Last week, it was announced that KILLSWITCH ENGAGE vocalist Howard Jones had to unexpectedly leave the band’s current headlining tour, leading to a flurry of rumors and questions about the status of the tour and the band. The band has further issued the following statement addressing the matter, saying:

“It became overwhelmingly obvious to all of us around Howard that he is in no condition to be on tour right now and that he needed to get off the road and get himself better. It’s a personal matter and while we understand everyone’s curiosity and concern for Howard and the band, we appreciate everyone respecting Howard’s privacy at this time.”

Longtime friend Phil Labonte of All That Remains was able to fill in and help out the band for a few shows and it appears as though he will be filling in for the remainder of the tour, which runs through March. KsE endured and survived a similar situation in the past, where guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz was forced to sit out a tour due to a back injury. KsE also said,

“We seriously considered cancelling the tour since we don’t want to give fans that paid good money anything less than KsE at full-strength. But after trying a few shows with Phil, and after feeling the love and support that we were getting from the crowd, it became increasingly apparent to us that the shows came across as fun and unique, and the fans seemed to be enjoying it. We quickly realized that we had to keep going and that we couldn’t possibly stop.”

Refunds are available for any fans that have already purchased tickets, but as the band said, this tour will offer a chance to experience KsE in a unique way that you won’t be able to witness again.

Furthermore, KsE would like to thank all fans who came out to support them during this difficult stretch, exclaiming

“We really do feel that our fans are the best fans in the world.” The band also thanked Labonte for pitching in, saying “We can’t thank Phil enough for helping us out when we needed it the most.”

For a taste of KsE with Labonte on vocals, check the ‘Philswitch Engage’ footage below:

On Tuesday 16th February, ALEXISONFIRE performed at the Winter Olympics, which are taking place in the bands home country of Canada. Sadly, during the performance, the was an incident where one of the barriers collapsed and members of the audience were injured and so Alexisonfire halted their performance.

We can report today that thankfully all injuries were minor, and the band have issued the following statement about the incident:

“We always take great care in the safety of our fans and are saddened that this happened. We are sincerely sorry that people were injured. We want to thank the security team, paramedics and police for their quick reaction. We especially want to thank our fans for cooperating and not making a bad situation worse.”

When in London last month, we here at Roadrunner UK sat down and spoke to NICKELBACK stix-man Daniel Adair about his drumming career and kit. In this, the 3rd part of the interview, we find out about the set-up that Daniel uses on stage when playing those huge arena shows.

If you missed part 1 and 2, click on the links below:

Part 1- staring drumming, inspirations…
Part 2- Daniel’s drumming career, endorsers…

And here, if the third and final part:

RRUK: So run us through your set up as it is now

DA: OK. I know all of the stats I’m a geek that way! Snare is a 14×6 Edge series; side snare’s a 12×5 Edge series. I have a 10×8 VLT Tom, 12×9 VLT Tom. 16×14 X shell floor Tom with legs. 22×18 X series kick drum. I’ve got the DW hardware too- the rack, 5000 series double pedal. I like the 9 but the 9’s a little too smooth for me. I like the chain action of the 5000, you really feel it. The 9000’s really fast but then when you get light, you put your foot down and you can’t really feel that resistance, it’s little too smooth for me. And Sabian cymbals I’ve got 14”groove Hats, I’ve got an 18” AA Explosion Crash. On the right I’ve got 18” HH Explosion Crash, you can find this on my website too, I have a little spread. 10” Evolution Splash, 18” O-zone HH Crash. 19” Paragon Chinese, a set of 13” AAX Stage Hats I believe. And a 21” HHX Groove Ride. All brilliant OK!

RRUK: If there was anyone’s kit you’d want to sit behind and have a go on whose would it be?

DA: Hmm… just for fun I’d say Neil Peart. You know just because he’s got so many drums. I was always curious as to what his heights are like. I always watch YouTube and look ‘how far is his…?’ “How’s he doing this?” Drummers are always checking out for stuff like that. “How hard does he stomp the ground? And how far is his Ride from his Tom?” How does he not get caught up in that section?” So, that’s why I’m curious about where his heights are all at.

RRUK: And what top tips would you give drummers out there who are learning at the moment?

