DIGITAL DOWNLOAD CODE INSIDE Everything you ever wanted to know about Hi Hat Rhythms. Infinate patterns to play all styles of music. DIGITAL DOWNLOAD CODE INSIDE Brand new content and interviews Insight, analysis and drum transcriptions The Fabric of Rhythm drum solo recordings MD archive of Steve’s cover/feature interviews Photos/analysis of Smith’s drumsets through the years DIGITAL DOWNLOAD CODE INSIDE Legends Applying the Moeller Technique to the Bass Drum By Michael Packer The Bass Drum Owners Manual BASS DRUM OWNERS MANUAL LYING THE MOELLER TECHNIQUE TO THE BASS DRUM ICHAEL PACKER MODERNDRUMMER.COM DIGITAL DVD DOWNLOAD INCLUDEDModern Drummer December 2022 20 Antonio Sanchez A Bad Hombre Migrating Towards a Shift By Mark Gri ith A ntonio Sanchez’s career is going through a bit of a “shift.” (Which is actually the name of his new record.) Years ago, the drummer who recorded and toured as a side musician with Paquito D’ Rivera, Michael Brecker, Pat Metheny, Gary Burton, and Chick Corea made his first shift and became a bandleader. That resulted in the release of nine recordings as a leader and the formation his first band called Migration. Some of those albums have featured noted jazz musicians such as Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Joe Lovano, John Scofield, Brad Mehldau, Donny McCaslin, Chris Potter, and others. However, in 2014 another major shift occurred in Antonio’s career. He was asked to write the music for the Oscar winning film Birdman, for which he created an original concept and score that featured only drums. While drummers and movie watchers celebrated Antonio’s artistic vision, the film world tried to recover from the shock of a solo drumming score for a major movie. Fernando AcevesDecember 2022 Modern Drummer 21Modern Drummer December 2022 22 The shift continued... With prior training in classical piano and composition at the conservatory in Mexico and a strong interest in modern technology for creating, scoring, and recording music, Antonio kept pushing. His 2017 recording Bad Hombre was a reaction to the political atmosphere, and an opportunity to create new music in his home studio where he could design sounds, manipulate recordings, and ultimately take charge of his entire creative and recording process. For Bad Hombre he recorded and edited his own drum improvisations and layered them with soundscapes and textures, elevating the sonic experience of his rhythmic ideas. Those improvisations-turned-compositions reflected his feelings around the treatment of immigrants and the growing problems facing society. This process of expression appealed to Antonio in a way that was diff erent from his experiences recording and touring with jazz legends and leading his band Migration. This new creative process was drastically diff erent from the music that he had envisioned in the past. No longer did compositions have to come from melody and harmony; compositions could be based on pure vibe, feeling and the discovery of new sounds. When the pandemic hit, (like the rest of us,) Antonio had a lot of time on his hands. While the rest of the world watched movies on Netflix, and learned how to make sourdough bread, Antonio was busy scoring the music for television shows and movies and learning how to create and record beautiful music at home. Adding to his award-winning work on Birdman, his film and TV credits now include Get Shorty, and Hippopotamus for EPIX, the feature film Harami, HBO’s The Anarchists, and the list is growing. All of this is what has led up to Antonio’s wonderful and fascinating new record called SHIFT Bad Hombre Vol II. This is a recording that combines everything that has happened throughout his musical career, and the resulting music is simply spectacular. MD: This is one of the most interesting records that I have heard in a while. It is nothing like your Migration records, it isn’t even like its immediate predecessor Bad Hombre. When I first heard it, I thought I was listening to a Nine Inch Nails or a Peter Gabriel record, and (from me) praise doesn’t get any higher than a comparison to Peter Gabriel. AS: Thanks, Peter is one of my favorites as well. I am hoping that this record resonates with people, because it was three years in the making. MD: Your recordings in the past both as a sideman and as a bandleader have always had a certain “big-ness” to them. Your earlier recordings with Donny McCaslin and David Gilmore helped create a large musical landscape. Even if we go all of the way back to Michael Brecker’s Quindectet, and fast forward to Pat Metheny Group’s The Way Up and Speaking of Now; you seem to attract music that is presented on a big canvas. AS : I have always loved music that was big, has depth, and is presented with a wide scope. I like that in movies, books, and music. My first love was rock and roll music, and listening to ambitious records by Led Zeppelin, Rush, The Police, Tears for Fears… made a huge impression on me. I have also always liked concept albums. Today, there is so much music being created that it is hard to cut through the noise. I think one way to do that is to make music that is well thought out. Sometimes I think that some jazz records are just thrown together. Get everyone together in a studio, everybody brings a tune, sight reads the music, you mix and master it the next day, and it comes out in a month. That can be great, and the playing can be amazing, but to me music can be so much more, and artists should do a lot more than that now. The amount of preparation, time, eff ort, and love you put into something is going to be directly proportional to how much people are going to want to check it out. Now we have the