< PreviousModern Drummer December 2022 28 bouncing around the stereo field randomly. Then when we get to the chorus and things get really big, I have two drum kits (one panned to each side) playing very similar parts. As a drummer it’s a really gratifying way to have a lot of drums on a track without having to include a drum solo. I wanted to use other techniques besides solos to make the drums stand out, and for the listener to really feel them. MD : Often, the drums are not the driving force in this kind of music. There is a drum part, but it’s usually not very present in the mix or the arrangement. But with SHIFT Bad Hombre II, the many tracks of drums are a musical motivator and a main production tool in the music. That leads me to ask, are you playing some of this music live? How is your creative process transferring to the stage? AS : We are playing ALL of this music live. That was one of the most daunting aspects of this project. If we played this music with a standard quartet, it would be cool, but it would sound like an “unplugged” version of the record, and I didn’t want that. We are playing the music with a quartet but it’s not your standard quartet. Thana Alexa is singing (and rapping!) all of the lyrics, and she is using live looping and effects to create all of the different vocal parts. We are playing live with a click, and we are using some tracks of the parts that are essential, like some synth parts that are on the songs that just fatten everything up. That means that pianist BIGYUKI is free to really play keyboards, as opposed to just playing parts. Lex Sadler is the bassist, and he is playing keyboard bass as well and manipulating the tracks in real time. I also kept some of the original voices from the album so that you hear Dave Matthews or Trent sort of doing backgrounds for Thana. Some of the original drum parts were kept in there too to double what I play live and make it sound bigger. MD : What is the relationship between the first Bad Hombre record and this one. They seem like very different records. AS: They are completely different. I did the first one during the Trump candidacy. Many people might remember the speech that he made saying “we have some bad hombres here and we have to get them, out.” I came here from Mexico to try to excel at what I do, and hearing him say those things about Mexicans created a very traumatic time in my and many others’ lives. I had a lot of anger and frustration about those words, and I took my emotions right to the drum set. I spent many days improvising on the drums and recording, not thinking about anything like tunes or solos. It was pure stream of consciousness improvising. Then I went back and started to edit parts of my improvisations together to create concise performances. I started adding all sorts of electronics and layered sounds around my drums and I ran with that process. I had no outside help or input for that record so it was just me. I like the combination of acoustic drums and electronic instruments, and I enjoy bridging those two worlds. That entire process (and my Bad Hombre alter ego) really liberated my creative process from doing records in the way that I had previously been working. That liberation led to SHIFT Bad Hombre Vol. II. MD: Apart from the new processes that you created for the Bad Hombre records, how does you background in classical piano help in your compositional process? How do you compose? AS: Without the piano I don’t know how I could ever compose anything. Sometimes I hear a melody and I go to the piano to extract it. I hear a bass line, chord changes or sometimes a drum groove. Those are usually my initial building blocks. Some of my more recent records have been pretty ambitious compositionally. The Meridian Suite, is one long composition from beginning to end for which I used all of my different musical motifs as different characters that I wanted to bring back throughout the piece. By the end of the suite those characters had been completely transformed by what had happened musically. That album was inspired by The Pat Metheny Group’s The Way Up. MD : How do the two sides of your musical personality the “Bad Hombre” and the (for lack of a better term) “jazz drummer,” affect each I had to learn how to play really, really, softly, yet with intensity. Which is the hardest thing to do. Fernando AcevesDecember 2022 Modern Drummer 29 other? AS: The Bad Hombre way of creating music can be very random and crazy, like the first record. But I think my knowledge of jazz and musical structure and harmony gave the first Bad Hombre album consistency and form. I think my study of classical music and jazz has informed everything that I do, and my goals to tell a story and create an emotional connection, remain. MD: How did working with Pat Metheny influence you? AS : Pat Metheny has influenced me in many ways. His work ethic is infectious. The way that Pat will painstakingly prepare, compose, produce, and