DA: Take lessons. From a qualified teacher, there’s a lot of bad teachers, who teach terrible technique. Be very weary when you’re studying technique online. If you just look up drum technique and listen to the first guy, there’s a lot of terrible, terrible lessons. About holding the stick high and pinching it. If anyone says grip or pinch a stick, they’re totally wrong because the stick should lie in your hand. It should lie on the fulcrum just like a teeter-totter. Soon as you pinch, that means you’re holding the stick, and as soon as you hit you’re absorbing shock into your hand. As soon as you do that you’re going to have tendonitis, carpal tunnel. It’s all about it sitting on a fulcrum, being nice and loose. So look for those people who talk like that and none of this pinching business. So yeah, good technique.

Practice to a click, always practice to a metronome. Learn to do anything with a click going, drum fills, like just sleep with a click going because you’ll be required to, in the studio, in professional bands and if you’re not ready you can lose your gig that way. If you have pitch, sing. I’ve gotten a lot of gigs over other drummers. I gotten some gigs in cover band days where the drummers better than me, more experienced but they gave me the gig because I could sing. And singers want to have back ups or with cover bands if you can sing lead on a couple of songs while they get a break; they love it, so sing. And last but not least is don’t be an asshole.

RRUK: Ha! That’s always sound advice for anyone.

DA: It is. There’s these guys I’ve seen, up and coming drummers, you know. I won’t name any names, but some guys in my town, they’re just so good but they don’t get these gigs because they have these attitudes. They already have a ‘rockstar’ attitude because, yeah, they’re awesome but then they don’t get gigs because they’re intolerable or I’ve seen guys get a gig and get fired because no one can live on a bus with them. So if you got a beef and you got resentments and stuff, that’s fine but just don’t; you know just keep it inside…

RRUK: Deal with it?

DA: …or yeah deal with it, yeah because it will come out. It will, even if you’re not saying anything it will come out in actions and you’ll blurt out things. So just try and deal with it, if you have issues. You know whatever, with yourself or communicate with people, but yeah very important.

RRUK: How do you put your solo together? Because there are so many different elements in it, how do you pick what elements go into your solo?

DA: Because I’ve been doing solo’s now about ten years so I know what things will really work for the crowd. Sometimes they’re not the most complicated things, but the real show-y kind of stuff. Or sounds really fast ‘ooga-da-boogada’ [DA air drums] all the time. They love that so when I construct each solo I go ok I got to have that one, I go do my ‘paint the house’ fill and there’s all these certain ones I go to. So I keep the ones that work from experience and I try to never go over five minutes, maybe about four, like song length because people, especially nowadays, attention span. Like I’m even the same, I go to a concert and I see a ten minute drum solo, I don’t care who it is, how good they are, I get bored. Because you know at first you’re like ‘yeah that’s awesome’, and then ‘yeah’ and (sigh) ok. Your desensitised right?

So, four minutes is just long enough I think and then stop. And it leaves them wanting more hopefully, or they have had their fill and that’s perfect. So I always try and do that. I like to have something planned because with this kind of show the light guys are involved, pyro guys are involved for a shot. I’d hate go on and improvise something and fall flat on your face because sometimes improvising works, sometimes it doesn’t and I’m not that risky to go out there. So I try and have a section that grooves a bit, get people going like that, have the showy element to it, try and do a breakdown and then try and build it up at the end and go out wit the big fill, so I do kind of structure it like a song, sort of, not like a conventional song. But song structure, not too long and keep the things that work.

RRUK: And final question. Where do you learn your tricks and how many sticks do you drop/get through in an evening?

DA: How many sticks do I drop? I don’t drop a lot of sticks actually. I might do a stick drop, jeez, once every five shows, which is nice, knock on wood!

RRUK: You’ll drop one tonight now!

DA: Don’t say that, because dude in the solos the fucking worst! Like I don’t mind dropping my stick during the show but during the solo… [laughs]

RRUK: Has that happened?

DA: Oh yeah. That sucks. Because your on a platform in the sky on the JumboTron you can’t really hide it. But then if I drop a stick I go right to my feet and go double kick and I threw the other one, like I meant to do it, like yeeeah! Half the people will know what’s going on there, so at least I tricked half of them. But yeah not too many stick drops.

