TOM KNIGHT: Copying your heroes, transitioning from Metal to R&B, why the hang is everything

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast, and now your host. Eyal Levi. This show is brought to you by URM Academy, the world's best education for rock and metal producers. Every month on Nail the Mix, we bring one of the world's best producers to mix a song from scratch, from artists like Chuga, periphery a data, remember, and bring me the Horizon, and we give you the raw multi-track so you can mix along. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, our collection of bite-sized mixing tutorials and Portfolio Builder Pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use in your portfolio. You can find out [email protected]. Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I'm Eyal Levi, and with me, I have someone who I've looked up to for a really, really long time, though we only crossed paths for a very short time. I think in 2003 when I went to the Atlanta Institute of Music for like two months, I went there.

(00:01:01):

Interestingly enough, I went there after having gone to Berkeley and decided that I hated it and I wanted to come home and start a death metal band, and I was like, I want to continue my education. I went there for two months. I thought it was cool, and then my studio picked up and I left. But Tom always stood out to me as just one of those people that is doing everything right and you should watch, and if you don't know who he is, he's a platinum album receiving drummer, drum instructor, voice actor, and entrepreneur. He's played for bands like TLC, Monica Pink, Stevie Nicks. His voice acting work can be had around commercials and narration for companies like Acura, Hondale Lock, St. Jude's Children Research Hospital, Yamaha, drums, Vic Firth Drumsticks, the Cleveland Indians, the Cleveland Browns, and many more who's voted in and served the maximum duration of four years as board governor for the Atlanta chapter of the Recording Academy. That's the Grammys, if you don't know that. And as a result has performed with several industry giants such as Michael Bolton, Kelly Price, Bo Didley, and a bunch more, and I must say James Brown too. Of course, that guy. No one's ever heard of him. And to date, Toms played on records of Collectively Flee, sold over 15 million records and yeah, welcome.

Speaker 2 (00:02:26):

Thank you. Wow, that what a tremendous introduction that was almost like inside the actor studio, James Lipton introduction, man, thank you for that. I feel pretty special. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:02:40):

It's going to mean, do you ever think about the amount of stuff you've done? I mean, you seem that you're just living your life and I've kind of followed you online, so I know that you're always doing something new and challenging yourself now seeing that you've got this fitness thing going on, but do you ever sit back and take note of all the stuff you've done or is it not important anymore because always onto the next thing?

Speaker 2 (00:03:06):

That's a great question. I think sometimes if I'm feeling down and out or you go through those moments where you're kind of feeling sorry for yourself, things aren't going really well or something you do, you kind of reflect back and you go, well wait a minute, I've done this and I've done that. And you try to pep yourself up. I'm not going to lie, man. I have those moments where days that just don't go the way you want them to go. So yeah, I think especially in those times, I kind of go back and say, okay, well alright, look, you survived this and you survived that and you found a way to get there, you're going to be okay. I woke up this morning and I can still see, I can still hear all of my limbs work. I really just don't have any excuse to not try to move forward or try to progress to whatever it is I'm onto. But yeah, sorry. The long answer to your question is yeah, sometimes I do stroll through down memory lane and try to pick myself back up, but usually that's only on the so-called bad days.

Speaker 1 (00:04:10):

How long does that usually take? Just out of curiosity, the reason I'm asking is you bring up a really good point that you use it to help overcome, I guess when you're getting in your own way or something or feeling down. And we've got a lot of people who subscribe to our service who are just starting to mix now, and when they put up their mixes compared to the pros, it makes them want to quit sometimes. And it's disheartening when you think you've come a long way and then you against something that's top level and you're like, oh man, I suck. And we're telling them, I always tell people that all the best people feel that way too.

Speaker 2 (00:04:51):

Yes,

Speaker 1 (00:04:52):

That's a normal thing. And the difference is that they know how to deal with it.

Speaker 2 (00:04:56):

Yes, I continually beat myself up by observing the people who are doing better than me, but that's kind of always been, I don't want to call it a trick or a secret, really, neither of those things. I think for me it's just the way it always worked. I don't remember learning to talk by imitating my parents and learning to walk by again observing those who were already doing it, but I know that I happened and it started to become a conscious effort sometime I think in high school. And that's exactly what happened. You see somebody that's doing something so profoundly better than me, or you see somebody doing something so profoundly better than you, and the first reaction is, oh, I suck. I'm the worst. I'll never get there. And yeah, we all go through that, but my trick was always to just copy them. I mean, you're not ever really going to become that person anyway, so I do subscribe and I know sometimes this backfires on me. People will come back and say, oh, you're not being true to yourself, and that's the wrongest thing you could do. I don't really agree with that. I think that if you can find somebody who's already doing something really, really well, certainly the way you want to be doing it, man, go for it. No matter how close you get, you're still going to be you. People may start, I'll give you an example.

(00:06:23):

Dave Weckl was and is still a profound influence on me and my playing. And when I first started learning how to play like him, if I could even say that people recognized, they were like, oh, you're playing that lick that we all know. He played great, great, thanks, another W guy. But what starts to happen is I would play an idea that I learned from him, but I would put it in a pop song, maybe on the TLC tour or something. I might have taken an idea that I know I got from him, but stick it over here in this genre where he doesn't play, that's not his thing. And so just little things like that would begin to bubble up. And over the years, again, having sourced a lot of different drummers and working that stuff into my plane because I was really impressed with it and wanted to be able to do it, people started actually thinking that that was my style when it probably really wasn't.

(00:07:22):

It was probably really just again, a cobbled together Frankenstein of drummers that I'm embodying. In other words, I'm not really trying to take any credit for it, but other people would see it as, oh, that's your style. Okay, cool. But that's what happens I think, is that you can imitate the people who are your heroes, but at the end, that's not what people are going to see. They're going to see that you come through. And that has happened to me as a drummer. It happened to me as a videographer. I had video heroes and animation heroes. Certainly as a voice actor, I don't know if people can hear my influences. All of the guys that I looked up to have all died sadly. So the people who remember those guys like Don LaFontaine or Brian James, they may recognize some of that influence, but nobody ever says it to me. They all just say, oh, I like the way that you sound. Why don't you do this for us? Why don't you read this script for us? And that's how it works, man,

Speaker 1 (00:08:20):

That's actually pretty profound because one thing that I learned a long time ago, and it's served me very, very well, is to model successful people, whether it was through playing guitar. And if you want to get better vibrato, pull up a video with Zach Wild and look at how he holds the guitar and the angle. It's at all that stuff. Look at exactly how he does it and then try to do it. Dan, don't worry. No matter what, you're not going to sound like Zach Wild because only Zach Wild sounds like Zach Wild. And I think that your style in anything you do is a combination of all your influences put together plus you. So there's no way that you could ever do, you could ever be someone else. So I also tell our students that, don't worry about it. The better you get, the more that your personality is going to come through. And really the pathway of freedom is through the techniques really.

Speaker 2 (00:09:27):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:09:28):

I agree. That's what gives you the freedom to do this stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:09:31):

And then there's the momentum that you create and encourage as you learn these things that you have always wanted to learn or you become able to perform a particular idea, licks anything that you've always wanted to do, there's joy in that. Even if you haven't found a place to put it in your own material yet, just the fact that you've acquired one more skill, that kind of momentum I think is powerful in the positive movement of your career or your quest. So I don't want to discount that either. Again, one more reason. I hate to sound like I'm defending this idea, but I have had to do that so many times people are like, no, you should never copy anybody. Here's yet one more reason I think it's okay, is that each time you learn something, you're just happier. It's one more reason you can't wait to get behind the drums or to strap on the guitar because you can now do this thing that you couldn't do yesterday. And it really is like that, isn't it? You work, you work, you work, struggle, struggle slowly, and then one day there it is, you can do it. And there's such power in that and so that the next time you sit behind your instrument, you're just that much more enthused. And I think it's a compounding effect that overall, it just helps. It helps you strive for higher and higher heights. That's how I feel about

Speaker 1 (00:10:55):

It. Absolutely.

(00:10:56):

I've experienced that same exact thing too. I know when I was doing the band thing for all those years and writing all that music, obviously writer's block would happen. It happens to anybody. The way that I always got over it was by getting a guitar lesson with somebody new and just having them teach me something that they wanted to teach me regardless of if it was in a genre I hated or liked or whatever, it didn't matter. Just take on something new and actually force your brain to absorb it. And it's not like I would suddenly become a great jazz player. I always sucked at it. I don't even really like it. But you take one lesson with a guy like that, you absorb it and then you go back to doing your thing, you're going to have a new perspective and more energy or you have to regenerate the creativity. So I've seen that work many, many times. And on the topic of momentum, how do you maintain yours? It doesn't seem like you ever stop.

