"The Drummer's View" And Interview with Chris Adler of Lamb Of God- chipritter.com
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CR -Chris You’re out there tearing it up, making great music with your drums, inspiring many, many drummers it's awesome. Chris thank you for doing this interview. Let’s get right into it! You once said quote- “I took piano lessons for eight years when I was very little then I heard Aerosmith and decided I wanted to play bass - then I heard Megadeth and saw Wrathchild America play and I knew I had to play drums. " - SD METAL INTERVIEW
My first question is, was that with Shannon Larkin on drums? CA – Absolutely. It was in High School, maybe ’89 and it was a huge turning point for me. I had been in several different kinds of bands playing bass and was at the time playing in a metal band from my town with some older guys. We’d practice in my garage and the drummer would leave his kit set up. After I saw Shannon play that night, it changed my whole outlook on being a musician. I had no idea if I could play or not, but he made me want to give it a try. The kit in my garage was a double kick kit so I started fooling around on it – a few weeks later the band broke up, I went away to college and the drum dream got back-burner’d. Four years later when I had my own apartment I caught up with John Campbell (LOG bassist) and started kicking around the drums again – so although a bit delayed, Shannon was a big part of my beginnings with the drums. Our first national tour in 2000 was with a band he was playing in (Amen) and it was a thrill to hang and share the stage with him. He was very humble and honored by my story of inspiration.
CR - I have also read that you started out playing bass but found it to be a necessity for the band that you turned to drums,.. Chris do you still play piano and bass? If so, do you write music with those instruments? CA- I still play a bit – I have Samplitude on my PC and now and then will set up and write some tracks. I can play a bit of guitar now these days as well so I write entire songs (other than vocals, believe me you don’t want that) here and there if I can find the time. Honestly it’s been years since I did a full tune. I had a few songs on the net a while ago under the name EvilDeathInc. Those files are still hanging around the internet somewhere. "We are a very heavy metal band – we’re not interested in trying to sell a record to everyone in America or getting our songs on the radio. We write “ugly” music for “ugly” people and we have no intentions of lightening things up for more appeal. If you don’t like us now, you never will and we aren’t missing you. " - Chris Adler
CR – Who currently influences you musically? CA – There are a lot of great drummer and great bands out there – I’m still very much into the heavy stuff. Recently I’ve been listening to Darkane and Gojira and A Life Once Lost. This morning I exercised to the new Decapitated CD. There are also times when I’m in the back of the bus jamming Steely Dan or Mahavishnu Orchestra – while I tend to love cranking the heavy stuff, I gotta recharge those batteries sometimes! CR – Aside from Lamb Of God, What are your top five drumming related CD’s to listen to / recommend for drummers? CA – Wow- that’s tough. I’ll just give you the ones that inspired me as I begun and maybe that will shed some light and where I am coming from… 1. Aerosmith/Aerosmith 2. Wrathchild America/3D 3. Megadeth/Peace Sells… 4. Mahavishnu Orchestra – Inner Mounting Flame 5. The Police - Reggatta de Blanc
CA- Right now we rehearse as a band 5 days a week for 5 hours a day. I stick around for another 90 minutes – 2 hours to go over things or do projects not related to LOG. Normally I exercise for 2 or 3 hours before we get together for practice, so I’m pretty well warmed up by the time I show up - as for drum warm ups, no – not now in rehearsal. When we are on the road, I’ll spend 60-90 minutes warming up before the show on my practice pads. CR - Do you have a practice routine? Such as: exercises you might do to build your double strokes within double bass patterns? CA- Never have. In fact, my practice is far more stretching and getting the blood moving then practicing anything in particular or for speed. I’ll keep a simple 120 -140 double roll with my feet and just tap around with my hands – nothing specific at all – just get a little sweat going and get in the zone mentally of having to get up in front of a lot of people. It also makes a fair amount of noise when I warm up so usually the guys leave me alone to do this – another benefit. CR- Keep Time, Be Yourself, and Have fun has been my motto for my students and myself for years, You have stated that you believe drumming is about having fun, can you elaborate on this a little? "Drumming is not worrying about what you can't do. It's about having fun with what you can do." Chris Adler - Modern Drummer Festival - 2005 CA- I think playing any instrument is about having fun – if it’s not, why are you doing it? Music is a very personal expression of yourself and if you’re doing it under duress, there is no point. I can see if you are a paid guy in a cover band that hates the songs, but as a musician playing original material, you better be having fun because if your not you will have the following results: 1. Your material will stink. 2. You will never get any better than you are right now. The only thing that can defeat the frustration of trying and failing a million times is the fun in trying and every once in a while – succeeding. CR – Can you tell us about the gear, set up your using, Anything specific that you enjoy about it?