edit each record is an eye-opening experience. Seeing someone that is so established, work so hard, and be so careful when he is creating a record, is amazing. I also learned a lot by watching Pat put sets together. They are never random. He always knows what he’s going to play next, he knows where he is playing each tune and why each tune is placed where it is. How you put a set list together has a huge effect on people. When I am leading my band, I always think about where I am going to talk, how long I should talk, and what I am going to tell them about the music. People deserve to get a great show, not just a bunch of guys playing “great.” When we were recording Speaking of Now, Pat told me that he thought people liked the Pat Metheny Group records because of the sheer amount of information there is in each tune. We did multiple takes of every tune, he reminded me that we were creating important music, and he was adamant about his belief that it had to be done perfectly. Coming from the musical world of jazz where you often do an entire album in one day, to the musical world of Pat Metheny where we were doing one track a day was a luxury. We had a long time to really work on every song. Coming from that experience, I started to take several days to record each of my records. I would have mock- ups of tunes, create midi maps and tempo mapping for each song. MD : Do you use a click for the Migration records? AS: Yes, it makes it easier to edit them. But I would manipulate and move the click around, so the music never felt stiff. I learned that from Pat. MD: Before we move on from Pat. The record Tap is just you and Pat playing duets, I love that record! What can you tell me about Tap? AS : That is one of my favorite records with Pat. Obviously it’s just me and Pat, but we are playing music that is composed by John Zorn. He created melodic and rhythmic cells that Pat and I expanded on and then did a lot of post production to it. The nature of that music was just so open, so daring, and just so different from what Pat usually does. MD : How does Pat bring music to the Pat Metheny Group? Does he bring demos, or big scores, or structures? AS : I’ve been with him for 21 years and it has changed over time. I’m also the only drummer he’s ever used that has played on virtually every project he’s done. Since I joined in 2001 I have been in The Pat Metheny Group, Trio with Christian McBride, The Unity Band, The Unity Group, The Quartet with Gary Burton, and now this most recent quartet with Linda May Han Oh and Gwilym Simcock. So I have done lots of different music with Pat, and each context is different but with the Pat Metheny Group he would usually give us demos that we could practice with. MD: Speaking of hard music, you did a beautiful record with Billy Childs called Autumn: In Moving Pictures. AS: That is another of my favorite records. You’re right that is some really difficult music. Since I have started my full-time bandleader thing, it has taken me away from recording with more people and doing more different projects. But I came to the realization that I can’t do all of the things that I want to do and at the level that I want to do them, if I keep spreading myself too thin. And that is exactly what was happening. MD : The Chick Corea record Dr. Joe is another favorite of mine. How did working with Chick Corea influence you? AS : Chick was my “gateway drug” into jazz. I was coming from listening to rock music so when I heard the Chick Corea Electric band it was mind boggling and life changing. It became a dream to someday play with Chick. After I joined Pat’s band we did a quartet tour with Pat, Michael Brecker, Christian McBride, and myself. We played a few gigs with Chick’s band, and I told Chick, “I don’t want to die without ever playing with you, so if there is ANYTHING ever that we could do, I’m THERE!” Eventually we did a bunch of gigs together, and not only was he gracious enough to play on my first record (Migration,) but he wrote two tunes. What did I learn from him? Work ethic. I admired how prolific he was. He was just like a cat that you could throw into the air and would always land on his four feet. That was Chick. He could put the strangest combinations of people together, and through his piano playing, he would make it work. He was daring, fearless, and he always had a smile on his face when he played. He enjoyed the musical process of getting into trouble and finding a way out of it. MD: One of your first gigs was with pianist Danilo Perez what did you learn from him? AS : I really learned about dynamics from playing with Danilo. We would often be playing in big rooms with bad acoustics (like churches.) And I would be playing backline drums that weren’t really set up for jazz. I had to learn how to adjust to those situations, and I had to learn how to play really, really, softly, yet with intensity. Which is the hardest thing to do. MD : I always refer