Zac Mayfield (Oh, Sleeper) Interview

 If you liked my last post about Greiner & Kilmer, I think you will really enjoy what's to come over the next few weeks. I have some more really cool interviews in store for you. Some with drummers, and some with drum companies. Today I have an interview with the drummer from one of my favorite bands, Zac Mayfield of Oh, Sleeper.

(Courtesy of RJP Photography)

I saw Zac post on his facebook a while back about a new snare that was made for him by a company called Serenity Custom Drums. Being a drummer myself, of course I had to check it out. I went to his page and started clicking through the pictures and this thing was awesome! Considering this was the first time I had heard of Serenity drums, I wanted to get an outside opinion of the company and their drums, so I messaged Zac and asked if he would be interested in an interview. Being the awesome guy that he is, he said he was down to do it, so here it is. Enjoy!

Q. How did you hear about Serenity drums?

A. I had come across a few of their drums while browsing the internet. Coincidentally, one of the owners (Dan) hit me up about working with them and potentially becoming an endorsee. When I informed Dan that I was happily endorsing SJC, he offered me a snare.

Q. How was it working with Serenity?

A. Working with Serenity was amazing. Those guys have a passion for drum building that is fanatical, and it shows in the quality of their drums.

Q. What are the specs on the drum? (size, shell type, finish, etc.)

A. The drum is a 13x6 birch drum wrapped in bubinga. The "oh sleeper" verse and logo are hand burned/carved into the outer bubinga as to expose the birch. This unique design was completely conceived by Serenity. It's beautiful.

(Courtesy of Serenity Custom Drums)

Q. Do you usually use a 13 inch snare as apposed to 14, or was the intent just to change it up a bit with the 13x6?

A. I've always preferred 13 inch snares. The smaller size allows for more articulation without having to crank up the tension of the heads.

Q. What was your reaction the first time you played it?

A. Well at first I didn't want to play it. I thought it was too beautiful to hit with a stick! I was given the snare right before a show, so I was able to "field" test it. It was very snappy and responsive with just the right amount of ring. I absolutely loved it. 

Q. Would you recommend Serenity drums to someone else?

A. YES YES YES ABSOLUTELY YES. As I said earlier, their passion for drums knows no bounds. They will give 100% to make sure the drum(s) you receive are exactly what you want and flawlessly designed. 

Q. Fairly recently, you became a member of the SJC family. What made you choose SJC over all of the other custom drum companies?

A. When I joined Oh, Sleeper I was contacted by a few custom companies. One in particular was very interested, and came out to a show to film our set. Once I sent an e-mail to this company I was warmly greeted by four months of no reply. Once a reply did arrive the price was so ridiculously high I had to laugh out loud. Hardly what I expected from such a "reputable" custom company. On a whim, I filled out SJC's "automated kit builder". The one that, I thought, gives you a computer response with a quote. Instead, I had an e-mail literally 5 minutes from a guy at SJC (Geo) explaining that he was a huge fan and would do what ever it takes to get me on an SJC kit. It was a no brainer!

Q. How do you like the acrylic shells on your kit?

A. I really love acrylic. It sounds great and looks amazing. They are a lot louder than wood, so they tend to sound really awesome live.

Q. Do you have any plans for a new SJC kit in the near future?

A. I'm currently designing a full bubinga kit with SJC. I think I'll be going with two rack toms this time around. I never like to keep things the same. Changing my kit constantly helps keep me creative.  

Q. I believe Oh, Sleeper just started writing for the new album. With your guitarist James leaving the band, and bassist Nate moving to guitar, should fans expect anything different with the upcoming album?

A. Nate brings a very unique skill set and sound to Oh, Sleeper. He shreds like no one I've ever heard before, so be expecting that on the new album.

Q. Are there any plans to tour before heading into the studio?

A. Yep! We are headed to Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia this January!

Q. Thanks so much Zac! Anything else you would like to add?

A. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!!! Also, thanks for having me Casey!

Well, there ya go! Be sure to check out Serenity Custom Drums, and be on the look out for a new Oh, Sleeper album, as well as a new SJC kit for Zac!

If you enjoyed this interview, please subscribe! I have plenty more coming soon!

Thanks guys!

