Here, we’ve compiled a list of the best Drums Quotes from famous authors such as Fred Armisen, Freddie Gibbs, Daveed Diggs, Murda Beatz, Bill Kreutzmann. Let’s look at these pieces of wisdom. We definitely have something to learn from them!
1
I wanted so badly to be in a famous band, and it was not happening. I played drums with different bands and with the Blue Man Group in Chicago, but I definitely felt like, ‘Wow, I did not picture my life being like this.’
2
I don’t like pre-written raps; I think it makes the song better if you listen to the beat first. In a sense, you have to make a marriage with the beat. I ride the beat, hear the flow of the drums, get the melody of my flow, and then from that point, it’s a process of what I want to say.
3
Clipping is a very specific, concept-y thing. We have all these rules: we don’t sample drums. We create all our own sounds. I don’t speak in the first person. We come from a background of experimental music like John Cage… Philip Glass.
4
I played drums since I was 6 years old. And then I got into producing music when I was about 16 or 17. Somebody showed me FL Studios, the program. My beats were bad at first, but then eventually they started to get good.
5
I mean, when it gets down to it I just wanted to play the drums. The rest of it never meant that much to me.
6
I wanna play hard rock. I wanna play loud drums.
7
I wanted to play the drums, but I had no rhythm.
8
Well, I was very lucky. I was brought up west southwest coast of Scotland and my mother and father had a music shop, and so I was surrounded by pianos and drums and guitars, and music, of course.
9
I love to travel, playing drums, and being on the road as not many people can say that.
10
Drums, bass, guitar, keys, I play a little of each of those.
11
The golden rule of drums is hands clapping and feet tapping, and when you are in and out of consciousness, you can’t do that to best of your ability.
12
I just don’t see myself as retiring. As long as I’m healthy and can play the drums, that’s what I’m going to do because that’s the most fun thing that I know how to do.
13
With guitar, bass and drums, you’ve got limited horizons.
14
My wife was born in Korea, and we met in music college; she was there for vocal, and I was there for drums.
15
I’ve been playing drums since I was 7.
16
The rhythmic feel of ‘Dark Days In Paradise’ is completely different to anything I’ve ever done before. There’s a lot of drum loops on there, but used in conjunction with real drums: a lot of influence from hip-hop and dance music, with the keyboard sound and sequencing.
17
I felt like I plateaued at playing drums, like I wasn’t getting any better. I bought an electric pair of drums, sold my drum set, and got introduced to making beats.
18
I have never been one for musicians. I know girls are supposed to go crazy for frontmen who close their eyes when they sing and nod their heads when the drums kick in, but I’m like Shania Twain with that stuff: That don’t impress me much. I’ll take wit and brains over the ability to carry a tune any day.
19
You get this really cool groove when you’re playing just piano, bass, and drums where everyone’s sort of feeling each other’s space, which is the only way to put it, but it really is true, and everyone’s sort of sitting in their own pocket. It’s kind of jazz-like.
20
There was always a guitar hanging around the house when I was a kid. It was a much lower impact instrument than me playing the drums, which is what I really wanted to do. My mother put a stop to the drumming.
21
I don’t mind doing two or three Eagles songs and playing the drums. I’m not one of those artists who’s going to sit here and deny the past.
22
Lars Ulrich, he was my hero growing up. I wanted to be like him. I played the drums.
23
I could stand out front and sing Eagles songs that I sing in my set, but I think people enjoy watching me sing and play the drums. It seems to fascinate people. I don’t know why.
24
It’s nice to work with people who know how to mic drums right and how to record properly. But there’s something to be said for doing it yourself.
25
I love to talk about the drums and music. I started playing drums when I was probably six and played a lot until I was about ten or eleven years old. So, I guess five or six years where I played. I had a drum set at home, and I would just bang on it. I’d even go on the Internet and study basic beats and so forth.
26
I don’t recall what the first record I bought was, but I definitely remember hearing Creedence’s ‘Born on the Bayou’ and going out and buying it. The guitar and drums in that band were really good. I loved the words to the title track, and Fogerty’s voice sounded just great.
27
With ‘Iowa,’ if you ask me, we really passed up a lot of things that we could have done with the two auxiliary drummers. I mean they hardly touched their drums on that album.
28
I spent a lot of time lifting my drums into a van, playing to ten people night after night. I can’t complain about anything now. That stuff was heavy.
29
The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth.
30
My first real experience with worship, I was 19. I was playing drums in the church band at a church in Phoenix, and they asked me to be the worship leader.
31
Everyone knows deep in their hearts that the drums are the coolest instrument, and that a band is only as good as its drummer. So I’m all for drum solos. I’m all for drummers hamming it up. I’m all for drummers standing up and kicking over the kit.
32
I am proud of Kirk. I think he drums to his own drummer in every way.
33
The most memorable moment was playing drums with Bob Dylan.
34
There’s something about rhythm and bass sections generally, how the bass and drums interact, that’s basically the soul of any song.
