interview by: Roberto Martinelli

How does Mike Portnoy, the most prolific drummer in progressive metal, get his drum sound? Ever since Awake, the band’s third album, Portnoy’s drums have sounded increasingly full, rich, and tight, progressing in signature sound until he and Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci took over the producers’ role with the group’s sixth studio album, Scenes From a Memory, and continuing from there.

On the sound alone, you can tell it’s Mike Portnoy. Dream Theater’s latest album, Systematic Chaos, continues in that tradition.

So how does he do it? It seems that the further you dig, the less people really know. Mike Portnoy for sure doesn’t know. So we talked to famed engineer Paul Northfield (Rush, Queensryche, Porcupine Tree, Ozzy Osbourne) as well as Portnoy’s drum tech, Eric Disrude, to get to the bottom of this. We’ve found that, like with quantum physics, the more you know about Portnoy’s drum sound, the more you really don’t.

(The following interviews were conducted for EQ Magazine, who allows us to run the entire transcription here in Maelstrom.nu)

Maelstrom: The last five Dream Theater records have listed you as co-producer. What does that role mean in your case?

Mike Portnoy (below): I see the role of a producer like that of a director of a film: someone that will oversee the entire project and make the final calls. The producer works hand-in-hand with many of the people. The engineer is a very important person; the mixer is a very important person. The engineer is like the director of photography in a film; the mixer is like the editor.

Maelstrom: After Images and Words, your drum sound changed a lot. Since the following album, Awake, your sound has very much become the Mike Portnoy sound. One of my favorite drum recordings is Metropolis 2, Scenes From a Memory. What did you do from Images and Words to Awake that effected that change?

Mike Portnoy: To backtrack a little, Scenes From a Memory was the first album that myself and John produced. That was a turning point for the band. Until Scenes From a Memory, we worked with outside producers who ultimately had the final say in the production of the record... more so than we did as band members That was a frustrating situation.

Our first album was produced by Terry Date; our second album, Images and Words, was produced by David Prater. The third album was Duane Baron, and the fourth album was Kevin Shirley. In all those cases, there was an outside person that kind of had final say on how our records turned out: that meant the shaping of the songs to the final sounds on every instrument, including the drums. It wasn’t until Scenes From a Memory that my drums sounded like I wanted them to sound. Even to this day, the drum sounds on Images and Words make me cringe.

Maelstrom: I don’t blame you. But what I think is funny is that objectively, the snare trigger sounds terrible...

Mike Portnoy: Oh, it makes me crazy.

Maelstrom: ...but at the same time, I love that record so much that I like the sounds, because they’re part of that record. Then again, I can say that easily because I’m not on the record.

Mike Portnoy: A lot of people hold that album in such high regard (maybe because that was the album that broke the band through). When we recorded that album in ‘91, that kind of triggered drum sound was still in fashion. And that was right before the grunge wave came in. When that hit, [drums] became real dirty, acoustic-sounding stuff. That changed everything.

Maelstrom: What was triggered on Images and Words?

Mike Portnoy: I believe the entire kit was triggered, but I could be wrong. That was our first major label album, and David Prater was a very difficult person to work with. He was the kind of person that would lock us out of the studio and do whatever the hell he wanted.

Maelstrom: Tell us a story about that.

Mike Portnoy: Heh. We could be here all day. I made it pretty clear from the get-go that I hated those drum sounds while making the record, but he had just done a popular record with a band Firehouse, which was an early ‘90s, hair metal band. My drum sounds on Images and Words are basically the very same ones of the Firehouse album Just because that kind of sound works with pop metal music, it was completely out of place with an over-the-top, progressive metal band. But I’d rather not get into any dirty stories. Me and Prater have bad-mouthed each other to death. But I will say that as it was our first album for a major label, we had no leverage. To this day, I love that album musically, but sonically, it makes me cringe.

Maelstrom: What can you tell us about what you did to get the drum sounds you liked on Scenes From a Memory?

Mike Portnoy: Well, that album was made on the heels of the band nearly breaking up after Falling Into Infinity, which was a corporate mess. When we made Scenes From a Memory, we took the reins into our own hands. And the drums on that record, as well as every record after that, sound like what I hear when I’m playing them.

We had two different mixers on the album. Kevin Shirley mixed half of the songs, and David Bottrill did the other half.

Maelstrom: Didn’t that make things more difficult?

Mike Portnoy: Actually, David Bottrill mixed the entire album. As much as he did a great job, we didn’t feel his mix was big enough. It was very authentic as far as the acoustic sounds went, but it didn’t sound huge. So we had Kevin Shirley mix a bunch of the songs, as his specialty is making things sound really big.

That was the first record we did using Pro Tools. Before then, everything was done on analog tape. On Falling Into Infinity, I would do five or six different takes if each song, all the way through, and me and Kevin Shirley would listen and make notes. We ended up chopping up tape — well, Kevin was doing all the cutting — and there was tape all over the place. And to think back that we used to make records like that, it’s crazy With Pro Tools, it’s lightyears easier to cut up drum tracks and takes, and mix up different parts.

Scenes From a Memory was also the first album that we wrote in the recording studio. We moved into Bear Tracks Studios and lived there for months and months on end. We’d write and then immediately record it when it was done. Then we’d write another song that way. Since then, we’ve done every album except one that way, and that was Train of Thought. For that, we went back to the old way of writing beforehand and then entering the studio, just because we wanted to break up the creative pattern and make it a more live album.

Maelstrom: Once upon a time, you used 24" kick drums... it might have been on your Mapex set. Then, you went down to 22"s. What spurred that choice?