  

Greiner & Kilmer Custom Drums

10-15 years ago, custom drums were rare. The only time you would see a custom kit was at some big arena show where the band was putting on an over the top production. Going to a show usually meant seeing the same kits everyone was used to seeing. (Pearl, DW, Tama, Yamaha, Gretsch, and so on...) These days, custom drum companies are popping up left and right, but one that I have found a lot of interest in is Greiner & Kilmer.

Greiner & Kilmer was started in Bainbridge, PA by Kaleb Kilmer and August Burns Red's drummer Matt Greiner. 

Many custom drum companies claim their drums are hand made, and they are to an extent. Most of them order Keller shells, which any of us could purchase, and build around those. I'm not knocking that at all! Those companies are more focused on the look of the drum rather than the actual shell, and that's awesome! The cool thing about Greiner & Kilmer is that their drums are TRULY hand made. I mean, they actually go to the lumber yard and pick out the wood!

 My friend Max Fasnacht, drummer for Pennsylvania based pop-punk band Carousel Kings, just had a Greiner & Kilmer snare made so I decided I would have a chat with him and see what he thought about it, and maybe ask a few questions about the band as well.

Q. How did you hear about Greiner&Kilmer drums?

A. Every year, my hometown of Lancaster, Pa holds the LAUNCH Music Conference. It is an awesome way for all kinds of companies to advertise their products and help get their name out there. Greiner & Kilmer had a booth in the convention center and had to go check these snares out. I was really impressed from the get go. Kaleb Kilmer actually ended up letting me demo a snare that night for our show.

                              (Max with his Greiner & Kilmer snare in the works)

Q. Fans of August Burns Red are probably wondering, did you get to deal directly with Matt Greiner?

A. As of now, I have not had the pleasure. He has been very busy touring the past six months. While my snare was getting made he was in Europe with The Devil Wears Prada. My band is actually playing the annual August Burns Red Christmas show this year at the Chameleon Club so I will be meeting with him then.

Q. How was it working with Greiner&Kilmer?

A. Very easy. They guided me in the right direction and made sure I was happy with everything. I got to work closely with Kaleb and he let me actually go help with the rounding process on the drum. I actually learned a tremendous amount from him.

Q. What are the specs on the drum? (size, shell type, finish, etc.)

A. It is 14x7.5 The wood is about 5/8 thick. It is made of paudauk, maple, and purple heart...it also has mahogany and walnut inlays on the outside of the maple section.

Q. What was your reaction the first time you played it?

A. I was blown away. It sounded ten times better than I had expected. It is definitely the loudest snare I've played.

Q. Would you recommend Greiner&Kilmer drums to someone else?

A. Absolutely. One thing I think that is really awesome about this company is, they really care about what you want and they both have the knowledge on drums to know what sounds good.

Q. I believe Carousel Kings just got back from a run of shows in Canada? Tell us a little bit about that.

A. It was our first time in Canada and we had a blast. We toured with City Lights who we had previously done a full U.S. tour with. The shows are a lot different but the crowds we had were awesome...the kids that came out really enjoyed themselves. The Canadian band that we toured with (We Were Sharks) were probably some of the nicest dudes we have ever met. We actually missed thanksgiving at home this year because we were in Canada...so they bought us all thanksgiving dinners. So awesome.

Q. You guys just released your new 3 song EP "Road Warrior". Where can people pick that up, and do you guys have any plans for another full length in the near future?

A. The three song EP can be picked up at our record label's online store at cirecords.com....as well as iTunes. As far as a full length goes...we are continuously writing to record another one soon. We just released this EP to get some new stuff out there.

Q. What's on the tour agenda for the rest of the year?

A. Whatever we can get our hands on at this point. We don't plan on stopping any time soon. We like to go out touring with bands we have previously toured with so maybe our friends in Darling Parade will want to go on another run soon 

Q. Anything else you would like to add?

A. Thanks for including me in this. Thank you to anyone that has supported Carousel Kings in the past 3 years.

Unfortunately, Carousel Kings were involved in an accident with a drunk driver just a few days ago. Luckily, they are all okay and came out with just a few bangs and bruises. Not so luckily, all of their gear was ruined, including Max's new Greiner & Kilmer snare.

Please please please, if you can, help them out and pick up their music. The purpose of being in a touring band is to play shows and make the fans happy. Bands put a lot of money into their gear and these guys have been on the road non stop. Please pick up their music and help them out. 

You can pick up their music at cirecords, itunes, etc.

