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📢 Show Off Your Drum Kit!
There's nothing I love more than seeing how drummers set up their space — so I want to see yours. Hit reply and send me a photo of your kit along with any details you'd like to share, whether that's the story behind a particular drum, a wild DIY mod, or just a proud "this is mine." Would love to feature it in the newsletter! We're building something great here together, and your setup deserves to be part of it.
⚡ Quick Hits
🥁 This Olivia Dean drum cover might just score Sam a concert ticket
Wellington drummer Sam MacKenzie posted a tight cover of Olivia Dean's "Man I Need," working from a Fader Culture live arrangement, as a playful open letter to the artist ahead of her New Zealand tour. The groove is clean and controlled, capturing the warm, soulful pocket that defines Dean's live sound. MacKenzie's self-deprecating caption adds charm, but the drumming speaks for itself.
🤼♂️ Scott Phillips' drumming powers WWE's biggest hit
Scott Phillips of Alter Bridge, Creed, walks through the drum part behind "Metalingus," the riff that soundtracked Edge's WWE entrance for nearly two decades. In 52 seconds, he zeroes in on locking with the band rather than overplaying, a deceptively simple principle that explains why the track hits so hard. The full breakdown lives on the Drumeo channel if you want to dig deeper.
🌊 Deep Dives
Pete Antunes - Tower Of Power - Tour Kit Rundown
Sitting in the drum chair for Tower of Power is one of the most demanding gigs in funk, and Pete Antunes has been holding it down with precision and pocket. Filmed backstage in November 2025 and released yesterday, this 30-minute Modern Drummer rundown hosted by David Frangioni covers his full touring setup on Yamaha, Sabian, Vic Firth, and Remo, alongside the story of how he earned that seat. If you want to understand what it takes to serve a horn band that unforgiving, this is worth your full attention. You can check out Pete's bio on the Tower of Power website.
🎸 3 drummers play a Papa Roach track they've never heard before
Drumble strips the drums from Papa Roach's "Kill the Noise" and hands the blank canvas to three drummers — Jonathan Fortson, Jason Betts, and Drew Walker — each hearing the track for the first time and building a part entirely from instinct. The contrast between their approaches is the real draw here, revealing how differently trained ears interpret the same rhythmic space. At just over 20 minutes, the reveal of the original makes for a satisfying payoff. Who played it best?
🎓 Practice & Skills
🥁 The one rule that keeps your chops in the pocket
@Daniel Hegerle
When chops start flying, the backbeat is often the first thing to slip. Daniel Hegerle makes the fix straightforward: no matter how busy your fills get, keep the snare locked on beats 2 and 4. That single anchor point preserves the groove underneath any level of complexity, which is a useful reminder that technical flash and rhythmic feel are not mutually exclusive.
🎼Michał's sextuplet fill is the perfect morning warmup
Warsaw-based drummer Michał Jakubowski posted a short clip demonstrating a sextuplet-based fill, the kind of concise idea that translates directly to the practice pad. Sextuplets divide each beat into six even subdivisions, and hearing them applied in a musical fill context is a useful reference for internalizing the feel before drilling them slowly. Worth a watch if you are working on expanding your fill vocabulary beyond standard 16th-note runs.
🛒 Gear Picks
🥁 Stan Bicknell's 3-up, 1-down Yamaha Custom set has serious vibe
Stan Bicknell runs through his full kit in this two-minute short, giving a close look at a Yamaha Recording Custom six-piece paired with Remo Ambassador heads, Istanbul cymbals, and an Evetts snare. The clip doubles as a gear tour and a groove showcase, with Stan locking in a 3-up, 1-down configuration that puts the whole setup to work. It is a quick but satisfying look at how thoughtful kit choices shape the feel of a session. His 20 inch floor tom sounds beefier than you'd expect!
🥁 Yamaha's Roy Haynes snare, EAD50, and more just dropped at NAMM
Yamaha's 2026 NAMM showcase balanced nostalgia and innovation across five new releases, but the standout is the EAD50 Electronic Acoustic Drum Microphone System, a significant upgrade to the beloved EAD10 featuring five XLR inputs, an 8-in/10-out audio interface, 2,317 onboard voices, and looping and sampling functions. Also turning heads is the Roy Haynes Centennial Signature Snare, a hand-hammered 14x5.5 copper shell snare built in Yamaha's Hamamatsu factory, limited to just 100 units worldwide. Check out the EAD10 demo here.
🌎 From The Community
🫶🏻 One bad gig left this drummer questioning everything
A rough concert where the drummer forgot parts, started songs wrong, and walked offstage feeling defeated — /u/DinoDin01 posted about the experience on r/drums and opened up a conversation about burnout that clearly struck a nerve. If you have ever spiraled after a bad gig, the thread is worth reading. Sometimes knowing other drummers have been there is the reset you need.
🎶 Blaque Dynamite locks in with Spirit Fingers Trio at JammJam
@Jammcard - Music Professional Network
Spirit Fingers Trio brought serious pocket and chemistry to the JammJam in Santa Monica, performing Greg Spero's "Find" alongside Spero himself, bassist Mohini Dey, and drummer Blaque Dynamite. The clip, filmed live at The Recording Club, captures the kind of loose, locked-in trio playing that reminds you why live sessions exist. If you have not heard Blaque Dynamite work through a groove in a room like this, start here.
That's it for today! Thank you for carving out time to read! This community means a lot to me, and I'm grateful you're here. 🙏
If you have feedback, a story, or something you'd love to see in the newsletter, just reply to this email. I read every message and respond to each one.
Happy drumming,
Matteo