Ok, so Aaron Eckhart has had a good career before he was Two-Face in Batman, but I couldn’t resist.  The busy actor is slated to star in the upcoming biopic, The Drummer, about the life of Beach Boys drummer, Dennis Wilson.  Often overshadowed by his unstable interesting brother, Brian, not much has been told about Dennis’ life (including a friendship with serial killer, Charles Manson).

Look for The Drummer to be out in theaters late 2012.

Meinl is planning their 2012 Meinl Drum Festival and want to hear from you about what artists you’d like to see.

Head over to their blog and chime in!

Want to win $1000 in gear and DVDs from MyCymbal.com and Drum Channel?  You can enter Drum Channel’s Drum Solo contest and impress the world!  Submissions and voting are now open!

Chock rocker, Alice Cooper, recently talked with Seattle PI recently about hanging with The Who drummer, Keith Moon.  It turns out, Cooper would hide from the wild man!

“When you party with Keith Moon your body really knows about it – -one time he stayed with me for a week, and I literally wasn’t allowed to sleep for seven days. Keith was like a battery that never ran out. It got to the stage with Keith where I’d hear he was in town and hide somewhere because I couldn’t face another bender.”

Read more …

In a recent interview with 8 Count News, Rikki Rockett, drummer for hair metal royalty, Poison, talks about his drum building company, and offers simple advice to up and coming drummers.

Rockett Drum Works is not just his own business; it’s his own personal passion. Rikki said, “I have always been around the best builders in the world and always wonder why so many rules, what can I do different to making custom sets.”

After chatting with Rikki Rockett you walk away knowing that the man behind the drum kit is a force that will drive anything he is behind to success. For all inspiring drummers Rikki had these three word’s, “Learn to sing!!!”

Read more … (note: there’s some language in the article.)

Primus has a new studio album coming out soon and it features early drummer, Jay Lane, in the line up.  Primus recently sat down with Rolling Stone and talked about the new record and the return of Lane.

… the notion of Jay Lane coming in and playing with us again [was a welcome idea] – someone I’ve collaborated with over the past 20 years on Sausage, Frog Brigade and whatnot. And he was in Primus – he quit the band one month before we made our first record, so the early material, like Frizzle Fry, is very reflective of his style. And him coming back has just breathed life back into the project. We did some touring, and we decided, “Let’s go make a record,” because we were creating things on the road.

Read the whole interview …

It’s an odd turn, but if there’s a band that can pull it off, it’s The Roots.  In a recent Billboard interview, drummer and bandleader, ?uestlove, discussed how the band’s next record will be a full-length, orchestral concept album.

“It’s going to be heavy on sort of orchestral chamber music with harder beats in it”

Black Thought added that conceptually, the album will stem from the “same idea” as “How I Got Over,” but “kind of flipped. Instead of from dark to light, it’s an album that goes from light to dark,” he explained.

Read more …

We’ll be keeping our eye on this for sure!

Considering Anton Fig is a perennial favorite for best late night drummer honors, it’s no surprise that the Late Show decided to give the drummer some love.  All this week, The Late Show with David Letterman will be featuring drum solos form some of the biggest names in drumming – Fig, Peart, Sheila E, and  Haynes.  The 4 night drumming fiesta begins tonight, June 6 and goes through until Thursday!

Q: From the outside looking in it seems as though the band is quite early in the stages of preparing the follow up album.  In going about the preparation of the album is there a focus on creating an album that follows in the vein of Sonic Boom or is it more of a case of seeing where the band ends up once tracks are ‘in the can’?

A: We are already knee deep into the new record as I write this… All’s I can say is you will all be very pleased. The material is stronger and more riff oriented and very hard/heavier style.Everyone that has heard material so far is raving about the stuff and we are too

Q: Has your involvement on the new album been any different to Sonic Boom, or earlier KISS albums?

A:As a band we are more comfortable and have more time together under our belts now that really shows in our writing, performances etc…  We work out all the material together in rehearsals as a band before we go into the studio. It really makes for better vibes and performance overall.

Read the full Q&A here …

Here is an older interview with Singer discussing Sonic Boom.

Drummer Josh Freese had signed on to do a 6-week stint with alt metal act, A Perfect Circle, but unfortunatly had to back out due to previous commitments with Weezer.

“I’m sad to report that I will be sitting out the A Perfect Circle tour this summer. Maybe the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make professionally and it hasn’t been easy on me. I’ve been looking forward to APC reforming for years now and the timing just couldn’t have been worse. I’d already committed the time to Weezer and I am a man of my word. As much as I hate to have to miss the APC tour there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it.

I’ve missed other tours with other bands over the years but this one has been the toughest pill to swallow.”

So if you got your APC tix hoping to see Freese, maybe you could Stub Hub them?

Read the full article …

In a recent interview with Geeks of Doom, drummer Dave Lombardo talks about a possible upcoming new album for metal band, Slayer.