to that as, “Burn hot on a low flame,” and yes, it is really hard, but very useful... What did you learn from playing with Michael Brecker? AS : Just the process of playing duets with Michael Brecker and being in the eye of his hurricane was amazing. Although you were in the middle of all of this energy that Michael was creating, you knew everything was going to be fine. The first time that I played with Michael I was aware of the drummers who had played with him like Jack DeJohnette and Jeff Watts. I was trying to emulate that energy, and I thought that I had overdone it. I asked him about it after the gig and he said, “No you can always play more.” Then I asked him for I like to try and find out why people sound the way they do. For example, why does Jack DeJohnette sound different from Roy Haynes. If you can figure out those differences, then you can summon that energy and apply it to your playing. Modern Drummer December 2022 30 some suggestions, and he said, “If I felt as though I needed to give you suggestions, you wouldn’t be here.” Some bandleaders are very eager to give a lot of direction, but some aren’t. I try to use that same approach with my music. I give people a little bit of direction, then I let them be free within the music. MD : I sometimes get a little messed up by knowing the drummers who have done a specific gig before me. How aware are you of the drummers who have done a gig before you? For example, with Pat there was Danny Gottlieb and Paul Wertico before you. With Gary Burton, there was Bob Moses, Roy Haynes, Michael Hyman, and many others… AS : I am always hyper-aware of who has done a gig before me. I am never really trying to copy anyone, but I am always trying to bring a similar energy. Because of that, in the past I would try to force things that weren’t natural. But now I’m older and I realize that I am what I am. Now I am much more secure with who I am, and I have realized that I can’t be anyone else. When I first joined Pat, we were playing material that both Danny and Paul had played. I obviously had to bring some of their energy to the gig in my own way. I know Pat was fairly uncomfortable when I joined the group because the older material sounded weird to him since I had a such a diff erent sound and approach from Danny and Paul. When I listen to my first record with Pat (Speaking of Now) I hear myself trying to please, instead of someone who is sounding like himself. By the time we did The Way Up, Pat was more used to me, I was more used to the band and everything I did sounded like it belonged. When I was playing with Gary Burton in the quartet with Steve Swallow and Pat, Pat would play a long solo of six or seven choruses, and then Gary would play a couple of choruses and create a perfect solo. Pat and I would look at him and wonder how he did that. That taught me that you can tell a story in a short amount of time, and still tell the story very well. MD : That Quartet record that you just mentioned is one of my favorites. You sound very Roy Haynes-ish on that. How influential is Roy Haynes on your playing? AS: He is one of my biggest influences. I should get sued because of the amount of stuff that I have stolen from Roy, but I think that’s healthy. Stealing ideas is fine but trying to copy other players can be dangerous because you wind up sounding like a bad copy. I like to try and find out why people sound the way they do. For example, why does Jack DeJohnette sound diff erent from Roy Haynes. If you can ANTONIO’S GEAR DRUMS : Yamaha PHX 14” × 18” Bass Drum 5” x 14” Signature Snare 14” x5.5” Loud Snare Drum 10” x 12” Tom 13” x 14” Floor Tom 15” x 16” Floor Tom CYMBALS : Zildjian 14” old A Hi-Hats 10” A Custom EFX (top) over 14” Mini China (bottom) Stack 22” K Constantinople Medium Thin Low Ride 16” EFX Crash 8” A Custom Splash (top) over 8” A Custom Splash (bottom) Stack 21” Vintage K Ride (with a missing chunk) 14” Mini China (top) over 16” Trashformer (bottom) Stack 6” inverted A Custom Splash (top) over 18 Prototype Crash with holes (bottom) 12” Special Recording Hi-Hat top (top) over 14” Trashformer (bottom Stack 20” K Constantinople Ride STICKS : Zildjian brushes and Antonio Sanchez model sticks. HARDWARE : Yamaha. HEADS : Remo, Bass drum: Coated Ambassador batter/Yamaha single-ply logo head; Snare and Toms: Coated Ambassador X batter, Clear Ambassador resonant. HOME STUDIO: iMac with Avid Pro Tools, HD 12, Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S88 weighted keyboard controller, Avid Artist Mix control surface, two Universal Audio Apollo 8 Thunderbolt audio interfaces, a pair of Yamaha HS8 powered studio monitors, and a host of plug-ins (Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere, Spitfire Audio, Teletone Audio, Soundtoys, and miscellaneous plugins.) KEYBOARDS : Kawai Electric Piano, Moog Matriarch, Moog SubPhatty, Prophet REV2, Korg Kaoss Pad. GUITARS : Pat Metheny Signature Guitar, Yamaha Electric Bass and