Speaker 2 (00:12:03):

Oh gosh, let me address that for a second. I do stop more than I should, and that's kind of my fault for not sharing those down days. What we talked about in the very beginning of the podcast,

(00:12:22):

I'm guilty of sometimes only showing my best foot. You know what I mean? I should probably post more on social of my failures. I mean because all over the place, but I hate to admit that, but I'm guilty. So there are a lot of days where I have zero momentum. There are a lot of days where I sit behind the drums and it just doesn't feel right. Nothing I play works. There are times when I get behind the mic and I'm reading a script very similar to something I would read every week, and all of a sudden I'm stumbling over every single word and I just can't. Some days are just like that. So I think my answer to that question is I'm going to maybe switch it up a little bit and say, try to answer how do I maintain a momentum when there is none, right? Yes. So how do I maintain? So my way of that is I will take the necessary break if I have to, and depending on the, what's the word, the strength of the lack of momentum depend. That's not the way to say that. Depending on how the

Speaker 1 (00:13:31):

Inertia,

Speaker 2 (00:13:31):

Yeah, well, depending on how

(00:13:35):

Strong the feeling of failure is, how about that? I might just take a coffee break. Maybe it's just, you know what? I want to taste a coffee and it's not really, I don't really need it. I just want it and I want to get away from the microphone, or I want to put the sticks down for five minutes, take a coffee maybe. Sometimes that's all it takes. If it's a really strong feeling of failure, I need a complete reboot. And for me, that's a good night's sleep. So I'll just set that day down and at the end of the night, take a Tylenol PM or something to make sure that I stay asleep, get up the next day. And that for me has always worked. Somehow a good night's sleep has always been just enough to reset my inner momentum clock no matter how bad the previous day was.

(00:14:21):

Now I'm blessed to not have any really, really bad days. You know what I mean? Some people wake up and they're fighting cancer. Some people wake up and they're these poor kids, the parents of the kids down in Florida, every day they wake up and every Valentine's Day from now on, they're going to be reminded of this. I don't have any days like that. So again, it's easy for me to get over these humps, but that's how I keep my momentum going when there is none to be felt on days that feel great. I don't know, man. It's just a drug. You're excited, you're enthused about everything and nothing seems to go wrong. Everything you play sounds great. Everything I say on the microphone works. That's easy. So I think, again, to recap, I think the answer to that question for me would be I do whatever I have to do to get past the feeling of loss that day. And sometimes that means not doing anything. Sometimes that means just sucking it up and letting the rest of the day go start again tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (00:15:28):

And it's interesting that you brought up cancer or victims of a horror atrocity. Does it help you to put things in perspective like that?

Speaker 2 (00:15:40):

Yes, absolutely. I have three amazing little boys and an awesome wife who gave me those nine years old, three years old and one that just turned one. So the highlight of my day now, what used to be drums or voiceover or whatever I was doing, now it's these three boys and it's really hard to make sure that they all feel loved and that I'm not favoring one over the other. I don't, but they start to feel like, oh, you're not paying attention to me, daddy. It's cute, but I got to watch out for that. That's what drives me every day to want to be better for them, and I'm raising little men and I want them to be able to function in society once I'm gone. And so, yeah, when I read about some other parent who lost their kid, I can't imagine. I really just can't imagine what that's like. And so that's enough to sometimes to shake off any negative vibe I might be having at that moment.

(00:16:46):

It's kind of like by comparison, what do I have to complain about? Nothing. Shut up, get on with it. You got it made, bro. I'm talking to myself, look in the mirror, shut up whatever you're feeling, deal with it. Nothing compared to what some people are going through, and I try to remind myself of that when dealing with other people. You never know what other people are going through. You're driving in traffic and somebody cuts you off and the first thing you feel like doing is honking the horn, giving them the one fingered salute. No, I found a way around that. So what I tell myself is that person just got, I just make up a story. That person just got some horrible news and they are racing home to make sure everything's okay. That's what I would do, and that's all it takes to suddenly now feel bad for that person. It's the exact opposite of being mad at them, which is what a lot of times happens is somebody does something in traffic. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:17:42):

You might be right too.

Speaker 2 (00:17:44):

You might be right. Yeah. And even if you're not, I don't mind making up these little stories if it changes my heart. So I think I've wandered away from the point, but

Speaker 1 (00:17:57):

That's okay.

Speaker 2 (00:17:58):

Yeah, it's keeping things in perspective. I think that's kind of where we were. Yeah, I don't have anything to complain about and sometimes I feel kind of guilty about that, so I really try to maximize my effort. I feel like it's,

Speaker 1 (00:18:12):

Yeah, I understand it's a gift. Did you have to do that when you were learning how to play drums?

Speaker 2 (00:18:19):

No, I had no idea when I was younger about how to handle my emotions at all. In fact, one could argue that I still don't know how to handle my emotions. You can ask my wife, she'll probably big thumbs up on me not handling things well, when I was a kid, I had no idea. If you ask my mom, she'll regale you with all manner of stories of me hurling sticks across the room when I couldn't play something and sometimes they'd actually stick in the wall. I mean, I was doing damage to the house because I was so upset that I couldn't do something that my teacher wanted me to be able to do by the end of that week. But I see that now as just extreme passion. I'm sure they might even label that as some kind of OCD or something, which I am on the fence about. I don't know if I want to believe in that stuff, probably because I might fit into the category, but I really do think that things like obsessive compulsive, I think that really is just an extreme amount of focus, which I feel like I'm actually good at. So of course I kind of don't want to be diagnosed as such, but I get it all the time, man. Here, your OCD. Okay.

Speaker 1 (00:19:31):

I have a theory that to be a great drummer, you need to have a little bit of OCD, don't

Speaker 2 (00:19:37):

You? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:19:38):

And this is just from observing, just from working with lots of great drummers over the years, either in my band or recording them or whatever, come across a lot of 'em and they all kind of share that. And I just think that you have to, it's kind of like if you're a drill sergeant, it's probably hard to turn that off when you go home. If you're a drummer, it's probably hard to turn that part of your brain that makes that work, how to turn that off when you're not drumming. There

Speaker 2 (00:20:07):

Definitely seems to be, oh, go ahead. Sorry.

Speaker 1 (00:20:09):

Oh, sorry. I just think it's part of the gig.

Speaker 2 (00:20:13):

I think you're right, and what I was going to say is that I've observed in my own demeanor various levels of that. I bet you can relate to this in recording right after I finish a take, and I'm hyper aware of everything because you're really trying to nail something, let's say, and it's difficult and the time is a little bit away from what's comfortable for you, whatever. So you're really having to put forth a lot of effort and you're hyper aware of everything. The first listen back in the console room, a lot of times I won't be happy with it just because, and then we go eat and we come back and it sounds great. The same take, and I'm convinced that my original response was colored by this a little bit too much of that focus or OCD or whatever that is, and it doesn't always happen, but when it does, I'm always amazed what changed? Well, the track didn't. I did. So then the quest is how can I live there more? This sort of non-judgmental or what was wrong with my perception over here where I didn't like it and why now is it, okay, these are all questions that I will have a hard time going to sleep, trying to come up with the answer when I should just be happy that the take worked.

Speaker 1 (00:21:44):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:21:44):

Well,

Speaker 1 (00:21:45):

I think probably create mode is different than consume mode. So

Speaker 2 (00:21:51):

Maybe that's it.

Speaker 1 (00:21:54):

In order to take something in, I think, and really enjoy it for what it is, you got to be in a more passive state. I think as a music listener or a movie watcher, whatever, you got to be a more passive state if you're creating the take that you're activated.

Speaker 2 (00:22:11):

Yeah, I like that. You know what? I think you're right. I think you're exactly right about that. I don't know that I would've ever come to that conclusion, but I'm glad we had this conversation because literally I will rack my brain. Why does this sound different? There it is right there. Maybe it's just that simple. Yeah, you're not in creation mode, you're not in judgment, you're not in the judgment zone,

Speaker 1 (00:22:34):

Which is

Speaker 2 (00:22:35):

What we are.

Speaker 1 (00:22:38):

I mean, that level of focus is crucial when you're actually doing the thing.

Speaker 2 (00:22:42):

Yes. Yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe we're actually enhancing this OCD, we're practicing it, we're rehearsing it, we're getting really good at it. This thing that they've termed bad and drug worthy, maybe we're actually encouraging that as musicians. I never thought about that either, but it could be that we've developed that and man, I'm happy. I'm sorry. I'm not upset by that at all. I'm not upset by the fact that I can get so zoned in that someone walking in the room will scare me. Has that ever happened to you? You'll be so intensely and somebody just, they didn't say anything. Just walk in and it's scary. But that's just how involved you were. I'm sorry. I like that. I appreciate being there.

Speaker 1 (00:23:30):

Well, yeah, the results speak for themselves. I think the time that it becomes negative is it's like a high powered weapon. You got to point it the right direction. It's like a high powered laser beam or something. If you're worried about the pattern of cracks in the sidewalk when you walk and you can't walk across the street or you have to cross the street because you can't deal with a certain pattern of cracks, maybe that's a problem. If you're using it to become the best drummer or whatever it is, you do the best at whatever you do, then it's a good thing. So I think it's a matter of where that laser beam is focused. And so I have definitely seen it be a really negative thing too. Kind of like what we were talking about earlier, how feeling down can become a really negative thing, or it can be a time to remind yourself of how much you've done or to take perspective and to reenergize yourself. Yeah, it can be either or. I think that's

Speaker 2 (00:24:39):

Right. You got it.

Speaker 1 (00:24:41):

Switching gears, I'm wondering what got you into playing drums in the first place?

Speaker 2 (00:24:46):

So when I was about five or six years old, my parents lined the hallways with black light posters and black lights, and I was born in 68. I don't know if anybody can see this shirt I'm wearing. My life begins at 50 19, 68, so what is it, 19 73, 74. So a lot of stuff like the psychedelic rock, like iron, let's see, iron Butterfly and other bands like that were being played on our record player all the time. And one particular song by Iron Butterfly called Inga DaVita has a really long drum solo in it. It's simple and musical, and it's certainly not full of chops by any stretch, but it was something that as a 6-year-old, I could kind of pitter-patter on pillows with wooden spoons from the kitchen. And that was the beginning. That song in that year was the beginning of my interest in drums, and I never became disinterested.

