Welcome to a website with NO popups, NO spyware, NO viruses, NO crap, just pure Nickelback enjoyment!! Here you can read the latest Nickelback news, find out when they're touring, get details on their new album (due out in late 2005), see song lyrics as well as talk with other Nickelback fans about the greatest rock group there is!
2010 is shaping up to be another stellar year for the Grammy-nominated Nickelback, who were recently named Billboard’s ‘Group of Decade.’ The band has extended its Dark Horse World Tour into June. The two-month tour begins in Atlantic City on April 3 and ends in Vancouver, British Columbia on June 3. Joining Nickelback for the extended dates will be Breaking Benjamin, Shinedown and Sick Puppies.
The band also rocked the Closing Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games last night in Vancouver. The band literally lit up the stadium with their electric performance of “Burn It To The Ground,” which was viewed by 60,000 in the stadium itself and a global audience that reached into the multi-millions.
Of their performance, the band said, “Having the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver has been a great honour for our city and our country. To be included in the Closing Ceremony, with so many talented artists and athletes, is something we will never forget.”
Nickelback is one of the biggest rock bands in the world, with over 35 million albums sold. The band’s latest album, Dark Horse, debuted at No. 1 on the Nielson SoundScan Top Album Chart in Canada and number two on the Billboard Top 200 Chart and has remained on the Top 200 for 66 weeks selling almost 3 million albums in the US alone.
RecentlyBillboard’s decade-end issue awarded Nickelback several accolades, including Group of the Decade, Top Adult Top 40 Artist of the Decade, Top Rock Song of the Decade for “How You Remind Me” and Top Mainstream Rock SongArtist.
The band also ranked high in the magazine’s 2009 wrap up, being awarded Top Rock Artist, Top Rock Album for Dark Horse, Top Alternative Artist, Top Alternative Album for Dark Horse, Top Hard Rock Artist and Top Hard Rock Album for Dark Horse.
When in London last month, our counterparts at the Roadrunner UK office sat down and spoke to NICKELBACK stix-man Daniel Adair about his drumming career and kit. In this, the 3rd part of the interview, we find out about the set-up that Daniel uses on stage when playing those huge arena shows.
If you missed part 1 and 2, click on the links below:
DA: OK. I know all of the stats I’m a geek that way! Snare is a 14x6 Edge series; side snare’s a 12x5 Edge series. I have a 10x8 VLT Tom, 12x9 VLT Tom. 16x14 X shell floor Tom with legs. 22x18 X series kick drum. I’ve got the DW hardware too- the rack, 5000 series double pedal. I like the 9 but the 9’s a little too smooth for me. I like the chain action of the 5000, you really feel it. The 9000’s really fast but then when you get light, you put your foot down and you can’t really feel that resistance, it’s little too smooth for me. And Sabian cymbals I’ve got 14”groove Hats, I’ve got an 18” AA Explosion Crash. On the right I’ve got 18” HH Explosion Crash, you can find this on my website too, I have a little spread. 10” Evolution Splash, 18” O-zone HH Crash. 19” Paragon Chinese, a set of 13” AAX Stage Hats I believe. And a 21” HHX Groove Ride. All brilliant OK!
RRUK: If there was anyone’s kit you’d want to sit behind and have a go on whose would it be?
DA: Hmm... just for fun I’d say Neil Peart. You know just because he’s got so many drums. I was always curious as to what his heights are like. I always watch YouTube and look ‘how far is his...?’ “How’s he doing this?” Drummers are always checking out for stuff like that. “How hard does he stomp the ground? And how far is his Ride from his Tom?” How does he not get caught up in that section?” So, that’s why I’m curious about where his heights are all at.
RRUK: And what top tips would you give drummers out there who are learning at the moment?