35
I’ve just been recording mostly acoustic stuff, drums, and sax, and electric guitar. I’m just still writing songs and what not.
36
All I really had was a suitcase and my drums. So I took them up to Seattle and hoped it would work.
37
I play drums and guitar, I snowboard, I do martial arts and acrobatics. I go to the movies every Friday.
38
I do seem to like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.
39
The drums are about gravity. Your hand naturally falls down on the drums as you hit them.
40
We have a lot of people onstage. We have a live violin, live cello, live drums played on this kind of massive electronic kit with some acoustic elements built in.
41
I was always stealing 40-gallon drums off the road at night, bringing them back to the workshop and cutting them up with a gas axe because I loved to weld. I would make creatures out of these old metal drums.
42
There’s the drums, the music, the melodies, the lyrics, the production, the artwork: there are so many elements to making an album, and the drumming is just a very small fraction of what I focus on.
43
Having that music around us all the time, it was so inspiring. But at the same time, I was a kid. I didn’t pay attention to any of it. I’d get on the drums and hit them a few times, and then go outside and play.
44
I see a lot of comments on Twitter and stuff about how ugly I am, how bad I am at the drums, how awkward I look, and I’m like, yeah, I agree with most of those things.
45
What sounds good on the radio is really loud kick drums and loud snare drums, when everything’s bombastic and in your face. It’s the equivalent of a houseguest who screams all the time.
46
We decided to do some of Merle’s things with modern instrumentation. We used a flute, a bass clarinet, a trumpet, a clarinet, drums, a guitar, vibes and a piano.
47
Cello is my first instrument, then piano, drums, bass, violin, recorder, saxophone, but I’d never play them live!
48
When I make a record with My Morning Jacket, I love what those guys do, so I don’t have a need to play bass or drums or anything, because we’re doing that as a unit.
49
I connect so much with Peter Gabriel’s sound because, to me, he always had that South African vibe. His drums were always something to move to: it was almost like Calypso. I’m a big fan.
50
Every now and then there might be a beat someone turned down that I have as an unused beat. But everything that predominantly matches the artist in my 30 years of doing this, it was me walking in and sitting there with no drums, no samples, no nothing, and making a beat on the spot.
51
It was actually drumming that gave me the stamina to get into sports later. I started playing drums at 13, and when I got to the international touring level… I got interested in cross-country skiing, long-distance swimming, bicycling… things that require stamina, not finesse.
52
Too many drummers sit at the back covered in drums, and you never see them.
53
If it hadn’t worked out professionally, I would be teaching music theory and composition in a small college somewhere and playing drums in a jazz trio at the Holiday Inn on weekends, and I’d be happy there, too.
54
The drums can get pretty boring as a solo instrument.
55
I had a jazz trio, a rock n’ roll band, and I played drums in junior high, high school, college, big bands, and I played timpani in the symphony. I am a drummer. It’s the one instrument I actually play pretty well. It’s just hard to carry on your back.
56
I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.
57
The records I make, I’m there from the writing of the first note through the click tracks to the miking of the drums to the editing of everything to the production to the vocals to the artwork.
58
With horns and a full rhythm section, the drums always looked like the best seat in the house.
59
I didn’t feel the kind of joy every day playing drums that I thought you were supposed to feel.
60
Well I had a musical background, but I still didn’t know a lot about drums at the time.
61
I prefer recording drums in the analog format, but that does not mean I would only do it that way.
62
When I was a kid, I went through a lot of musical phases, and one was when I’d learn everything that The Beatles ever recorded. After I started drums, I fell in love with their music so much that I just wanted to learn everything.
63
I like a nice rumble on bass, openness on guitar and drums that breathe.
64
I do play drums when I’m on tour.
65
Lately Fish and I have been hooking up more, which is a good thing because it’s just been a struggle for me as a bass player to play with someone who’s so creative on the drums, and lately it’s been really good, especially during sound checks.
66
We’ve been appropriating in art since Duchamp, and we’ve been appropriating in music since the first person was banging on drums.
67
I love puppies, and I love animals in general. Besides that, I do martial arts: extreme martial arts. I also play real guitar and drums, and sing. And I’m taking some college classes, hoping to major in English and creative writing.
68
I don’t want people to think that I think I’m this great drummer because, to me, I’m just a kid playing drums, and I love music.
69
I think my love of music comes from my dad. I was born with an ear for music, like him, and started with the piano when I was 4 but fell in love with the drums. My dad always has music playing.
70
Think of what happened after 9/11, the minute before there was any assessment, there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq, and so the war drums beat.
71
I worked with a guy, I can’t think of his name, him and his wife, and one of them had a saxophone and the other played drums. It wasn’t a regular job but I did a few gigs around home with them.
72
The drums tell me everything. Everything else registers a millisecond later.
73
I can put a hip-hop beat to reggae. That is, I can have real reggae in the drums and in the rhythm, and on top of it I can put The Rolling Stones’ feeling, anyone’s feeling on top. Nobody has ever done this before, man.