Mike Portnoy: As much as you’d like to hear it was a sonic decision, it really wasn’t. It was mainly because I was sitting too high in order to get above the toms. As I was getting older, I was having back problems, and I wanted to lower my stool as much as possible. But there’s the showman ham in me that always wants to be seen above the drums, so I ended up going down to 22"s.

Now, I have this whole double drum kit set-up. My main kit is [two] 22"s, but the secondary kit has ranged up to a 26" and down to a 20", which is what I’m currently using.

Maelstrom: The monster kit pictured on your site... is that what you recorded with? I believe it’s the “Siamese” kit (below).

Mike Portnoy: The first album I recorded with the Siamese kit was Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence. At the time, Tama gave me a shitload of drums to build a prototype in the studio. That’s when I came up with the double-kit, Siamese configuration. The whole idea behind that is to be able to jump back and forth between kits from song to song... or even section to section within the song. I did Six Degrees and Train of Thought with the Siamese. For Octavarium, I had the Siamese as well as a Jon Bonham replica, acrylic kit. And the latest album was recorded with my white, Albino Monster.

Maelstrom: I assume your huge kits are so just as much because you like them as it is because that’s what your fans want to see you play.

Mike Portnoy: The kits are not for show. I use everything. A lot of times, we’ll roll into a gig, and the local crew will say, “Oh, give me a break. He’s not going to fucking play all *that.* Who needs three bass drums?” For me, it’s not about the show, it’s about how I get bored really easily. If I was confined to just one small kit... I want to try different drums, cymbals, and kits. I love jumping back and forth. I love playing some of the older songs on the secondary kit, to challenge myself with different set-ups and environments.

Maelstrom: When you have those monsters set up in the recording studio, you have them all miked up at once? Or is it like, you’ll mic up part of it and mic up the rest when it’s time to play that part of the kit?

Mike Portnoy: Everything’s completely miked. This is especially important because we write in the studio, so when we fall into something and want to lay it down, it has to be ready to go.

Maelstrom: How do you tune your drums to get the Mike Portnoy sound?

Mike Portnoy: It’s a cop-out answer, but I trust my drum tech. How he sets my drums up the same way, every day, the way I like them, I don’t know, but he does.

Maelstrom: In the past few years, Dream Theater has devoted a good portion of its albums to doing more simple, stripped-down compositions that seemed to have started with Train of Thought. Why this direction? I see it as abandoning something that made you popular in favor of doing something that someone else has already done.

Mike Portnoy: We do that because we love all kinds of music. We feel it gives us the opportunity to do whatever the hell we want. As musicians, we want to experiment with simple songs just as much as we want to experiment with complex songs. In fact, simple songs are the challenging ones for us. To write 25-minute songs with a million odd time signatures... that’s a cake walk for us. We can do that in our sleep. Writing a five-minute simple song in 4/4 is a major challenge for us.

We understand that a big part of our fanbase is into the complex stuff, but from day one, if you listen to Images and Words, we had simple songs like “Another Day” and “Surrounded.” It’s about a balance. As much as we like Metallica and Pantera for the metal stuff, and Rush and Yes for the progressive stuff, we love U2 and Journey for the poppy stuff.

Maelstrom: Could you talk more about what’s so challenging about writing a short, simple song for you?

Mike Portnoy: It’s a huge challenge for us to write a song like “Forsaken” or “I Walk Beside You.” Since we all write together, that inevitably turns into a lot of opinions and ideas, and that translates into long, complex pieces. I did a Beatles tribute a few years ago. When I analyzed arrangements like on “Eight Days a Week,” it was unbelievable to me that within the first three minutes, they’ve done the chorus five times. With Dream Theater, usually within the first three minutes, the vocals haven’t even begun. It amazes me how bands like The Beatles, or U2, or Coldplay can write such concise songs. We’ll often analyze their arrangements to figure out how to get three choruses and a solo section in four minutes.

Maelstrom: When you write the shorter songs, how does the process work? Does John come in with riffs and basic arrangements?

Mike Portnoy: Not really. That’s part of the problem why simple songs are difficult for us. With these other bands, maybe it is one person who brings it in, so it’s easier to keep it concise. But short or long, we do our songs together. Maybe one out of twenty times it’ll be one person bringing in the skeleton of a song. Sometimes we have to dumb ourselves down. Long songs are easier because there are no restrictions. The clock’s off the wall, and the song will go where it goes.

Maelstrom: There’s a theory that I like that says that true experimentation can only happen within a set of rules. That it’s working within those guidelines, and trying to push them, that yields the most interesting stuff.

Mike Portnoy: Completely true.

Maelstrom: How does James [LaBrie] fit in with you in this process? Does he jam along, or does he come in after a song is completed instrumentally?

Mike Portnoy: In the early days, he was never around when we wrote the music, and it started to create a bit of resentment. On the past several albums, he’s been present throughout the whole writing process, but that just means he’s present to understand where the songs are coming from. Once the music is done, then myself and James and John Petrucci will start discussing melodies. We’ll each go off to write lyrics, and then we’ll apply vocals, which are the last piece of the puzzle.

Maelstrom: What did you mean about there being resentment?

Mike Portnoy: From day one in this band, we’ve written instrumentally, even before James was in the band. When James joined, he was in Canada while the rest of us were in New York. And we were comfortable with that arrangement. But 10, 15, 20 years into a career, and that kind of separation can cause some resentment; like, we were resentful that he wasn’t around while we did all the work, and he was resentful that he wasn’t around, even though it was his own doing. So after looking at it, we decided it was best if he were there with us, even if he wasn’t contributing, because it helped with the camaraderie.

www.mikeportnoy.com

www.dreamtheater.net

Very interesting, but it doesn’t answer the questions we originally had. Here’s Paul Northfield to try to clear things up about how Mike Portnoy sounds like Mike Portnoy.