(00:25:54):

It was always there and it just grew. And so by the time school band became a thing, I was in the fourth grade and because all the fourth graders wanted to play drums, not everybody could play drums. That coupled with the fact that my dad didn't want to spend as much money on a drum as he could spend on something like a clarinet. So I played clarinet for two years, fourth and fifth grade, and then finally in the sixth grade, because I had stuck it out, I did my time, nothing against clarinet by the way. I did it because I really wanted to play drums and I thought I had to go down that path. Sixth grade, all of a sudden I had earned my way in and bought, or they rented a snare drum, and that was the beginning man. And all of a sudden everything just opened up.

(00:26:47):

I was a really good student in school until I started playing drums. That's probably another way you're doing what you're supposed to be doing is it really takes effort from other parts of your life. In that case, that wasn't the best thing in the world, but my parents knew, wow, okay, yeah, this is what this kid wants to do. And nothing he has done before has ever consumed him as much as this is consuming him. And so man, it was on at that point, a couple years later, they got me for Christmas, like some used drum set, and it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. And it was not even that great, but to me it was everything and they didn't even know how to set it up. Which is funny because I kept that non set up for years because that's just the first thing I saw.

(00:27:38):

And it wasn't until a band director in high school said, that's not how that's supposed to be set up. That's not where that goes. And that's really because that's how I've been doing all this time and snare drum all in the wrong place and everything, but it just became a snowball rolling downhill. I couldn't get enough. I was listening to everything. Anybody that came to me with, Hey, you need to check out this drummer. You need to listen to this band. You need to learn that song. I did. I checked it all out and I tried to assimilate as much of it as I could into my playing. And then of course, along the way, you find who you are or who you want to be, and I think it was probably in the ninth grade, eighth or ninth grade, I discovered Neil Perk from Rush, and that was it.

(00:28:23):

I had to have that kit, and of course I didn't, but by the time I was a senior in high school, I had acquired everything 8, 10, 12, was it? No, 6, 8, 10, 12, 12, 13, 15, 18, 20, holy shit. Two Tim Boies tuned cowbells double kick, 20 fours and the requisite number of symbols. And I even had a Glock and spiel and a set of chimes. I mean, I literally had acquired his whole kit at some point and had bothered to learn the YYZ solo from exit stage left. It took all four years or five years of high school to finally get to be able to do that. And there is a YouTube video of it somewhere. I'll send it to you. Yeah, please do. It's embarrassing because 18 years old, I had a perm in my hair. I wasn't wearing a shirt like goof, but it's some guy just happened to have a camcorder back then and videoed our little band, and so it's down in history, man. It can be found and used to get me to pay large amounts of money to not be shown.

Speaker 1 (00:29:33):

We all have videos like that. I totally believe that story about a ninth grader having that drum set. So I think it's interesting when I went to the school to aim, okay, so I know I said earlier that I don't like jazz, but I always liked hearing it when you played it because the way you play it, I dunno, you play like a rock guy

Speaker 3 (00:29:57):

And

Speaker 1 (00:29:57):

You play hard. And the thing that I don't like about watching jazz or that puts me to sleep is just how light some of those guys are. But I always thought it was awesome when I heard you play, I had that energy I like in music and now hearing what you grew up on, it all just makes sense.

Speaker 2 (00:30:17):

Yeah, I was definitely a rock and roller first, and there were times when I was heavily involved in either Randy Hector's project, who We Love, we know and Love, or Adam Middy. These are amazing guys, and just funny as can be, he could have been a standup comic. I swear that dude is hilarious. But there were times when I was heavily involved in that kind of music and I wish I would secretly sort of say, gosh, I wish I grew up with this as my background. I wouldn't have to struggle so hard. I don't know how many people know this, but on his last record from aj, I play I think eight or nine tunes and it took about a year. Now granted, I was much busier at that point in my life than I was on his first record or any of Adam NI's records that I played on.

(00:31:13):

So I'm going to give myself a little bit of leeway here, but not much. The truth of the matter is that stuff was so hard. I was having to take a month to learn each song, and then we'd go into the studio on a weekend and cut that thing, and sometimes that would take half the day. And then once we were happy with that next song and on that went throughout basically what it amounted to be about a year, I think it was 2010, that whole year was consumed with the massive work required. And I remember thinking, guys like my hero, one of my heroes, these guys could probably sight read this stuff. I'm killing myself with thoughts like that. Oh, these guys are so much better. They could sight read this or they could hear it once and know where all the kicks are, and I'm struggling for a month.

(00:32:06):

And we get into the studio and it's like, can I make it through one take? I know I'm going to have to punch something in, but can I even just get through the song? So there were times when the fact that I grew up playing rock bummed me out, but not for long. You get through that stuff and then you're back to listening to what you grew up on. And I got to say, I'm happy to have played on all the really difficult contempt jazz stuff. I am happy that you enjoyed what we did in jazz performance class, and I'm certainly proud of the work I did in the pop world, but I'm a rocker at heart man. I mean, look it, you'll just as easily catch me jamming to some old 1980s Bon Jovi as anything else. I mean, sorry, that probably is not cool, but that's what I grew up on. That was what was happening on the radio at that time, and it brings back wonderful memories and I think it'll always be that way.

Speaker 1 (00:33:08):

Okay, so speaking of back then, so just say your graduating high school, you went through those four years, you acquired the rush drum set, you learned how to play the song. Safe to say you're probably better than your peers. At that point, did you then think, I'm not going to go to college or I need to go to college? What was the next step towards the path of becoming a pro?

Speaker 2 (00:33:37):

I'm so glad you asked that question because I had it all wrong, man. One of the things that did happen in high school is we had a great band director who pushed us to enter every competition that existed, and so I went and I won every one I ever entered. I know that sounds horrible. I'm really not trying to boast, but I did. I won. I believe it. I won every single one. And so I had this inflated sense of worth. I thought, especially after high school, I was getting full scholarship offers from various colleges up the east coast because some of these competitions happened as far north as Virginia. So I had this inflated sense of worth. I really just thought that the world already knew who I was. And I camped out at home waiting for the limo like an idiot. I graduated in 1986 and in 1988 my parents and grandparents were like, we need to have a little talk.

(00:34:46):

You're going to have to do something. And seriously, I don't know how it took me that long to, I don't know how they waited that long, but I really did. I had it all wrong, man. I did not develop any kind of sense of how to go out and get my own work. I really honestly thought I wasn't going to have to do anything because I hadn't had to do anything. It didn't occur to me that the schools were setting all of that up. I mean, it's true and duh, right? How could I not know that? But I didn't. So I fell victim to that false sense of, oh, I'm great. I'm going to be fine. Everybody's going to already bull. That did not happen. Obviously

Speaker 1 (00:35:25):

The universe is just going to hand it to you,

Speaker 2 (00:35:28):

Man. It was a rough wake up call because that in and of itself was a defeat. First it was defeating that it didn't happen. Then it was defeating all over again when I realized, well, duh, why didn't you get that? Two years ago, all of my friends went to college right after high school. Why didn't I blew a couple of years? And so I was working at a record store and a buddy of mine comes walking in, pulls up an LP by a band called Hallows Eve and said, Hey, they're looking for a drummer. And that's when I finally broke that couple a year cycle of inactivity, inaction. And that story is pretty funny. It's a cautionary tale though. Please don't ever do this. Anyone watching, please don't do this. I'm going to tell you the story, but don't ever do it. I can't believe it worked. I shouldn't be alive.

(00:36:28):

I got the singer's number from this friend of mine who held up the Hallow Eve record. They had just released a record called Monument, actually, 1988, and I got the singer's phone number. So I called him and got him on the phone and he says, yeah, we already got somebody. Bye. Well, I wasn't satisfied with that, so I called back and left all kinds of messages and they were horrible. I don't care who you got, he sucks. You don't know what you're missing. Just everything I could think to try and get the guy to call me back. And it was awful. The kinds of things I was saying, perhaps I thought it was over and what could I lose? I don't know where my head was. I dunno where my head was. It could have just been that I was 20 and being an idiot, which is probably what it was,

Speaker 1 (00:37:23):

You just really thought he needed you in the band,

Speaker 2 (00:37:25):

Dude. And I really wanted the gig or so I thought, and I did. I don't want to make it sound like I didn't. I was really stoked about the idea of going on tour with this heavy metal band. And again, I'm a rocker, so I was like, God, this is for me. Look, these guys are in the records. That was another thing too, is we have the records here where I work. This is great. I'm going to try and be in this band. So I finally get a call from the guitarist, a dear friend to this day. His name is Dave Stewart, and he calls me up and he goes, Hey man, so I'm going to come by your house and I'm going to bring a guitar and a one 12 amp and we're going to sit down. We're going to play this stuff and I want to see what you can do.

(00:38:07):

And I was like, oh, okay, cool. I've been working on the music, so come on, guy comes over, hardly says a word, marches into my bedroom. I had my drum set in my bedroom. So he's sitting on the corner of my bed and we play through a lot of their songs and he leaves without a word. I mean, he might've said bye maybe. And about a week later, I get a call from the bass player this time. So now I've talked to everybody in the band and the bass player, Tommy Stewart, he says, Hey man, we want you to come down to rehearse too much RTM. Very famous. Oh yeah, okay, do you know about that place? Of course. Alright, of course. So RTM, man. So I go down there on a day that their current drummer was not supposed to be there, and as it turns out, this guy's name is Paul and he was from Baltimore and was living with Dave the guitarist.