74
I have a bad back partially from playing the drums and singing. I used to have to hold my body in such a position that my spine got out of alignment.
75
I play Orange County drums. I love those guys. I’ve got a four piece kit.
76
I started drumming around the same time I came across this part of American history. But there seemed to be a way forward playing drums. There didn’t seem to be a way forward being fascinated by a piece of history.
77
I played the drums. I basically started off in drum line. So it was just straight percussion. Then I got into the drum set. I was in the jazz band and then all through high school I was in orchestra.
78
I don’t like drums dictating the song; like when you hear a fill and then you know the chorus is coming up.
79
One of the advantages of playing in a club is that even with bass and drums, the atmosphere remains intimate with the audience.
80
New Order has always been a hybrid band. We always mixed guitar, bass, drums with electronic.
81
As a musician, I don’t think I’m the greatest guitar player. I’m a bigger fan of the drums than I am the guitar; I just happen to play guitar. I play drums almost every day at my house. I wrote a lot of songs behind the drum kit, just having the music and vocals in my head and playing the rhythm.
82
Having my son on drums has made a huge difference. I can’t stress this strongly enough, in terms of the groove space and style that Joachim gave me to instinctively play what I felt in a more free way, rather than feeling constricted. That’s true on record and on stage.
83
I learned to play drums to the ‘Blue Album.’
84
I don’t consider myself a great drummer. I consider myself just a music fan that’s a very, very passionate artist, and the drums just happen to be my instrument.
85
Life got very good – we went from living in a one-bedroom apartment to a five-bedroom mansion by the time I was in high school. I had everything I wanted growing up, though all I wanted was music stuff – drums, a PC, turntables.
86
U2 are a great band; they’ve given us an unbelievable body of work, and all of us musicians owe them at least something. I can honestly say that every time I have played the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, as soon as my drums are set up, I go into the beat of ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday.’
87
My desk is my drums.
88
When I listen to a record, or when I’m making a record, I listen to everything. I listen to the drums, the bass, the voice, the arrangement. I listen to the whole piece as an ensemble.
89
I play the piano, drums, little bit of bass, guitar. I can play harmonica, a little bit of the ukulele. Pretty much anything that’s a strumming, string type thing.
90
Like my best friend, I asked for drums for Christmas, and got them. But when he moved on to guitar, I realized two things: (1) guitar is a much more expressive instrument, (2) way more girls pay attention to guitar players than to drummers.
91
I started playing music when I was around 10. I always wanted to be in a band, so I started out by playing drums.
92
I can play piano, classical flute, guitar, bass and I’m OK on drums.
93
‘Makossa’ is from Africa, and it means ‘dance.’ It’s also the name for this type of music. In my song, I decided to mix in some Jamaican sounds, like the steel drums.
94
In ‘Dancing Drums,’ I’ve touched on music that largely brings the ethos of religions other than my own together.
95
If you listen to a lot of old funk records, the drums are really small. But you don’t perceive it like that because the groove is so heavy.
96
I grew up in Oxnard, CA, and I went to a church called St. Paul, where I was playing drums. My mom had a strawberry company. The whole town of Oxnard is basically built on produce, and more particularly, strawberries.
97
I play mostly guitar, and I played drums in my brother’s band for a while growing up.
98
I started on the drums when I was eight.
99
Playing the drums hurts my back.
100
I’ve always kind of had an interest in the drums but nothing else. The drums are the only thing I feel I would be good at, because I’m a very physical person. I’ve always played sports and stuff. Drums would give me something to do.
101
When I was 16 I was in a neo hardcore band called Finger Charge. I played the drums with my shirt off.
102
I played in a punk rock band in high school called the High Heel Flip Flops. I was the drummer. I played drums for, like, four years.
103
First and foremost I am a drummer. After that, I’m other things… But I didn’t play drums to make money.
104
When I started rhyming, my favorite rhythms were from John Coltrane and some of the things he did on sax. And certain rhythms that I hear on drums, I try to emulate with my words, dropping on the same patterns that them beats or them notes would hit.
105
Most drummers are covered with a million drums, and everyone is like, ‘What are you doing back there?’
106
Well, I take my drums everywhere I go so I can play them for relaxation.
107
I play guitar, I jam on the piano, drums, and even the triangle.
108
Beating the drums for Hawaii is not hard to do… the place just grows on you.
109
I suppose I am a frustrated musician so I annoy my family by playing guitar in the house. I used to be into acoustic stuff but my son Joseph is learning drums, so now I have an electric guitar and we play Metallica. We have an amp and a PA in the garage with his drum kit.
110
I remember the first time somebody played me Janis Joplin. My friend Donna put on Janis Joplin, and she said, ‘You’re like her.’ At the time, I wasn’t even a singer; I was a drummer. I just wanted to play the drums.
111
It’s harder to play drums than guitar, physically. I’m always kind of on the edge. I guess that’s how I play everything: on the edge of my ability.
