Playing along with records is key. And as far as equipment goes it has gotten so much more affordable and the drum sets are of great quality. I play Pearl; their Export Series is great for a beginner.
There's something about the rawness of the live thing, there's no rhythm guitars behind the solo, nothing other than what you hear the people playing at that moment. It's exciting, it's about the performance.
People who come up to me are drummers or fans of the band. I don't get it too much, but I'll be somewhere and someone will have me take a picture or something.
Its very sort of spontaneous and organic, not a preconceived sort of jamming. Now we record everything, cause sometimes you'll forget, you know, 'what was that thing again?' So we record everything.
I took a private lesson, but it didn't really work out, so I went back to playing along with records. That's really the thing that got me into playing a lot - getting excited about playing along with my favorite bands like Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.
I had sort of exhausted all the avenues playing in Detroit. So again, through the stewardship of my brother, I ended up in California and went to the Musicians Institute in L.A. I wanted to get better as a player.
We always feel pretty creative as far as writing songs. We write them together; we just get in a room, or on occasion in Flea's garage. We just sort of improvise, like jazz musicians.
Sometimes one of us will have a riff or a bass line from home but it really gels when we come together. We really have a strong special chemistry that we take advantage of when we get together.
Going up north with the redwoods and driving along the coast, it's got everything, man. It's got the desert, the mountains, and the ocean. It's beautiful.
I was in every band class I could get in, like after school jazz band and marching band, and that's where I really learned to read music from elementary all the way through junior high and high school.
I met the guys through a friend of a friend, and their former drummer had quit. I wasn't too familiar with the Chili Peppers before that, so I joined at the end of 88' and we finished recording Mother's Milk at the end of 89', next thing I know I'm in Spin with a sock.
For live you need a microphone for the snare and the high hat, the kick drum, a nice stereo overhead and one for the toms - you can get away with using four mikes.