tools at home to do post-production, mixing, mastering. When I started taking control of my own albums, productions, and mixes, doors began to open that were not previously available to me. MD : How did you start taking control and opening those doors? AS : I started with getting some of the right gear. After the success of Birdman, I started to get off ers to do some more film scores. I bought a house and the gear at the same time, so there was a pretty steep learning curve. I was terrified, but pressure can work magic. That magic resulted in my learning that I could do a lot of things that I couldn’t do before. Suddenly I had the space, I had the gear, and I wanted to do something of my own. That’s how the first Bad Hombre record came about. Suddenly I was editing, splicing takes, reversing waveforms, and just experimenting with music and technology. When there was something that I couldn’t do, I would ask someone, or simply go on YouTube to figure things out. There was a lot of trial and error, but I found that it was such a liberating way of making music. With my band Migration, I would sit at the piano, write melodies and harmony, write out the charts, rehearse the band, and record the music. It was “the usual process.” But with this new process, I could base everything around sounds and production. It was a whole new way of creating music that I had never experimented with before. It was like moving from black and white to color. December 2022 Modern Drummer 23 Fernando AcevesModern Drummer December 2022 24 MD : What is your home studio workspace like? AS: I work on a Mac with Native Instruments, Spitfire, Spectrasonics and Teletone plug-ins among others. I have a lot of software instruments creating wonderful string, percussion, and guitar sounds. I have some Apollo interfaces so I can record drums in 16 channels. I have plenty of good mics, a few keyboards, midi controllers, real string instruments (guitars, basses, ukulele, mandolin, oud), my main drum kit which is a Yamaha PHX with Remo drumheads, lots of Zildjian cymbals, and miscellaneous percussion. I write on Logic and record to ProTools. Logic can be a little friendlier to write with, but when I record and edit, it’s always in ProTools. For musicians nowadays, there is no excuse to not be doing this kind of stuff. MD : Your career seemed to change with the release of New Life and the creation of your band Migration. With those recordings your music just seemed to get bigger, and your musical scope got bigger too. AS : My band Migration can do anything musically, but I also like experimenting with side projects. Through working with Pat Metheny, I really started to become aware of the model that Pat developed throughout the years. He had the Pat Metheny Group playing big music, and then in between he would release a “small” group record. MD: Like Rejoicing (with Billy Higgins,) Question and Answer (with Roy Haynes,) Trio (with Bill Stewart,) or Day Trip (with you.) AS : Yes, I love those records, but then he would go back and do a Pat Metheny Group record. He was always moving between different bands and special projects of his own. MD : I always admired how Chick Corea did that, or musicians like Ralph Peterson, Joe Lovano, and Dave Douglas. AS : Exactly. But today, that is a lot tougher to do than it was in the past. You can overexpose yourself by touring with a bunch of different bands. Unfortunately, as a band leader on my level, you are forced to commit yourself to a single project, in order to not confuse the listeners or the promoters. I hate the fact that I have to hold back on different projects because I don’t want to confuse people. I toured last year with a quartet featuring Donny McCaslin, Miguel Zenon, and Scott Colley. It was two saxophones, bass, and drums. I love that instrumentation, but I am on such a mission with the Bad Hombre project now, that I just had to leave that quartet alone. MD : Did the Birdman project lead you into this new realm? AS: Without Birdman, I probably wouldn’t have done any of this. This direction isn’t something that I was looking for. I’ve always loved movies, but I never had the aspirations to create music for movies. Then Birdman happened. With some exploration and experimentation, I found out that I was good at creating music for movies. Then I got a few more offers. Writing film music can be stressful and disappointing at times. You are creating music for somebody else, and what you are enamored with musically, doesn’t really matter. It’s ultimately up to the director, film studio, or producer to decide if your music is creating the right mood for that scene in the movie. Because there are a lot of people involved, there are often a lot of different opinions on what your music should sound like. Quite often, those different opinions will be contradictory, and you (as the composer and performer) have to find a way to please everybody. MD : However, as drummers and side-musicians, isn’t that what we are doing most of the time anyway? AS: Yes, but with film scoring you are dealing with that in composition, and if you are up against the clock, it can be very Fernando AcevesDecember 2022 Modern Drummer 25 daunting. It’s nice when I can work directly with the director or the creator, but that’s not always possible. It’s tough when you have been working on a piece of music all day (or week,) and a music editor or one of the producers voices an opinion that changes everything. There is a lot of second guessing in the process, and it can be very frustrating. That’s why I like to work directly with the director. On the other hand, it’s also nice to stay home and compose in my studio and not have the