Questions regarding your Style and older Soilwork

[Uzabit]

Hello Dirk,

first of all, I'm a big fan of your drumming style. I really like the mixture of great technique, speed and groove.
Well, I have some questions for you. Do you also dig the "lighter" styles of technical drumming, like jazz/fusion and progressive rock? I sometimes tend to believe that I can hear influences of those in your style.
I also wanted to know if it was hard for you to learn and adapt to the older Soilwork Material where Henry Ranta has played on. Do you try to keep Henry's original ideas or do you interpret them your way?
At last I would like to know if you got hands on the isolated drum tracks for practicing the older material. For me it's quite hard to tell what the drums really play only listening to the full mixes.

Greetings, Jonas

The owners of drumhall.com are not responsible for the content of this post on Sun Jun 07, 2009 11:43 am by Uzabit. If the post may offend anyone, please inform the owner through eMail

[Dirk Verbeuren]

Hello Jonas,

Cheers for your compliments man! Very cool!!

Here's for my answers:

1) I grew up listening to the radio and to my mom and dad's records: everything from classical music to Abba to Bruce Springsteen. Later on, I got into old school hip-hop and electronic music (mainly house and techno, at that time). When I started playing drums, I was into metal but also Prince, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Primus, for example. I still like all that stuff today... okay, maybe not so much Abba, haha! Without calling myself a prog-rock fan, I do appreciate certain jazz/fusion artists, and I love Porcupine Tree, so all that is possibly what you're hearing.

2) Some old Soilwork songs were pretty tough to master. Henry's an amazing drummer with a very unique groove and style! I don't think I sound like him, but I try to respect the parts that I/the band feel are important; other parts I interpret in my own way. And since it can become a little boring to play the same stuff night after night, I like to add some improvised bits when I can.

3) No, I've never heard isolated tracks for any of the old Soilwork albums. We do have some backing tracks with samples, but that's about it- the rest is probably buried in some remote Swedish log cabins! I'm pretty good at deciphering drums, but the guys always gave me a lot of freedom so modern-day Soilwork has been "Dirked" a little!

Grinding greetz!
/Dirk

The owners of drumhall.com are not responsible for the content of this post on Tue Jul 07, 2009 11:20 pm by Dirk Verbeuren. If the post may offend anyone, please inform the owner through eMail