(00:39:00):

And so Dave was his ride, and it was really easy to just leave him home and show up in this secret band practice where I was going to be the drummer. So I get behind this other guy's drum set and it's me, the bass and the guitar, and we play what at the time was my favorite song by the band called No Sanctuary, and we're about halfway through the song and Stacey the singer, comes busting through the doors and he's like, what is going on now? I thought he was mad. I got hired that day and they sent Paul home the next day and the tour started about two weeks after that and we were on the road just like that.

Speaker 1 (00:39:41):

Life-changing

Speaker 2 (00:39:42):

Instant. Instant,

Speaker 1 (00:39:45):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:39:45):

So I couldn't have been more proud. I remember triumphantly quitting my job at Turtles records and tapes, which was where I was working. I failed to mention that it became Blockbuster.

Speaker 1 (00:39:57):

I remember Turtles.

Speaker 2 (00:39:58):

Turtles on Memorial Drive right by 2 85. Man, that was me running the video department. That again would become Blockbuster. So yeah, man. So now instead of doing that, I am driving down 2 85 every night, headed on my way to 85 South to Armor Circle, man, where RTM was, and man, it was the happiest I'd ever been at that point. And we hit the road man, and the whole summer we were out there with leather wolf and anthrax and fates warning and all these guys, and very special time in my life. I didn't make a dime. I think all I took home was the per diem. I never bothered to cut any deal. I was just happy to get the gig and the business side of me was still very underdeveloped. I made no money. I'm not mad about it though. Like I said, it was an amazing experience. I'm really happy. I still have my backstage pass from that 1988 tour. Was it 30 years ago?

Speaker 1 (00:41:03):

So I had ACU curiosity. I know that you said that you wouldn't recommend that for anybody, but the not making a dime part is almost in lots of ways. It's like the cost of entry with a lot of these things, like with recordings, sometimes you might need to do some mixes for free at first before you get a shot. If you're a baby band on a label, your royalty rate's going to be terrible. Your advance is going to be super low. It is. You're not going to make money. You're not going to make any money for the first few years. There's lots of parallels to your story there. So I'm wondering, you said that you wouldn't recommend that. Why

Speaker 2 (00:41:46):

Am I saying that? Which

Speaker 1 (00:41:47):

Part? The part part would you not recommend?

Speaker 2 (00:41:49):

Okay, good. Yeah. The part that I'm saying please don't do is be the cocky dick incessantly calling and leaving the kinds of

Speaker 1 (00:41:59):

You the gig though

Speaker 2 (00:42:00):

It did work. That's the only caveat, right? I have to kind of withdraw a little bit when I say it, but I guess what I'm hoping is that people will be just as persistent, but just minus the arrogance. I had just a supremely large head. I'm sure somebody would argue that. I still do, but I really, really go out of my way to not ever go there. I don't uber cautious about ever coming across like that. I think because I came from that and it was such a turnoff. It did work though. It really did. But okay, here's the part I didn't tell you. Stacey, the singer later told me on the, I was going to say on the tour bus, it was more like a van in the tour van with a U-Haul trailing us carrying all of our equipment, very low budget. That's probably why I didn't get paid. Anyway, he told me on the trip, he said, look, man, I sent Dave over there and we were going to bring you to the rehearsal studio. Whether or not you could play, and one of two things was going to happen. We were either going to hear you play well, and you were going to get the gig, or you weren't going to play well, and we're going to beat the shit out of you.

Speaker 1 (00:43:15):

Alright, there you go. That's why you shouldn't do it then.

Speaker 2 (00:43:19):

Yeah, I mean, that's the kind of response I got from leaving the kinds of messages I left. I mean, they were awful, but yes, it did work. It got Stacey to send Dave over because I think maybe even Tommy, the bass player was like, can we at least give this guy a shot? Because who in the world would say those things if they couldn't deliver? Maybe we owe it to ourselves to hear them tell this story. They're a little nicer about it, but I'm telling you how it actually went. Everybody's older now and nobody has that young angst that we all had. Gosh, oh my gosh. Some of the best times in my life were in that band. We really didn't have any money. And we would roll up to a gas station and sometimes the owners would see us and just instantly turn. The closed sign would just, we would lock the door just I guess we looked like hooligans.

(00:44:22):

I mean, we looked like I look now except 30 years younger, and then other places didn't close and they probably should have. They got to the point where they couldn't take me into the store with them because there's something in my psychological makeup, there's something about my character that when I see things, when I see people doing certain things that are illegal, I laugh. I don't know why it's not funny. It's like the same thing, how people laugh when other people fall. I don't find it funny when people trip and fall. Some people do though. I'm one of those people that will laugh.

Speaker 1 (00:44:55):

Sometimes I do,

Speaker 2 (00:44:57):

Right? I mean, yeah, sometimes it is, but for the most part, I usually just feel bad for them or I imagine myself falling and then it hurts. But I would see Dave, the guitarist, we'd go into these stores. Sorry Dave, if you're watching this, I'm telling on you, but oh my God, it was such comedy. He would go to the quick tip in the QTS now where they have the hot dogs, you just make 'em. He would hide and just eat and wolf down two or three of 'em before anybody even noticed. He says, no way he's going to pay for it. And just me seeing him do that, that was all it took. And so me laughing would sometimes attract attention from the proprietor. So they're like, what do you want? We'll buy it for you. You stay in the van, man. Just some of the funnest times, man, it is trivial and ludicrous, but I still laugh to this day.

Speaker 1 (00:45:56):

Well, how did that lead to then? I'm sure that it wasn't like the next month, but how do you go from that touring in a band in a van on a metal gig? How does it lead to TLC and that whole world?

Speaker 2 (00:46:15):

Okay, so how that worked is, it was right after that that I went to Georgia State finally, the College of Choice for me was right here in Georgia. And so I met a lot of great players there. Sam Skelton on Sacks, and Tom McGill, John Hanco, a lot of the instructors there. I was the go-to drummer after about a year, I was the go-to drummer that the instructors band who would go out to high schools and try to recruit new students who were graduating. I was the drummer that would go out with all the instructors as a jazz band, and we would go play all these high schools. So I made a lot of great connections and these people would hire me outside of school. And so you just expand your horizons that way.

Speaker 1 (00:47:06):

You didn't leave them any nasty messages.

Speaker 2 (00:47:09):

No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, exactly. I don't know how quickly it, I caught onto how bad of an idea that was. I don't know if, in other words, I think I might've still had a horribly large head, but nonetheless, these guys were suffering that and hiring me and asking me to come and play at all these gigs. And so I expanded my circle of friends. Then I got married to my first wife, and we just both quit at the same time, school and just tried to be a couple. And that lasted for about a year, and we left on amicable terms. We didn't have any property or any kids, and so it was kind of like breaking up really just on paper. And she's now a plastic surgeon in Florida making a ton of money. She went back to school, which I did not. I started after we split up, I started back trying to get work in the industry. I didn't go back to school funny enough. I was like, well, I'm already not going to school and I'm kind of working. Let me just get more of that work.

Speaker 1 (00:48:15):

That's exactly what I did when I dropped out of college for the first few years. It was like, maybe I should go back. That was what AIM was. It was maybe I should go back to school, but I'm kind of working. Why don't I just get more work?

Speaker 2 (00:48:31):

That's exactly how I felt about it. And so I was successful to a certain degree. I landed a bit role in that TV show in the Heat of the Night as a drummer for the first annual policeman's ball with Carol O'Connor and whoever else was in that show. And I think Sam Skelton actually was on the gig as the sax player and probably a bunch of other Georgia State

Speaker 1 (00:48:57):

Folks. So in the episode, the police, it was a police ball. And you played drums in the band in that episode.

Speaker 2 (00:49:04):

Yes, of course. We weren't actually playing anything real, but it looks like we're playing. And I had this crappy kit, so I borrowed a friend of Mine's kit that looked good enough to be on camera. I mean, it was paying time about paying your dues. I didn't even have a decent drum set good enough to appear on a TV show. I needed to borrow a legit drum set from a friend of mine who didn't really play. Isn't that weird? You got a guy who actually plays playing junk guy who doesn't play. Got a great kid.

Speaker 1 (00:49:35):

Actually, I wish that was weird. I know that. It's

Speaker 2 (00:49:39):

Kind of a problem now, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (00:49:41):

I know for a long time, a lot of guitar players I know who make their living at it will always joke about doctors who played in a band once in high school who own like a $50,000 guitar.

Speaker 2 (00:49:55):

Yeah, man. Like some custom made piece of magic, right?

Speaker 1 (00:50:00):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:50:01):

So I mean, that was it. And then I befriended Jeff Sipe. We used to get together and jam at his place on East Lake, and he was really helpful in introducing me to the right people. I would sub for him on certain gigs, and I got to meet Bill, the legendary Bill Hatcher guitarist in Atlanta, who's been around forever and played on everything. And it just kind of evolved from there. And then at some point, I got invited to be the drummer for Skin Deep because a buddy of mine, Rob Clayton, who was one of the original founders of the band quit, and somebody from Georgia State remembered me. I got the call, and next thing you know, I'm in that band and we're showcasing in front of Claude Austin, who was Dallas Austin's brother. He died sadly, but at the time, he was one of Dallas's main talent scouts.