Maelstrom: Certainly the first thought that comes to mind when considering recording Mike Portnoy is, how on earth do you mic all that stuff up?

Paul Northfield: It’s relatively straight forward. He’s got two kits set up simultaneously. They are approached as two separate kits, so when one of them isn’t being used, it’s essentially switched off. The simple answer to this is, unlike in the past when we’ve had to a make a lot of decisions as to gate or mute mics that get in the way, and that you have to plan for the possibility of his wanting to hit something, and you don’t want to interfere... but we were using Pro Tools, and because of that we had relatively unlimited tracks (actually, the limitations are more with the console).

During the recording process, I had about 36 mics on Mike, and about 12 channels on everybody else. And the primary goal is to get down the drum tracks. For keyboards, I had a guide stereo track coming from Jordan [Rudess], as all those tracks would be replaced later (except for one case where we had a solo live off the floor that everybody loved and we kept). But for the most part, the guitars and bass would be guides.

The way they approached this record was that they wanted to write in the studio and then immediately record whatever they’d written. They’re very fast at putting their ideas together. It’s an expensive way to record, but for a band like Dream Theater, it’s part of who they are as musicians.

They wrote the music and we mapped it out immediately, and put on guides with click tracks straight onto computer. And we recorded 48 tracks at the same time. Everything on the drum set was miked individually (not the cymbals, though, aside from the rides and hi-hats). So there were a lot of open mics. But I had to be ready to use either kit, ad Mike would decide which one to use on the fly. One of the kits is a sort of bombastic, progressive kit with everything but the kitchen sink; and the other is a simple, Jon Bonham-style, oversized kick drum and tom set-up, which we actually only used for one song (I think it’s “Dark Eternal Night.” Either that or “Constant Motion.”) But we had to have it ready just in case.

Maelstrom: What about phasing problems with so many mics?

Paul Northfield: Phasing problems come more from when you do a huge amount of processing. With me, mic positioning and choice have a lot more to do with the sound than EQing: If I had to EQ the toms a lot to get brightness, then it would interfere with the cymbal sound. The choice of console also has a lot do with it. We use an old, Class A, Neve 8058 with a three-band EQ at Avatar studios. It’s a classic console with a classic drum room to record in. The smack from Mike’s kit comes from his playing and some compression. I pick the clearest, most top-end-heavy cymbal mics I can so I don’t have to do any EQing. So things tend to blend a lot better and I don’t have issues with phasing. The tuning of the kit, the room, and the player has a huge impact on how the drum sounds. (Portnoy's kit set up for the Systematic Chaos sessions, below)

Maelstrom: Please talk about what microphones you used to record.

Paul Northfield: I used Sennheiser 421s on all the toms. The octobans had SM57s or 58s inside the tubes. The advantage of the old Neve consoles is that they have a thickness and punchiness to the low end. You just stick a little upper-mids and lows to them, and that’s it. The EQs are really broad, and if you over EQ, you can easily ruin a mix. We used SM57s on the tp and bottom of the snare. We used an AKG 451 for the ride. Same for the hi-hat.

The overheads were AKG C12s. Additional ones were AKG 414s. I always put the C12s on the sides. I tend not to do the over the head of the drummer approach for cymbals. The reason for that is, although you get a nice pick-up on the snare, I don’t find the cymbal sound is that great. If you mic cymbals straight overhead, they sound like big dinner plates, or little gongs, and you end up having to EQ-out all the low end. They don’t have any natural top end. If you mic them totally sideways, they’re very thin sounding, and they disappear as the cymbal rocks. I try to get an angle as close to 45 degrees as I can to the cymbals, and about four feet away from the cymbals themselves. The only cymbal I point straight down on is the ride, but that’s a totally different thing.

For kick drums, we used AKG D112s.

Maelstrom: Tell us about muffling of the bass drum. Do you leave the resonant heads on?

Paul Northfield: Yes. There was a hole, but it was small — like 4 .

The album was done in two sessions. Eric came in, set the kit up, and we tracked for about a month. Then Mike needed the kit for the G3 tour. When that was done, we did another month of recordings. Mike never changed heads during the entire recording process, aside from a clean set of heads at the very beginning of the recording session.

Maelstrom: How far were the microphones from the toms and snare?

Paul Northfield: About two inches from the heads and two inches from the rim. For the low toms, maybe a little closer to the center, but nothing radical. With a big kit like that, it’s more of a question of “where can you fit it?” But the benefit of being in a good room — one without any radical reflections coming off the ceiling — is that the spill you get from one mic to another isn’t offensive. Whenever we could, we’d use rack mounts for the mics. Quite a few mics had clips on the rack tom rims, to avoid a nightmare of mic stands.

But the mics and mic placement were nothing special. The special factor came from the room and the console. I’m sorry to say, but the whole process couldn’t have been more ordinary.

Maelstrom: Tell us more about the console.

Paul Northfield: Aside from the Neve, we used a Pro Tools HD system with the standard converters, and we used a Big Ben clock, which makes it sound better.

Maelstrom: Did you use any plug-ins?

Paul Northfield: No.

Maelstrom: Talk about what compression you used.

Paul Northfield: It’s all on the console. I used a lot of 1176, which I quite like, on the kit. When I was mixing, I ran the mix bus through some Neve strips. I mixed on an SSL. Tracking on the Neve gives a thick, dense sound, but with bigger arrangements, you need the spaciousness and clarity you tend to get from an SSL. The old Neves tend to get very muddy.

