This is me...hot and sweaty after band practice.

I've played drums for longer than I like to admit I am old, starting when I was 10. Over the years I've been involved in all types of bands and all types of recording situations. My main influences are Neil Peart above all others, then Mike Portnoy second. Others include the late Cozy Powell, Tommy Aldridge, Stuart Copeland, Tim (Herb) Alexander and several other jazz drummers I'm sure you've never heard of.

My musical influences range from Rush, Dream Theater, Kansas, Primus, King's X and Metallica to Al DiMiola, Lee Ritenour, David Lanz, John Tesh and Christopher Parkening; from Beethoven, Paganini, Hayden and Pachabel to the stuff I grew up on like Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Grand Funk Railroad, Led Zepplin, Alice Cooper, Joe Walsh and the James Gang, Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult and Jimi Hendrix. All the other musical styles I enjoy listening to not withstanding, I love to play heavy metal best. The raw power of the music, the energy, the tremendous concentration involved, and most of all, the consuming intensity of the heavy metal fans make playing heavy metal the most enjoyable and rewarding music I've ever played.

Now, I know a lot of people stereotype heavy metal musicians and fans. Some barely consider it music and would never call heavy metal music an art. But I consider it a great art that takes a very discriminating ear to both enjoy and perform. It's full of emotion and feeling, with a tremendous amount of personality injected by each composer. In addition, the term heavy metal encompasses many different styles of music; some more melodic than others, some more crude, some more raw. But I think our music is very much an art form and I feel a responsibility to perform to the best of my ability every time I perform. Is that not a definition of art in itself?

I also write music, lyrics, poetry and short stories, and I am a huge fan of Dean Koontz, Ayn Rand, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. These writers influence my own writing in many ways. One thing I've learned from reading a lot of Dean Koontz is that it doesn't matter how outlandish or unbelievable your subject or story line is. If it's well written and believable to your characters, then the reader will begin to relate to one of your skeptical characters and begin to believe as he/she does.

---

---

A lot of people ask me about the drums I play, so here are a few pictures of them.

You can barely see my left chimes in this picture (hanging from my left cymbal stand), and you can't see my Wuhan gong on my right, but this is a pretty good representation of how I set them up. I play with my toms a little lower and flatter than most drummers I know. This enables me to move from snare to toms and back with relative ease while maintaining speed.

We practice in a "studio-type setting", which means we mic everything and run through a board and use headphones. This helps to keep everything mixed fairly well and keeps the volume down to a minimal ear-splitting rumble. That's why you see mics on the drums here.
I also like Evans hydraulic heads. They used to come in many different colors. Not many people know this, but the different colored dye gave each head a different sound. Apparently however, Evans only makes blue and clear in the hydraulic line anymore. I liked the red heads most, but the blue ones are pretty nice, too. They have a very thick, deep booming sound.

I love my Mike Portnoy signature Max Stax. I have a set of both high and low staxx. They're great effects for quick, stabbing accents during a double kick roll or for off-beat stabs.

I love my Iron Cobra double kick pedals by Tama. A lot of drummers say there is a completely different feel between double kicks and double kick pedals, but with the Iron Cobras, I don't feel that much of a difference. The only problem I ever have with them is that the connecting rod that runs between them could be a little longer. I have trouble getting the left pedal placed once in a while when I add something new.

That's about all I can think of to put on here right now, so I'll end it here. Please keep checking back to see how our site has changed.

---

Click here to go back to our home page.

Click here to go back to the "Mug shots" page.

Click here to send me an e mail to doublekix@hotmail.com

© 2000