Acoustic Guitar, Mandolin, Oud, Ukulele, Acoustic Bass Guitar.December 2022 Modern Drummer 31 Check out Antonio'‘s drummer profile page, at modern drummer.com figure out those differences, then you can summon that energy and apply it to your playing. I am from Mexico, and I came to this country to play jazz, not Mexican music so I had an impostor syndrome for a long time. A lot of Latinos come here to play their music and that’s how they thrive, because they play Afro-Cuban or Brazilian music better than Americans. But I didn’t come here to do that. It has been very hard for me to play a music that I was not born into, and I didn’t grow into it either. In fact, I started playing jazz reasonably late in life. For a long time, I renounced all other music except jazz. I started to research why different jazz music sounded like it did. I tried to copy the greats, I tried to play all of the music with the right accent. But eventually I realized that if I didn’t bring myself to the drums I was never going to stand out. That is when I started to try and bring everything together musically. And without that realization I would have never been able to do The Pat Metheny Group, or my band Migration, or the Bad Hombre music. Along the way I think I have become really good at pacing the music so you can keep the music growing while keeping the intensity very high. The rock vocabulary provides different ways to do that, as does the jazz vocabulary. But if you combine many different musical approaches in your drumming, you discover more choices and musical devices to keep the musical intensity high. I have discovered that there are many ways to sustain intensity and creativity. MD : I think you just answered the first question that I asked. I asked you why you seem to do a lot of “big music” projects. Maybe it’s because of the way that you pace the music while keeping the intensity high. AS : That could be it, good point. MD: I know you are starting to do a lot of soundtrack work for movies and television. I would assume that has you listening to more soundtracks and scores. What is some of your favorite soundtrack music? AS : I love anything from Michael Giaccino. He has done a lot of the Pixar films, and his scores are incredible. Johnny Greenwood’s score for The Power of the Dog is wonderful, as is Hans Zimmer’s new score for Dune. Of course, anything by John Williams or Trent Reznor gets my attention. Cristobal Tapia de Veer did the music for White Lotus and that is a very imaginative score. I love the score for Soul by Trent, Atticus Ross, and Jon Batiste and I have always liked the score for Taxi Driver. MD : So, after a long career as a jazz sideman, leading a jazz group (Migration,) becoming a Grammy award winning and sought after soundtrack composer, and now with the Bad Hombre band and project, what’s the next step? AS : I need to solidify the Bad Hombre concept and keep going in that direction. My dream is that I could use some music from a band in Morocco, and then do the same thing with some music from India for instance, I could do some very cool experiments as a producer and conceptualizer like I did with SHIFT. MD : That sounds like what Peter Gabriel has been doing with his music and his Real World Studios. You and Peter have to hook up and collaborate. Like I said at the beginning of this interview, you are making music that sounds a lot like the music that he has been making with Big Blue Ball, Passion, Long Walk Home, and OVO: The Millennium Project. AS : That would be a dream come true, Peter is such a creative person... What it comes down to is this: culture is at an all-time low. In today’s world there is so much crap out there on TV, on the radio, and in social media that creative music -and creativity in general- when it’s done well, is a form of protest. Today, creativity is actually a form of counterculture against all of the mediocrity and greed that is out there. People want to be famous, and people want to become celebrities, and that is having a terrible impact on the world. Thankfully, there will always be people who want to support creativity, but it’s getting harder and harder to reach those people, and it’s getting harder for those supporters to find creativity to support. MD: I agree. There has got to be a SHIFT! I have discovered that there are many ways to sustain intensity and creativity.Modern Drummer December 2022 32 Disturbed’s Metal Groove Master: Mike Wengren Story By Mark Griffith • Photos By Alex Kluft T he popular American hard rock- metal band Disturbed has been around for more than 25 years, they have released seven studio records and two live records. Their first recording entitled The Sickness is a true metal classic. Like every other band, singer David Draiman, guitarist Dan Donegan, bassist John Moyer, and drummer Mike Wengren haven’t had much else to do for the last two years or so, thanks to Covid. S o why not spend a ton of time working on