Maelstrom: What else do you like about the Neve?

Paul Northfield: It’s got so many transformers in it, it’s unbelievable. Every single strip goes through six transformers before you hit tape (or, rather, the digital converters). Here’s what those transformers do: The distortion in a transformer is what is called “first order harmonic distortion.” This makes the distortion characteristics very sweet. Whether you use a Class A circuit (which is the 8058), or a four-band EQ Neve, which is called a Class AB circuit (like the 8068 and 8078), the transformers are what make it sound the way it does (and the purists like the Class A circuit better). And they don’t make consoles with that many transformers in them anymore because it was regarded as not technically a great thing to do to the sound. It was also extremely expensive. But musically, it’s very powerful and useful.

Even though I was mixing on an SSL G-Series, I used a lot of Neve channels to maintain punch and density. The G-Series is not as thick and dense; it’s more spacious and airy, and not quite as gutsy... it’s stronger in the mid-range. In my recording, it’s a lot about balancing the fundamental natures of consoles. I could have mixed it at Avatar on a J, which is a very clear and sweet console, but for rock stuff, it doesn’t have the same kind of aggressiveness in the mid-range for guitars and such, so I consciously chose the G.

Maelstrom: It seems your implementation of Pro Tools was very minimal, indeed, that you used it purely to record to and to manage your tracks

Paul Northfield: In Pro Tools, I used things like delays, which are so much more convenient. It means that most of your effects are already being worked on whilst you’re tracking your overdubs. For example, the guitar solo delays were generated in Pro Tools. I could always change them — which is nice, as you’re not totally committed — and you didn’t have to set up tons and tons of rooting when you came to the mix. If we did a recall, we wouldn’t have to go set it all up again.

But the biggest advantage to Pro Tools is the sheer amount of tracks we could have. We could always have more and more, like alternative takes. Any hard disk-based system would have worked. I’m a big Logic user. That with Apogee converters and a Symphony card would be superb. But it’s not a good idea to walk into a studio and ask them to use stuff they’re not used to, because you need support.

The basic Pro Tools HD converters are good. Apogees may be nicer, but once they get to be as good as that, there are so many other things you need to worry about. Like driving it with the Big Ben clock. The clock is very important in running a digital system, and it makes a noticeable difference on a Pro Tools rig.

Maelstrom: What does a clock do that’s so important?

Paul Northfield: The samplers that convert from analog to digital are processing information at very high speed. If the clock that’s driving the whole system fluctuates, it tends to cause a brittleness in the sound. In bad clocking, the first thing you notice is the top end is a bit harsher, and the top end seems to separate from the sound as well, and the stereo imaging isn’t quite as good. When you get the clocking the best it can be, you usually feel like the recording medium starts to disappear, and you’re just there and hearing the mics coming straight off the console.

In the old Pro Tools rigs, everyone used to use a clock called the Aardsync, because it made tape sound so much better. Then people realized that clocking was *really* important, so manufacturers started bringing out very high-resolution clocks that are very, very stable.

Maelstrom: Did you do any replacing on the drums?

Paul Northfield: No replacing, but I did augment a bit on the snare drum, to give it a bit more of an explosive quality, but not heavily because of the expression in Mike’s playing. When it’s a straightforward back beat, you can add a bit of sample without any trouble. In that case, I add some ambience with a 4AD program. But in the case of press rolls, you can’t do that with a sampler.

Maelstrom: After all this, I haven’t figured out how Mike Portnoy’s drum kit sounds like Mike Portnoy’s drum kit. I don’t know how familiar you are with Dream Theater’s discography, but to my ear it started sounding remarkable on Awake, and really signature since Scenes From a Memory... since basically Mike and John took over production duties.

Paul Northfield: I have no idea how anybody else recorded him. But [your perception] speaks volumes about a drummer’s approach to his playing. A lot of what has an impact is really fundamental. Like, what are his drum sizes and how he plays them? I guess every drummer has a part of the kit that’s his main focus. Mike plays a lot from the kick drum. It sets up how he comes into a tom fill. Intangibles like that affect how the overall sound is.

Mike’s drums aren’t particularly deadened. When you have a drummer with a lot of technical ability, they don’t want that. They want it sounding live, and not tuned too low. They’d rather have a larger drum for a lower pitch, rather than a smaller drum tuned down, because you won’t get any kick back off the head. But really, there isn’t a magical answer to your question. When you’re working with someone who’s as demanding and powerful a musician as Mike is, you need to work fast and not get caught up in details. That’s why the Pro Tools rig was so important. Each mic had its own channel, and if we didn’t want a channel, it got switched off. No need to worry about phasing problems.

I didn’t gate anything when I recorded, and I hardly gated at all when I mixed it. The most complicated thing was being able to handle a huge kit that was ready to roll. Had I been in a huge room and had I needed to fight with it, it would have been a nightmare because of all the processing going on. But a great room and console allow focus to be put on the person, and that avoids frustration.

Maelstrom: What made the room so great, Paul?

Paul Northfield: There’s a lot of wood in the room. Not a lot of super hard surfaces. It’s got a wood floor, but I put carpet under the drums, that way you don’t get the brittle kick back. Ambience should be more low-end if possible. Not hard or bright... stone rooms are generally not interesting to record in. I’ve been in studios that have rooms that range from very, very dead, to rooms with glass and tile, which means the ambience is going to be all cymbals. For a drum kit, neither of those is very interesting. For me, a great-sounding room is something along the lines of a gymnasium, where you’ve got a bit of boom in the walls and floor — the low-mids and upper bass areas. Stages can offer a lot of those qualities as well. Years gone by, I remember drummers would complain their kits sounded great on stage but have all the life sucked out in the studio. [Avatar Studios] does not suck the life out of your kit. It’s not a massive room, but with the kit set up, it’s about 20'-30' in every direction (although we were very close to the back wall), and with a 30' ceiling.