Gear Pt. 2

What's up everyone!
Thanks to all of you who have recently followed me! I hope you enjoy the things I'm going to be posting about. Stay tuned cause I have some cool interviews that I will be putting up next week sometime. In the meantime, I'm going to follow up on my first "Gear" post and talk about some of the hardware and accessories that I use. Hopefully this post makes sense when I'm done with it. I'm kind of enjoying watching the beat down the Giants are laying on the Packers right now.  (No offense to any Packers fans out there)

So lets talk about the pedals I use.

Most of you out there would probably think about using a DW, Pearl, or Tama pedal before you even remotely considered a Yamaha pedal. Some of you may not have even known that Yamaha made pedals. They actually make great pedals! I have been using one for about 3 years now. It is a Yamaha Professional Model direct drive double bass pedal.

For those who may not know, a direct drive pedal uses solid linkage between the beater and the footboard rather than a chain. This provides a seamless, and lightening fast response without the lag on the up stroke that you see with a lot of chain pedals. That being said, chain pedals are much more responsive these days than they have been in the past.
Anyway, the picture above is how the pedal looks out of the box. I have made a couple changes to mine just to suit my playing preferences. The first thing I did was replace the beaters with DW beaters. The traditional round beaters are cool for certain styles, but the DW beaters add a little more punch.
The only qualm I have with this pedal is the surface of the footboard. It is so smooth which is great for playing barefoot I suppose, but I play with shoes on. I had a couple instances where someone spilled their water on the drum riser. Because the footboards are so smooth, my feet kept slipping off of the footboards which was really frustrating considering it made it almost impossible for me to play anything! After a couple times of this happening I was determined to fix this issue so that I never had to worry about it again. I considered just getting a different pedal but really didn't want to because I love the way this one plays. So all of a sudden it hit me. Grip Tape! I went to Home Depot and got some of that grip tape that you see on steps and stair cases sometimes. I have never had a problem since! It was actually a little too grippy at first, but once you play on it for a little bit, the grip tape will wear down enough to where it is comfortable. So there ya go!
As far as general hardware goes (cymbal stands, snare stands, etc.) I use mostly Pearl stuff. It is actually a lot of the same hardware that came with my first Pearl kit that I talked about in my first gear post. They make great stuff! That being said, I do have a PDP stand and a Gibralter snare stand for my rack tom. I have a Roc n Soc saddle style drum throne but it is starting to get worn out so I'm hoping to get a Pork Pie throne soon. I'm a little tired of the saddle style, not to mention the Pork Pie thrones are so comfortable!
As far as cases go, I have an Enduro kick drum case. It has seen a LOT of travel and one of the straps has a broken clip, so it is getting a little worn out as well. I am also wanting to upgrade that to a flight case soon.  As for cases for the rest of my kit, I used to have everything in separate cases but I got a flight case about a year ago which was originally made for keyboards. I customized it into a drum/hardware case and let me just say, it has been a life saver! It's so much easier to just throw my kick drum on top and roll it into the venue, rather than carrying 15 different things in!


Well, I think that does it for my gear/hardware! Thanks for reading! Help spread the word and be on the look out for some cool stuff happening soon!
Happy Football Sunday!
Casey

In-ear monitors

When you are playing live, monitors are a must when it comes to playing any kind of rock music. Really just loud music in general, you need to be able to hear not only yourself, but the rest of the band as well. Especially for drummers considering everyone's amps are usually set up in front of us with most of the sound projecting towards the crowd. As we all know, drums are loud, and if you want to be able to hear your monitor it will have to be louder than your drums. This means not only are your drums already blaring in your ears, but now you have a monitor blaring as well. All in all, it's not good for your hearing. After every show my ears are ringing for hours. Sometimes they are even still ringing when I wake up the next morning. Most people would say "Just wear some ear plugs!" but lets face it, most musicians don't like wearing ear plugs. Yes, they protect your hearing, but they also make everything all muffled and they are really just kind of annoying. So what's the solution? In-ear monitors. They block out most of the ambient noise and you can send everything you want to hear right into your ears, controlling your own volume so you dont have to blow out your ear drums.

As most of you probably know, good in-ear monitors are expensive, but this is where the old saying "You get what you pay for," comes into play. I knew they were expensive but I thought I really needed to get some. They would really protect my hearing. I would always be able to hear everything and control the volume myself, and the custom molds would keep them from falling out of my ear like some of my ear buds did in the past (I play to a click track so I always have ear buds in whether they are for monitors or not). So I decided to go with a company called Alien Ears.