DA: Take lessons. From a qualified teacher, there’s a lot of bad teachers, who teach terrible technique. Be very weary when you’re studying technique online. If you just look up drum technique and listen to the first guy, there’s a lot of terrible, terrible lessons. About holding the stick high and pinching it. If anyone says grip or pinch a stick, they’re totally wrong because the stick should lie in your hand. It should lie on the fulcrum just like a teeter-totter. Soon as you pinch, that means you’re holding the stick, and as soon as you hit you’re absorbing shock into your hand. As soon as you do that you’re going to have tendonitis, carpal tunnel. It’s all about it sitting on a fulcrum, being nice and loose. So look for those people who talk like that and none of this pinching business. So yeah, good technique.
Practice to a click, always practice to a metronome. Learn to do anything with a click going, drum fills, like just sleep with a click going because you’ll be required to, in the studio, in professional bands and if you’re not ready you can lose your gig that way. If you have pitch, sing. I’ve gotten a lot of gigs over other drummers. I gotten some gigs in cover band days where the drummers better than me, more experienced but they gave me the gig because I could sing. And singers want to have back ups or with cover bands if you can sing lead on a couple of songs while they get a break; they love it, so sing. And last but not least is don’t be an asshole.
RRUK: Ha! That’s always sound advice for anyone.
DA: It is. There’s these guys I’ve seen, up and coming drummers, you know. I won’t name any names, but some guys in my town, they’re just so good but they don’t get these gigs because they have these attitudes. They already have a ‘rockstar’ attitude because, yeah, they’re awesome but then they don’t get gigs because they’re intolerable or I’ve seen guys get a gig and get fired because no one can live on a bus with them. So if you got a beef and you got resentments and stuff, that’s fine but just don’t; you know just keep it inside...
RRUK: Deal with it?
DA: ...or yeah deal with it, yeah because it will come out. It will, even if you’re not saying anything it will come out in actions and you’ll blurt out things. So just try and deal with it, if you have issues. You know whatever, with yourself or communicate with people, but yeah very important.
RRUK: How do you put your solo together? Because there are so many different elements in it, how do you pick what elements go into your solo?
DA: Because I’ve been doing solo’s now about ten years so I know what things will really work for the crowd. Sometimes they’re not the most complicated things, but the real show-y kind of stuff. Or sounds really fast ‘ooga-da-boogada’ [DA air drums] all the time. They love that so when I construct each solo I go ok I got to have that one, I go do my ‘paint the house’ fill and there’s all these certain ones I go to. So I keep the ones that work from experience and I try to never go over five minutes, maybe about four, like song length because people, especially nowadays, attention span. Like I’m even the same, I go to a concert and I see a ten minute drum solo, I don’t care who it is, how good they are, I get bored. Because you know at first you’re like ‘yeah that’s awesome’, and then ‘yeah’ and (sigh) ok. Your desensitised right?
So, four minutes is just long enough I think and then stop. And it leaves them wanting more hopefully, or they have had their fill and that’s perfect. So I always try and do that. I like to have something planned because with this kind of show the light guys are involved, pyro guys are involved for a shot. I’d hate go on and improvise something and fall flat on your face because sometimes improvising works, sometimes it doesn’t and I’m not that risky to go out there. So I try and have a section that grooves a bit, get people going like that, have the showy element to it, try and do a breakdown and then try and build it up at the end and go out wit the big fill, so I do kind of structure it like a song, sort of, not like a conventional song. But song structure, not too long and keep the things that work.
RRUK: And final question. Where do you learn your tricks and how many sticks do you drop/get through in an evening?
DA: How many sticks do I drop? I don’t drop a lot of sticks actually. I might do a stick drop, jeez, once every five shows, which is nice, knock on wood!
RRUK: You’ll drop one tonight now!
DA: Don’t say that, because dude in the solos the fucking worst! Like I don’t mind dropping my stick during the show but during the solo... [laughs]
RRUK: Has that happened?
