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interview by: Roberto Martinelli
Insidious Disease is such a new band, they don’t even have a logo yet. (And I have what is possibly the biggest stash of redundant fonts in computer history.)
Seriously, Insidious Disease is an upcoming supergroup featuring Silenoz (Dimmu Borgir), Jardar (Old Man’s Child), Shane Embury (Napalm Death), and most notably, Tony Laureano (ex-Nile, Angel Corpse, current tour drummer for Dimmu Borgir). It is indeed on Laureano that this interview focuses. And like our chat with him in issue 19 (with Nile), it once again is all about geeking out on the drums. This time, the primary focus is on drum triggers, as the interview was conducted with the main intention of gathering expert opinions on a trigger article for EQ magazine, who has kindly permitted us to post the entire transcription in Maelstrom.nu.
Maelstrom: Ron Vento sent me some pictures of you recording with Aurora Borealis (up at Nightsky Studio in Maryland).
Tony Laureano: Yeah, he’s got a pretty nice place, man. It was much nicer than where Nile did their [third] album, in South Carolina. Ron’s is set up much better, he has pretty good gear; I think the only thing he wants to replace is the main board.
Maelstrom: So when a guy like Ron Vento says, “I want you to be on the new Aurora Borealis,” and you don’t live anywhere near each other, how do you handle learning all the material?
Tony Laureano: I learn fairly quick. We worked on it as much as we could long distance, and when I went up there to record, we rehearsed one or two nights, and changed some stuff around. The album turned out a little slower than was expected on two or three tracks.
Maelstrom: What are you working on now? Do you have a main band again, or are you doing session stuff?
Tony Laureano: I’m doing session stuff and side bands. I don’t have a regular band, no.
Maelstrom: What are the side projects?
Tony Laureano: I’m doing one called Insidious Disease. It’s a dark death metal band I’m doing with one of the guitarists from Dimmu Borgir, and the other guitar player is from Old Man’s Child. Recently, Shane Embury from Napalm Death expressed interest in playing bass for it. We’re working on it right now. We have 10 songs; pretty much a whole album. I’ll be going back to Norway in the winter time to finish the music, and probably record in the spring time.
Maelstrom: Where will you record?
Tony Laureano: We’re maybe thinking about going to Abyss. It’s close by to where the guys live, and Peter’s a pretty cool guy and easy to work with. Another project I have is with a couple guys from Satyricon and Spiral Architect. I recorded a couple songs with them in Norway.
Maelstrom: How often are you going to Norway? It seems like you go every three months.
Tony Laureano: I was coming back and forth over the summer. Dimmu Borgir only had like five shows, I went there in late May, stayed through June, and during that time worked on Insidious Disease. Came back home for a couple weeks, went back, did some more shows, came back home for a week, then went back, did the last show and worked on a couple things over there.
Maelstrom: How cool is your life, man? It sounds pretty great.
Tony Laureano: Yeah, I guess. Not really being in a band full time makes things slower than they used to be. I used to really tour a lot – which was good at first, because I didn’t need a break – but after years of touring, it was actually getting to me. But this year, I’ve only done a few shows, and it’s not quite enough. But that’s what happens when you’re not in a regular band.
Maelstrom: So I’m writing an article looking into whether drummers should buy triggers. Could you go back to when you first used triggers and tell us what your experiences were like?
Tony Laureano: The first time I used them would probably be around late ‘95, when I was playing with Malevolent Creation. I did a tour with them and used a D4 that Dave Culross had been using. I didn’t know anything about it and just plugged it in and started playing. I didn’t realize you have to set it up for your self. I’ve used the Alesis DM5 for ages. The Roland brain is pretty much known to be the best.
Maelstrom: It’s the most expensive, stuff for sure.
Tony Laureano: Yeah... that’s the problem. When you’re just triggering kick drums, it’s hard to justify spending a few grand. That’s why the DM5 is cool. You can get a brand new one for no more than $400. Nowadays, I practice at home on a regular kit, but with mesh heads and pads for cymbals. I triggered all that with the DM5. And it’s ok... I haven’t used the Roland triggers, but I hear they’re pretty good.