and writing your next record? That is exactly what Disturbed did. The new record is calledDivisive,and it is proving that Disturbed is back with a vengeance. Alex KluftDecember 2022 Modern Drummer 33Modern Drummer December 2022 34 MD : I didn’t know that Disturbed was (sort of) founded by you and your guitar player Dan Donegan. Why are so many modern metal bands started and led by drummers? MW : Maybe it’s because we are always the guys that have vans big enough to transport everyone’s gear. Let’s face it, when you are starting a band if you have a van or (even better) a PA, it doesn’t matter how well you play, everyone wants you in their band, you’re golden. Actually, we didn’t become Disturbed until our singer joined, but yes, Dan and I were the originators of the band. MD : What is your drumming background? MW: I am 100% self-taught. I got a job to buy my first set, and I started listening to records and tried to emulate what I was hearing. I tried taking lessons when I was younger in the basement of my elementary school, but all the teacher wanted me to do was rudiments. It wasn’t even close to being fun, but the teacher suddenly died, and I stopped taking lessons. I pursued lessons a few years later but I got into a car accident and had to stop. It felt like every time I started getting drum lessons, something bad happened. After that, I got really serious about listening to Motley Crue records, I was watching what Tommy Lee was doing, and trying to do that. At that time Tommy was the epitome’ of the “rock drummer.” He seemed like a cool guy, he had great chops, and he was a great showman. I wore out several cassettes of Shout at the Devil. I loved the tune “Red Hot,” “Live Wire” and the tune “Shout at the Devil.” He had some cool breaks in those tunes, and he was doing some cool double bass drum stuff. As I got better, I got into heavier music like Testament, Megadeth, and Metallica. Then Pantera came on the scene and that was it. They were a game changer for me. Vinnie Paul was very powerful and innovative. Sure, he was playing fast, and he was playing heavy, but man could Vinnie lay down a groove! And that’s what I wanted to do. MD: Was this around Cowboys from Hell? MW : When that came out, I didn’t even know there were any Pantera records before that. I found out about Power Metal and Projects in the Jungle and the earlier stuff later. But I can play tunes like “Cemetery Gates” and “Walk” in my sleep because I listened to and played them so much. At that time, there was no room in my heart or brain for anything else but Pantera. MD : You were influenced by two drummers early on that were great groove players. People always talk about Tommy’s showmanship and all of that, and Vinnie’s double bass drumming, but they both have a huge groove. MW: I’m glad that you said that because that’s an excellent point, they both have a great groove. That might actually be Tommy’s biggest attribute in drumming, his groove. As far as I am concerned, both Tommy and Vinnie are groove masters, and that is what I was always attracted to in their drumming. I saw those two bands every time they came through town. Everything that they did, I wanted to do. This was about the time that I started jamming with Dan Donegan. He was into Van Halen and Alice in Chains. Dan has a great rhythm guitar groove. There was a self-storage complex outside of Chicago that all of the bands rehearsed at, and Dan and I met there and just started to jam. Dan would always show up early for his band’s rehearsal, and I would always show up early for my band’s rehearsals. Because we were both there early, we started to jam together. We both noticed Rafa AlcantaraDecember 2022 Modern Drummer 35 that we were always the first ones to rehearsals, and the last ones to leave. We could tell that not only could each of us play, but we were dedicated enough to show up early for rehearsals. And we have been together ever since. MD: What a valuable point. You guys bonded over your dedication to music and your respective bands. That’s very cool! You mentioned seeing Pantera when they played after you had listened to them a lot. What did seeing them play provide that listening to records and tapes didn’t? MW : We saw them at The Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. That was a 4,000-seat ballroom, it’s where everyone played. When they played first their first note it caused this massive explosion of energy, it reverberated through every cell of my body. I knew that if I could ever get to that level of playing, it would be a dream come true. Dan and I saw that show together and we still talk about it like it was yesterday. The energy and the power of that show was amazing. I felt like I wasn’t just going to see Pantera play a show, I felt like I was there as a student, to be taught, it felt like music school. MD: Expand on that a bit. It’s cool to hear that you felt like seeing a show was like going to school. What else did