Butch Trucks Quotes

In 2007, I studied with Peter Erskine because I was doing a Buddy Rich tribute concert, and I wanted to take my big-band drumming up a level. I went over to Peter's house with my sticks, feeling like a 13-year-old again.

I was a beginner again. I practiced hard and used to listen very closely to recordings of American jazz drummers such as Tony Williams and Kenny Clarke.

If drummers are 'anti-solo,' that's up to them. They're musicians, and they can play whatever they want. But my inspirations early on were people like Buddy Rich, seeing him on 'The Tonight Show', or Gene Krupa.

I look up to a lot of old school drummers from the '70s, '80s, and '90s.

Well I had a musical background, but I still didn't know a lot about drums at the time.

No one sits in front of a drum set and thinks they invented it all out of whole cloth. The fact that the set is there means that you've got some dues to pay to Baby Dodds.

I'm a freak, everything has to be totally flat when I play. Ed Will, my jazz teacher, set up everything completely flat, and then you'd tilt your snare drum away from you, so I do that too. So my snare tilts away from me.

I love to talk about the drums and music. I started playing drums when I was probably six and played a lot until I was about ten or eleven years old. So, I guess five or six years where I played. I had a drum set at home, and I would just bang on it. I'd even go on the Internet and study basic beats and so forth.

Rudimental snare work is something I've always loved.

It's been years and years and years I've been playing the drums, and they're still a challenge. I still enjoy using drumsticks and a snare drum.

Mahavishnu's drummer Billy Cobham was the best I'd ever heard. Not loud, that's not the secret - powerful as hell when he wanted to be - but 90 per cent of the time, he was just dancing with the drums, you know? Just like a butterfly, all over them.

If you come in like a typical modern drummer who is used to playing only with tricks and double kick and, like, big, big, big, fast rolls, but you can't play a swinging shuffle, then you can't play in Ghost whatsoever.

I had some proper training, but that was only on snare drum. Learning all the techniques in marching bands and realizing how important it is to play tight set a standard for me for when I did get into a band.

Tommy Aldridge is the guy that made me wanna play double kick, man.

Age 10. I joined the school marching band as a drummer.

I wanted to play drums, and I got a set when I was 14 and just started to play in the house, to the stereo. I liked Ringo Starr, of course. And Sandy Nelson. I had his record, 'Let There Be Drums,' and I'd play along with it.

It's interesting. I've known quite a few good athletes that can't begin to play a beat on the drum set. Most team sport is about the smooth fluidity of hand-eye coordination and physical grace, where drumming is much more about splitting all those things up.

I play Orange County drums. I love those guys. I've got a four piece kit.

I think at one time every drummer wanted to play like Krupa or wanted to win a Gene Krupa drum contest. This is the big inspiration for drummers and naturally it has to be the same way for me.

I listen to Bill Stewart play the drums and when I have finished doing that, I listen to Bill Stewart.

You can't show someone how to play the drums in six weeks, but you can point them in the right direction.

I love drums and still play frequently.

I like drums, really, if they're under control.

Drums were my first instrument.

I saw a drummer play once when I was a kid and I thought, that's really cool. You know, you're moving. You're using your arms and fingers. So I tried it and I loved it.