financial and personal stress of constant touring. It’s getting really tough for musicians. Barely anyone buys records anymore, streaming revenue is non-existent, promoter and venue fees are going up, musician fees are going down, record companies are treating musicians horribly, and most venues even request a percentage of artist merch sales. MD: Let’s talk about the new record. Is the subtitle of the new SHIFT Bad Hombre Vol II an acknowledgement of this shift in your career trajectory and career focus? AS: A little bit. It’s also a play on words because songwriters gave me their songs to use, and I shifted them into my own musical realm. MD : You created a completely new process to write the music for this record, let’s talk about the interesting way that you created these new songs. AS : I have always been a fan of a good story. I love a good book, a good movie, or a song that has a great story. It’s a real art form to tell a story in a short amount of time. You have to be concise and deep at the same time, which I’m a sucker for. Storytelling has to have an arc, characters, motivic development, and you have to remember said characters so you can refer back to them. In music, dynamics and space also help you tell a story. When you analyze Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy, and Berg you see and hear how they wrote full symphonies from developing one idea. I used to think that radically different styles of music (classical, rock, and jazz) had no musical relationships. But as a more mature person and musician, I now realize that it’s all the same thing. All good music has the same elements, and if it doesn’t have those elements, and if it doesn’t tell a story, it’s probably not good music. MD: I use the term “plot line” with students so much, they must think they are taking a literature class. AS : That’s what it’s all about. When you play, what are you talking about? What are you trying to say? And if YOU don’t know what you are trying to say, then how will the audience? Musicians wonder why people at their gigs are paying more attention to their phones than they are to the music. The way to grab people’s attention is to be very clear when you are telling a story. In the case of SHIFT Bad Hombre II, I asked some of my favorite musical storytellers to provide me with a story. That story could be old or new, it didn’t matter. This was during the pandemic, so I knew that most of these songwriters would be home. I was sure that these particular songwriters would give me songs that had depth and were challenging. I knew their songs would focus on issues that are important to me like social justice, human rights, women’s rights, mental health, addiction, etc. These are things we are all battling as a human race and as individuals. I told each of them that I was going to completely re-imagine the musical elements of their songs, and I asked their permission to do that. I kept the integrity of their songs, but I re-imagined everything around the vocals, the harmony, and the instrumentation. My idea was to have the drums and the voice on equal grounds. I wanted to not only surprise the listeners, but I wanted to surprise the songwriters with the end results. My goal was to help them see their own song in a completely different way. These weren’t collaborations because there really wasn’t a back and forth between the songwriters and me. I reharmonized and rearranged the songs, completely changed the basic drumbeat ideas, and I tried to take sonic paths with the production that were not obvious or expected when I re- imagined their tunes. MD: A lot of great songwriters agreed to let you do this. AS : Thankfully, yes. In the case of Dave Matthews, he gave me the full multi-track recording of the session for “Eh Hee.” I extracted his voices, and I went to work. His version is very linear, and entirely in 4/4. I edited his vocals to be much more hypnotic. The new version wound up having all sorts of bars in odd-times but it really flowed. I also asked Pat Metheny to play a crazy guitar solo in the middle to round things off. I always want to do justice to each song, but I also wanted to give the songwriter a real surprise when they heard their composition again for the first time. The first song that I did was Silvan Estrada’s “El Agua y la Miel.” I had seen her perform that song in Mexico with only her voice and her Quatro guitar. I immediately thought that I could have so much fun re-imagining her tune. I asked her permission after the concert, and she made a recording of her singing and playing the song with a click track, and (again,) I went to work. When she heard my final version, she was amazed that her song could “do” what the final version “did.” She was thrilled that I took a simple and beautiful song that was very linear in its construction and made it big and epic. When I approached Trent Reznor, he managed to find the time to record something new for me. I couldn’t believe it! He recorded some vocals with Atticus Ross playing synths. The song was atmospheric, dreamlike and really cinematic. Maybe he thought that I was going to record some Birdman-like drums on it, I’m not sure. But I kept hearing it as a really powerful industrial rock anthem, so I ran with that. It took a while to finish but when I played him the final version, I told him that I had nothing but respect for his music because Nine Inch Nails are some of the most respected “sonic- conceptualizers” out there. Happily, he loved my re-imagination of his song, and he connected me with his engineer so we could finish the mix together. It was an incredible experience to have all of this raw material from these incredible storytellers