Dave Lombardo's drumming résumé includes Dead Cross, Fantômas, Grip Inc., Suicidal Tendencies, Misfits, Philm, a few albums with Testament, and quite a while with Slayer. So it stands to reason that the dude knows how to drum extremely, ridiculously well. Dave can also effortlessly bring it live, and now he's got some advice for drummer who'd like to be on that level – stop relying so much on technology to make you sound good.
Lombardo tells SixX Strings that he wishes drummers would get into the studio and really play through an entire song, instead of fixing mistakes and doing things in separate takes.
"I think what you can do better is to not utilize all these advantages that you have with computers. I mean, if you have Beat Detective [the beat-slicing tool that is part of Pro Tools] and [you wanna] help the drummer, don't use it. Send the drummer to the rehearsal room, work on the shit, work on it with a metronome, then remove the metronome, then put him in the studio and play normal, like a human. Instead of these drummers coming in and recording maybe a few bars. 'Well, can't you fix that? C'mon, you are the engineer. You can fix it.' It's, like, 'No. You fix it.' I would get frustrated. If I was an engineer and a drummer came to me with all these mistakes. 'Oh, can you fix this? Can you move this around? Take this part and change it.' It's, like, 'Really?'"
I'd agree with Dave. There's absolutely a time and a place for modern technology in music, but when you're essentially programming your entire album to perfection, it loses a certain soul and energy. Plus, if you're going to claim to be able to play the things you play on record, you better be able to.
[via Blabbermouth]