(00:51:02):

And so our first gig with me as the drummer was at Avondale Town Cinema in 1992, October of 1992, and Claude Austin was there, and we threw down, man, I mean a year's worth of practice for that first show. We were as tight of a band as I've ever been in, and he went back to Dallas and within a year, I think maybe two years, Dallas had signed our singer, Terrance or t Smith as he went on Rowdy Records, they called him T Smith. The rest of the band got called in to record music for the T Smith project, which never came out, but one of the songs landed on a motion picture soundtrack called Fled with Lawrence Fishburne and one of the Baldwin brothers. The movie didn't do very well, but it was our first real credit. So here I am, early twenties and I, I've actually got a record credit for a guy that I had been playing with for a couple of years, and we were a tight ensemble.

(00:52:06):

That was how I met Dallas, Austin. From there, he would start inviting me to play on any project he was working. So the first of those was Deborah Killings. I got a call, Hey, can you be in Nashville tomorrow? Yes, cancel whatever. I'm out of here. And he put me up in a corporate apartment really nice. I mean fully furnished, even laundry facilities. It was great for about not a year, about a month and a half, and we just lived, I lived in Nashville that summer and we recorded her whole record. I think I played eight or nine songs, and it was great. It was the best. That was the new best time in my life. I was like, I'm actually getting paid a lot of money. I feel like I'm on vacation. I've always wanted to be around these guys in this professional environment and everybody all the way down to the intern.

(00:52:59):

These were people that really knew what they were doing and they were making me sound like a million dollars. I couldn't have been happier. And I met a lot of people on the gig. I met Salt and Pepper. I met Chili from TLC who I'd later play with, and that's how it started. Next I think was Monica played on her record. That came out, and then it was TLC's Turn and I got to play Unpretty on the fan mail record, and then instantly got invited to play in the band, and we started off in Japan at the Budokon for a week. Came back, did Jay Leno, Rosie O'Donnell, and then we did the tour. And man, the rest is history, as they say. That just turned into all kinds of other work. In the meantime, I should have somehow inserted aim in there back in the mid nineties, right after Skindeep, right around that time that we were starting to work with Dallas and the band was kind of ending, and T Smith's project was beginning. That's when I got into Aim, so I think 94 to be exact. So I was teaching all along, which is nice. Supplemental income when the feast or famine part of the music business happens, you've got this other sort of thin line of work. Keeps some income coming in.

(00:54:27):

I hope I got you through.

Speaker 1 (00:54:33):

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(00:55:31):

So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those who really want to step up the game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhanced, which includes everything I already told you about, and access to our massive library of fast tracks, which are deep, super detailed courses on intermediate and advanced topics like gate staging, mastering Low End and so forth. It's over 40 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed. He members also get access to one-on-one office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes on a live video stream, fix it up, and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills and your audio career, head over to URM academy.com to find out more. So what I understand is that basically you kept making a good impression with your playing over and over again, and you had to be okay to hang out with or no one would've recommended you.

(00:56:39):

That's what I'm getting from it, that you kept walking the walk over and over and over in every situation you were put in, so that people would then pass you on to the next person on and on and on till TLC, and then on from there. But did you have aspirations of getting to that level, or is it just something that happened?

Speaker 2 (00:57:06):

No, I did have aspirations. I should probably talk a little bit about my efforts that were in total vein. They didn't amount to anything, but this was what I thought I needed to do. Once I had figured out what I wanted, which was not to be in a band anymore, I'd had a taste of this side musician thing going in and playing drums for T Smith, and then maybe being able to do that for a lot of other, it just suddenly dawned on me, wait a minute, rather than be the drummer of one band, why don't I be the drummer for a bunch of people, especially if they're famous and have a lot of money in their budget.

(00:57:44):

If I travel, it'll be just to another comfortable studio rather than camping in some campsite. We don't have enough money for a hotel in a raggedy tour. Been there. Gosh, yeah, right. Let's do that. Can we do that? So I paid a guy named Jack Petras here in Atlanta who I had done some work with as a freelance drummer. He had a really nice studio in his basement. I paid him studio time and his one inch tape machine, bought a reel of tape, hired Mike Hartnett on base to come in and throw down just some styles. I didn't even know what I needed to do to promote myself. So I said, okay, I'm just going to go into the studio. I'm going to pay some time, pay this guy to come in and play with me a bunch of different styles. And so I didn't know what I was doing.

(00:58:33):

So I handed out this cassette tape. I had 50 duplicates made. I think I had some folder with some kind of a press kit in it, maybe even a photo. I don't remember what it had in it. It couldn't have been much because I hadn't done anything really. And so I set up all these interviews with cold calling these guys in Atlanta who I didn't know. One of them was Ricky Keller, the legendary Ricky Keller, who sadly has passed on. But at the time, he answered the phone and let me come over with my demo. And I'll never forget how that went. I walked in that studio and he was kind of standoffish and I handed him the tape and he says, okay, well thank you. And I said, don't you want to hear it? No, why? He goes, if it sucks, I don't want to have to tell you. Just bam. I didn't think it sucked. But yeah, right now, Ricky and I would later become really good friends playing on all kinds of projects. Just magic. We played on Pat Walsh's, record Doria Roberts' projects. I mean, and he's an amazing bass player and French hoist, is that a word? French hoist? French horn player?

Speaker 1 (00:59:52):

I think so.

Speaker 2 (00:59:53):

I'm going to take it. I'm going to claim it. Certainly

Speaker 1 (00:59:55):

Bass.

Speaker 2 (00:59:56):

It works.

(00:59:58):

And he used to play with Jeff Sip and all those guys too. So I remember hearing the name, which is probably why I called him in the first place. I am really rambling here, but where I'm headed is that one of the phone calls I made was to Dallas Austin recording projects, and I didn't get anybody on the phone that I thought I would get in. Instead, I got the head of their accounting department, a guy named Julian Wright, who I'm still friends with to this day. He was cool enough to let me come up to their sixth floor on Marietta Street back when they were in that location. They had the entire sixth floor of that building. And it was so cool. Once you got off the elevator, you were in another world. It was like Disney or something, and you get to walk through those hallways and end up in this office.

(01:00:44):

And I didn't know Julian, but he was really, really cool to me. And he listened to the entire demo and was super stoked about everything he heard. Even at one point, I think he even picked up the phone and called somebody and instantly started trying to sell me. And he was the one that called me later that summer and said, Hey, can you be in Nashville tomorrow? It was him. So it did work. So it's possible that that had something to do with it. I never knew if that was a coincidence that he just happened to be the guy with my number, because I don't know that Dallas ever heard that stuff, and Dallas already knew me from the Skindeep days. So I don't know if that worked or not. I don't know. Maybe it did. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):

But the thing that's interesting though is that you were attacking it from multiple angles. So as opposed to what you said you were doing when you had first graduated high school, which is just waiting for the world to come to you, whether or not it worked properly to cold call all those people. I mean, it's kind of like you can't really quantify whether in lots of ways, whether certain types of marketing or what part of the network that you built really adds up to the final result. But the point is that you weren't just putting all your eggs in one basket. You were trying multiple different things. And I mean that's what worked for me as well in my career is to not just go at it one way, if always attacked things from multiple angles.

(01:02:22):

So I mean, I don't know if you can say exactly that that demo is the reason you got the gig, but doesn't seem like a hundred percent coincidence. And at the very, very least, the kind of person who goes to those lengths. I know that when I'm hiring somebody, for instance, we have an employee who's 21 who has a lot of responsibility and it's crazy that he's 21, but he had that kind of drive and proved that he was good for the gig. That kind of drive is infectious. And people notice, it's like I think successful people notice their own kind, even if that person's not successful yet. It's just like, I don't think it's coincidence. That's my opinion.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):

No, I'm with you. And something that I've kind of always subscribed to, even in high school, I remember reading Napoleon Hills Think and Grow Rich in High School.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):

Oh yes. And

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):

He talks about The Secret, and now we have this Rhonda Byrne book and video that came out 10 years ago called The Secret. And anybody who's ever read, think and Grow Rich knows what that is without even watching it. It is that, and it's that whole law of attraction thing. And I don't think I was making a conscious effort to do it. But I do think that there is, again, there's that word momentum again. When you're out for something and you're not going to let no stop you, the word no, stop you, you're going to just find another way around and eventually you're going to get where you're going. I didn't know if any of it would work, but I knew what wouldn't work, what I did those two years after high school that didn't do anything. So I was bound and determined not to repeat that inaction. So if anything, I just countered that with the exact opposite. So yeah, I think there's something to that. I think there's something to about How many

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):

Notes did you get?

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):

Well, none of the people that I met with hired me with the exception of Dallas. And again, I'm not sure that that wasn't already in the works from the fact that we had done work prior. I had a taste of the Good Life with the T Smith thing, and then we didn't hear anything from him. That was it. The T Smith project didn't get released. There was no tours, there was no shows. So you tasted it and then it was taken away. So I was like, okay, how do I get more of that? Which was why I made the demo and started cold calling. I was like, okay, I desperately need to get back in. So yeah, I don't know, man.

(01:05:20):

I refuse to give up and that's kind of my thing. I hate being beaten. I just don't handle defeat very well. So a lot of the bad days I was talking about in the very beginning of this episode, a lot of those bad days are days where I feel defeated by whatever. Like I say, I'm trying to do something on the drums that's not working. I'm trying to do some exercise out on my bars that I can't do. I suddenly can't hurl myself over the bar. Wait a minute, what's wrong? I was doing this yesterday. I don't get it. I suck. There's something wrong. I didn't really have it yet.