112
I always thought it would be really cool to be playing the drums in the show and then have your astral body or whatever travel all through the audience and dig whatever it’s like out there.
113
You know, when I was younger I was into all kinds of art – drawing, painting, all that stuff. But I played drums, played piano forever.
114
If what you do for a living is play drums or bass, then that defines you. You don’t want to be some guy missing notes here and there; you want to really speak with it.
115
I started playing drums at three, then piano at five, then clarinet. But it wasn’t till I picked up a saxophone aged 13 that I really got serious about music.
116
I play ‘Rock Band’ with my friends’ kids, and they completely beat me senseless with it. I feel like I’m holding them back. I try to play the drums, and I just can’t play the drums. I think I need to work on my skills.
117
I learned how to play the drums… it got me into LTD.
118
People who don’t take care of their drums really annoy me.
119
Dude, I love playing drums, and I love being on stage, and I love recording. It’s my life… it’s been my life, all my life, and I don’t think it could ever become boring for me.
120
I started playing the drums at five years old and used to listen to a lot of screamo bands like Asking Alexandria, Dream Theater, and Attack Attack!
121
I play guitar, bass, drums, piano, and pretty much any sort of stringed instrument – besides violin or cello.
122
All throughout Cash Money, I never abandoned the SP 1200. At the end of the day, I still use my SP 1200 ’cause I like the way the drums sound.
123
I do appreciate the ’80s as an era, the general sounds and aesthetics of the era. The Cure, that whole kind of image is really kind of amazing, I think. The power ballads and how everything sparkles and words are really dramatic. Huge drums, things like that. I do really find it inspiring.
124
I stopped playing the drums when I was ten, and I picked up Rubik’s Cubes. I was doing that for a while, and then I got into cinematography.
125
He used to have a tent show, a little tent show, and I thought I was going to get a job working one year on the tent show, but he closed it down and I never got to go out there, but anyway, he had a sax and played drums.
126
Puffy’s contribution to hip-hop culture was the remix. He offered us the music that his mom played in front of him, with newer drums and younger artists. That worked, and will consistently be there. The remix comes right after the original record, that’s something Puffy did to influence the culture.
127
I got into guitar because no parent will buy their eight-year-old kid drums unless they’re divorced and trying to get back at their wife. You know what I mean?
128
I was playing drums in church when I was six. Then I picked up the piano when I was 11 or 12.
129
When I was 18 years old and playing the drums, I never thought that I would have a website and that people will be buying my autographed picture and paying money for it.
130
I’ve played in pipe bands in Scotland, and I’ve always played guitars and drums and stuff.
131
I’m always trying to show versatility. I’m juggling, and I’m flipping fire, and I’m chewing gum and rhyming at the same time… on a unicycle, while playing the drums.
132
I listen to Bill Stewart play the drums and when I have finished doing that, I listen to Bill Stewart.
133
Still for fun, I play the drums, but I don’t do much recording with them.
134
The Tinted Windows shows were very fun but it’s very different for me as a performer. I’m not playing music – I’m just singing and I missed that. I miss rocking out on keys, drums, guitar… whatever it is.
135
I have all the rhythm in my left hand, and I use the rhythms that Gene Krupa did on his drums.
136
I grew up on Dilla, Timbaland, Pharrell, all these drums that are super pocketed, so all those influences come out on a song like ‘Ungrateful Eyes,’ with all the crazy drum swing.
137
I could always play the drums, so I have some musical talent, but I don’t live in Atlanta or LA, so I can’t just randomly bump into major artists. So instead, I started building my fan base and my name by networking through the internet. Mostly through Twitter, Youtube, Instagram and Facebook.
138
I wanted to play drums because I fell in love with the glitter and the lights, but it wasn’t about adulation. It was being up there playing.
139
My first job was with The O’Jays playing drums.
140
I got to Brighton in the late 90s and discovered samplers. Suddenly, I could be my own band with a guitar and sampler, getting my drums in charity shop records. It was better than bashing around in someone’s basement, trying to compromise ideas.
141
The riffs, lyrics, and drums of ‘Open Your Omen’ will tell you a lot.
142
Formerly known as The Muslims, The Soft Pack brings a lot of swagger to its garage-rock sound. There’s a load of gimmick-free confidence in the band’s hooks, as its distorted guitars and driving drums demonstrate that less can be more.
143
I take my fun very seriously, whether it’s playing the drums or acting in comedy bits. The need to be disciplined about it, and not take it lightly, and not be too casual, is something I take deeply to heart.
144
I don’t have perfect pitch. My drums sound like a drummer, not a drum machine.
145
When you’re young, playing drums is immediately satisfying ’cause whether or not you know how to play anything, the bottom line is that you’re pounding on something, so you’re happy about it.
146
I’ve played drums in bands since I was 16.
147
I played trumpet in middle school, and then I had to get braces, so I had to stop playing trumpet and start playing drums.
148
Every day I lugged my backpack through the halls, waiting for the final bell. Then I’d race home and hole up in my room, playing the drums and the piano, composing music.