CR – Do you and the guys in your band listen to any specific CD to get ready for your shows? CA- Not usually. I really enjoy listening to Spastic Ink on show days because I can devolve into a listener instead of a critic because I know there is no way I could ever figure it all out! CR- On the road Do you have a ritual or a tradition you like to do before a show to help get ready etc Anything you do to warm up etc? or get ready before the show? CA- Lot’s of stretching is pretty much it. CR – A producer was involved on Ashes of the wake, Machine, can you describe from a drummer’s perspective what it is like to work with a producer? IE What does a producer bring to recording a band’s music in your opinion? CA- Machine was the first producer that we have worked with that changed our idea of producers. In the past, Steve Austin and Devin Townsend had done their best to make the band sound good and get good performances out of each of us. Machine did a great job at all of that, but in addition he came into the project weeks early – recorded us multiple times in our rehearsal space, set up click tracks and suggested ideas within songs. “What if you played that part one more time at the end?” , “what if your fill was longer on the end of this section”, “What if we sped up/slowed down this part”. Initially you are very defensive about someone coming in and trying to change any part of what you are doing – you question who the hell could possibly know these songs or this style of writing better than us – the guys who wrote it – but once you let someone from the outside in, the perspective changes. What we learned was that when you are so close to the project, so intimately involved with every detail of a song, that you tend to lose sight of the overall project. Having an outside opinion from someone you can trust is incredibly helpful in taking that step back and being able to enjoy the view. We spent a lot of time on the drums – from getting sounds to practicing with clicks. Playing songs and parts of songs over and over, focusing on how the drums would sit within the songs and within the overall sound of the record. Machine was great at grasping how we wanted things to be, then taking it all a step further than we expected.
"Anyone can play drums, or any instrument for that matter, it all depends how much you want it and how much you are willing to dedicate to it" - Chris Adler - Lamb Of God - The Drummer's View 2006.
CR- Can you tell us something that NOBODY else knows about the recording of Ashes of the wake / Lamb Of God? Or Any little known but possibly interesting fact we may have about recording ashes of the wake? CA- One very interesting thing with the drums. Machine wanted as much separation as possible with the drum sounds – meaning he didn’t want snare sound bleeding into the kick mics and cymbals washing into the tom mics. This is an age old problem of drum recording – when you go to mix you try to bring up the toms and the cymbals get too loud – you try to bring up the kicks and the snare gets too loud. So, what we did was very interesting. We’d record the song 2x. The first time we’d cover each drum and cymbal with sheets or rubber heads except the bass drums. I’d play the song and Machine would record only the kicks – this left a pristine kick recording with no bleed from the other drums. Then we’d record the same song again with the sheets and rubber off the other drums and the kick drums covered up with blankets to deaden them. This way he had some great separation when it came to the mix.
CR- The bands that Lamb of God tour with, how does that decision get made, how does the band decide who you would like to tour and perform with? CA- Unfortunately it’s all very political. It’s a game played between labels, booking agents, promoters and managers. We are very interested in keeping ticket prices down and bringing bands out that don’t sound like us. That’s been our “motto” every time we decide to make a tour happen. Who wants to sit through 4 bands that sound like us every night? We often make requests and try to work with bands that we know or enjoy and more often than not, it’s turned out that we end up getting who we want, but it’s not always the case. We do have the ability and have insisted on certain bands on occasion, but it’s good if you can trust the people around you like managers and booking agents – if they are good, they’ll make the right calls.