Maelstrom: Let’s go back to your first experiences. So, you didn’t know how to adjust the brain?
Tony Laureano: Right. All I knew was how to turn it on. It wasn’t set for me so sometimes it wouldn’t pick up every hit. Dave Culross was hitting harder. But if I play Derek Roddy’s triggers, I’ll get double triggers, because he hits softer than I do. I had a similar problem when I took my brain off of my mesh head kit and put them on a regular kit. The sensitivity was cranked up all the way for the mesh, and when I put it on the regular kit, I was getting double triggers – the resonance of the shell was causing the trigger to misinterpret what was happening. It happens a lot, man, especially on the snare. It’s a trial and error type of thing. Once you get it “fixed,” then there’s no problem. But you can get the bass drums to be exactly right, and then find out the snare isn’t performing properly. It can be disheartening sometimes. But in the studio, if you get an occasional double trigger, it’s no big deal: just take it out.
Maelstrom: Did you have the tape on triggers way back when?
Tony Laureano: When I first bought my own DM5 in ‘97, I had the Yamaha ones. They work fine, but they’re not made for touring. They’re not protected at all. I actually managed to get one and a half tours out of them before they died. On that second tour, the guitar tech for the headlining band was soldering them, trying to make them last the tour. After that, I got a set of DDrums. Those lasted me a long time before I had to replace them.
Maelstrom: Most metal guys I’ve been asking about this use DDrum, is that because you like them better or because that’s what you’ve got?
Tony Laureano: Well, I’ve also used Trigger Perfect. I had one for the snare. It worked fine for the application I needed it for. The company was actually going to offer me a sponsorship, so they sent me some triggers, after my DDrums died. So I used the [Trigger Perfects] on the last Nile tour I did in the US, with Kreator. And I didn’t like them. They weren’t picking up correctly; the way they attached to the bass drum allowed for play. I can understand why they’re like that: in the event you get a wider hoop. And if you get the wider hoop with the DDrum one, you’re up shit creek.
The Trigger Perfect has this little attachment where you can take an alan key and swing it. But it gives it that play I was talking about. So after the tour, I put them away and went out and bought another two sets of DDrums.
Maelstrom: What were you triggering?
Tony Laureano: Bass drums, and when I was with Nile, I had a tom I’d trigger for samples. All the Egyptian music, church bells, and gongs and stuff.
Maelstrom: How would you cycle through all those samples?
Tony Laureano: All the samples were on a laptop computer. The DM5 went into the laptop, and the tom ran from the laptop. And the samples would cycle down in a set order. Karl [Sanders] had it connected to his setup, because he did some stuff, too. But most of the setups were handled by me because they were time based. But there was a lag [between hitting the tom and getting the sample]. So for the sample to start on a one, I had to hit it on a three.
Maelstrom: So that means that if you accidentally hit the tom twice, you’d play the wrong sample for the show.
Tony Laureano: Well, the tom would only do a few things. Most of the samples I had running through a pedal that was to the left of my hi-hat.
Maelstrom: Did you ever hit the pedal or tom by accident and have the sample come on at the wrong time?
Tony Laureano: No, not really that, but sometimes if the computer was acting really jiggly, the delay would be longer. So I would think it didn’t go off, so I’d step on it again, and that would shut it off, so it wouldn’t come on at all.
Maelstrom: It seemed that in the late 90s, anyone who interviewed a death metal band would ask, “are your drums triggered?” It was kind of a loaded question, in that if the person said “yes,” it meant that their band sucked and that they were cheaters. So there was a backlash against triggers, with some bands making a big deal in their liner notes that there were no samples.
But recently, and this started from my talking to the guitarist from Origin, who said, “you know, triggers bring out all the problems that you might have. In the end, they make you a better player.”