149
Look, I love to sit in with small groups and play the drums. What’s wrong with that?
150
Even in the band I was in when I was a kid, I’d be telling everyone what to do. I’d be leaning over the drums, telling them to tune their guitars, micromanaging.
151
It’s certainly no coincidence that big bands became the entertainment of the army in WWI and WWII, and that jazz drumming style is very military influenced. The snare drum comes from the military and becomes the core kind of sound of jazz drums.
152
I started with the organ and drums, and I later got into drum machines as a teenager.
153
A band like Depeche Mode would go out and record them hitting a trash can with a steel rod or something and recording it. And that would be one of their sounds of the drums. I love the creativeness of that kind of really raw sampling.
154
I grew up with my parents always listening to rock music. My dad wanted me to play guitar, but I always had more of an ear for drums. He really wanted me to be a guitar player, like him.
155
I don’t focus on one thing. I play guitar and bass and keyboards and drums, but I never stay on anything long enough to become a specialist at it.
156
I started playing drums at about seven or eight. My mom used to let me play with the pots and pans, and instead of telling me to stop like most moms would, she just let me do it. So the noise kind of turned into music. From that point on, musically, that’s what I want to do: start creating beats.
157
The bass player’s function, along with the drums, is to be the engine that drives the car… everything else is merely colours.
158
I was kind of bored playing drums in a band. Which was depressing, because playing in the band was kind of a golden ticket.
159
Most punk rock bands just have a guitar, bass and drums. The Descendents, the Ramones, you name ’em, it’s just how it’s always been.
160
Without Metallica, I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing. I have every Metallica record, of course, and I would spend hours on drums in my parents’ basement with the stereo behind me, cranking those records and learning Lars’ drum beats, beat by beat.
161
Once I’ve got something that I feel is strong, if I get long enough to think about it, it’ll turn into something. I’ll start thinking about the drums – what the drums are doing, what the bass is doing. Then, if I can remember it by the time I get to a recording device, it’ll turn into a song.
162
As Buddy Rich, for instance, broke into the business at the age of three, I think it was, on drums, so indeed did I break into the business at the age of four as a singer.
163
I used to be a drummer in a band, and I really loved playing the drums, so I look forward to the right opportunity to do that at some point. Maybe even on TV. Every single live performance I’m doing on TV, I want it to be different and unique.
164
Writing songs is an essential part of my life: my mother teaches piano, and I have inherited my grandparents’ passion for music, especially from my grandfather Tommy, who was a great drummer. It’s no coincidence that I play the drums best, but I am also good with the guitar and the piano.
165
I actually played guitar before I played drums. And I always play guitar on the Slipknot albums as well, as well as being responsible for a lot of the songwriting.
166
Probably for drums, a guy I really enjoyed watching is Simon Phillips. I’ve seen him play with The Who and with Pete Townshend on his own – a really great drummer.
167
I play piano and drums very poorly and French horn and tuba all equally as bad.
168
I wanted to play drums and if I didn’t play drums, I wouldn’t make music and drums are the foundation for what I do.
169
I love my bandmates, and they’re my friends, and even though we had fun and got to tour and I got to play the drums a lot, which I’ll always appreciate, we had a really rough time. We toured and tried to get people to come to our shows and put out records, and we really struggled.
170
When I turned 17, I had a bike malfunction at a race, and in my head, I went, ‘You know what? I’m done. I’m going to go play drums.’ I still ride my bikes for fun, but that was the turning point.
171
Actually, there was another band where we were three girls, around ’84 when I met John Zorn, called Sunset Chorus. It was just bass and drums and guitar- we didn’t make any records but we played a lot of different clubs in New York.
172
We Can’t Stop’ has so many different vibes to it. She sounds country; the beat has these live, knocking drums; and then it has these pop melodies. It’s a feel-good record.
173
I used to play the drums when I was, like, 5 through 10.
174
If you need to record live instruments, especially drums, it’s still best to do it in a studio.
175
I play the guitar. This year at the Sundance film festival, I joined the band from ‘The Guitar’ on stage. We warmed up for Patti Smith, and then the director Michel Gondry got on the drums to play some songs from the soundtrack to his film Be Kind Rewind with Mos Def. It was pretty mad.
176
Yes, of course that’s true but you know, the irony of all that is that before the accident, I’d pretty much lost interest in playing drums.
177
I’ve been into music for a long time. I started playing drums when I was 8 and piano when I was 10, then bass and guitar when I was 18.
178
It was hard to play the drums at all when I got out of prison.
179
When I listen to music these days, and I hear Pro Tools and drums that sound like a machine – it kinda sucks the life out of music.
180
For the record, Jeff Jarret cannot play guitar. Honky Tonk Man cannot play guitar. Elias? Guitar, piano, harmonica, drums, you name it. I can do anything.
181
Today, somewhere in America, there’s a kid who’s got a laptop and a guitar and a couple of his friends he’s putting together to play drums and bass, who’s gonna change the way we say things, the way that we dress, the way we view things, the music we hear, everything.