DA: Oh yeah. That sucks. Because your on a platform in the sky on the JumboTron you can’t really hide it. But then if I drop a stick I go right to my feet and go double kick and I threw the other one, like I meant to do it, like yeeeah! Half the people will know what’s going on there, so at least I tricked half of them. But yeah not too many stick drops.
As for where do I learn my tricks, just over the years, I guess, watching other drummers. I’ll see a little thing and go that’s cool, and I steal it, and make it my own, you know. I got that up-stroke hi-hat thing from a guy named Rick Gratton, in Toronto. He’d just do it really small, he’d just do a little wrist flick and hit the under side. And I thought that’s cool, why don’t I just do it with my full arm so everyone can see it and then do something with my right hand doing something else and then it became one of my, like ‘oh my god how did you make that up?’, and I’m like it’s really him.
I guess that’s what doing music really is, it’s an evolution, it’s a modification on things. So yeah I’ll get a little bit of inspiration of something, take it, throw it in my old playing and then during practice it’ll kind of modify into something else, mostly for new tricks. So I got to have a new solo for the US run coming up. This’ll be the last run for this solo and then April. So as soon as I get home I have to brain storm, and that’s kind of, it’s a little nerve racking sometimes if I’m not ready before rehearsals. Because you know, you don’t know if it’s going to work and then the other guys are like, “I preferred the old solo better”. It’s like “Yeah, you’re used to it right?” You could air-drum it because you’ve heard it so many times. Now they like this one of course, but they didn’t before.
RRUK: How often do you practice when you’re at home? How long do you practice for?
DA: Erm...when I first get home I take a couple of days off and then I try to do four days a week, for a couple hours a day. And then two weeks before the tour I’m doing like six days a week, maybe four hours a day. The drums are very athletic so you got to keep all the twitch muscles because if I don’t, I get out there, you run out of energy and then you go crunch and you seize up, and then your squeezing sticks and then your dead. So you got to stay conditioned.
As promised, here is part 2 of our 'Gear Nerd' with Daniel Adair of NICKELBACK. Yesterday he told us about how he got into drumming, his influences and his first kit. Today he walks us through his drumming career. Tomorrow, we'll learn all about his set up, so after reading below, be sure to head on back then.
RRUK: So give us a quick run through of your drumming career, run us through you’re first band to where you are now.
DA: Okay, I’ve never done that before! It’s actually kind of cool. So you heard how I started, at 13. Then from 13 to 18 I obsessively played all the time. I’d skip school, when my parents were at work I’d go home and just drum all day. The neighbours would phone the cops because I was so loud. I learned all the Primus albums, all the Rush albums, John Bonham, I learned every Zeppelin album – so I think that’s where a lot of my roots came from. Then 18, I sold my car and went to Europe and back packed for a year. So I stopped drumming, then I came back and I was kind of a lost teenager. I didn’t really have any goals or aspirations, I was confused. I kind of played a bit but was kind of more in to just partying and smoking pot – just pissing my time away. I mean it was fun but I wasted a lot of time! 18 to 22 I really didn’t drum much at all. I knew I could, deep down inside myself I always knew I had something special. I was terrified to play in front of people because I’m such a perfectionist. The few people I played in front of were like “Holy shit dude! You’re really good!” and I was like “Uh, really?”. I didn’t know because I never put myself out there and never got feedback so I didn’t know I just did what I did. Secretly, I didn’t want to admit it to myself, I knew I was good enough to do it as a career. But I was scared of the whole getting out there because of the shyness thing.
So I was 22 or 23, like two in the afternoon, a beautiful afternoon. I was just sitting in my car getting high with all these dudes. It was so lame, I looked around I was so baked I saw people driving to work and doing things and I thought ‘I’m a fucking loser’. I’m not doing anything with my life. I’m 22, I live at home, work in a glass factory, got nothing going on, I’m not drumming. Then it was weird, I went like that (snaps fingers), and I remember someone said somewhere about the company you keep, if you want to be a rocket scientist; hang around with rocket scientists. I thought I’m hanging around with a bunch of losers who are on welfare and 30 and living with their parents – just ‘cause I wanted to get high and I had a fear to go out there and confront the real world.