you learn from seeing and hearing those guys live? MW: When you are younger and you are rehearsing with your band, you have moments that you look at each other and think, “We are kicking ass, this is IT!” You start to puff your chest out a bit, you think you are pretty good, and your band is playing great… Then you go and see a concert by legends like Pantera, and you watch what they are doing. Then you look at each other and say, “Man, we really suck, we have a lot of work and practicing to do!” MD: That’s what it’s about, learning to do something by watching the masters. MW: Then, ten years later when we got signed and we played Ozzfest, Pantera was headlining, and we were a mere second stage act and green as could be. But the guys in Pantera were so cool, they just took us under their wing. Not only did they teach us early on what music should sound like on stage and how tight a band could be. But then they taught us how to be on the road. It wasn’t about ego, it was a brotherhood, it was a family. They were great mentors to us in Disturbed. We have tried to carry on that tradition. You can ask any band that has ever come out with us, and I think they would say the same thing about us. I hope they would talk about how well we treated I got really serious about listening to Motley Crue records, I was watching what Tommy Lee was doing, and trying to do that. Rafa AlcantaraModern Drummer December 2022 36 them. That was ingrained on us early on by Vinnie and Dime, and it just became a part of who we are. We didn’t try to do that, it is just who we are. Sure, we love to have a good time on the road, but it is always about camaraderie and music. MD: I always say, “If you are trying to be a nice guy, then maybe you really aren’t a nice guy.” MW : You can’t force it, absolutely! The Pantera guys were some of the best in the business! MD : What of the other masters were you influenced by? MW : Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, those are the bands that laid the groundwork for bands like us to do what we do today. MD: You mentioned Black Sabbath, I have been on a Black Sabbath-Bill Ward binge for the last few years. For some reason I never listened to him much when I was a kid, what is it about Bill Ward that you like? MW : Unfortunately, I was sort of the same way. I didn’t really appreciate his style when I was young. He was pretty “jazzy.” I was into more foundational and groove stuff. Bill Ward went over my head when I was young. I respected him, but his approach was a little beyond me (at the time.) As I got older and matured, I guess I got to the point where I understood his playing more. Now I go back and listen to the older Sabbath stuff, and I am amazed. I can’t believe that he didn’t get more respect. He was playing circles around guys, many years ago. For me, I almost think like a part of my brain was lying dormant until I became musically equipped enough to open that door so I could let that information in. Otherwise, if I tried to let that information in, it would just bounce off the door. MD: Were there any other major drumming influences back then? MW : Scott Travis, who is now in Judas Priest. As I started listening to heavier and more complicated music, I started listening to the Mike Varney Shrapnel Records stuff. I was listening to a lot of the instrumental guitar players like Vinnie Moore, Jason Becker, Marty Friedman, and of course Racer X. I first heard Scott Travis when he was in Racer X, they were HUGE for me. When he joined Priest, it was a dream come true for me. I already loved Judas Priest and now they had one of my favorite drummers in the band. When I heard him playing the drum intro for the song “Painkiller,” forget about it! He just elevated the whole thing. MD: How is your new record Divisive different than previous records? MW : We have kind of (in a way) come full circle. They always say that you have your whole life to write your first record, then the records that follow the first one might lack motivation or material. For us, there was never a shortage of motivation. We have spent 25 years building a career as a band, then Covid pulled the rug out from beneath us (and everyone else.) We felt like we had something taken away from us, we were upset, everyone was. We were not able to do what we love and what we live for, for the two years of Covid. I know it could have been much worse, people were dying, but that’s how it hit us. When Disturbed works best, we have to be in the same room together, we have to be able to see the expression on each other’s faces. We have to feel the hair on the back of our necks stand up. We have done it both ways, but being in the room together is how we work best. Danny was writing riffs for two years, so when the travel restrictions lightened up, we could not wait to get into a room together and jam. The central location for us all to meet, jam, and record was in Nashville, so that’s where we went. All