182
I remember when I would write a song as a kid, I would also write out on paper what the drums would do, what the bass would do, and what the vocals would be doing.
183
I can play anything – piano, drums, guitar, harp – I can even play a trumpet through another trumpet.
184
Always be different; don’t follow the rules. Don’t do what anyone tells you. Don’t use the same sounds as people; don’t use the same drums as people.
185
I’m definitely a guitar player, but it’s the last thing I listen to in a song, after the singer and the drums.
186
It’s a miracle was the last track recorded for the album, we based it on the rhythm from the middle of ‘Late Home Tonight, where there’s Graham Broad playing lots and lots of drums with me shouting in the background, pretending to be a mad Arab leader.
187
He comes in on the beat and plays on top of the beat. I think when Prince makes love, he hears drums instead of Ravel.
188
I began playing drums when I was seven and guitar when I was fourteen, but it wasn’t until the early ’90s that I took music seriously.
189
Since my early childhood, I’ve played drums in visuals as well as sound.
190
With something like ‘Second Sun’ it was something I’d never really done before. It has no drums and I think that was the first time I’d done this sort of instrumental, bass-less kind of piece.
191
Playing drums feels like coming home for me. Even during the White Stripes I thought: ‘I’ll do this for now, but I’m really a drummer.’ That’s what I’ll put on my passport application.
192
We’re basically a rock band – guitar, bass, drums and vocals. But we take it further than that. We can be rotten, dirty, and heavy as anyone, but at the same time, we’ve got a lot of melody.
193
I find that drummers are the coolest people in the world. I play a little bit of drums.
194
I play the drums really, really badly.
195
I’ve played the drums for so long, I can’t imagine saying goodbye to it.
196
Playing drums, for me, is like breathing. It’s like thinking. It’s like eating. It’s like walking.
197
My little brother played drums, so we had a drum set over at my house.
198
Musicians play music because you love… I loved to play drums since I was five. It’s all I ever wanted to do. Rock stars, or as we call them, posers, guys who want to just look great, dress great. They’re not musicians; they’re looking for the fame.
199
I was making all my own beats, and I really liked sampling stuff, like old ’50s and ’60s pop and soul and doo-wop records. I was chopping those up and putting loops and drums on them and just rapping over them.
200
While I absolutely love a great drummer and get tunnel vision listening to drums at a show, a lot of the time I feel like drum machine-driven music tethers you to a genre.
201
I’m not a fan of computerised drums, likewise an organ can lose its appeal within minutes, but there are exceptions.
202
In the studio you can auto tune vocals, and with drums, you can put them on a grid and make them perfect. I hate that sound. When someone hands me a record and the drums are perfectly gridded and the vocals are perfectly auto tuned, I throw it out the window. I have no interest in rock music being like that.
203
What better to get all the anger and stuff out for what I do in Slipknot than to play the drums? You’re punching everything, really fast, concentrated.
204
I started playing drums in the 4th grade.
205
Radio or no radio, I just like the way records sound when the drums and vocals are loud.
206
I like being in the back. I’ve done that for so many years, I’m really comfortable doing it. I don’t like the solo thing as much as I like playing drums behind someone.
207
I taught myself how to play the guitar, I taught myself how to play the drums, and I kind of fake doing both of them. But drumming comes more natural to me, and it just feels better.
208
I wrote a song with Kara DioGuardi called ‘What If,’ and it’s a really beautiful song. It’s kind of like a rock ballad. There’s a lot of guitars and drums in it.
209
The drums are very trashy: it’s all electric, it’s very in your face, and it’s not perfect. It’s raw, and I think that’s what ‘garage’ means.
210
Drums usually seem to tune themselves.
211
I think I love it more as I get older because I keep getting better on drums, vibes and piano.
212
My dad was a kind of semiprofessional Dixieland-type drummer, and I learned the drums from him. When I was about twelve, we bought our first Ludwig drum set from a pawnshop – a marching-band bass drum, great big tom-toms, and big, deep snare drums.
213
I had wanted to play drums since the age of 9 when I saw a drum set in the window of a music store for the first time. We took lessons at a local music school and began playing together after about 6-9 months of lessons.
214
The Pentecostals had horns, drums, guitars, huge choirs, and screaming and dancing and all kinds of stuff. That was for me.
215
I think the drummer should sit back there and play some drums, and never mind about the tunes. Just get up there and wail behind whoever is sitting up there playing the solo. And this is what is lacking, definitely lacking in music today.
216
People don’t realize how much it means to your music to record on tape, whether it be for new music or old music. People don’t realize how much or how imperative it is to use actual hardware when making drums because those are actual percussion samplers. They’re hardware instruments that are made to have the drum hit.
217
There are a lot of great recording artists, like Jack White and Jack Johnson, who stay confined inside a very small box, but I’m more like Bon Iver, who recorded an album with programmed drums, and the next record was totally organic. I get that.