“Although there’s nothing written but there is definitely plans. Of course. We have to! Why not?! [laughs] I’m not retiring and I don’t think Kerry’s retiring either so… Charlie Watts [Rolling Stones drummer] is somebody I look up to and for someone to be on those drums for as long as he’s been up there then I’m on my way! I’m right behind him, man! [laughs] I’m one of those guys. I like longevity and a true musician never abandons his art.”

While somewhat vague, this gives hope to all you Slayer fans out there!

Read the full interview here …

Note: there is some language in the interview.

You know we love our lists here at Drummer Talk, and today we have one from Gibson (yes, the guitar maker).  The list is made up of names you would think be on a Top 10 Rock drumming list with a couple of surprises.  In reality, the list reads more like a Top 10 rock bands of all time list, but who’s complaining?

Read the list here!

PRESS RELEASE

WORLD’S FASTEST DRUMMER CONTEST

Do You Have What it Takes to be THE WORLD’S FASTEST DRUMMER?? PROVE IT!

NAMM International announces the eleventh outing to find the ‘World’s Fastest Drummer’. This highly charged Interactive Event is a feature at this year’s Summer NAMM Show in Nashville Tn.. The contest which consist of two categories, Fastest Hands and Fastest Feet will be held each day on World’s Fastest Drummer Lobby Stage at the Nashville Convention Center starting at 11:00am Thursday, July 21st, with “heats” continuing through Friday until 5.00pm. The top ten Fastest Hands and top ten Fastest Feet will compete in a ‘Finals Battle’ of both categories held Saturday, July 23rd.

WFD-Extreme Sport Drumming has been a feature on The Warped Tour, OzzFest and most major networks including ESPN, FOX SPORTS, MTV, VH1, ABC, BBC, PBS and CNN. WFD The Game produced well over 1.5 million plays for MTV’s Addicting Games in it’s first 90 days. WFD is the official ruling and certification organization for Guinness World Records.

“WFD as an X-Sport is celebrating it’s 10th year anniversary. We are totally elated to commemorate this 10 year milestone with NAMM in Nashville. This will truly be an awesome WFD Official World Finals. If you think your local coffee shop manager is a bundle of energy, wait till you get a load of these guys! says Boo McAfee, creator of WFD-Extreme Sport Drumming.

Contestants should sign in at World’s Fastest Drummer Contest stage area located at the WFD lobby stage in The Nashville Convention Center starting the morning of Thursday, July. 21st.

For more information please visit www.namm.org or www.WorldsFastestDrummer.com
Or email us at info@WorldsFastestDrummer.com

MAY THE FASTEST DRUMMER WIN!!!!!!!

If you are a big Staind fan, you might have already heard that drummer, Jon Wysocki has left the band, according to masslive.com. No word on why Wysocki left the band, but in his stead Will Hunt (Evanesence, Black Label Society, Tommy Lee) will take the drum throne on the upcoming tour dates.

KISS has just announced that they’ll be offering a KISS Kruise from October October 13-17, sailing on the Carnival Destiny.

ARE YOU READY to INVADE the seas on the first ever KISS Kruise? KISS is partnering with cruise industry leaders, Sixthman for this sea-bound adventure.

On this outrageous ship, you’ll get to party with fist pounding hard rock all night, and live like a rock star all day. You’ll see a legendary show with KISS in an intimate indoor venue and an acoustic “Sail Away Concert” (no make-up!!) to keep the party going as the ship leaves port. It doesn’t stop there; we’ll have krazy on board activities, KISS-themed nights, badass costume contests and more!

Read more here or sign up for the presale over at www.sixthman.net/KISS.

The Dream Theater drummer drama just never seems to end!  MusicRadar.com has just put up a very in-depth interview with Dream Theater’s Jordan Rudess and John Petrucci.  In the interview, they reveal the Portnoy asked to rejoin the band stating he “made a mistake.”

Rudess: We got the drummers in, which everybody knows, and we filmed the audition process and put a lot of care into the documentary. So after that whole process, we found somebody who we thought was great – Mike Mangini. ‘Oh my God, this guy is fantastic! This can work. We can do it.’”

Petrucci: “And something I should point out – Mike Mangini’s life changed dramatically. He was a professor at Berklee, and he had to give notice that he was leaving. He’s got a wife and two kids – the whole thing. So he came down and we started making a record. Everybody was supportive at the label. Things were feeling good. We had our feet on the ground again. And then Mike asked if he could get back in…” [He shakes his head]

MR: It was too late.

Rudess: “Yeah. You know, Mike Mangini resigned from Berklee. You can’t just tell him… We were in motion with him. We were invested in Mike Mangini and our future. Everything was going full steam. So Mike Portnoy came to us and asked to rejoin: ‘Hey, guys I’ve reconsidered, I’ve made a… a mistake.’ It was like, ‘Oh my God, you can’t do this to us. You can’t pull the rug out from under us like this.’ It was… [sighs] it was hard. Here we went through this whole drama, and we finally found this new guy who we were happy with. At a certain point, you just throw up your hands and go, ‘This can’t be happening!’

Read the full interview here.