Tony Laureano: Oh, totally! Triggers make what you’re playing crystal clear, so if you’re having a bad day, or if you’re not that good of a player to begin with, it’s going to be pretty clearly obvious. That’s why it’s funny when people say it’s cheating. Sure, it can make someone play lighter. I noticed this the first two years I played triggers. I was playing them all the time, and the unit broke down in Europe, and I had to finish the tour without them. I noticed that my feet consistency had changed. Since then, I practice a lot on my own without the triggers.
Maelstrom: I think it’s odd how bass drums are often triggered, but toms almost never.
Tony Laureano: Well, on the Roland brain, the toms sound good. But on the DM5, they sounds pretty fake. My thing is, I like the natural kick drum sound. I would rather not trigger the kicks, but to get two kicks to sound exactly the same is almost impossible. Also, to play the speeds that the kind of music I play is played, it’s very hard to retain the same level of consistency all the time as far as volume. You can do a pretty good job of it, but as far as what’s picked up by the microphone, [even] with noisegates and compression, it still doesn’t quite get it. And in the live environment, it turns into mud. With the triggers, the signal is clear, and you can find some pretty decent sounds that don’t sound like a typewriter. Those are there, too, a lot of people love those.
Maelstrom: What was the last record you recorded without any triggers?
Tony Laureano: The Acheron record from ‘97. Everything else I recorded with triggers.
Maelstrom: So would you say triggers are indispensable for metal drummers?
Tony Laureano: I would say so, man. If you want to be properly heard, it’s the best way to go about it without the superman sound guy. And even if you’ve got that guy and you’re playing in not such a great club with a not so killer sound system, there’s only so much he can do, too.
Maelstrom: When you’re in the studio, what are you running the triggers through so you can hear them?
Tony Laureano: Most of the bands I’ve ever played with have some sort of PA.
Maelstrom: This sounds like a pretty big investment, between the triggers, the module, the PA and the speakers. This is like, several thousand dollars!
Tony Laureano: Mm-hm, sure. It definitely is. I remember when I was with Angel Corpse, and we were rehearsing, I couldn’t even hear the triggers because they didn’t have a full PA, and kept the speaker in the front, closer to them. Also, when I rehearse with Dimmu [Borgir] – who have pretty big speakers – the room is pretty big, so the speakers are far from the kit. And besides that, there’s keyboards and vocals going through them as well. So it’s one of those things that it’s better to throw on the headphones anyway, so I can hear.
Maelstrom: Something we used on our first demo is a product that we call “the poor man’s triggers.” They’re Danmar metal kick pads. We turned the beater around so it was plastic on metal. It was super clicky-clicky, but we could hear everything. Some people that heard the demo said, “I like it, but what’s up with your bass drum sound? Are they triggered?”
Tony Laureano: I haven’t tried those, but I did try the old school method of taping quarters to the head. But then you punch a quarter through your head.
Maelstrom: Huh? I thought you had to put the quarter (well, we used our Danmar pads) on the other side, not the side the beater hits. We did this a bit for more recent recordings, and it increased the attack a lot.
Tony Laureano: I know Chris from Lamb of God used to use the Danmar metal pads, but he doesn’t use them anymore. They sounded really weird when I heard them.
Maelstrom: Sure, it’s not the top pick, but if you don’t have much money...
Tony Laureano: I have used the hard plastic Danmars. Those were pretty good, especially with a wood mallet.
Maelstrom: Another thing I find really ironic is when someone spends lot of money to buy a nice kit and then triggers it.
Tony Laureano: Look at Doc, the old drummer for Vader. He played Yamaha, but the toms were Recording Custom, but the kick drums were Stage Customs. He didn’t see the justification of buying kick drums that were hundreds of dollars more just to throw a trigger on them.
I think when Hellhammer was triggering live, he was mostly going around with [Pearl] Export. It makes no sense to buy a Masters Custom and then (laugh) trigger it.
Maelstrom: It’s a shame that it’s not easier and more cost-effective to buy individual drums, that way you could put all your money in getting super awesome toms and snare, and piece-of-shit bass drums that look the same as the rest of your kit, and there you go.
