"Toy" drums w/ Taylor Momsen and the Pretty Reckless

I pieced together a "toy" drum kit for the middle section of a song called "Miss Nothing" for Taylor Momsen's new CD. I used a 16" DW floor tom for the kick, a no-name piccolo tuned high, and hi hat with an 11" K Splash on the bottom and an old Avedis Zildjian "sock" cymbal on the top. Session producer Kato Khandwala recorded the kit with a pair of custom tube ribbon mics into Neve mic pre's and a Roger Mayer compressor. Sounded really cool. And yes, that's a Bowflex weight set holding the tom in place...

Taylor Momsen and The Pretty Reckless @ The House Of Loud, Elmwood Pk., NJ

I'm back at The House Of Loud working with my friends Kato Khandwala, Ben Phillips, and Jamie Perkins again, this time on an new record by Taylor Momsen and The Pretty Reckless for Interscope. Taylor is a talented young actress best know for her role on Gossip Girl, but she's also a really good singer and songwriter who is collaborating with Ben and Kato on songs for her CD. Drummer Jamie Perkins was brought in to put live drum parts over the parts Kato composed and sequenced and I was brought in to make the drums sound good.

This is a Rock record with a capitol R and Kato sets the bar just as high for the drums as he does for the rest of the production, so the first order of business was getting a deep and full kick drum sound. I took the resonant head off of the house DW bass drum and used my 1960s Gretsch kick as a resonator in front of it. We put a D112 in the DW and a Rode Classic II in the Gretsch to get a punchy thick sound.

I got to use a brass Pearl Sensitone on a song called "Light Me Up" and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I bought it used at GC a couple of years ago for short money, clean up the bubbling plating, and hot-rodded it for the studio. The drum sings like Pavarotti and has a musical cut to it not unlike an old Black Beauty.

The Take Back @ The Outpost 12/18/09

Boston punkers The Take Back hit the Outpost to record the first seven tracks for their upcoming CD due in 2010. Hard-hitting drummer Dave Sexton brought the rock and sailed through basics in just a few hours. We used the standard Yamaha kick with Eames toms and although Dave's Ludwig Black Beauty is pictured here, we ended up using the Pearl Steve Ferrone - what a surprise! Dave has a somewhat unorthodox way of setting up the kit - toms flat with the rack tom off to the side and cymbals up high. Works for him and kind of reminds me of the Pretenders' Martin Chambers.