As for where do I learn my tricks, just over the years, I guess, watching other drummers. I’ll see a little thing and go that’s cool, and I steal it, and make it my own, you know. I got that up-stroke hi-hat thing from a guy named Rick Gratton, in Toronto. He’d just do it really small, he’d just do a little wrist flick and hit the under side. And I thought that’s cool, why don’t I just do it with my full arm so everyone can see it and then do something with my right hand doing something else and then it became one of my, like ‘oh my god how did you make that up?’, and I’m like it’s really him.

I guess that’s what doing music really is, it’s an evolution, it’s a modification on things. So yeah I’ll get a little bit of inspiration of something, take it, throw it in my old playing and then during practice it’ll kind of modify into something else, mostly for new tricks. So I got to have a new solo for the US run coming up. This’ll be the last run for this solo and then April. So as soon as I get home I have to brain storm, and that’s kind of, it’s a little nerve racking sometimes if I’m not ready before rehearsals. Because you know, you don’t know if it’s going to work and then the other guys are like, “I preferred the old solo better”. It’s like “Yeah, you’re used to it right?” You could air-drum it because you’ve heard it so many times. Now they like this one of course, but they didn’t before.

RRUK: How often do you practice when you’re at home? How long do you practice for?

DA: Erm…when I first get home I take a couple of days off and then I try to do four days a week, for a couple hours a day. And then two weeks before the tour I’m doing like six days a week, maybe four hours a day. The drums are very athletic so you got to keep all the twitch muscles because if I don’t, I get out there, you run out of energy and then you go crunch and you seize up, and then your squeezing sticks and then your dead. So you got to stay conditioned.

Nickelback’s current album Dark Horse can be picked up online HERE.

We had a right ole chin-wag with Willie Adler of LAMB OF GOD fame last week. Such a good chat, we had to break the interview into 2 parts!

Yesterday we loaded part 1 and talked to Willie about what the band had been up to since we last saw them at Sonisphere and how it feels being back on the road. (If you missed it, you can catch that HERE) In the snippet below, the 2nd and final part, we talk about how the band feel things have been going on their current album Wrath and for those in Europe yet to see the band, we give away some set-list secrets…

Wrath is in stores now- pick it up online by pointing your mouse HERE

As promised, here is part 2 of our Gear Nerd with Daniel Adair of NICKELBACK. Yesterday he told us about how he got into drumming, his influences and his first kit. Today he walks us through his drumming career. Tomorrow, we’ll learn all about his set up, so head on back.

If you missed part 1, CLICK HERE. Enjoy part 2 below…

RRUK: So give us a quick run through of your drumming career, run us through you’re first band to where you are now.

DA: Okay, I’ve never done that before! It’s actually kind of cool. So you heard how I started, at 13. Then from 13 to 18 I obsessively played all the time. I’d skip school, when my parents were at work I’d go home and just drum all day. The neighbours would phone the cops because I was so loud. I learned all the Primus albums, all the Rush albums, John Bonham, I learned every Zeppelin album – so I think that’s where a lot of my roots came from. Then 18, I sold my car and went to Europe and back packed for a year. So I stopped drumming, then I came back and I was kind of a lost teenager. I didn’t really have any goals or aspirations, I was confused. I kind of played a bit but was kind of more in to just partying and smoking pot – just pissing my time away. I mean it was fun but I wasted a lot of time! 18 to 22 I really didn’t drum much at all. I knew I could, deep down inside myself I always knew I had something special. I was terrified to play in front of people because I’m such a perfectionist. The few people I played in front of were like “Holy shit dude! You’re really good!” and I was like “Uh, really?”. I didn’t know because I never put myself out there and never got feedback so I didn’t know I just did what I did. Secretly, I didn’t want to admit it to myself, I knew I was good enough to do it as a career. But I was scared of the whole getting out there because of the shyness thing.

So I was 22 or 23, like two in the afternoon, a beautiful afternoon. I was just sitting in my car getting high with all these dudes. It was so lame, I looked around I was so baked I saw people driving to work and doing things and I thought ‘I’m a fucking loser’. I’m not doing anything with my life. I’m 22, I live at home, work in a glass factory, got nothing going on, I’m not drumming. Then it was weird, I went like that (snaps fingers), and I remember someone said somewhere about the company you keep, if you want to be a rocket scientist; hang around with rocket scientists. I thought I’m hanging around with a bunch of losers who are on welfare and 30 and living with their parents – just ‘cause I wanted to get high and I had a fear to go out there and confront the real world.