Avatarstudios.net

That was a lot of great technical recording information, but nothing about how the drums are tuned to sound the way they do. Surely, Dream Theater’s drum tech would know a lot about that.

Maelstrom: Eric, I’m after how Mike Portnoy gets his drums to sound like Mike Portnoy’s. Since Awake, and particularly Metropolis 2, he’s had a drum sound that is very remarkable.

Eric Disrude: As far as albums, I’ve only worked with him on the last two (Octavarium and Systematic Chaos). Now, he’s got two kits built into one. But the “A” side, the double bass kit, has been the same sizes for years (but the shells change constantly).

Maelstrom: I’m a little skeptical. Like, he uses 22"x18" kicks, right?

Eric Disrude: Yes.

Maelstrom: Well, that’s just about what everybody uses, but not everyone gets the sound he gets out of his kick drums.

Eric Disrude: Right. That would have to go into how he plays them. Ten people hit a drum, and it’ll sound different each time. Mike’s drumming is very consistent. I tune them to get the rings out, and to make sure the pitches are right, but when I hit it, compared to how he goes up and hits it... it’s a completely different thing. You can alter the shell or put a different head on it, but ultimately it’s the drummer and how he’s hitting it. And the sound that Mike Portnoy gets is from the way Mike Portnoy plays.

Maelstrom: When you recorded Systematic Chaos, what did you use to muffle the drums, if anything?

Eric Disrude: Nothing on all the toms.

Maelstrom: I’ve looked at an older kit on Mike’s site — the “purple monster” (below) that you can “play.” It’s got the Moon Gel on the toms.

Eric Disrude: Right. That kit was from before I was working with him. As far as the snare, I put two pieces about an inch long of that gel. In the 22"x18" kick drums, a normal bed pillow, and in the 26"x14" kick, a moving blanket.

Maelstrom: How do you tune the heads? Same tension top and bottom?

Eric Disrude: I generally tune the bottom heads a little bit tighter. It’s hard to put into words because I go on sound. A lot of the guys use these neat tools with meters on them.

Maelstrom: I had a Drumdial and I found it didn’t work very well.

Eric Disrude: I’ve tried all of them, and they’re not quick or comfortable. On the snare, I also tighten the bottom a little more than the top. I get the top to the point where there are no flat spots in it as far as stick bounce goes. For tone, I’ll go to the bottom head to get rings out, or raise or lower the pitch. So I guess it isn’t a rule to have the bottom heads tighter. On the floor toms, sometimes I’ll have the bottom heads lower, because the top would be too loose to get it the pitch he wants it at.

We did a huge layout about the latest kit for “Modern Drummer” a few months ago. The problem is that what’s in that mag isn’t what he used for recording the album.

Maelstrom: Have you teched for other guys?

Eric Disrude: Yeah.

Maelstrom: When you first sat down at Mike Portnoy’s drum kit, what did you notice that was remarkable or different about his set-up?

Eric Disrude: Sitting down at Mike’s drum set felt completely natural. He has a great sense of order. Other drummers whose kits I’ve sat down at might have elements that are in awkward places, although it works for them. With the tuning, he’s really not that specific about the sound of everything. It’s more the placement. He needs it to be in an exact spot more than he needs it to sound a certain way. In four years of working with him, he’s never come in and had anything to say about the sound of the drums.

The drums are on a rack system, and I use the same piece of carpet each day. Everything is cut to length, and goes in a specific spot. Things might move slightly from day to day, but Mike gets comfortable with a specific way things are placed, and he’s very particular about that. I’ve worked with different drummers that have things in different places every single day, but if something’s off in Mike’s kit, it’s because I screwed up because I didn’t look at it.

Maelstrom: I know Mike plays with his left stick flipped so he gets more crack out of the snare. Do you play like that?

Eric Disrude: I do in order to emulate how Mike plays, so I can set things up better.

Maelstrom: Please talk about the bass drum tunings.

Eric Disrude: They’re pretty loose, but they can’t be too loose or there won’t be any slapback. The batter side heads are tighter than the resonant side heads.

Maelstrom: Do you find you try to get the two kicks to sound exactly the same, or are you not concerned with that?

Eric Disrude: I try to get them exactly the same. It makes me nuts when they’re different. It’s a lot of work.

Maelstrom: Have you got any hernia problems?

Eric Disrude: No.

Maelstrom: You alright carrying all that stuff in, or do you have, like, drum tech techs?

Eric Disrude: Yeah. We have stage hands every day that do all the heavy lifting. I do as little lifting as possible.

Maelstrom: What heads do you use?

Eric Disrude: All Remo heads. Clear Emperors on the tom tops, and clear Ambassadors on the bottoms.

Maelstrom: Those are 1-ply heads. That’s unusual. I’ve found that most metal drummers prefer 2-ply heads for all top heads. I do. I find it sounds heavier and more appropriate. The 1-ply heads have too much ring (also, they don’t last as long).

Eric Disrude: It’s a lot of tuning. They can be ringy, but that’s all in the tuning. Every once in a while, we’ll have to put a piece of tape on a drum live because heads vary in thickness and overtone, and there isn’t time to change the head. For snare drums, he used the 12" and 14" Melody Masters, and a 14"x6.5" brass. On all of those, we used Coated Ambassadors with a black dot on the bottom side. For kicks, we used Coated Ambassadors for the resonant side with a small hole cut in it, and Powerstroke IIIs on the batter side.

