Dave Weckl

And so...

I started consulting with my buddy, Jim Toscano, and he really helped me and David Garibaldi and Dave Weckl and several other guys.

He became like all of our tech consultant.

And I started streaming from the house.

She was just knocked out with your playing, just as I was.

You're in the home of Dave Weckl.

Yeah, that's right.

Had to bring it.

transferred into the school the next year when I was a junior and he was unbelievably proficient for a high school student.

Like he was on his way to become Dave Weckl and he just taught me a lot and I learned a lot from him.

And so those two years, my junior and senior year of high school, I learned an incredible amount from just this guy, Bill Peterson from Florida.

And I have no idea what he's doing now, but he was just incredible.

Who's probably, I mean, to me, I find him to be one of the most underrated and misunderstood drummers.

Around, like, a lot of people think of him as, like, this super fusion-y, like, Vinnie Cagliuta meets Dave Weckl, because he's got a lot of facility.

Yeah.

And he's also, he's really good at odd meters and all that kind of crazy stuff.

Name your top three drummers.

My dad, Frank Brown Sr., Dave Weckl, and Omar Akeem.

Good choice.

I already know the answer.

Yamaha, I'll call you.

As a drummer, what was your stick size you'd like to use?

Actually, it's the Dave Weckl Evolutions.

They're like a 5A, I think.

It features Eric Benet.

Paula Cole, Randy Brecker, Chris Bodie, Tom Scott, Kirk Whalum, Gerald Albright, Hubert Laws, Paul Jackson Jr., Brian Bromberg, Vinnie Caliuta, and Dave Weckl, and Lenny Castro.

Just to name a few.

Just to name a few.

And so I fir- I, I feel like from there, like it was a different level of like, oh, you know...

He, he, he, dude, he gave me the John Patitucci and Dave Weckl DVDs, like all of it.

All of it.

Nice.

Is that like when you strike a drum, you want the stick to be, if you can, be in line with your form as much as possible.

So that way, if the stick bounces back, like we've all seen the Dave Weckl thing do, or if our wrist is forced back... we have a lot of range of motion available.

Like if I hold my wrist parallel to the camera here, and I bring my wrist back, and this wrist has a cyst in the back, so it's a little bit less than the average wrist, I have about 75 degrees of motion where I can come back into extension, which means if I strike a cymbal and it shoves me back, I have about 75 degrees of motion that I can slow down that energy to make sure my wrist, my fingers, and more importantly, the soft tissue of the carpal tunnel area don't take it.

And that's where a lot of people get carpal tunnel injuries.

If someone's going to get started, I think every drummer should be looking at doing some small amount of resistance training and small amounts of cardio.

And if you really want to take it as far as you possibly can, Drum Mechanics is a great resource for that because I'm trying to make sure that all the resources are at affordable rates so drummers have everything they need.

But to get started, I would consider from a resistance training perspective, how can you do a very small full body routine? Some people will say like, well, Dave Weckl never exercised, Steve Gadd never exercised, why do I need to exercise? The truth is, like I just told you, your muscles will rapidly start to lose the ability to regenerate and they will get weaker and smaller if you're not stimulating.

Your drum muscles will stay there, like your forearms and your legs and your feet, but the other stuff will start to break down.

[laughs]

And then I'll get comments like, "That was a Steve Gad lick," or, "That was a Dave Weckl lick," or, "That was a..." And it's fine, I understand that, but that's so far from reality.

Because yeah, everything sounds like something, right?

Yeah.