it took was us all being there together, and everything started to pour out of us. We are pissed off, the state of the world is pretty ridiculous right now. And because of ALL of that, Divisive sounds like the older Disturbed records. MD : Why record in Nashville? MW: The band is generally based out of Chicago. I’m in Wisconsin, producer Drew Fulk lives in LA, some guys in the band are in Florida. Because we all have families and younger kids, logistically Nashville was a perfect central location to meet and record. It’s also a music hotspot now with a ton of amazing studios, so that helped too. MD : What drums did you use on the record? MW: I’m not a huge gearhead, I play today what I have used my whole career: Pearl, Sabian, Evans, Vater, Humes and Berg. When the companies offered me endorsements and to join their roster of artists I did. I feel most comfortable playing the set that I play every day in the studio. When we record, producers like to stack drum sounds anyway. They all have their favorite samples. I try to find a happy medium. My drum sound doesn’t have to be the most organic drum sound, but I don’t want it to sound overproduced either. For me it’s about getting the best tone and sound, for the record. MD : What would you say is the percentage of real drum sound vs. samples? MW: I don’t think that Drew will ever tell me the answer to that question. I’d like to think that there are more live drums in there, but producers are like magicians they don’t share their secrets. MD: Let me ask about a few tracks from the record. What is going on in the powerful “Hey You?” MW : That tune came from one of Dan’s guitar riffs? He started playing a riff, and boom, we all jumped in. I like to lock in with him and play syncopated kick drum ideas with his syncopated riffs. MD: I’m glad that you brought up rhythm guitar. I love to ask drummers about the importance of rhythm guitar. MW: For me personally, sure you have to lock in with the bass player no doubt. But I came up listening to rhythm guitar. Mick Mars from Motley, Dime from Pantera, they were serious rhythm guitarists. When we play live, the rhythm guitar is the loudest thing in my mix. The bass is just underneath the rhythm guitar, but I have to lock in with the rhythm guitar first. Dan and I have been playing together for a long time, and we Danny was writing riffs for two years, so when the travel restrictions lightened up, we could not wait to get into a room together and jam. I felt like I wasn’t just going to see Pantera play a show, I felt like I was there as a student, to be taught, it felt like music school.December 2022 Modern Drummer 37 started out leaning on each other and connecting with each other. That meant when the bass was introduced, we were already hooked up and the bass sort of met us in the middle. MD : That’s a great way of explaining it. What’s going on in “Bad Man?” MW : That was a fun one, it’s one of the heavier songs on the record. We can’t wait to play that live. Unfortunately, we haven’t had a chance to play it live, because we don’t want a song’s first impression to be from someone’s little iPhone video from a show. I’d rather someone hear a song for the first time from the recording that we spent month’s making. MD : How about the title track “Divisive,” that’s pretty funky. MW : There is a hi hat pattern on that tune that I don’t usually play. MD: What do you mean? MW : When I am playing hi hat, I am usually playing a syncopated kick drum part, and I often lead my double bass drum playing with my left foot. The way I taught myself was if I am playing a down-beat it’s a right foot, if I am playing an up-beat it’s a left. I also like to play all of my parts with a double kick, whether it’s a fast part or not. That doesn’t always free up my hands to play a closed hi hat pattern. Of course, I have a closed hi hat on my right, but that usually used just for straight quarters or eighth notes. So that song freed me up to play a slightly different hi hat pattern than I usually do. MD: Aside from creating beats and grooves, how involved are you in the writing process? MW : It’s pretty collaborative. Songs usually come from one of Dan’s riffs. But sometimes I come up with a beat first, and we go from there. We will always go back and lock parts in a little more, or switch things up. Lots of times the instrumental parts are easy, but then we have to make adjustments to fit the vocals in. MD : How do you do that? MW : You have to “sparse” things up a bit. Pull different sections back because you don’t want to step on the vocals. It’s a process. When we are writing and after we get the first rendition of the song, we go through and dissect it. We really analyze every note and every beat. We make sure there is enough space, and we make sure it’s locked in. Then when David is tracking his vocals, I like to sit in the back room alone, and come up with higher harmonies for him. I like older Rafa AlcantaraNext >