Maelstrom: Was a 2-ply head on the kicks a conscious choice?

Eric Disrude: When I went to the studio, I went with a bunch of options. When I heard that Paul Northfield was engineering, I was very intimidated because two of my favorite drum sound albums were done by him — Rush Moving Pictures and Queensyche Operation Mindcrime. He’s done so many others. I didn’t know how he worked, so I went there completely prepared with a lot of stuff. He specified where he wanted the drums in the room, and specified which heads to use — which is what we always use.

Maelstrom: It must have been stressful for you to have to re-set up the drums in the recording studio after the G3 tour to continue the album. As you know, you’re not supposed to touch the drums or mics after you set them up until you’re done.

Eric Disrude: Yes. That’s why I took a lot of pictures. I was kind of responsible for everyone else in the band because no one was there for this except one other guy.

Maelstrom: But it’s not really your problem, as so much is about the exact mic placement.

Eric Disrude: Chad, the assistant engineer, helped a lot as he took photos of all the mic placements.

Maelstrom: Thanks for your time.

Eric Disrude: Feel free to call anytime. We’ll be on tour in the West Coast soon. Come on down and see how I set up the drums.

interview by: Pal the Postman

The following is an interview with Gorefest’s guitarist Frank Harthoorn about their recently unleashed album, Rise to Ruin, and lots more. The questions were forwarded by e-mail right after the release party gig of the album in September, 2007. The questions were forwarded in Dutch, but Frank agreed to reply to them in his own words in English. Hence nothing is lost in translation. Still, certain matters needed to be cleared up, as you will learn.

Maelstrom: Let’s start off by asking about Gorefests’s release party gig (which took place in Amsterdam’s Melkweg/Milky Way on September 14th, 2007). Were you happy with it? Personally, I thought the overall sound was better than at the try-out gig a few days earlier at the Hengelo Metropool.

Frank Harthoorn: Yeah, it was alright, I guess. This was only our third show since we recorded Rise to Ruin in March, so there's still some rough edges, slight mistakes and miscalculations here and there, but on the whole I think we got away with it. Sound usually depends on the club's PA system; I gather the Melkweg probably has a slightly better set-up than Metropool.

Maelstrom: The release party gig for Rise to Ruin was on September 14th. You may find this a bit of a lame question, but… wouldn’t 9/11 have been a more suitable date for it in connection with the album’s title?

Frank Harthoorn: Every idiot and his grandma tries to use dates like that to promote his or her stuff, and it'll only leave you looking stupid. Shallow and blatant symbolism like that is better left to the Slayers of this world. Besides, September 11th fell on a Tuesday, and midweek shows suck, even in Amsterdam.

Maelstrom: Now that it is clear that 2005's La Muerte wasn’t a farewell album, but a firm comeback, could one distinguish two kinds of Gorefest: “vintage Gorefest” and Gorefest “new improved formula”? Or is such a distinction a non-issue and is the group the same old “Fest” as it ever was?

Frank Harthoorn: I think we've gotten to a point where we're a lot more confident in our own abilities, have a much better idea of what we want and how to get it, and have reached a reasonable consensus between the four of us about all of that. There'll always be differences of opinion, or arguments, but that, to me, is an integral part of the whole creative process. That realization is a major difference to the situation say, 12 years ago, when we really had no idea anymore why we were doing this. We do now.

Maelstrom: Could one assume that it wouldn’t have been possible to create an album like La Muerte without the hiatus of years? I mean, not like two years after [1998's] Chapter 13 would there have been no split?

Frank Harthoorn: Yeah, you're probably right. In any case, we couldn't have made La Muerte if we wouldn't have done Chapter 13, or even [1996's] Soul Survivor. These might not be our most popular albums, but we learned a lot from those sessions, a lot of which we still use today. I can't imagine that stuff having been written two years after Chapter 13, though, not with how matters were between us back then.

Maelstrom: I have understood that Rise to Ruin wasn’t created in the studio in a conventional manner and that you all recorded your parts seperately from each other with the help of recording software. How did you like it? Are you more comfortable with this method than the usual one?

Frank Harthoorn: I think you're confusing two different things. These songs were written using ProTools software, which means you can record stuff at home. Since we all lead fairly busy lives beside the band, we just don't have the time to meet up regularly for rehearsals. Writing happens at home, and we send each other stuff till everyone's satisfied. After that, you start learning the songs, and by the time you enter the studio, you hope you know them well enough to record everything within the time constraints that there are. So while we're all in the studio to record the whole thing, the actual writing is done at home. Which is probably how 99% of all Metalbands work, so hardly anything unconventional going on there.

Maelstrom: Drummer Ed Warby’s quick rolls are more dexterous and hyperactive than ever before, even more than on La Muerte. How about his collaboration with the Swedish band Demiurg? Aren’t they also requiring his attention at the moment?

Frank Harthoorn: I have no idea, I take it he'll just be doing studiowork with them. I can't see them wanting to work their way around our schedules, though I don't know if they're even planning on doing lots of shows. Excellent band though, can't wait to hear the new one, especially now Eddie's behind the drums.

Maelstrom: I saw Gorefest on the Belgian Graspop Metal Meeting back in 2005, prior to the release of La Muerte, and what did he have? Five stitches in one of his ankles? How did he manage to do that? What happened?