First off, their customer service was practically non-existent. I paid for a rush order and still got them later than they promised, but as long as they did what I needed them to do I didn't really care. They were finally finished and delivered to our hotel in Chicago the night before our show there. I got to listen to a little music on them to get used to the sound. They sounded pretty good I guess, but not as good as I was expecting. They did block out all of the sound and fit real tight so that was cool.

Anyway, onto the sucky part. So I played my first show with them in Chicago that night and they did pretty good until about 3/4's of the way into the set. Everything was going great until all of a sudden I felt a bead of sweat go down between my ear mold and my ear. That wasn't a big deal, but then it got into the actual monitor somehow. At this point it sounded like some headphones after they got wet. Everything just sounded like a bunch of jumbled up noise. I took that one ear monitor out just to keep from ruining it and played the rest of the show with the other one in.

So the next night we played in Pittsburgh. I had the same issue, except this time it happened in both ears and ruined the speaker in the one that got wet the night before. They lasted two shows! The next day I called Alien Ears. No one answered so I left a message. I ended up leaving 3 messages and sending an email over the course of 4 days before someone got back to me. After a few days I finally got a response and ended up sending them back so they could re-fit them. It took about a month and a half to get them back. We were on tour again at this point so I was able to try them out in a live setting for a second time. Long story short I ended up having the exact same problems. I called and emailed them again and no one ever got back to me, so I just gave up.

 I realize this could have been a problem with my actual ear MOLDS and maybe if I went to the audiologist and had them redone it would have fixed the problem, but after I dealt with the Alien Ears customer service, I decided it wasnt even worth it until I was ready to spend $1000+ on some Ultimate Ears or JH Audio's. I wouldn't have minded the bad customer service so much if they had at least been friendly on the phone, but for the most part they were rude and treated me like I was an idiot. I learned a little but about customer service when I was waiting tables and the most important thing is to make the customer happy. If that isn't your main focus then you should forget about running any kind of business.

For my short term solution, I went out and bought some Ultimate Ears ear buds from best buy for $60 and they sound awesome and get the job done for now.

What's the moral? Don't buy Alien Ears.

Catch ya on the flip side,
Casey

Drum Dial

So it's 5:30 a.m. and I can't sleep. It's impossible to have a regular sleep schedule when you are in a touring band. Ugh.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about drum tuning. Not really tuning, but a tool for tuning drums that I think is a necessity for all drummers, especially those who tour regularly. If you have toured at all you will totally know where I'm coming from. You show up to the venue, everyone loads in and starts sound checking. Usually when you load in, the sound guy is blaring music, or someone is already sound checking. Needless to say, 95% of the time it's loud in there and unless you are just playing a local show, you cant tune your drums before hand, then load them up in the trailer and expect them to still be in tune after traveling through different weather conditions and/or being thrown around in your trailer as you drive over some crappy roads (i.e. almost every road in the north east). So what do you do? Well, since it's too loud in the venue to tune by ear, this is where the Drum Dial comes in handy.

Now, I've seen a lot of people knocking the Drum Dial on other forums saying things like "Why would someone need a dial to tune their drums?" and "Whatever happened to tuning by ear?" blah blah blah. To be honest with you, I used to think it was stupid too, but I actually used one and wished I had given it a shot a long time ago!

The thing is, you still have to tune by ear. The Drum Dial doesn't do it for you. All it does is read the tension of the head. So you tune the drum by ear, and then you go around each lug with the Drum Dial and fine tune it. Once it's fine tuned (every lug is reading the same number) write the numbers down and keep them in the box that the Drum Dial came in. Do this with every drum.

NOW you show up to the venue and need to tune your drums, but the sound guy is blaring "Stupiy" by Disturbed. What do you do? Well first you put in some ear plugs, then you bust out your trusty Drum Dial and your paper with all of your tunings and you tune your drums like a boss.