So I said fuck it, I’m going to go work in a music store. I need to be around musicians. I went to work at a music store, got the job and then it all changed. I started to hang around with new people and I started to meet guys who would come in. I started to play more then. I was really bad! I played the staff party the first week that I worked there and I couldn’t even play Shuffle! I was like oh god I gotta practice. So I went and took lessons again and started to play in cover bands with those guys that I worked with, got my chops doing that. Learned Stevie Wonder, rock, all that stuff.
Then I started teaching, and I dated this girl who went to music college. She was a fantastic piano player, she taught me theory, I learned to play guitar and bass. I met my buddy Dave Martone, who I still have the band with, he had just got out of Berkley so I saw how he played and we did all this fusion stuff together. So I really started to grow and then around 25 I got really disillusioned again. Oh sorry I skipped one point. I had an original band also around 24/25 and I really spear headed that. I was on the phone all the time talking to college radio stations trying to get our stuff out. We won ‘Vancouver Seeds’ which is CFox’s big promotion in town. We won and we opened up for Nickelback. There was like 700 people there, it was killer, our biggest gig ever.
I think they [Nickelback] had just gotten back from a Canada on ‘The State’ tour and ‘Leader Of Men’ was big. We were like oh man, it’s Nickelback; Canada’s biggest band! Well not yet, but we got to open up for them which was cool and then I just had some personal issues. I was kind of really scattered and anxious. I think I saw something happening and I shut down or something. It was a little overwhelming and my relationship wasn’t going good either so I think that had something to do with it. Strangely enough I took a break for like 18 months and just stopped playing and then again I went “Ok, this is fucked. I know I can play.”. I tried to get my head in shape a bit and grew up, again. Such a weird thing but that’s life I guess. So then I came out at the age of 26 and said if I don’t make a career in music by the time I’m 30 I’m going to go get a real job and I’ll always play as a hobby or something. So I just tried my best. I learned that you had to network so I got out there and met studio owners and managers and agents and it paid off because my friend Jane who ran the Armory Studios in Vancouver phoned me and said “‘3 Doors Down’ are here mixing an album and they don’t have a drummer. I just played them the Martone album and they were like who’s this drummer??”
So I came in that night and had a beer with them. We got drunk and they said “play some drums” so I did a little solo for them and they were like “come to Mississippi for an audition” and then I got the gig. So I went from music store to playing David Letterman and everything happened that year. I was starstruck, it was pretty cool. Then two and a half years later I went this is cool but there’s more for me. Then we got on the Nickelback tour and Chad saw me do my solo every night and phoned me six months later “Hey you wanna, uh, jump ship?”.
So there were some hiccups, I look back to that period when I stopped and it’s funny, I read something on Jim Carey and he had the same thing at the same age. He went to LA, he tried and was making it somewhere and then he kind of had this ‘overwhelmed moment’ where he stopped for a coupe of years too and then he got back in to it. So when I read that I felt a little better. Being a perfectionist or being a little anxious, I don’t know what it was.
RRUK: Maybe deep down you knew that you weren’t ready for it yet?
DA: You know what? I don’t think I was a mature enough person to be able to handle the road at that point. I think I would have been really super overwhelmed or something but however it worked out, it worked out fine. The timing was perfect and here I am now.
RRUK: So...you have been indorsed by a couple of companies over the years. Tell us who you have been indorsed by, who you are indorsed by now and why the change?