Frank Harthoorn: He tried to do some household plumbing, with considerably bloody results. Ed's known for being a bit of a blunderhead while preparing for big shows. Usually, a couple of shots near the wound will do the trick, though I dread the day he'll actually chop off a hand or a foot. We might be in trouble then.

Maelstrom: You will also be doing shows in Russia. That’s quite remarkable! Are you getting fanmail from over there? Have you been approached to be doing those gigs? (I reckon that fans in the US will be pretty jealous about that).

Frank Harthoorn: Yeah, that one kind of surprised me. We've never been to Russia, and frankly I had no idea people over there had actually heard of us. Apparently they have, which is cool, but I have no idea what to expect.

Maelstrom: I imagine what it would be like if Gorefest visited the States together with your Swedish colleagues Entombed with a true “Crusade of Eurodeath.” As far as I know they have no touring plans for 2008. Would you fancy that?

Frank Harthoorn: Ha, I'd love to go on tour with Entombed. I mean, it's hardly a strange combination, is it? There's a big difference to the work ethics of both bands though. We all have our daytime jobs, which we won't be giving up anytime soon, whereas Entombed, I think, live off the band. That means they can pretty much go on tour whenever they want. We all have our schedules to fit in. But it's a cool idea though, I'll give you that.

Maelstrom: On Rise to Ruin, there are guest vocals from Jacob Bredahl from Hatesphere from Denmark. How did that take off?

Frank Harthoorn: JC recorded his vocals at Tue Madsen's Antfarm in Denmark. Tue felt it would be a good idea to have some backup screams, and Jacob lives just around the corner from Tue's, so he was an easy target, so to speak. He quite likes our stuff too, so that kind of helped as well.

Maelstrom: To my knowledge, Gorefest would be releasing a DVD with the gig from the Dynamo ’93 festival (in Eindhoven in the Netherlands). How about another re-issue of False combined with that one? Wasn’t there discontent about the production sound of the album (it sounded too clinical)? Combining False with the Dynamo ‘93 live tracks would give listeners the chance of comparing studio tracks to live tracks.

Frank Harthoorn: You're misinformed. We've never had any complaints about the sound of False; it's the mix on Erase that we fucked up. I don't think there'll be anymore re-issues, either, since all of that stuff was re-issued two years ago already. We were trying to get hold of the Dynamo '93 video recordings, but at the moment it's very unsure if any of those still exist. Besides the two songs which are there, of course. It would have been cool to re-release our live album, Eindhoven Insanity, together with a DVD of the same show, but I guess that's just not gonna happen.

Maelstrom: On the current album, there are more blastbeats to be found than on any previous album. Say, you have been working for a long time with the Nuclear Blast label and once again there is artwork by Rob Middleton, who has been doing a lot for Napalm Death. Would you ever consider moving more towards grindcore? Or would it be too much of a compromise with regard to melodies? I think Ed wouldn’t mind.

Frank Harthoorn: If we'd ever be inclined to write songs with more of a grindcore edge, we'll do that, even though I think there's already quite a bit of grind influences in there. But I can't see us turning into an out and out grind band in the near future, that would seem a bit contrived, to say the least.

Maelstrom: Is it correct that you haven’t been actively involved in the making of the songs?

Frank Harthoorn: Yeah, that's right. When we started writing songs for this album, I soon realised Ed and Boudewijn were coming up with much, much better stuff than I was, so I decided to take myself out of the equation. Thus, Rise to Ruin, was completely written by Ed and Boudewijn, and it turned out all the better for it, I think. Next time might work out completely different, though. To me, it's not that important who writes what, as long as it gets written.

Maelstrom: “Whores of Babylon” — quite a biblical sounding title. Yet it is the album’s centrepiece, being the longest. Listening to it is almost like listening to classic Rush, with the song split up in different sections. Is this a one-off progressive experiment or can we expect songs of similar length in the future?

Frank Harthoorn: The titletrack of La Muerte was even longer, I think. And that was an instrumental! Boud wrote “B-Whores” by melding together two or three other songs he had, I guess he thought it just sounded better this way. I have no idea if there's going to be more of these things, if it happens, it happens. You never set out to write long songs. You don't go: “right, let's sit down and write a couple of ten-minute songs.” That'd be stupid. If an idea happens to need nine minutes to flesh out, and there's not really anything you can take out, then so be it. You better make it a really good song, though, the majority of these 10-minute plus workouts are really pretentious and overindulgent crap.

Maelstrom: Doesn’t it bother you if the audience is getting noisy during a quiet part, wrongfully assuming that the song has ended?

Frank Harthoorn: No, not really, I don't take too much notice of other people outside the band when playing live. As it is, I'm glad enough already they're there, and noise is to be expected. I'd be more worried if they'd be silent.

Maelstrom: The lyrics of J-C are dealing about the stupidity of mankind and the meaninglessness of their actions. It’s not a typical subject for death metal bands. I know that the band decided long ago that the really gory lyrics should better be left to US bands like Cannibal Corpse. In some way the current lyrics of J-C can be connected to the US subgenre of “suicidal black metal” in which hatred for mankind, genocide and the end of days are hailed. What is your opinion on that subgenre?

Frank Harthoorn: Works of genius. Nothing like a bit of Xasthur, Leviathan, Nortt or Krohm before bedtime. It brings me sweet nightmares.

Maelstrom: When listening to the lyrics of J-C on Road to Ruin and also La Muerte, I can imagine vividly that they are in close connection to US politics and its consequences. I mean, it’s hard to imagine that they are about our Dutch government, as it’s influence on the world isn’t particulary big. Are the lyrics addressed to a particular entity or are they dealing with what is happening all over the world?