So I said fuck it, I’m going to go work in a music store. I need to be around musicians. I went to work at a music store, got the job and then it all changed. I started to hang around with new people and I started to meet guys who would come in. I started to play more then. I was really bad! I played the staff party the first week that I worked there and I couldn’t even play Shuffle! I was like oh god I gotta practice. So I went and took lessons again and started to play in cover bands with those guys that I worked with, got my chops doing that. Learned Stevie Wonder, rock, all that stuff.

Then I started teaching, and I dated this girl who went to music college. She was a fantastic piano player, she taught me theory, I learned to play guitar and bass. I met my buddy Dave Martone, who I still have the band with, he had just got out of Berkley so I saw how he played and we did all this fusion stuff together. So I really started to grow and then around 25 I got really disillusioned again. Oh sorry I skipped one point. I had an original band also around 24/25 and I really spear headed that. I was on the phone all the time talking to college radio stations trying to get our stuff out. We won ‘Vancouver Seeds’ which is CFox’s big promotion in town. We won and we opened up for Nickelback. There was like 700 people there, it was killer, our biggest gig ever.

I think they [Nickelback] had just gotten back from a Canada on ‘The State’ tour and ‘Leader Of Men’ was big. We were like oh man, it’s Nickelback; Canada’s biggest band! Well not yet, but we got to open up for them which was cool and then I just had some personal issues. I was kind of really scattered and anxious. I think I saw something happening and I shut down or something. It was a little overwhelming and my relationship wasn’t going good either so I think that had something to do with it. Strangely enough I took a break for like 18 months and just stopped playing and then again I went “Ok, this is fucked. I know I can play.”. I tried to get my head in shape a bit and grew up, again. Such a weird thing but that’s life I guess. So then I came out at the age of 26 and said if I don’t make a career in music by the time I’m 30 I’m going to go get a real job and I’ll always play as a hobby or something. So I just tried my best. I learned that you had to network so I got out there and met studio owners and managers and agents and it paid off because my friend Jane who ran the Armory Studios in Vancouver phoned me and said “‘3 Doors Down’ are here mixing an album and they don’t have a drummer. I just played them the Martone album and they were like who’s this drummer??”

So I came in that night and had a beer with them. We got drunk and they said “play some drums” so I did a little solo for them and they were like “come to Mississippi for an audition” and then I got the gig. So I went from music store to playing David Letterman and everything happened that year. I was starstruck, it was pretty cool. Then two and a half years later I went this is cool but there’s more for me. Then we got on the Nickelback tour and Chad saw me do my solo every night and phoned me six months later “Hey you wanna, uh, jump ship?”.

So there were some hiccups, I look back to that period when I stopped and it’s funny, I read something on Jim Carey and he had the same thing at the same age. He went to LA, he tried and was making it somewhere and then he kind of had this ‘overwhelmed moment’ where he stopped for a coupe of years too and then he got back in to it. So when I read that I felt a little better. Being a perfectionist or being a little anxious, I don’t know what it was.

RRUK: Maybe deep down you knew that you weren’t ready for it yet?

DA: You know what? I don’t think I was a mature enough person to be able to handle the road at that point. I think I would have been really super overwhelmed or something but however it worked out, it worked out fine. The timing was perfect and here I am now.

RRUK: So…you have been indorsed by a couple of companies over the years. Tell us who you have been indorsed by, who you are indorsed by now and why the change?

DA: I have always been with Regal Tip sticks. I used those sticks about six, seven years before I got 3 Doors Down so when I phoned them they said come on board. You know I always loved their products so I’ve been with them since day one. Same with Remo Drum heads always loved them. I just went with the brands, not who’d give me more, just the shit I liked. So I phoned Remo, no problem, Regal Tip drum sticks, Sabian they’re awesome and they’re a Canadian company. I knew them working in the music store, they were such great, great dudes and such a great company to deal with I knew I wanted to be with them. And Pearl I was a huge Pearl fan, so I got in with Pearl. I stuck with Pearl until about two years ago and its because live the snare drums weren’t really cutting through for me so I would get some boutique drum companies and get some custom snares because they were just really nice sounding.

