George Kollias - The Death Metal "Native" Who Loves Jazz

Practically everybody I feature on the channel has some “twists and turns” to their personality. If had assumed Nile’s George Kollias, one of the innovators of the “speed metal” style of drumming that prizes double kick chops, odd meters, and “blast beats” with a stopwatch, was one-dimensional in either his approach to drums or teaching, I would have been wrong.

George studied jazz in college with the great Yannis Stavropoulos, and says his favorite thing to practice in between learning music for tours with his band is jazz fusion. And he’s good at it too. (Here’s an example.)

George has also said things in interviews that made me think he’d be interesting to talk to - for instance the anecdote that people are always asking him in clinics how to make their left foot as fast as their right when playing double-kick, and that George openly considers this approach asinine, since the left foot will be playing 10 percent of the time, so why not just get good at what you actually need to do. This sent the 8020 “real one” radar to full-tilt.

In this interview, George and I chat about approaches to practice, whether he found the drums easy, how he divides his time between metal and fusion, his “natty” philosophy to playing the drums (a big deal in metal circles), and how he prevents injury when playing so hard for so long.

I have no doubt you’ll enjoy this thoughtful conversation on drums, philosophy, and life, with the drummer from Nile, one of the fastest, loudest, and odd-meterish metal bands of the 2000s, whose new single is called The Underworld Awaits Us All.

5* "Secret" Reasons Larnell Lewis Sounds So Good

First things first - grab your free transcription here.

Finding amazing licks, stylistic choices, and approaches to typify Larnell Lewis’ playing is not difficult. It’s finding stuff that hasn’t been done-to-death that’s the challenge.

To add to it, there are certain things you have to include; otherwise the people will be mad.

So I did my best.

Larnell is one of the most lauded drummers - in my corner of the woods at least - of our time. But how well do you really know his drumming?

In this video, as we did so-far with Keith Carlock and Louis Cole, we attempt to uncover what’s right beneath the surface. Did you know, for example, that Larnell makes some pretty unconventional tuning decisions for a drummer of his era?

Do you know why his improvisation sounds “similar but different” to other drummers of this era?

Or maybe you just want a step-by-step assembling some of the “flashiest” things he does in solos. Whatever you’re here for, if you’re a Larnell stan like I am, I’ve got you.

Hope you enjoy this one!

Stan Bicknell on Creating A Life Around The Drums

It’s fitting that two weeks after hearing from Chris Turner, a man with one of the most whimsical, intuitive approaches to drums I’ve ever encountered, we encounter one Stan Bicknell, who’s built a brand around a mindful, deliberate, disciplined approach to the drums, and to architecting a life around it.

Stan wowed audiences with his appearance on Drumeo 5 years ago. Around this time, his touring career was taking off. But after the birth of his child, Stan made the decision to put his life front-and-center, move back to his native New Zealand, and design a role for drums, drum practice, drum teaching, and drum performance, that served his life goals.

Stan’s story resonated with me, because I made a similar decision around a decade ago, when I decided to start the 8020 channel. (I should say, I wasn’t turning down touring opportunities.) Speaking to Stan was a great “meeting of the minds”, because we’ve read many of the same books, and thought along the same lines.

It’s just that he’s doing practically all of it better than I am.

Which inspires an adage - “find the person who’s doing what you want to do better than you are, and draw inspiration from them.”

Stan is like the Qui-Gon Jinn of the drums, with his disciplined practice routines, mindfulness, goal-setting, and integration between drums and life. And it shows in his playing. Stan is almost 100% self-taught, which is to say he emulated his drum heroes like Weckl and Vinnie largely without teachers as intermediaries, and while he wouldn’t recommend that for everybody, all that extra work left him with some revised first-principles.

He also coaches drummers in not-only the instrument, but in life-satisfaction, and, as the episode title says, building a life around the drums.

I hope you’ll find this discussion as fascinating as I did.

Has This Simple Invention CHANGED How We Play Drums?

First things first - grab your free transcription here.

Hear me out…

I think there’s been a change to the way we play the drums in the past few years, and I think it’s going to be a lasting one.

Last year I contemplated the proliferation of this stack of cymbals that looks like a pancake stack or Dali painting, and asked whether it was a “fad”, like Zil-bells or roto-toms, or whether it was going to have an enduring effect on the way we play, like - say - the double kick pedal.

Increasingly, I’ve been coming down on the side of the latter. I think these stacks are here-to-stay, and I think they’re rewiring how we approach the drums. In a way, though, that’s the least interesting question.

I’m far more interested in the “how/why”, and the “what do we do about it”.

In today’s video, I’ll explore, at least at surface-level, a trend in music that began in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, and how that contributed to drummers changing their equipment and style of playing a few years later. Then we’ll talk about the unique characteristics of the music the “Dali stacks” were emulating, and why it’s got more staying power than some of the other trends.

Finally, we’ll explore a bunch of categories of beats we can make with these contraptions, now that they’re here.

Know you’ll enjoy!