Frank Harthoorn: I think most of it is about what's happening in the world in general. It just happens that the US have a very great deal to do with everything. I know a lot of US citizens don't like it when foreigners have something to say about their government, but that's just it; being a non-inhabitant of the country gives you a clearer perspective of what's going on over there, and it's quite fascinating, to say the least. So much of that stuff affects us as well. Not that we don't have any issues to solve in THIS country, mind you.

Maelstrom: I have also been listening to the bonus tracks and the song “Surrealism” in particular reminded me somehow of the melo-death of Arch Enemy (because of Boudewijn’s solo in the middle). Now I am quite a fan of Arch Enemy and consider it an accomplishment if a Dutch band can archieve that level. Are you up to date with their activities?

Frank Harthoorn: I like Arch Enemy a lot, and I'm a big fan of most of Mike Amott's work, but I also think their approach to metal and songwriting is very different to ours. So, yeah, I follow their stuff pretty closely, and no, I don't think “Surrealism” sounds anything like Arch Enemy at all. I'd probably put it closer to a band like Trouble.

Maelstrom: I know that there is a good chemistry between you and your current producer, Tue Madsen, but have you — in connection with my previous question — ever thought of Frederik Nordstrom during the quest for a suitable producer?

Frank Harthoorn: I think we considered him for a very short while, but quickly realised we probably wouldn't be able to afford him. He's done some excellent work for sure. I'm glad we're still able to afford Tue though. What we're mainly looking for is a guy who knows how to do a good mixing job. The production part we basically do ourselves, but we've learned from past experiences (i.e. Erase) that mixing's something best left to professionals, and Tue is definitely a professional. He's also got much of the same ideas as we do about what sound we're trying to achieve, and that's pretty important to us.

Maelstrom: Is it correct that you like groovy death-metal like Torture Killer and therefore probably also Six Feet Under?

Frank Harthoorn: I can appreciate SFU for what they do, and I quite like their aesthetic, but I much more enjoy Torture Killer, who I think are the best elements of SFU and Obituary combined.

Maelstrom: I am curious about your opinion: Are Six Feet Under just as good as they were back in their early days or are they, according to some critics, a bunch of half-hearted 40+ dudes who are nowadays mainly thriving on formulas and routine, not really bothering to do anything innovative anymore?

Frank Harthoorn: I'm not really up to speed on what SFU are doing, or indeed have been doing for the past five years. From what I HAVE heard from them though, it really vexes me Chris Barnes seems to be doing much better stuff with Torture Killer then with SFU. Better songwriting, better performance, much heavier sound... If you put [Torture Killer's] Swarm and [SFU's] Commandment in front of me, I know which album I'LL be listening to, that's for sure.

Maelstrom: A few years back Six Feet Under made Graveyard Classics II consisting of an entire coverage of their favourite ACDC album Back in Black. To my knowledge Gorefest never recorded any covers. How about a Gorefest treatment of a bunch of Thin Lizzy songs? You guys are very fond of those twin-guitar parts, aren’t you?

Frank Harthoorn: Thin Lizzy songs are for a large part defined by Phil Lynott's vocals. There wouldn't be any point in us doing a cover version of any of those songs, no matter how much we love them. Ed and Boudewijn have their own Thin Lizzy tribute band called Live & Dangerous, and they're great, but Gorefest doing Thin Lizzy just wouldn't fly. That's why we try to stick a lot of twinguitar things in our own music, just to have a little piece of that Lizzy-pie.

We're no strangers to covers, though. We've covered Kraftwerk's “Autobahn,” Death's “Mutilation”; we've done “Green Manalishi” (the Priest version), and in '96 we did a whole clubtour doing nothing but AC/DC, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple songs. Lots of fun, that.

Maelstrom: In the period between Chapter 13 and La Muerte, you were in a band in the vein of Hüsker Dü and the Foo Fighters, the Hollow Men. Has anything been released by them? Did you ever consider, during the Gorefest-less period, to advance in alternative rock and perhaps connect to a wider audience?

Frank Harthoorn: No. I'm not really interested in trying to please anyone, I just like creating and playing music with some other people, and pleasing myself thusly. With Gorefest, we have the added bonus that there's other people that enjoy our music, and some of them actually buy our album, giving us the chance to record and release our next collection of songs. With the Hollow Men, we just enjoyed writing and playing songs. They're still around, by the way. They have some songs up on their myspace page, including a couple I play on. Cool little band.

Maelstrom: I’d like to finish with the next couple of questions. What kind of guitars are you using currently? In Amsterdam I noticed that you and Boudewijn have two models that are nearly identical.

Frank Harthoorn: We've been using Gibson Les Pauls since, oh, '94, I think. They play quite a large part in creating the character and color of our live sound. Besides, they're fine guitars, sturdy, they don't give you too much trouble provided you take care of them. Nice, full sound. I don't think we'll be using very different guitars anytime soon.

Maelstrom: Suppose you were at a soundcheck and you’d have to play a recent song five times in a row, which one would you pick? (I noticed that you were having fun with “You Could Make Me Kill” even though it’s from the previous album).

Frank Harthoorn: Probably “Speak When Spoken To.” I could use the practice, hahaha. I'd love to play “Murder Brigade,” or “The End of It All,” or even “La Muerte,” that would be cool. But five times? I don't know, even playing something just twice in row usually kills a lot of the pleasure you'll find in that particular song, at least until the next day.

Maelstrom: I’d like to thank you very kindly for doing this interview. I hope that you will have a successful year ahead. Take care of each other.

Frank Harthoorn: Thank you very much, your kind words are much appreciated!