(01:05:54):

Yeah, man, I don't accept defeat no matter how bummed out and mad I get, I'll come back five minutes later, five minutes I'm going to do this. Five minutes I'm going to do this, man, damn it. I kind of childish in a way that I just sort of stubbornness, but I just don't, man, I don't. And I think that's all that was going on back in the nineties is I tasted it and I wanted another taste and I didn't have anything better to do and shoot. Why not? It's just a phone call, just makes a phone call. And a lot of times people pick up like, wow, I don't know why I expected it to be hard. It's not,

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):

What's that quote that just showing up is half the gig.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):

Yes. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):

I really do think that's true on that topic of not giving up. So you've been teaching since the mid nineties and you've had a lot of students go through, and I know that a few of them have gone on to do big things. Is there anything in common between them and and just what you've seen out on the road with the superstars? Is there something that you see in these students too?

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):

I do. Actually. There was a couple of things that I think attributes that I would say we share. Me and Josh Baker, the drummer for Mariah Carey or me and Terrell sas, who is constantly working with various artists as both a producer and a writer and a winner of, I think he even won a Grammy and a couple of others. The traits that they have, and I think it took me a while to acquire, is that they are easy to work with people like being around them. So there's a family vibe, there's a familiarity there just right off the bat. And man, that goes a really long way. You don't even have to be the best in order for that part of your personality to work wonders for you, but then they are good. And that would be the other trait is that these are guys that took their craft really, really seriously.

(01:08:21):

They didn't make excuses when things weren't working. They attacked the problem and tried to prevent it from ever happening again. Again, without blaming others. That kind of ties in with the getting along well thing because people who don't get along well are typically blaming someone else, and that just makes them mad. And that's part of the problem. These guys didn't do any of that. And so if I had to say that I share anything with these successful drummers, and these are guys that are way more successful than me, they've certainly outdone that whole student, outdoing the teacher by a mile. I'm looking up to them. I am proud to be able to say I taught them, but they've gone light years past what I did. And I think it's because of those two things. And maybe more, maybe they had even more drive and determination. Maybe they made even more calls than I did.

Speaker 1 (01:09:18):

And I also had an example to look up to.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):

Well, I'll take it. I'll take whatever I can get. Well,

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):

No, I'm just saying back to what we were talking before about modeling other people. You gave them a good example to model right there. So you set the stage in a way for them to be able to, in your words, out to the teacher

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):

Man.

(01:09:44):

And I saw a lot of guys that were in those same classes as Josh Baker and in the same classes as Terrell. And I'm going to say something that I don't want to come out the wrong way, but I'm just going to say it. There were guys who on a technical level could play better than both of those two drummers on a technical level, but did not work because solely because of their attitude. It shouldn't have been that way. These were guys that had some serious facility and struggle now even, and certainly back then. And I'm convinced that the other half of the equation is that workability factor. Are you cool? Can people hang out with you when you're not on stage? And if the answer is no, guess what? Because tour life, that's all it is. You are locked in a bus or cooped up somewhere with these other people. You had better be able to get along. And even on the big gigs, it's still a tiny little area that you're,

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):

I mean, a tour bus is a lot smaller than people realize,

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):

Man, yeah, it's really, really nice and way better than a van, but it is by no means isolating you from everybody else. You are still a tiny little family and there can't be any bad dynamics. And I was very fortunate to have a group of guys on the TLC tour anyway that just loved each other. I mean, it was comedy all day long, man. Man, I was lucky. I had a lot of great experiences with people who were easy to get along with. But I think some of the guys that from Aim Who soared, that's it. That is one of the main reasons. They were good at their craft. By no means am I saying otherwise, but they were genuinely easy to get along with. And man, that'll keep you in the door if you can get in the door, that will keep you there.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):

Man, I'm so glad you said that because I feel like I've been saying that on this podcast almost to the point of getting redundant because we talked to a lot of great people on this podcast, great producers or great musicians, or sometimes I have people who aren't even in music who have just done great things. And everybody says that, that yes, it's assumed that you're good and you don't need to be the Einstein of music. You just need to be good. And that's assumed that if you're showing up that your skills are assumed. The other part is what actually translates into making a living out of it is do people want to be around you? Can they handle the way you breathe and the way that you sound when you eat,

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):

Right? Yes. That's a real thing, man. That's a real thing. I know.

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):

I know it is. Yeah, man, believe me. I definitely know it. So how does that lead to voice acting and the video thing? I know when I met you, you were already doing the video thing, and I don't know if you had gone into the voice acting yet, but how does, what's all that all about?

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):

When the tour ended, when the TLC tour was over in 2000, I noticed that everybody was making press kit e pks, electronic press kits. And back in those days it was VHS and there were about eight minutes in length. And the whole point was to have this video presentation of a new artist or their new release anyway that they could ship out to whomever in an effort to sort of convince them, Hey, play this video or play this song on the radio. It's just another marketing tool for the record labels to use to get the word out about their artists. And I thought, well, maybe I should do the same thing. And so I went to the video producers that created all the imagery on the huge screen behind us every night on tour. They were right here in Atlanta called Image Mill. They're still around. And I went over there and I said, Hey, you guys got all this footage of me on the road. And I think at one point they even interviewed me, so I knew they had that tape somewhere. And I said, how much would you charge me to make an EPK? They said, well, we'd normally get 20,000, but we'll do it for 10,000 for you since your family. Nice. Right? So I wasn't going to do

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):

That. It's the seal of a deal right there,

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):

Dude. Right. So I went straight to I think Walden books back when there were bookstores, and I bought digital video editing for Dummies for $25, and it had a limited version of Adobe Premier and Adobe After Effects. And I learned that summer how to operate that software enough to create a video. And I had taken a lot of footage on a little digital hi eight camera of my own. So I just cobbled together an electronic press kit, and then I tried to copy once again, find somebody who's doing it right and copy them. VH one behind the music was huge back then. And so I copied their format of animating pictures and zooming in on certain aspects of an image to get a point across narrating whatever is not being spoken in an interview. And then I conducted my own interviews. I just pretended somebody was asking me a question, and then I would answer it off camera.

(01:15:03):

I'd be like, oh yeah, see how I'm not looking at you? I would just be pretending to answer this question. And I cut that thing together. So at the end of the summer, I took that eight minute VHS back to Image Mill, and I said, tell me what you think of this before I start sending it out. And the first thing they did at the end of the video, they said, did you make this? I said, yeah. So the guy's like, okay, so here's the key. Here's the alarm code. You're hired, and your first job is to cut Charlie Wilson's EPK for the release of Bridging the Gap, a record he was about to release. So that was my first job. Were you even looking for a job? No, I was just like, does this suck? Can I send this out and not be embarrassed?

(01:15:52):

They hired me on the spot. So I took the blessing. I'm like, cool, I'm in. I guess I'm still going to send this video out. I'm going to come here and learn and make money. And so I did. I cut Charlie Wilson from the Gap Band, his record called Bridging the Gap. I did a lot of work for Pink there. Warner Brothers released a one hour cutdown version of the TLC fan mail show. Guess who got to edit that down for Warner Brothers, the guy in the show. Perfect. They were like, yo, you're definitely getting this gig. The music better than any of us get on it. So I cut all these shows for Image Mill, and then after a while they started, I dunno, something was happening. They were having a hard time paying, collecting money. I dunno what was going on. And one of the other editors got let go and Mill came to me and his guy's name is Mill Image Mill. Mill Cannon came to me and says, Hey, I owe you about $4,500. How about I give you this video deck instead and you go start a company? And that's exactly what I did. I was like, cool, see you go home. And I start editing videos. And in 2001, I incorporated with the ridiculous name Nighttime Studios, which I still have today. All the money that I make goes to Corporation. It's an S-corp and Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):

Yeah, S-Corp.

Speaker 2 (01:17:17):

S-Corp man.

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):

Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):

Yes sir. And so yeah, first job I got was printed circuit board design, two minute trade show videos, 10,000 bucks. I thought I was rolling, man. I'm like, I'm making money. This is it. And by the way, I'm still teaching at aim. I'm still trying to get work with the EPK video, which by the way, that EPK video did land me the job as the drummer for Leanne Rimes. And I was going to make so much money. I don't even want to tell you how much it was going to be, but I knew the manager, a guy named Mark St. Louis, and he had taken us to TLC to Japan once, and that's how I knew him. He was now running Leanne R'S gig. So I get him the video, he shows her, she picks me, then promptly gets in some kind of accident that ruins the tour. It didn't happen. Thanks, Leanne. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, hey, it's all good, but win some, you lose some. But I still thought of that as a win. I'm like, okay, this video actually works so well.

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):

Yeah, you won,

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):

But

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):

I think that was not in your control. What happened after that?

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):

No, but I still think there was something, I kind of started recognizing maybe I have more than just musicality working for me. Maybe I've got an eye for this other thing that I never knew I had. And I was being told by a lot of the producers who were teaching me, yeah, you've got the eye, you seem to get it. They would tell me that, and I don't know if I believed them, but I was happy that they were saying it. And I just kept trying to, one of those guys was my first animating hero. Everything he animated I was trying to copy and mostly unsuccessful, but it was still pushing me in the right direction. And he recognized that I was looking up to him, so he would take me on all these shoots out of town and everything. And I just learned so much about how to produce a spot, how to work in broadcast media and everything else.