218
I play, like, 12 instruments. Guitar, piano, harmonica, African drums… I’m working on mastering the accordion.
219
I learned how to play the drums. When we were in pre-production, when we were still in LA, I had a couple of drum lessons and then some in Toronto. I got the one beat down and that was it.
220
My way of relaxing was always doing the opposite and playing the drums, but I need to be able to actually chill.
221
There was always music in our home. My mom and my dad loved music. I remember when we were kids we would have these great parties at the house with congas and bongos and African drums, and it was amazing. It wasn’t until years later that I found out that they were actually Black Panther meetings.
222
You’d be surprised. Drummers ape each other. The way every rock n’ roll record sounds like something else but not all together. Everything other drummers play, if you’re playing drums, they all hear.
223
You get some confidence in your songwriting abilities and go for the essentials – guitar, bass, drums, vocals. Those are the basic band essentials that have to be in place before you go any further.
224
I play the piano and that’s how I learned about music. I then taught myself the guitar, drums, percussion and various other things, such as the bazooka, the mandolin, the Theremin, the alpine horn, the didgeridoo.
225
We come from a sensory-overload culture, and so we wonder if one guy on drums and one guy dancing around is enough. Adding guys was something we always were curious about. We decided for this run specifically to stay a two-piece. In the future, we definitely could add members.
226
Any show that has ‘party non-invite’ as its central conflict drums up the operatic high drama of a good Russian novel. It’s the ‘Real Housewives’ Crime and Punishment:’ first the horror of a non-invitation, and then the shattering aftermath.
227
Not a lot of hard rock bands are just letting it all be – they’re adding a lot of samples on things, or effects or whatever – and we just wanted the drums to be raw so you could really hear what Brooks Wackerman is capable of.
228
I would break a lot of cymbals. You whack the cymbals hard enough, and they will crack in half. Drums are not actually as sturdy as they look. They’re actually somewhat fragile instruments.
229
I liked playing drums in the band, but the truth is, I always knew they were going to call Joey to play drums.
230
I played some Yamaha drums that I like a lot. And I like the Yamaha people a lot too. They’ve been really nice to me and The Band.
231
A lot of these guys come up and say, ‘Man, you were my influence, the way you thrashed the drums.’ They don’t seem to understand I was thrashing in order to hear what I was playing. It was anger, not enjoyment – and painful.
232
The drums were new to me; I was just playing what was in my head. I was a guitar player originally – so on the drums, I just played what was in my head rather than caring too much about what others were playing. And in that way, I came up with a simple but unique style.
233
To me, I always felt like drums have to be the support and the driving factor in a song, and there’s places where the drummer has to show off and do things and get the spotlight, but not all the time. You’ve gotta pick and choose. And it’s always gotta be about the song. That’s really the bottom line.
234
I’ve always loved the mixture of crushing live drums with a programmed groove, that really cool blend, like in the verse there’s a really funky drum beat that is programmed then it comes in to the chorus; you’ve got that enormous human feel where the band kicks in.
235
I never got the chance to put drums on ‘Watersigns,’ because the company was in a rush to release it – and me.
236
I look over and Mike’s not there, I hear the drums and know it isn’t Jeff. I guess there is some survivor’s guilt, but I’m happy to be here every day, still doing what I love most.
237
I trained for the drums for about two weeks, and then rocking out in front of an entire crowd was sort of like a dream come true. And now, Guitar Hero, I can’t do that anymore. It’s nothing like doing it on stage. I kinda wish I had a fake band, and we could go on tour.
238
At a young age I thought, ‘Wow, that fiddle thing, that’s pretty cool. That mandolin is great. These drums, I like these drums… ‘ They were Indian drums. And I was saying, ‘But that guitar. That guitar. Girls are going to like that guitar.’
239
I was a kid, and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to play the drums, you know? All I wanted to do was skateboard, but I was still learning and taking it in, so it was good.
240
In ‘Dancing Drums’ I interweave all my mediums into what I like to call, simply as ‘trance.’
241
Playing my drums is therapy.
242
I started playing guitar when I was, like, 5, and I picked up playing drums when I was 6 years old.
243
From the first album I’m playing bass on a lot of the tunes, and piano on a lot of ’em, and drums, and guitars. I did that on almost every album.
244
Energy wise, playing the drums was a lot of fun; I just felt like it was a natural fit for me.
245
We always do kinda like the bare bones representation or variation of the voice and drums, which is what we feel is the foundation or backbone of rapping and hip hop.
246
Most studios in Memphis had a house set of drums; the drummers just brought their own sticks.
247
A band asked me to go on tour when I was 22 and asked me to play drums, and I taught myself so I could go on this trip with these people. The drums found me; I didn’t find them. When I started playing, I realized how appropriate an instrument it was for me.
248
From the very beginning, I had a lot of female role models in music. I would go to shows, and there were always women fronting bands and playing guitar or backing up and playing drums or bass in a band. That probably contributed to my belief in myself to go out and perform for people.
