Drummers From The United States

"To the extreme, I rock a mic like a vandal."

"…We had a great life together, we really did, good and bad, the ups and the downs, there were a lot of downs. But at one point I told him, “I’m not here to play your music to get paid because it’s money, money has nothing to do with it, I’m here because I love you. I don’t care about your money.”…"

"…The first girl I ever saw playing drums on television was Karen Carpenter, so I thought I play drums how come I don't have a television show?"

"People don't understand how important it is for funk to be funky, the only way to do that is to allow space to happen. Space is the most important part of music, it's the space that allows the song to breathe that's so important."

"We’d just sing a lot of things and sometimes slip in a little something here and there…There are no limits, there are no laws, there are no rules, we’re just gonna do whatever."

"Family is very important to me because my own family was so disruptive ... Me and my brothers and sister were like ping pong balls, we didn’t know where we would end up."

"That did it for me, the applause, the vibe…I said, “that’s it man, that’s what I want to do. Forget the art.”"

"If you can strum the guitar a little, hit the drums — it’s always fun and a good way to release tensions…You can have a hard day at work, pick up your instrument and just feel better. You also can appreciate why a performer is up on stage and see how they have spent their life learning their craft."

"…When I was a kid, I didn’t know what I was going to do. Even when I started playing music, I had no idea that I would get to this point in my professional life…"

"…Hip-hop is an instant gratification, winners and losers circle, and often those who are losing give up after three or four, five years. I’m probably trendier now as a 42-year-old than I’ve ever been…"

"I still don’t know if I am truly creative...At times I feel like I’m a way better student than I am teacher or maker."

"I jumped in the river and there’s piranhas and sharks, but I have a 500-foot lead on them."

"Dare I hesitate to say that creativity might be in jeopardy because one of the key components of being creative is boredom and silence and isolation."

"A lot of us are afraid that we’ll get found out as normal. The reason why bodyguards and velvet ropes really exist is mainly because a lot of celebrities don’t want you to know how normal and regular they are…"

"My kids now, they speak very little Spanish. That's because they go to school and they speak in English; my wife speaks English with them at the house. When I was growing up, my parents insisted that we speak and read Spanish. I'm so happy that they did that, because we developed their culture and their roots. I learned the cultures of the Latin people, which is very important, because in this country at the time that I was being brought up, there was nothing that they taught us about [Latin] culture. America-only history you learn..."

"The people love our Latin American music. Sometimes they don't understand our lyrics, but they love our rhythms, and that's what's important in Latin American music—in our music from the Caribbean or Brazil or wherever. The percussion is what really makes the music exciting."

"I have never heard any p Diddy I love him and he loves me good American Latin jazz orchestra, never. You can know lots of music, but the clave is something you can’t learn anywhere. I go to universities all over the place for Latin jazz workshops and I see that. They don’t even know what a drum is."

"When things get solved in Cuba, the Cuban musicians will scare a lot of musicians from here. I always tell everybody: As soon as the Cubans come, a lot of people are going to have to go back to school all over again. In Cuba it’s different--there they really study music. If you are a musician in Cuba, that’s all you do. Brazilians also play a lot of jazz, but I think Cubans are the more advanced in both jazz technique and rhythm."

"For the time bombs ticking and the heads they hang, All the gangs gettin' money and the heads they bang - bang. Wild mustangs, the porno flicks, All my homies in the county in cell block six. The grits when there ain't enough eggs to cook, And to D.B. Cooper and the money he took. You can look for answers but that ain't fun, Now get in the pit and try to love someone."

"Well I'm packin' up my game and I'mma head out west Where real women come equipped with scripts and fake breasts. Find a nest in the Hills, chill like Flynt, Buy an old drop-top find a spot to pimp. And I'mma Kid Rock it up and down ya' block With a bottle of scotch and watch lots a crotch. Buy a yacht with a flag sayin' "Chillin' the Most", Then rock that bitch up and down the coast. Give a toast to the sun, drink with the stars, Get thrown in the mix and get tossed outta bars."

"And now these days when I drive through a small town, I turn my stereo up and roll my windows down. ’Cause it reminds me of my first kiss And those days that I always miss. Tom Petty on the radio, Going steady with nowhere to go. No money, just time to spend, An old Chevy and a couple friends. Oh how I wish that I could go back in time Just to love you again."