Then I did some sessions in our off time and three separate occasions I worked with these other producers who brought in a DW kit and they said ‘why don’t we try this because we’re not getting the sounds we want’ and it was night and day, like that is the ultimate experiment, is to be in a studio with a mic, you hit a tom “boom”, you hit another, you can hear it. There’s no line, like oh my God it sounds so much better. And I’m like ‘I’m not using their snares live any more’. The final thing was I flew down to California to meet them, because I don’t want to sign to a bunch of douchebags, like I don’t care how good the product is if they’re not a good family then (I’m not interested). Because Pearl was awesome to me, I still stay in touch with them, they’re great guys, but I met them (DW) and they were killer and they didn’t try and push me. They said take your kit home and let ‘IT’ be the judge for you. They didn’t shit talk Pearl, nothing. They said ‘it’s up to you, if you like our stuff then cool’. And I was you know, that was the proof right there. Just sounded great so I got on with them and they gave me a bunch of kits and it’s been happily ever after.

Nickelback’s current album Dark Horse is in stores now. CLICK HERE to buy online.

DOMMIN are currently making their way through mainland Europe with Lacuna Coil, as they did through the UK not too long ago. This is not the first time that Kris and co have toured with Lacuna Coil and as such they know the guys quite well.

In this snippet, Cristina asks Kris about being on the road with her band and about the band’s debut album, ‘Love Is Gone’ which hit stores here in the UK this week. Click on the player to play.

You can order the album online HERE or check it our digitally on iTunes!

On sitting here to write about the snippet that is embedded in the player below, all we can focus on is the frankly face-melting shredding action in the clip!

In this, the second of our introductory video clips from newcomers MUTINY WITHIN, the band tell us all about guitarist Brandon Jacobs, and we get to see him in action. Wishing we had a slo-mo button on the player. Just watch this dude shred!

Their debut, self titled album is available digitally from March 1st and physically from April 26th. You can get a preview of the album at MetalSucks.net Monday Feb 22nd. If you dig it, you can pre-order the CD online HERE.

When LAMB OF GOD stopped by in London last week to play a sold out Brixton Academy, we sat down to have a chat with guitarist Willie Adler to see what they have been up to since they were last on UK soil for Sonisphere last August and how it feels to be back on the road in Europe.

In the player below is part one of our interview. We will bring you part 2 tomorrow…

Lamb of God were in the UK in support of current album WRATH, which is in stores now. You can pick it up online HERE.

A collaborative effort between SLIPKNOT’S own percussionist/ videographer M. Shawn Crahan and director P.R. Brown, the masked Iowa contingent’s “Snuff” short film has stunned the band’s loyal fans, and garnered some amazing attention to the band’s artistic endeavors worldwide. Offering a pained introspection departing from the hard and heavy staple sound, and a gorgeously shot film with some big name actors, “Snuff” both sonically and visually marks another step forward in Slipknot’s ever-evolving career. While we already spoke with M. Shawn Crahan (“Clown”) about his vision and execution of the film (if you missed that interview click here), here we sit down with director Paul Brown to gain his perspective and insight on what went in to the making of this epic short film.

RR USA: Where did the concept for the video come from?

PB: The concept for the video came from conversations between Clown and Corey. After they had a base concept down Clown and I met up and discussed where we could take it and how to flesh it out. I wrote the treatment based on their ideas and fleshed out the story to have the strongest impact we could get.

RR USA Why did you choose to do a short film as opposed to a traditional video?

This song has very deep roots to it. There is such a personal connection to the lyrics and we felt that the only way to truly capture that on film was to reveal it through a story. The viewer needed to connect to a core emotional level to fully appreciate the intensity of the track.

RR USA: How was the approach different in shooting this as a film?

PB: We looked at this as a short film from the very beginning. That meant that every trick we know about doing music videos and connecting to the sound could not apply in this film. We literally wanted to tell a story and from the shoot through the edit we focused on the story guiding the pace. In music videos shots usually last only a second or two, in this film there are scenes that need to play out for twenty seconds to really feel the loss and sadness.

RR USA: How was the experience different from say ‘Psychosocial’ or ‘Sulfur’?