249
I played drums on Keith Carradine’s first record.
250
I had piano lessons when I was five or six years old, so my mom got me this little keyboard in my room. And then it progressed from that to classical guitar and drums and oboe.
251
For fun, I love to play the drums… poorly. I have a band, a bunch of theater nerds – we got together, and we’re like, ‘Let’s play rock music for three hours and never take breaks.’ We call ourselves The U.S. Open.
252
I like drums, really, if they’re under control.
253
I’m a huge Bob Marley fan; I remember going to Jamaica for the first time when I was a kid and I got so obsessed with the steel drums.
254
My mom passed away a day before high school started, and her dream was for me to be a full rock and roll guy, and play drums in a band.
255
Go-go is so drum and Congo based. It’s almost like music from Africa. The drums like on ‘Planet Paradise’ are deeply African-rooted. It’s really bouncy and the same speed as go-go music. That’s an example of the influence go-go had on me.
256
We had a bunch of instruments around the house. Like, I played different instruments, trumpet, bass, drums, piano, all that, but whatever I could get my hands on.
257
When someone is playing drums, they aren’t actually moving around a space; they’re just moving their arms and limbs. They’re stuck behind the drum set. So to film someone playing the drums and make it feel as kinetic as a car chase or a shootout or a battle scene was the challenge.
258
Drums just always sounded like the most fun part of that good music for me.
259
I never studied anything, really. I didn’t study the drums. I joined bands and made all the mistakes onstage.
260
I just love crafting and shaping sounds. Actually, many of the sounds that I work with start off as organic instruments – guitar, piano, clarinet, etc. But I do love the rigidity of electronic drums.
261
For instance, if you’re playing a record with drums – horns would sound nice to enhance it so you get a record with horns and slip it in at certain times.
262
I took piano lessons and I wanted to play drums when I was six. Luckily enough, my parents let me have a drum kit in my room – which is kind of crazy.
263
I was a singer professionally when I was four years old, and I did not really begin to play any instrument – the first one, of course, was drums – till I was about nine years old.
264
I play drums, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, french horn, piano.
265
I’ve never been able to sit round on my own and play drums, practice in the back room, never been able to. I’ve always played with other musicians. It’s how I play, there’s no joy for me in playing on my own, bashing away. I need a bass, a piano, guitar, whatever, and then I can play.
266
My talent for playing the drums was a gift from God.
267
I based my tuning on Gene Krupa, Buddy and Joe Morello. I knew how I wanted the drums to sound and we did the best we could with a beat up Ludwig kit. I spent a lot of time around drummers learning how to get sound. I knew the sound I was after and what would work for what we were playing.
268
The truth is, I do some of my best writing at 3 A.M. while blasting ‘Every Time I Die’ into my ear drums.
269
You can’t beat two guitars, bass, and drums.
270
So now I don’t have time to practice drums. It’s been five years since I’ve touched the drums.
271
I’ve worked hard, but this business can be tough, and I just consider myself incredibly lucky to have had the career that I have, and to still be having so much fun playing drums and making music.
272
The lead singer is such a prominent thing, where drums are more of a supporting instrument.
273
That’s how we grew up – kinda like Pops would put his drums, his percussion and instruments into the car and we would just go to a facility in the Bay Area and he would say to us, ‘You think we have it bad? There are people worse off than we are. Let’s go give back to the kids.’ And that’s how we grew up.
274
My first album is like a terrible John Hammond album, with drums.
275
I really enjoyed playing drums on ‘Born Again.’ It was a good feeling about being alive. There was a good energy there about being sober.
276
While you’re learning guitar, figure out the drums, too. Not only does it help you have great timing, but it helps you understand how a band works.
277
I want to play guitar, piano, drums, write songs for other people. I can do punk – I can do indie – but as long as it has my voice, it’ll always be my sound.
278
It’s been years and years and years I’ve been playing the drums, and they’re still a challenge. I still enjoy using drumsticks and a snare drum.
279
I’ve played every instrument you could possibly think of for 10 minutes. So I’m mediocre at everything. I can play drums, guitar, piano, violin, saxophone, clarinet, flute… Just not well.
280
You can have the best riff in the world, but if the drums behind it just ain’t vibing it, it’s not gonna be the greatest riff, right? So you’ve gotta have someone there that can really bring that to life.
281
I was drawn to West Africa. I did listen to a bunch of different styles of African music, and there was something about the percussion and the drums of West Africa, and the energy, that felt so cinematic to me.
282
What made me want to play drums in the first place was Led Zeppelin and The Who. My parents had their records, and I grew up listening to them with the stereo cranked.
283
You listen to a Metallica song, and you listen to the drums, and they’re not necessarily swinging, but the arrangements are different. Why is that? Because it’s more in tune with jazz arrangements. It’s very different. It’s not a traditional rock and roll production, in terms of the drums.
284
Led Zeppelin was Led Zeppelin when John Bonham was on drums. It’s timeless.
285
I would love to play the drums with ‘The Who.’