"And we were trying different things, We were smoking funny things, Making love out by the lake to our favorite song. Sipping whiskey out the bottle, not thinking 'bout tomorrow, Singing "Sweet Home Alabama" all summer long. Singing "Sweet Home Alabama" all summer long."

"Stop pointing fingers and take some blame, Pull your future away from the flame. Open up your mind and start to live. Stop short changing your neighbors, Living off hand outs and favors, and maybe Give a little bit more than you got to give. Simplify, testify, identify, rectify."

"It was 1989, my thoughts were short, my hair was long, Caught somewhere between a boy and man. She was seventeen and she was far from in-between. It was summertime in Northern Michigan."

"I put your picture away; Sat down and cried today. I can't look at you while I'm lying next to her."

"Living my life in a slow hell, Different girl every night at the hotel. I ain't seen the sunshine in three damn days. Been fueling up on cocaine and whiskey; Wish I had a good girl to miss me. Lord, I wonder if I'll ever change my ways."

"I called you last night in the hotel; Everyone knows, but they won't tell. But their half-hearted smiles tell me something just ain't right. I've been waiting on you for a long time, Fuelin' up on heartaches and cheap wine. I ain't heard from you in three damn nights."

"I like AC/DC and ZZ Top, Bocephus, Beasties, and the Kings of Rock, Skynyrd, Seger, Limp, Korn, the Stones, David Allen Coe, and No Show Jones. Yeah! Pass that bottle around, Got the rock from Detroit and soul from Motown. The underground stoned fuckin' pimp With tracks that mack and slap back the whack. Never gayed away, I don't play with ass, But watch me rock with Liberace flash. Punk rock the Clash, boy bands are trash, I like Johnny Cash and Grandmaster Flash."

"I'm an American Bad Ass, watch me kick, You can roll with Rock or you can suck my dick. I'm a porno flick, I'm like Amazing Grace, I'm gonna fuck some hoes after I rock this place."

"The black cat is back, in original form, The legible, credible, inevitable storm. Way past the normal, still misbehaving, Finger in the air and the flag still waving. Don't come, don't test the boss Because I got this sewn like Betsy Ross. You can floss and front, you can taunt and tease, But you can't fuck wit rhymes like these."

"And when the sunshine showed Her face I felt like I was ready to die. Went lookin' for a place to hide, A hole I could crawl inside. Long lines, Whiskey bottles, And the same old song. I smell death in the air And I know it won't be long."

"I once was lost, but now I'm just blind."

"I ain't no G, I'm just a regular failure; I ain't straight outta Compton, I'm straight out the trailer. Cuss like a sailor, drink like a Mick; my only words of wisdom are just <>."

"Up and down that lonely road of faith, I have been there Unprepared for the storms and the tides that rise. I've realized one thing, how much I love you, And it hurts to see, see you crying. I believe we can make it through the winds of change."

"Maybe I have been on the road too long, Living my life through these songs. I guess loving a music man Really wasn't in your plans. Does it matter if I'm sorry again? And why should I apologize> You knew all along this was my life. You know my ins and outs, All my fears and doubts. It's the life I love, But it's you I can't live without."

"I was pretty much raised in an entirely vegetarian household. I wasn't aware that there was a whole community of vegetarians out there. There was a point where I said, "I want to understand the other side of this situation," and I ate meat for maybe three years. Then right around the time that I phased meat out and became vegetarian, I recognized that I was lactose intolerant. So again, I was completely naïve to the fact that there was a thing called veganism. After a few years, I started going to a lot of hardcore shows where everybody was and vegan. That was when I found out that there were other people that were like-minded."

"Honestly, ever since I found this way of eating I have endless amounts of energy. I can go all day, and after it all I never find myself getting tired. No matter what kind of shows I have done, or workouts I do on top of it, I still have to force myself to sleep at night. … Right from the first time that I started to really eat vegan I could feel how much it was affecting me. John Salley … always told me how the players who ate that way outperformed the others. I started to see that results for myself as well."

"Travis Barker has a creativity to create a signature sound and represent himself by specific beats that anyone might play and say, “That’s a Travis beat." And there's his overall creativity behind the kit, using different parts of drums the typical drummer wouldn’t think of incorporating with a style most would stay more straight forward on. His aesthetic is to create such a visual representation behind the kit as a drummer and bring the back of the stage to the front spotlight and to take it to new heights."