DA: I have always been with Regal Tip sticks. I used those sticks about six, seven years before I got 3 Doors Down so when I phoned them they said come on board. You know I always loved their products so I’ve been with them since day one. Same with Remo Drum heads always loved them. I just went with the brands, not who’d give me more, just the shit I liked. So I phoned Remo, no problem, Regal Tip drum sticks, Sabian they’re awesome and they’re a Canadian company. I knew them working in the music store, they were such great, great dudes and such a great company to deal with I knew I wanted to be with them. And Pearl I was a huge Pearl fan, so I got in with Pearl. I stuck with Pearl until about two years ago and its because live the snare drums weren’t really cutting through for me so I would get some boutique drum companies and get some custom snares because they were just really nice sounding.
Then I did some sessions in our off time and three separate occasions I worked with these other producers who brought in a DW kit and they said ‘why don’t we try this because we’re not getting the sounds we want’ and it was night and day, like that is the ultimate experiment, is to be in a studio with a mic, you hit a tom “boom”, you hit another, you can hear it. There’s no line, like oh my God it sounds so much better. And I’m like ‘I’m not using their snares live any more’. The final thing was I flew down to California to meet them, because I don’t want to sign to a bunch of douchebags, like I don’t care how good the product is if they’re not a good family then (I’m not interested). Because Pearl was awesome to me, I still stay in touch with them, they’re great guys, but I met them (DW) and they were killer and they didn’t try and push me. They said take your kit home and let ‘IT’ be the judge for you. They didn’t shit talk Pearl, nothing. They said ‘it’s up to you, if you like our stuff then cool’. And I was you know, that was the proof right there. Just sounded great so I got on with them and they gave me a bunch of kits and it’s been happily ever after.
In this new series from our UK counterparts, we will be chatting to Roadrunner artists about the instruments they play, why they got into playing and what's the main set-up for their instrument of choice.
We kick this off with the first of a 3 part sit down with Daniel Adair, drummer with rock giants NICKELBACK, who's not only an amazing drummer, but an all round awesome guy. Here's what he had to say:
RRUK: How old were you when you started to play the drums?
DA: 13 years old.
RRUK: What or who inspired you to play drums?
DA: It’s kind of a weird beginning- my Dad was a drummer. He was in cover bands and we lived Toronto back when he would tour Michigan, Ohio and stuff like that. He was playing CCR (Creedence Clearwater Revival) and stuff like that when it was brand new. He played it to the troops going to Vietnam the next day. He’s got some stories from when everyone was doing pills, amphetamines and stuff. I think he was kind of a crazy guy out there.
Then he had a bunch of kids, got a normal job and put the drums in the closet. We moved to Vancouver, I was really bored one day and I saw his kit in the closet. It was a sparkly green 1967 Ludwig kit. I didn’t know anything! I just kind of pulled it out, figured out how to set it up and banged around. It was kind of fun.
That week I think I saw Much Music [Canada's #1 destination for music videos, live performances and interviews- ed.] and I saw a drummer live and thought “Oh, that’s how that works!”. Then I tried it again and thought I had a knack for it.
The real inspiration came when my sister had this Rush - Hemispheres tape and Neil Peart, he was a drum God to everybody, and I heard this. Then I could finally identify what sounds were doing what. I guess right off the bat I could hear exactly what was happening but then I heard what he was doing and I was like “Holy fuck! Those are high hats?!”. He was doing all these fast high hat patterns and I couldn’t believe you could actually do that with that little kit. Before that I had heard just regular playing and I was done!
At the time, I was in grade 7- you hit puberty, you’re trying to be cool and whatever. I was hanging out with this ‘cool’ guy in school. I slept over his house one night and he put on his brother’s ‘Masters Of Puppets’ record – fuuuuuuuuuuuck! (laughs) So all in the same week I heard this superfast high hat action with Neil Peart and then I heard that thick...Master Of Puppets- I mean you know the album. Especially when it came out in ’86, oh my god, I was blown away. I would sit up in my room and air drum. I would know what I was hearing and I knew where the drums where. I would learn these albums by air drumming them, then my parents would go to work and I would set up the drum kit again. I didn’t really tell them I was doing it. My Dad kind of knew, he was like “You been playing that kit again?” And I was like “Yeah”. He didn’t think much of it. He thought it was a ‘phase’. So I was learning all these albums up in my room air drumming, it’s amazing how you can do that with drums, and then I would sit down and play it. So that’s kind of the long, convoluted story of how I got started. (laughs)
RRUK: So you were mainly self taught? Did you have any lessons?