and to be allowed to run with the stories that they created. It was a producer’s dream. MD : Talk about the track that you did with Meshell Ndegeocello, “Comet Come to Me.” AS : Meshell is one of my heroes. She is incredible in so many ways, a singer, a producer, a composer. Her first three records are definite desert island albums to me. I listen to them all of the time. I am still amazed how big and beautiful they are. Gene Lake’s drum parts on the first two are genius. I really wanted Meshell on this record. She sent me a few things that she had already recorded, but “Comet Come I used to think that radically different styles of music (classical, rock, and jazz) had no musical relationships. But as a more mature person and musician, I now realize that it’s all the same thing. Modern Drummer December 2022 26 to Me” really resonated with me. She sent me vocals, a little bit of bass, click track, and lots of space. I couldn’t really make total sense of it in the beginning. I originally looked up the song to give me a reference point, but I couldn’t find it online, so I figured it was a demo of an unrecorded tune. I listened to what she sent me a lot, and finally found my way in. After I finished it, I sent it to my manager and his assistant. They told me that the Bad Hombre version was so different from the original… I was quite surprised, “what original?” It turns out that when I looked it up online, I must have spelled something incorrectly. I never heard (or even knew) the original version. But in retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t hear it because it would have influenced me to approach the song in a completely different way. Thankfully, Meshell was also very pleased with how it came out. I think the most poignant story on the entire record is Becca Stevens’ song called “The Bucket.” When I first approached her, she asked me what the album was about, and I told her that the general mission behind Bad Hombre was social justice. She sent me the text of a soliloquy from a play that inmates at the Oregon State Penitentiary had written and won an award for. That soliloquy was penned by a man named Sterling Cunio who was involved in a double homicide at age 16, for which he received two consecutive life sentences and spent 26 years in prison, including nine years in intermittent solitary confinement. While in prison he began learning to read and write poetry. Through the process, he became a model inmate, found a way to save his own soul, and to help others. Becca wrote a gorgeous melody and harmony to his text. She asked me if I wanted her to add a drum part to the song, and I told her “absolutely not!” since I was trying to surprise her with my treatment of the tune. Her version was very folky and really beautifully crafted. I took her guitar out in the beginning and left her voice a cappella. Then I started adding all sorts of crazy drum beats around her voice and reharmonizing the melody with different string and keyboard instruments. I brought her original guitar tracks back in towards the middle of the song. I think she was startled by my version at first, but by the end of the song she loved what I had done with her amazing rendition. Once the song was finished we realized that we needed permission from Sterling Cunio to use his words. Thanks to the fact that Becca’s husband (Nate Schram) has a foundation that brings music to prisons, we were able to get in touch with him in prison. We spoke to him, showed him the song through the phone and he was honored and humbled that we had chosen his words and story, and he granted us the permission we needed. It was a crazy experience! However, to make things even more amazing, I found out that after SHIFT came out in August 2022, Sterling’s sentence had been commuted by the governor of Oregon in November of 2021. Now Sterling is now a free man, and he is helping other ex-inmates adapt to civilian life after prison. He is still creating poetry and literature and continuing to do positive things. It’s an incredible story of redemption, and I’m glad his words inspired the song. MD : Was there anyone that didn’t like your treatments or final versions? AS : Luckily, no. MD : Were there any songs that you got into, and completely rethought your approach in mid-stream? Therefore, changing your approach to create a completely different treatment from what you had originally conceived? AS: Yes, that happened on every song! I did this all during the pandemic, so I would start a song with one approach, then completely rethink it and do something else, and then go back to my original idea, and so on… I had time, and I was constantly aware of the pressure of having this amazing story from a great songwriter and having to create something that would be worthy of the tune and the artist. My main thoughts the entire time were, “What is the artist going to think when they hear my treatment of their story?” MD : No pressure… Did anyone ask for additional musical guidance from you, regarding what you wanted from them? AS : Both Ana Tijoux (the incredible hip hop artist from Chile’) and Lila Downs (the amazing Mexican singer,) both asked me to send them a drum beat for them to use as inspiration. They just wanted to get a vibe of what I wanted but the most collaborative process came with “Trapped (Red Room)” with my wife Thana Alexa. With that one we had the luxury of going back and forth since we were living under the same roof and I really went all in with the drum production. MD : Did any of the artists tell you that they felt any pressure supplying stories and songs to you? AS : No. I am the least “famous” (or “known”) musician on this record! (laughs). I