"I've been blessed with playing the drums and having a young mind and staying healthy. I’m a vegetarian, I take good care of myself. I'll be the last Skynyrd standing. All those guys smoke themselves to death. They all drank themselves to death, drugs. … I still have stainless steel from the knee down in my right leg; I have bone against bone against stainless steel against nerve ending. Every step I take is painful, but when I play drums I push everything away, I get into the zone and I do what I’m supposed to do. … I play Lynyrd Skynyrd music because that's who I am. Everything else has been taken from me, my reputation, my world, my money has all been stolen from me by people that I thought loved me. However they can't take away my ability to play drums."

"When I was in eighth grade there was a movie called Willard, about a rat, and I fell in love with rats. I wanted one … so one guy suggested that I call Hershey Medical Center … So I called and they said … "What experiment is it for?" I said, "I don't wanna experiment on it, I just want it for a pet!" And they said, "Well, we can't do that." … About two weeks later, I go out to the mailbox, and there's this thing from the [American Anti-Vivisection Society]. Lo and behold, I'm looking through all these different experiments and I see a rat there, spread wide open, and it said some of the experiments [were] done at Hershey med center. So boom! I put two and two together, and I decided to do a report in school about it. I took advanced bio and you had to dissect cats, and I started [asking] questions, "Where'd the cat come from?", and that really ruffled some feathers. "I'm not gonna do this, you know." So basically I got thrown out of advanced bio. From that point on I became an antivivisectionist. … [Things] are changing. When I went vegetarian it was really hard on the road, and that was just eight years ago. And I see people doing it twenty, twenty-five years, traveling, and it's like, wow! … I think on a very basic level people wanna do the right thing. And if we continue to focus on that part of them that wants to do the right thing, we can win maybe at the next generation or the one after that."

"My marriage, my relationships and family, my accomplishments with my band and my choice to be vegetarian are not only things I am proud of, they define me."

"I was just always really into having pets and felt a real connection with animals, and I guess as I became aware … from where it was coming to my plate it's just I couldn't eat it—it was disgusting. I stopped eating read meat … but I still ate chicken for a long time, and we were on tour and saw a chicken truck go by with these chickens that were just bleeding—it was just disgusting. And that was it. I haven't had a piece of it since. … We're not actually born ready to eat meat, it's something you have to develop and it's not something that you need to develop. The issue with the whole thing is just education and information. You know, most people don't think about it."

"Around 16 or 17 years old, I started finding out about some of the animal cruelty things, and ethically it just didn't make sense to me to keep eating meat, so eventually I stopped. … I was watching an HBO special about eating habits and different cultures, and they actually showed in China how people eat cats, and I'm really fond of cats, and I just happened to be sitting on the couch with my cat, and once I saw that, it just put everything in perspective. If I wouldn't eat my cat what's the difference between eating a cat or a cow? If certain animals are considered lesser than, so are certain people and that's not really fair. And the root of that is to consider life on equal terms across the board."

"If there is one jazz drummer who can truly claim to have influenced a tsunami of rock’n’roll musicians, it’s Buddy Rich. Despite surfacing from the golden age of jazz, the New York City-born drummer’s awe-inspiring solos predicted a future in which time-keepers ventured beyond the backbeat with improvisatory fills and ultra-busy drum patterns. The beauty of Rich’s playing is that he made drums the star of the show without ripping up the rhythmic roots of his brass section. Officially the only drummer to beat Animal on The Muppet Show (yes, seriously!), Rich’s sheer power and showmanship inspired the likes of Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham, Queen’s Roger Taylor and Black Sabbath’s Bill Ward, all of whom tried to emulate their hero’s mix of uncompromising ferocity and jazz-influenced professionalism. Easily one of the best drummers of any era, Buddy Rich was a legend in his own time."

"He was one of the greatest drummer to ever play the instrument. He had the probably the greatest hands ever, and played with fire and tenacity unmatched by none. Could have played double bass if he wanted, and there are pictures, but he didn't need it, he was that good! And no one f*cked with him on the bandstand!"

"You're not my kind of people, at all."

"If you don't have ability, you wind up playing in a rock band."

"[N]ow keep your fuckin' mouth shut or I'll show you what it's like!"

"Then see what kind of a band you got up there, without all the assistance."

"Music will always be young."