"This year we feel it’s important for us to put out a very heavy record and to put on the biggest, most inspired shows of our career. No one involved in this project from the band members to the fans deserve anything less. " - Chris Adler - The Drummer's View 2006 - chipritter.com CR -Chris what’s the coolest thing you ever saw a Lamb of God fan do? CA- We’re starting to see a lot of LOG tattoos. I don’t even have a LOG tattoo so I always think its nuts when someone outside the band gets one. It’s impressive that the music we create becomes so personal to someone that they take to marking their bodies. It’s crazy to me, but also extremely flattering. We played Ozzfest several years ago and had a daily signing where we would sign posters, shoes, CD’s, body parts – whatever you can imagine – we probably signed it. Anyway, about a year later we were playing a show in Baltimore and at the end of the night we were leaving the building and a few fans had stuck around out back to meet us and get an autograph and there was a girl there that had been to Ozzfest the year prior – we had all signed her leg – and she had gotten the signatures from our signing tattooed right where we scribbled them originally. That is some craziness! CR- Do you know
if the band will be playing at Ozzfest again? CA- This summer is still a bit up in the air – I will say that discussions did occur late last year, but at the time we were uncomfortable committing to the projected lineup. It’s a tough line to walk weighing opportunity vs. what you consider the intention and integrity of the project. You have to know and respect yourself and your audience or you will lose step and credibility. We are a very heavy metal band – we’re not interested in trying to sell a record to everyone in America or getting our songs on the radio. We write “ugly” music for “ugly” people and we have no intentions of lightening things up for more appeal. If you don’t like us now, you never will and we aren’t missing you. CR- What does 2006 look like for Lamb of God event horizon etc? Plans? Hopes? Goals? CA- We are currently neck deep in writing and recording the new LAMB OF GOD record. We’re hoping to begin tracking in April and have it in stores around August. We’re looking at being on the road before it is released, both here in the US and abroad. We’re planning on hitting Japan and Australia early in the record cycle this time as well. The goals grow as the band does. No one, including us, ever expected us to get this far and the important thing from here is to never stop raising the bar for ourselves. You see a lot of bands get to about where we are and start getting lazy – maybe the songs get slower and don’t sound as inspired – maybe a lame ballad makes an appearance – the ticket prices and t-shirt prices start getting outrageous - the shows get kind of boring - those are the things we fight and challenge ourselves to not allow now or ever. This year we feel it’s important for us to put out a very heavy record and to put on the biggest, most inspired shows of our career. No one involved in this project from the band members to the fans deserve anything less. CR – Chris The first time I heard about Lamb of God was through a young fan of yours named Jess. She’s an aspiring drummer from Long Island NY, and a long time, loyal fan of yours. Since you have so many fans out there and many of them do play drums, What advice if any, would you give her or other younger drummers who aspire to reach your level of ability one day? CA- This is a tough one for me because honestly I don’t have a lot of confidence in my own playing. I don’t mean to say that I’m depressed or that I think I suck, I just don’t think of myself as someone to teach or to give advice. I appreciate greatly that people think of me that way, but I know I still have so much to learn about the instrument I play. I am a guy that loves drums and heavy music. I put those 2 together and decided not to give up, no matter how frustrating or how much time it took. My goal was and still is to be the best I could be for the band I am in. I never took a lesson or even spent time learning cover songs or copying other drummers. I wanted to do it my way and find out if I could. I suppose at this point I could look back and say I did what I set out to do, but I’d rather focus on the future and how much I can continue to improve. My advice – be passionate about it. If you don’t love it, it will defeat you. Friends and neighbors ask me all the time to show them how to play – of course I can show you something simple, but unless you find the drive, the want, the need within yourself to continue on and push yourself through the frustrations, it’s not going to happen. Anyone can play drums, or any instrument for that matter, it all depends how much you want it and how much you are willing to dedicate to it. CR -Chris you are out there tearing it up, making great music with your drums, inspiring many drummers. Thank you for your time you've spent with us here, and good luck in the future! CA- Chip thank you for your interest. I appreciate it and look forward to catching up with you again!
Chris Adler plays Aquarian Heads, Pro Mark Sticks, Gibraltar Hardware, Mapex Drums, Trick Pro 1-V Pedals, and Meinl Cymbals
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CR
- Breadwinner
CA- I’ve got a 7
piece Mapex kit, Meinl Cymbals, Axis pedals, Gibraltar rack, Aquarian heads and
ProMark sticks. In my experience, these are the companies that make products
that are meant to be taken on the road, beaten up and sound amazing night after
night. There’s something interesting about each but probably the most overlooked
is the Mapex kit – they use walnut wood – I’m not sure anyone else is doing that
right now and I don’t know why. These shells sound perfect for what I am doing,
quick and deep.
