In a wide ranging interview with www.ultimate-guitar.com Chris Adler discusses his drumming techniques, his new book, recently finished clinic tour and the writing process for the next Lamb of God album. Here are some excerpts:
Ultimate-Guitar.com: Who were some of the double-bass players you were listening to back in the day?
Chris: The guy that really kind of set me off on a tangent anywhere and in the direction I wanted to was this guy, Shannon Larkin, who played with WRATHCHILD AMERICA; I think he plays with GODSMACK now and he's been in a million bands all over the place. But he really brought a really interesting progressive voice to the drums, which was lacking in a lot of the hair metal that was apparently given out fairly free in the white suburbs where I grew up. But the speed thing, I think everybody can go back to the song "One" by METALLICA where Lars goes into that infamous double bass part. Now of course, Dave Lombardo for the really fast double kick stuff and the aggression and all that stuff. I think between Shannon Larkin and another guy, Gar Samuelson, who was the first drummer for MEGADETH who brought kind of a jazzy feel into the metal, those were the guys that I kinda wanted to sound like. I did that kind of in a strange way where I was learning how to play like Stewart Copeland songs and hoping to bring some of that — not necessarily THE POLICE— but just different styles to what we were doing. And I think overall that's definitely one of the things that has helped me stand out as a player probably more than anything.
Ultimate-Guitar.com: In your book for the song "Letter To The Unborn", you talk about playing 16th notes at 200+ bpm. Obviously that was challenging as a player but is faster always better?
Chris: No! [laughs] In fact it's an endless endeavor in frustration to only follow that. No, I think for me that any day of the week, style and groove are far more important than speed. I think at the time I was focused on that like a lot of guys get wrapped up in that whole world of speed and lose the flavor and the love in the music. It's hard for me to listen back to that album and think there was any flavor or love because I was so aggressive and I was so trying to be the fastest and hit the hardest and I was caught in that race. But as I go back through the albums now, I can find where I really started to understand my place and really started to feel good about what I did.
Chris: The guy that really kind of set me off on a tangent anywhere and in the direction I wanted to was this guy, Shannon Larkin, who played with WRATHCHILD AMERICA; I think he plays with GODSMACK now and he's been in a million bands all over the place. But he really brought a really interesting progressive voice to the drums, which was lacking in a lot of the hair metal that was apparently given out fairly free in the white suburbs where I grew up. But the speed thing, I think everybody can go back to the song "One" by METALLICA where Lars goes into that infamous double bass part. Now of course, Dave Lombardo for the really fast double kick stuff and the aggression and all that stuff. I think between Shannon Larkin and another guy, Gar Samuelson, who was the first drummer for MEGADETH who brought kind of a jazzy feel into the metal, those were the guys that I kinda wanted to sound like. I did that kind of in a strange way where I was learning how to play like Stewart Copeland songs and hoping to bring some of that — not necessarily THE POLICE— but just different styles to what we were doing. And I think overall that's definitely one of the things that has helped me stand out as a player probably more than anything.
Ultimate-Guitar.com: In your book for the song "Letter To The Unborn", you talk about playing 16th notes at 200+ bpm. Obviously that was challenging as a player but is faster always better?
Chris: No! [laughs] In fact it's an endless endeavor in frustration to only follow that. No, I think for me that any day of the week, style and groove are far more important than speed. I think at the time I was focused on that like a lot of guys get wrapped up in that whole world of speed and lose the flavor and the love in the music. It's hard for me to listen back to that album and think there was any flavor or love because I was so aggressive and I was so trying to be the fastest and hit the hardest and I was caught in that race. But as I go back through the albums now, I can find where I really started to understand my place and really started to feel good about what I did.
Ultimate-Guitar.com: While you've brought up the new album, can you talk about it at all?
Chris: We're doin' pretty well; we've got 24 ideas and we're up to about 10 of them in line of just kind of working through [them]. We've got plenty of time to work it out this year but we're really just getting started. But we have more material than we could ever use so we're pretty happy.
Chris: We're doin' pretty well; we've got 24 ideas and we're up to about 10 of them in line of just kind of working through [them]. We've got plenty of time to work it out this year but we're really just getting started. But we have more material than we could ever use so we're pretty happy.
Adler released his first in a series of books detailing his career and exploits “The Making of New American Gospel: Drum Tablature, Short Stories and Reflection" on his own imprint. You can purchase a copy directly from Chris at this website.
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