(01:19:22):

And so I started doing that for aim, and I was still getting business through nighttime studios. And then the prices of a lot of the animating software dropped, and suddenly there was this huge influx of people making video. This was before cell phones were shooting 2K or 4K video. So suddenly everybody was in the game and prices drop when that happens, it's just supply and demand. One of the first things that clients would scratch off the list is professional vo. They didn't want to pay 500 or a thousand dollars for Jean Barrett, who I love. They were like, oh, you do it. Okay, let's try this and would suck horribly. And so the more of that I realized I was going to have to do, the more I realized I needed to learn how to do it. So I started taking lessons. I started reading books and finding heroes in that world, and I found that I really liked it.

(01:20:27):

And I'm like, shoot, if I can make money doing this, I don't even want to do video anymore. Let the kids with the phones do it. Let me just talk. It's easier. I don't have to go anywhere. I don't have to lug around a bunch of lights and tripods. And I got my little neuman U 87 here going through a focus right pre right into the daw. It's all good, man. Good to go. Lemme just sit here with my coffee and air conditioning and just do this. So that's how it worked. That's how I got here, and that's where I'm at now. Got you.

Speaker 1 (01:20:58):

That's amazing. Yeah, that's actually pretty amazing. And it's interestingly enough that I see a parallel. I can relate to that because what I'm doing now, I never even imagined doing 10 years ago, I would've never saw that happening. And it was only because in 2013, my best friend, he was working for a company called Creative Live, and he had just convinced them to start an audio channel, and I was the producer guy he knew. So he asked me to come teach a class on it, and I actually thought it was going to be lame. I thought it would be lame to get on camera. I didn't feel right. I felt like an imposter, but I did it for him. So I flew to Seattle and it went great. And so we just did more and more and everyone started getting bigger and my classes were doing better than producers who were like 10 times bigger than me who would go on Creative Live and was thinking maybe there's something to this.

(01:22:02):

And I actually really enjoy it. I like this, doing this a hell of a lot more than working with bands even in the studio. I like it more than being in a band. I just like it better. And I've always wanted to start a business and it just went down that rabbit hole and now we're crushing. So it's interesting. I think that if in 2013 if I had stayed negative and been like, this is lame, or when I was 15, I wanted to be a guitar player, so now that I'm 33 or whatever I was, then I have to still be a guitar player and I still have to maintain the exact same dream I had when I was 15. And you don't have to, you can take on new things in life. It's okay.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):

That is exactly right. In fact, I think it might even be necessary now.

Speaker 1 (01:22:54):

Yes, I completely agree with that. I think what they say, the average millennial will have five careers.

Speaker 2 (01:23:01):

That's what I read, something

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):

Like that.

Speaker 2 (01:23:03):

I read the same thing. Yeah, probably Ink Magazine or something. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:23:07):

But it's true. Yeah, it's true from everything I've seen.

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):

Yep. It is. And I'm happy. Sometimes I feel spread thin if a lot of these potential bosses that I have converge on a single point of time, sometimes that can get a little hairy. But most of the time it's a nice, convenient, comfortable juggling act of let me do this at this point in the day, let me do that on that day. And I'm doing all kinds of different things. I never get bored, but I'm also not stressed. I don't know. I like it. I dig it. I dig doing different things.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):

Okay, and last thing I want to ask you about, well, two things I want to ask you about, and then I have a couple questions from our students. The fitness thing I just noticed because I've been following you online, you've just started posting insane workout videos of yourself becoming a superhero man. What's going on there?

Speaker 2 (01:24:08):

So I thought I was a little overweight a few years ago, and I had always been interested in fitness, and so I just kind of made a commitment to try and find a kind of working out that I could stick with. I had tried insanity, I had tried P 90 X and all these things and went through the program, but they were just so utterly hard and not fun that I never went back. They worked, but at what price? And so I found a workout a couple of years back called 300, and it's what Gerard Butler and all those guys who made the movie 300, it was the workout that they used and it was just six basic exercises, 50 reps each however long it took. There was no time limit. So even if it took all day, as long as you did 50 reps times six of these exercises, you were done. And I loved that. That was simple and I could take all day. And so that started working.

Speaker 1 (01:25:04):

Did it take all day

Speaker 2 (01:25:06):

In the beginning? It did In the beginning it absolutely did. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't do 50 pull-ups at once, no way. And so I don't even think I can do that now, but I got to the point before I moved over to what I'm doing now where I was doing two sets of 25 so I could knock it out in just a couple of minutes. That's

Speaker 1 (01:25:24):

Pretty intense actually.

Speaker 2 (01:25:26):

Yeah, you're out of breath for a while after that, but you get to the point where you can do it. And so about a half a year ago, I just remembered something my dad said about these guys who could do a pullup and then all the way over the top, I didn't even know what the name of that was. So I'm searching online like, okay, pull up where you go all the way up. And finally I stumbled upon somebody who knew what I was talking about and they said, oh yeah, that's a muscle up. And so instantly I was able to find all these tutorials on muscle ups, couldn't do one for a month, man. I undertook the project of building a seven foot bar and anchoring it to my deck underneath my deck. We've got a covered deck so I can get out there, even if it's raining and do this stuff, talk about feeling bummed out.

(01:26:20):

I spend this money and build all this stuff and watch all these tutorials. Couldn't do one. So typical me, I'm pissed and I'm out there every day and I'm like, but I've done 10,000 pull-ups in the last two years. I can bench press way more than I weigh. I mean, why is this not happening? And I realized something a long time ago that I dunno why it took so long to apply here. If I want to get good at something, I have to do that thing. I can't do a bunch of other things that are supposed to help this. You just jump right in and do the thing. You're wanting to get good at a particular lick on the drums. Oh, go practice this in the air. Go practice this on a non bouncing surface and then no, set that stuff aside and just get to work on the thing you want to get good at.

(01:27:10):

So when I started applying that process to the muscle up, man, it was like three days, three days later, I was over the bar. Now I could only do one at a time, but I was so happy the first time I've got it on my phone, the first one ever. I was like a kid, oh my God, I did it. And the same level of positive feedback and momentum that we were talking about earlier just happened and I fell in love with it. There's something about other workouts where the body is static and you're moving weight around like a bench press or dumbbells or whatever that works. But there's something more fun about the exercise apparatus not moving, and you being the thing that's getting moved, all of a sudden you're flipping around and you're doing all these cool moves and it's building the same muscles.

(01:28:05):

In fact, it's building more because now you're activating all parts of your body, not just the muscle that you're focusing on when you're laying down on a bench. So I was like, oh, why didn't I see this earlier? So I ate it up, man, I'm still eating it up. Me and my little boy before this podcast interview, we were in the next room over and I was working on handstands and he's over there on the pull-up bar with a rubber band helping him up because he's nine. He's still not quite strong enough to do a bunch, but I think he got bit by the bug. It's just, I don't know, man. I don't know how to explain it other than I can't get enough of it. And I love that I'm pumped every day. I have to tell myself, okay, I can't work out today. I need a day off. I need to rest. I need to recuperate. It's really hard. I actually like it as much as I like doing anything.

Speaker 1 (01:28:56):

Sounds like you took your same whatever it is that got you to work, got you with drums, that same type of focus and you know how to learn things and applied it to working out,

Speaker 2 (01:29:09):

Yes, I can't do this, but I really want to. And I found somebody online as, once again, a hero. I think it's important to have heroes who's amazing at it and who offered all this instruction. I did what he said, and it worked. And there's that again, that positive feedback loop. You experienced success and you just crave even more. And

Speaker 1 (01:29:32):

You're the dude who would go to the Tony Robbins seminar and it would actually work for them.

Speaker 2 (01:29:36):

I probably so, right? Probably so. Yeah. But yeah, that's it, man. And so I am going to do it as long as I am able, and there are guys out there who are in their sixties who look 30 because of this stuff, and then they act 30. You wouldn't know. You would not know that they were that old.

Speaker 1 (01:29:56):

I'll just say that. This sounds like a whole rabbit hole. We could go down and I'd love to have you back on to just talk about mastery. Just do a whole podcast just talking about mastery and

Speaker 2 (01:30:11):

Learning. Let's do it. I'll come over there so we don't have to worry about the technological stuff, if you like.

Speaker 1 (01:30:17):

Absolutely. That would be great. I mean, we're in the same town. Let's do it. I've got some questions here from some of our listeners and this one's from Hal Longview, and when you started drumming, how were you able to train your limbs to be polyrhythmic rhythmic?

Speaker 2 (01:30:35):

So I don't believe there is such a thing as independence. I think that is a myth. I think that is something invented by instructors to sell books, and it was Jack Bell who taught me that, and I fought him tooth and nail until he said, okay, fine, here's proof. And he wrote down this exercise and he presented it to me, ceremoniously and I arrogantly took it out of his hand and took one look at it and was like, you're right. You know what it was quarter notes in right hand, quarter notes in the left hand, quarter, notes in the right foot, quarter notes in the left foot couldn't be easier except quarter.

Speaker 1 (01:31:16):

It wasn't easy.

Speaker 2 (01:31:17):

100 BPM, 1 0 5, 1 10, 1 15. Oh shit. No one can do that. No one. If we were truly independent beings, that would be a non-issue. You could get four different people hooked them up with four different time clicks, and as long as they weren't paying attention to the rest independent, they could do it. You assigned any two of those tempos to one human being, it's not going to work. And even if at the end of their lives they did get good at one hundred and one oh five, I could ruin it by changing one of them. One tick, right? Independence is a myth. So the answer to that question is treat everything like an entire treat. Your whole body. It's one limb. And my trick was I would look at a piece of music that had all kinds of independent writings. I would look at it vertically and I would disregard the tempo, get somebody on the other side of the stand.