PB: ‘Psychosocial’ and ‘Sulfur’ were raw, blistering, almost primal visualizations of the sound from the songs. The passion of the band became the story for those videos. For this, we had to go to a completely different place.

RR USA: On this album cycle we’ve seen Corey’s face twice – how did that transition come to be?

PB: I feel like we are seeing the evolution of the band. There are times that the metaphorical mask is just as important to show as the one we see on a regular basis. The strength of this band is that they understand that the form of a mask has many faces.

RR USA: Was there any different equipment used to get the cinematic look?

PB: We pushed quite hard to shoot this film on super 35mm anamorphic. It was crucial to the story for the viewer to really feel as if they are watching a film. Visually we needed the film to have a cinematic edge in order to present such a bold concept to the viewers.

RR USA: How does the collaboration process work between you and Clown?

PB: Clown and I have become very good friend over the course of this last album cycle. From my perspective we feel like brothers in one creative family. He and I see the world through very similar glasses and both of us embrace the pain and hard work that it takes to get our artistic statements out. We have done a few videos together but this one really went to a whole new level of collaboration. I think he and I both could see where this needed to go and I honestly can’t think of one thing throughout the entire process that we disagreed on. It has a complete honor for me to be able to make art with someone who I fully respect and cherish as a friend.

RR USA: How do you think the die-hard Slipknot fan will react to the video?

PB: I think there will be two very different responses to this film. Some will understand the need to push boundaries and explore the unknown while striving to grow. Others I think will have a hard time with it as they love what they love and changing that does not make them happy. Ultimately I feel like the band will only get stronger as a result of this very unique experience and I think that both camps of thought will gain from the benefits of this journey.

RR USA: Is there anything specific you hope people take away from the video?

PB: I would hope that the viewers of this film will be placed into a stunned moment of reflection and question their own personal path.

The short film ‘Snuff’ is now available to buy on iTunes. The single will be available on all the usual digital platforms on March 14th.

The track is taken from the bands current album All Hope Is Gone which is in stores now. CLICK HERE to buy the album online.

Today sees a new series here at Roadrunner UK– GEAR NERD! In this series, we will be chatting to our artists about the instruments they play, why they got into playing that instrument and their set-ups and instruments of choice.

We kick this off with the first of a 3 part sit down with Daniel Adair, drummer with rock giants NICKELBACK, not only an amazing drummer, but an all round awesome guy. Was a great chat! Enjoy!

RRUK: How old were you when you started to play the drums?

DA: 13 years old.

RRUK: What or who inspired you to play drums?

DA: It’s kind of a weird beginning- my Dad was a drummer. He was in cover bands and we lived Toronto back when he would tour Michigan, Ohio and stuff like that. He was playing CCR (Creedence Clearwater Revival) and stuff like that when it was brand new. He played it to the troops going to Vietnam the next day. He’s got some stories from when everyone was doing pills, amphetamines and stuff. I think he was kind of a crazy guy out there.

Then he had a bunch of kids, got a normal job and put the drums in the closet. We moved to Vancouver, I was really bored one day and I saw his kit in the closet. It was a sparkly green 1967 Ludwig kit. I didn’t know anything! I just kind of pulled it out, figured out how to set it up and banged around. It was kind of fun.

That week I think I saw Much Music [Canada’s #1 destination for music videos, live performances and interviews- ed.] and I saw a drummer live and thought “Oh, that’s how that works!”. Then I tried it again and thought I had a knack for it.

The real inspiration came when my sister had this Rush – Hemispheres tape and Neil Peart, he was a drum God to everybody, and I heard this. Then I could finally identify what sounds were doing what. I guess right off the bat I could hear exactly what was happening but then I heard what he was doing and I was like “Holy fuck! Those are high hats?!”. He was doing all these fast high hat patterns and I couldn’t believe you could actually do that with that little kit. Before that I had heard just regular playing and I was done!