DA: I was mainly self-taught, at 17 or 18 I took some lessons because my whole new epiphany was when I heard Dave Weckl, the fusion cat (highly acclaimed Jazz fusion drummer). Then there was a whole new elite of drummer Gods out there like Vinnie Colaiuta, Dave Weckl, Dennis Chambers that aren’t really in the rock world. I signed out this CD at the library, it was ‘fusion-ey’-keyboard heavy, kind of cheesy fusion stuff but the drumming was “Oh my god! That’s Neil Peart times twenty! How can he do that?!”.
Then I realized I hit a brick wall with my technique because I was just bashing. So studied with a teacher and he taught me rudiments, I started learning some latin, I started learning how to read [music] and it progressed from there.
RRUK: Can you remember the set up of the first drum kit you had?
DA: Yup, the very first one was just had a 14x5 Ludwig 402 snare, a 13x9 rack, a 16x16 floor and a 22x16 kick drum and then hat, scratch, ride. And then my sister, she helped me out so much, she came in to some money when she was 18 or 19 and she bought me my first drum kit. It was my friend Paul’s used drum kit. It was this bastard red kit, it had 8, 10 12, 13, 14, 16 inch tops, it was like a Neil Peart drum kit. It had the kick with the double bass pedal, bunch of symbols – they were black but I painted them red. They were all mismatched and sounded pretty crappy but it didn’t matter. It was my drum set! And I could finally play to a Rush song! That was thanks to my sister, she believed in me enough and she bought that kit. She spent like $800 or $900 which was a lot of money at that time and it was huge for her so her investment paid off!
RRUK: What styles would you say have inspired you the most over your career, if you were to pick a handful?
DA: The most would be split down the middle, and it’s a weird mix, and it would be between metal and jazz fusion. It’s really weird because I love aggressive music, for instance I love Meshugga, I love all the bands on Roadrunner, love that and stuff like Porcupine Tree and I love the jazz fusion stuff. Like everyone I like a lot of different things. I like the aggression of hard rock and metal and I love the finesse of the jazz fusion stuff. So I guess in Nickelback I can bring out that aggression and then when I’m home I do more prog stuff with my other bands. For instance Martone is instrumental, a lot of shred, a lot of odd time signitures. So yeah fusion, prog, metal – kind of all over the place! People like me as a rock drummer because I learnt when I first got the three doors down gig that you can’t get out in front of a crowd and think about technique and just play perfectly. People wanna see you hitting hard, so I had to learn how to hit and not hit myself. That comes from my metal roots to bash!
RRUK: So who would you say that you aspire to now?
DA: I still always find myself ‘youtubing’ Dennis Chambers. He plays with Santana right now but he’s a big session guy, he’s a jazz fusion legend. He played with P-Funk, Parliament Funkadelic, all the funk back in the days in Baltimore. I think when he was nine James Brown wanted him to tour with him but his mom wouldn’t let him, that’s his story. He heard him in this club and James Brown was like “You gotta come out with me” and his mom was like “No way!”. If you ever YouTube this guy, just go Dennis Chambers solo, unbelievable. Him and all those upper echelon cats like Vinnie Colaiuta who is Frank Zappa’s drummer. He’ll play with Faith Hill and then he’ll play with Jeff Beck and everybody. These are the ‘drummer’s drummers’, I still look up to those guys because they just seem to have attained this impossible level of playing.
Check back tomorrow for part 2, when Daniel talks us through his drumming career.
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drumming, inspirations...