Tony Laureano: This is my thing with the triggering: I do the kicks. Some people do the kicks and snare, but not the toms. To me, if you’re triggering the snare, you might as well trigger the toms, too. The difference is really obvious if you have a triggered snare and then you do a roll on non-triggered toms. If you have everything triggered, the value of the signal is equal, and it’s not so jarring of a difference. I was thinking of getting a trigger for the snare drum, but when I played a roll, it sounded weird, man. If you get a really good kit and tune it right, you can get a consistent sound that will come through clearly out of them, as opposed to a cheaper drum that you really have to whack to get consistency.
Maelstrom: Flo Mounier said something ironic about how the companies that make the triggers aren’t marketing them very well: that they’re targeting rock, pop and blues musicians, who won’t really need this product unless they’re looking for a very unusual sound. But in terms of clarity and technicality, you should be marketing to people who play death metal, for example. At the same time, why would a death metal drummer want to spend $6,000 on a DW kit that will sound like mud because he’s going so fast.
Tony Laureano: Sure, most of these companies aren’t looking at extreme metal, as unfortunate as it is. That’s what’s cool about a company like Axis, who appreciates death metal; they have some artists who do the jazz, and stuff like that, but they realize most of the people who buy their pedals are extreme metal drummers.
Sure, a lot of the big rock bands use triggers, and they sample drums. They do it in the studio and they do it live. But their fans who play in smaller bands that do the same type of music, won’t necessarily do this. But the trigger companies are trying to sell to that crowd, where the extreme metal bands, even the very small ones, are more apt to trigger. Like Pantera: I’m pretty sure they trigger kicks and snare. But do a lot of the smaller bands that sound like Pantera do it? Nooo.... But you’ll see a local death metal band with triggered drums.
Maelstrom: You mentioned Axis. I was talking with Paul Bostaph, and he was saying that you like Axis pedals. He doesn’t. He says they’re too light. He says that you said you like Axis for fast stuff, but for slow stuff, you like to use something else.
Tony Laureano: Yeah, that’s been my thing with Axis for a long time. It’s a sort of “do or do not” type thing. [Axis] is definitely a different feeling, but it’s not like I change pedals depending on the song. But I have other sets of pedals. I have a set of Camcos, Yamahas, and Iron Cobras, all of which I’ll break out from time to time. There’s something about the chain, or even the strap, that’s more smooth for the not-so-fast stuff. Axis responds so easily to what you do, so when you’re playing slower, any mistake is more obvious. If you make a mistake at 240 beats per minute, it goes by so quick that it’s hard to hear.
Maelstrom: What Axis pedals do you have?
Tony Laureano: I have a set of the original ones, the As. I also have some A Longboards.
Maelstrom: Do you find a significant difference between the As and the Longboards?
Tony Laureano: When I first got the Longboards, I was playing really fast stuff more flat-foot. It wasn’t heel down, but more like the whole foot on the board. I was using heel up for all the other stuff. Since then, I’ve pretty much gone to heel up for everything. So for that old technique, the Longboard was pretty helpful. But as I developed faster speeds, the pedal isn’t as necessary. Which ones do you have?
Maelstrom: I have the As. The ones that come with the hockey puck beater. (editor's note: It turns out they’re actually the Xs. Axis just sent us a pair of the A Longboards, and they are AMAZING. I've not had as much fun in recent memory as setting up the pedals as stand alone, electronic bass drum pedals with the patented Axis trigger system and playing them with an acoustic snare and a hi-hat. Totally recommended. The control and feel is fabulous. I can't wait to hook them up to my bass drums.)
Tony Laureano: It’s got the heel plate?
Maelstrom: Yeah.
Tony Laureano: Ok, here’s the interesting thing: on a certain tour, one of my Longboards had a piece that was coming off, so I sent it to the shop, and I started using the originals again. I was quite happy with them. I think I’ll be going back to them. There’s something I really like about them, like the smaller footboard. Nick Barker’s got the original ones; Tim Yeung does, too.
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