At the time, I was in grade 7- you hit puberty, you’re trying to be cool and whatever. I was hanging out with this ‘cool’ guy in school. I slept over his house one night and he put on his brother’s ‘Masters Of Puppets’ record – fuuuuuuuuuuuck! (laughs) So all in the same week I heard this superfast high hat action with Neil Peart and then I heard that thick…Master Of Puppets- I mean you know the album. Especially when it came out in ’86, oh my god, I was blown away. I would sit up in my room and air drum. I would know what I was hearing and I knew where the drums where. I would learn these albums by air drumming them, then my parents would go to work and I would set up the drum kit again. I didn’t really tell them I was doing it. My Dad kind of knew, he was like “You been playing that kit again?” And I was like “Yeah”. He didn’t think much of it. He thought it was a ‘phase’. So I was learning all these albums up in my room air drumming, it’s amazing how you can do that with drums, and then I would sit down and play it. So that’s kind of the long, convoluted story of how I got started. (laughs)

RRUK: So you were mainly self taught? Did you have any lessons?

DA: I was mainly self-taught, at 17 or 18 I took some lessons because my whole new epiphany was when I heard Dave Weckl, the fusion cat (highly acclaimed Jazz fusion drummer). Then there was a whole new elite of drummer Gods out there like Vinnie Colaiuta, Dave Weckl, Dennis Chambers that aren’t really in the rock world. I signed out this CD at the library, it was ‘fusion-ey’-keyboard heavy, kind of cheesy fusion stuff but the drumming was “Oh my god! That’s Neil Peart times twenty! How can he do that?!”.

Then I realised I hit a brick wall with my technique because I was just bashing. So studied with a teacher and he taught me rudiments, I started learning some latin, I started learning how to read [music] and it progressed from there.

RRUK: Can you remember the set up of the first drum kit you had?

DA: Yup, the very first one was just had a 14×5 Ludwig 402 snare, a 13×9 rack, a 16×16 floor and a 22×16 kick drum and then hat, scratch, ride. And then my sister, she helped me out so much, she came in to some money when she was 18 or 19 and she bought me my first drum kit. It was my friend Paul’s used drum kit. It was this bastard red kit, it had 8, 10 12, 13, 14, 16 inch tops, it was like a Neil Peart drum kit. It had the kick with the double bass pedal, bunch of symbols – they were black but I painted them red. They were all mismatched and sounded pretty crappy but it didn’t matter. It was my drum set! And I could finally play to a Rush song! That was thanks to my sister, she believed in me enough and she bought that kit. She spent like $800 or $900 which was a lot of money at that time and it was huge for her so her investment paid off!

RRUK: What styles would you say have inspired you the most over your career, if you were to pick a handful?

DA: The most would be split down the middle, and it’s a weird mix, and it would be between metal and jazz fusion. It’s really weird because I love aggressive music, for instance I love Meshugga, I love all the bands on Roadrunner, love that and stuff like Porcupine Tree and I love the jazz fusion stuff. Like everyone I like a lot of different things. I like the aggression of hard rock and metal and I love the finesse of the jazz fusion stuff. So I guess in Nickelback I can bring out that aggression and then when I’m home I do more prog stuff with my other bands. For instance Martone is instrumental, a lot of shred, a lot of odd time signitures. So yeah fusion, prog, metal – kind of all over the place! People like me as a rock drummer because I learnt when I first got the three doors down gig that you can’t get out in front of a crowd and think about technique and just play perfectly. People wanna see you hitting hard, so I had to learn how to hit and not hit myself. That comes from my metal roots to bash!

RRUK: So who would you say that you aspire to now?

DA: I still always find myself ‘youtubing’ Dennis Chambers. He plays with Santana right now but he’s a big session guy, he’s a jazz fusion legend. He played with P-Funk, Parliament Funkadelic, all the funk back in the days in Baltimore. I think when he was nine James Brown wanted him to tour with him but his mom wouldn’t let him, that’s his story. He heard him in this club and James Brown was like “You gotta come out with me” and his mom was like “No way!”. If you ever YouTube this guy, just go Dennis Chambers solo, unbelievable. Him and all those upper echelon cats like Vinnie Colaiuta who is Frank Zappa’s drummer. He’ll play with Faith Hill and then he’ll play with Jeff Beck and everybody. These are the ‘drummer’s drummers’, I still look up to those guys because they just seem to have attained this impossible level of playing.

Check back tomorrow for part 2, when Daniel talks us through his drumming career.

Nickelback’s current album Dark Horse is in stores NOW. Pick it up online HERE.