told each of them that I would work with whatever they would give me to use. Some people sent me ideas that were very short. That meant that I had to lengthen what they had given me and create new musical sections within their story. The song that Rodrigo y Gabriela sent called “M-Power” was very short. I created a completely new outro and placed their guitar parts at different places throughout the song. They were probably the most surprised of anyone when they heard the final version of their song. Their style of rhumba-flamenco usually has very “inside” harmony but when I rearranged it, I added a lot of extended harmony, in the end I think they dug it. MD: That was the most surprising track on the record to me, it sounds like “Mexican Mahavishnu” (laughs...)With all of the tracks that ProTools can provide, and all of those sounds at your fingertips, and acting as your own producer, how could you tell when each tack was done? AS : Great question, that is an issue sometimes. Luckily, I did this record during the pandemic, and I had the luxury of time. I lived with this project for almost three years so I had the advantage of being able to listen to each track for a long time and then come back a week later to see how it sounded after I had been away from it for a bit. I would add or subtract whatever seemed right. When I heard that something was missing, I could tell it wasn’t finished. However, sometimes I would add something, and it would fail miserably so I would remove whatever I had added. It’s all so subjective. MD : It’s important to note that you had the time to make those mistakes, and that can be a real luxury. Sometimes it’s hard when there isn’t the extra set of “unemotional” ears of a producer to help with that subjectivity. AS : Although I didn’t have a producer, I did have Thana here to bounce ideas off, she is a great musician. Since we were both My idea was to have the drums and the voice on equal grounds. I wanted to not only surprise the listeners, but I wanted to surprise the songwriters with the end results. December 2022 Modern Drummer 27 “trapped” here together during the pandemic, she was a constant collaborator, especially on the song that she and I wrote called “Trapped (Red Room),” and on the other song that she wrote with her trio SONICA called “Doyenne.” On my song “Waiting” I had originally recorded scratch vocals but really wanted Thom Yorke (from Radiohead) to sing on it. When I couldn’t make contact with his management, I ended up just leaving my voice in there since I didn’t think it sounded that bad. MD : It must have been terrifying when you gave the finals back to the composers. AS: Absolutely. It was like people were trusting me to babysit their children, and instead I did plastic surgery on their kids. With Dave Matthews, I sent him the track, and I didn’t hear from him for two weeks, so I started getting a bad feeling that he had heard it and didn’t like it. Then one day I got a barrage of texts from him telling me that he finally had time to listen and that he loved it. We even ended up doing a whole video for it! MD : Although with most people, if they don’t like something they will tell you that immediately. AS : That is true. Dave Matthews told me that since I had written so much music around his song, that he wanted to give me writing credit, so we renamed the new version “Eh Hee 2.0.” Trent gave me writing credit too, which is absolutely crazy to me. I’m a drummer, and here I was working with all these rock star songwriters. It was a humbling process. MD : It sounds to me like besides being a drummer, you are becoming a really good arranger, although you are not arranging in the traditional way. AS : I often think of it as creating extreme remixes. I have both strengths and weaknesses as (what people call) a multi- instrumentalist. I don’t call myself that, I would never appear on a stage with a guitar but at home with no one watching, I can put enough little things together that it can start to sound good to me. I also sang a lot of background vocals on many of these tracks. When something sounds good to me, I get excited, then I hear more things, and then I keep going and going and going… For this record, I really wanted to use the drums as a production tool. When you hear well produced rock records like Peter Gabriel So, U2 The Joshua Tree, Led Zeppelin Physical Graffitti, or Tears for Fears The Seeds of Love, you hear tons of guitars, many tracks of voices, and layers of synths and keyboards. But you usually hear only one drum set part. Sure, there might be a drum machine, some percussion, or a loop, but there’s usually only one actual drum kit. I challenged that by asking, “Why can’t I use the drums like someone else would use a guitar or keyboards?” I started playing one kit and layering that kit four or five times. The results were huge sounding drum tracks. Then, (for instance) I would create a different and super compressed part that was panned hard left. Then I did another part with delays that was panned hard right. Then I would create a super trashy drum part that I could move around in the mix at different times. MD: That sounds like a lot of tracks. AS : There were! I used the Yamaha EAD microphone for recording all of these different stereo drum tracks, so I wouldn’t have to use 16 tracks for every different drum set. On Trent Reznor’s tune, the verses have a very dislocated drum part so I recorded a few different linear sounding eighth note grooves for that. I layered them and panned them really wide. Then I started muting different sounds randomly so what you hear on the track is all of these eighth notes sort of Fernando AcevesNext >