(01:32:19):

That's what I used to do with my students, and I would have a pencil and I'd say, only play what's underneath my pencil. Okay, good, good. Alright, move. Play that, play that. And it wouldn't sound like anything, but the point was to train the order of muscular firings to occur in the same order as they were presented on the page. Nevermind that you could isolate any one of the limbs and say, okay, well that limb is playing a clave. That limb is playing eighth nodes, that limb is playing quarter nodes. That's pointless. What we were able to do is get, I would pull a guitarist in from the hallways at Aim and have them playing some of the most complex polyrhythmic music in 10 minutes with that procedure. These are people that never played drums before and the drummers have been playing years still not able to do these things.

(01:33:11):

I'm like, you don't have to imagine all these separate limbs zipping together like a zipper. No. Treat your whole body like one big limb and just learn the order of muscular firings slow enough to where you won't make any mistakes, and eventually you'll be able to speed that up. You just have to be patient during the process where it doesn't sound like anything, and it doesn't sound like anything at first. Funny enough, you get through this enough times, 10 minutes or so, not long, and you start being able to speed it up because your body starts to get used to, oh, this is that part where this happens. This is that part where nothing happens. Oh, I got this, and an hour later you're doing it at full speed. A week later you're able to ironically dissect one limb at a time. Now all of a sudden it feels like you could change this one limb or change that one limb, but the process was backwards. We ate the elephant in one bite. The idea that you're going to work on this arm and then this arm and then at some point put 'em together to me is a huge waste of time. I never did that. I never did that, and I was able to play anything within an hour by just forgetting what other people are going to teach. Oh, learn this line, learn that line, and put 'em together. No,

(01:34:32):

Nope, forget time. Forget music for a moment. Learn the pattern. Speed that up. You'll get there a lot faster.

Speaker 1 (01:34:41):

I can back that up. My dad, he was a percussion major in college, and so he's a drummer, believe it or not, and I know this is going to sound really simple to you or to drummers out there, but just remember I'm not a drummer and never have been. So grew up with my dad being a percussionist, and he would always do, when he'd get bored at a restaurant, he gets bored a lot. He would just start tapping three over two. And I just thought it sounded really cool. So I learned the pattern and what it sounded like and what it was rather than, and so I just started doing it without thinking the fact that I've got triplets in one hand and eighths on the other. When I would start to think about that later when I was older and I knew what triplets were and eighth notes were, that would start to trip me out if I started to try to dissect it. But then if I just listened in my head to what the music of it was supposed to be, the shit was easy.

Speaker 2 (01:35:41):

And

Speaker 1 (01:35:42):

So I just imagined always that that's what it would be if I was a drummer trying to learn this stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:35:48):

That

Speaker 1 (01:35:48):

Is that sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:35:50):

That's all it is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:35:52):

Here's a question from AJ Vienna. He says, what a legend. I remember seeing videos years ago of Tom tracking to a click and it was perfect. Is the ability to stay that locked into a click, something you're still practicing and working on.

Speaker 2 (01:36:09):

First of all, thank you for that amazing compliment. Not only is it very kind of you to say, but that is actually something I really do and did work on. I still work on that to this day. Click playing. I'm going to say what a lot of people say is that you want to try to hear the click as a part of the music rather than as some antagonistic force only here to piss you off the way. I don't want to say try, because trying always made it seem like it was going to fail. That's some Yoda stuff right there. And I don't mean it to sound like Yoda, but I noticed that trying less. Now, this is a concept out of the inner game of music book by Barry Green and Timothy Galway highly recommended the idea of trying less. So I try to bury the click.

(01:37:09):

There's that word try. It's kind of hard to even say this without using that word, but the attempt to bury the click to the point where you couldn't hear it anymore. Now that presents a problem because once you can't hear the click, your mind starts to play tricks on you and is it still there? I don't know. And then that's enough to throw your attention, and now all of a sudden you're not on the click anymore. So it is a delicate balance of paying attention to the click as though it were just another instrument in the band, but then ignoring it and just enough to not be so focused on it that it consumes every other part of your ability as a musician. You kind of have to pay attention to it and not pay attention to it at the same time. I'm not really answering this question very well, but that is the best I can think to describe it now.

(01:38:07):

It doesn't feel like I'm listening to the click as much as I am just I'm feeling the pulse and it happens to be provided by the click, but I'm just feeling the pulse as though it were a bass player or some other instrument that I'm playing along with. Notice when you're playing with another instrumentalist, you're not focused on every single thing that they're playing with the worry that you might not be with them, right? If you did, your performance would be stiff and would suffer. Sometimes we approach click playing like that. It's more important than it really is. Not saying it's not uber important, but to overfocus, I think on being exact actually causes the problem of not being exact. I think the more we are able to relax into a performance and just observe the click and observe whether or not we're on it, and then casually make adjustments here and there is the best course of action. And yes, I still work on it a lot. It's a major part of my focus every time I sit down to play, no matter what I'm playing.

Speaker 1 (01:39:12):

Yeah, I mean those skills are perishable.

Speaker 2 (01:39:14):

Yes. Yes. Yeah, that's a great way to say that. And I notice if for some reason I let enough time go by without doing it, ooh, wow, that's that used to be easier guess I know what I'm doing for the next hour.

Speaker 1 (01:39:34):

Exactly. So last question. This one's from Sean O'Shaughnessy.

Speaker 2 (01:39:38):

Love that name.

Speaker 1 (01:39:39):

It looks like he's got two. Yeah, it's a great name. He's actually got two questions. First one is, when balancing all the business endeavors, did you find yourself having to delegate more or did you maintain a direct hands-on approach with every job gig, project product?

Speaker 2 (01:39:55):

Okay, first of all, let me say that my mom's maiden name is Shaughnessy, not with the O, but Shaughnessy. So there's a definite affinity for that name. I did maintain hands-on with everything, not because I didn't want to delegate. I probably would've if I could have, but I was always primarily the only person doing the work. So when I was operating a video production company, I would have interns and partners at various times, but I had the vision and until you get, I think big enough and I never got quite big enough or successful enough to hire people better than me, which is what you're supposed to do, hire a bunch of people better than you and let them help you. I kind of had to carry the load. And then in vo, it really is just me. I don't want anyone else taking my job. So it's always, yeah, I did not delegate. No, it just became more to navigate. It became more work, more billable hours though, and more time spent. But I'm okay with that. So no delegation, but I'm still not stretched at the seams yet.

Speaker 1 (01:41:14):

So you're really good at time management.

Speaker 2 (01:41:17):

Either that or I haven't figured out that I'm not.

Speaker 1 (01:41:21):

Ah, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:41:23):

And my clients are okay. Nobody's mad at me. Nobody's bitching. Hey, where's this VO file? Thankfully.

Speaker 1 (01:41:32):

All right. And this is his second question here. As a human, MPC, did you find yourself emulating what folks were programming and sequencing or kind of laying down patterns you thought appropriate, for example, playing the part, how a drummer would traditionally play it versus matching the more finger drummer MPC style of playing beats?

Speaker 2 (01:41:53):

Definitely the latter. I did not approach, especially with Dallas Austin, who definitely finger tapped a lot of that stuff. Or in some cases it was worse. Fingert tapping can be quantized, and I say worse, not in a bad way. I say worse just as a drummer sometimes instead of finger tapping, he would cobble together different samples. That one sample might have a slight amount of swing to it, whereas another sample also incorporated in this one groove would be perfectly straight. And I would have to clone that as a drummer. I was not told to play my thing. My understanding on all those sessions was that I was to play what the sequence was playing.

(01:42:41):

And so a lot of times there would be very awkward grooves where every measure would involve a slight delay in one note, for example. Now as drummers, we work our whole lives to not have that happen. We try to make everything consistent and perfect. If we're swinging, the whole body is supposed to swing in the same way. If we're playing straight, the whole body needs to play straight. Well, he would have these grooves where everything would be straight except the left hand would have a slight swing to it. Oh, how do I do that? And so you just try. So the answer there is no, I had to do what they programmed and I got pretty good at it. Occasionally they would throw something at me that was just so difficult. I would just have to eliminate a limb or say, I'm not going to play that note, that one note I'm not going to play. Why don't you let the sequence do that? I'm not going to nail that every single time. Let me play the rest of it, which I can nail. And then that one note will be by itself. I can think of a perfect example of that. I played four TLC on their 3D record, a song called Damaged. And there's a loop underneath what I'm playing. Let's see.

(01:43:57):

I think it's the E of 4 1, 2, 3, 4 E. I think it's that. But there's a note somewhere in the loop that happens just ahead of where it ought to be metronomic. And though I would sometimes nail that, I didn't nail it every time. And so I just made an executive decision. I didn't even tell them, I just made an executive decision. I'm not going to do that because I don't want them having to worry about that flam happening every once in a while. And so the last take, I just omitted that one note and everything else lined up great, and the track sounds good to me, but before then it didn't. So yeah, I took those as educational as a great exercise and a paycheck all at the same time.

Speaker 1 (01:44:48):

Great answer. Well, Tom, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you for sharing so much of your history so candidly, and just being here.

Speaker 2 (01:44:58):

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:44:59):

My pleasure. I would love to have you back on. And yeah, just thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:45:04):

No, we're going to definitely do that. That'll be great. I'd love to come see you set up, and I haven't seen you in too many years, so it'll be great. It'll be a great hang man. We'll make a day, day of it. For sure. For sure.

Speaker 1 (01:45:14):

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