Boom,
Casey

Gear

So I guess before I get ahead of myself on doing interviews, product reviews, and all that stuff, I should talk a little bit about what kind of gear I use. Before I do THAT, I'm going to lead up to it with what I started out on. So here we go:

I have played drums since I was 6 years old. My very first set of drums was one of those small Sunlite beginner kits. I had that for about a year and then I graduated to a big kid drum set. It was an EXPO II and it was bright red. The cymbals were PowereBeat. Pretty legit huh? I loved those things. Even won a talent show on them when I was in 3rd grade. I played "That Thing You Do". I remember the first time I sat behind them I felt like a straight up rock star. My first set was a toy compared to these. When I sat behind them I felt like I was behind a MOUNTAIN of drums, and it was so awesome. So that's where it all started for me. I had those for about 5 years until I got my first "name brand" kit. My dad heard about this cool place called the Memphis Drum Shop so he decided to take me by there one day. I remember walking in and there were drums EVERYWHERE. Straight up drummer's heaven. I wanted to play on every single drum in there, but I didn't. (I didn't want to be THAT kid.) So we walked through the first room and into a bigger room with MORE drums, and there they were, sitting up on a drum riser with a plexiglass sound isolating screen around them (which for some reason made them look even cooler). It was a 5 piece CHROME (Yeah I know...I was 13 ok!) Pearl Export series kit. The lights were hitting them just right. They were so SHINY! I knew they were supposed to be mine. I just stood there in awe of them. I finally walked around some more with my dad to check out all the other cool stuff in the shop, and it was all cool, but not as cool as that chrome Pearl Export kit. Of course, I ended up standing right in front of them, gawking, and maybe even drooling a little bit. I'm sure my dad figured out what I wanted for Christmas pretty quickly. We went back a couple times and every time I made a b-line for that kit, until one day it wasn't there. Man I was bummed, but I'm sure you can guess what happened. I went into the living room on Christmas morning and there they were! Sorry to tell my whole life story, just got caught up in some memories (sniff sniff). But hey, if it wasn't for those memories, I wouldn't be writing blogs about drums would I?

Ok, on to my gear. For the last 3 years I have been playing on a Pearl Reference kit, which I also bought at the Memphis Drum Shop and had a similar experience when I saw it in the window. It's a granite sparkle 4 piece kit and I love it. I hope to never sell it. It's pretty sentimental to me. (First tour, first music video, etc.)

Sorry for the douche looking action shot. I don't have any good ones of just the drums :(


Here are the sizes:

10x7 rack tom (which I use for decoration on a shelf in my house)
12x9 rack tom
16x16 floor tom
22x18 Kick drum

This kit sounds so amazing. The drums are so heavy. It's crazy. I used coated Evans G2's when I got them and used those for about 2 years. I am using Remo Pinstripes now and love them. I always had those on my older Pearl kit but the Reference kit came with coated heads so I just stuck with those for a while. Pinstripes just sound so good. They have such great attack and sustain at the same time. They sound KILLER on these drums.

For my snare I use a 14x7.5 Mapex Black Panther.

It's a hammered stainless steel shell and let me tell you, it is LOUD, but it sounds great. I have been using an Aquarian High Energy head on it. I really would prefer to use a different head, and I have, but when I started touring a lot, I was going through heads like crazy and I remembered using this head before and how durable it was, so I decided to use it again simply because I'm poor and can't afford to replace my heads every show, or every 3 shows like the big dogs do.

Anyway, I don't want to make this so long that no one will read it :) So I'm going to leave it at that for now. I will come back and talk about cymbals, pedals, sticks, and all that good stuff later on. Make sure you subscribe!

Peace,
Casey

Yo!

Hey everyone!

So I'm starting a blog and I already know what you are thinking, "Oh great, another person with another blog, blogging about the same old crap that no one cares about.", but this isn't just an average everyday blog. The goal of this blog is to reach musicians (mainly drummers or anyone interested in drums) by doing reviews of products, interviewing drummers about products they use or just everyday life as a touring drummer. Basically this is a blog by a drummer, for drummers. Every once in a while I might mix it up and do something that isn't related to drums, but for the most part this is a straight up drum blog! I have a lot of cool things in the works such as product reviews by me and some of my touring friends, as well as interviews of some drummers you may or may not have heard of before. Before we jump into all of that, let us at least get acquainted first!

So, if you didn't know already, my name is Casey Conrad. I'm 23 and I play drums for a band based out of Nashville, TN called Darling Parade. Check us out on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (darlingparadepics). Our new album will be out in January and we will be touring our butts off after that. Can't wait! Anyway, we toured with Cassadee Pope (NBC's The Voice, previously Hey Monday lead singer), Stephen Jerzak, and Justin Young Jan-Feb of 2012. The first date of this tour started in Anaheim, CA and the last date was in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. We had a blast and made friends with all 3 of them. They are all some of the nicest people and we are so lucky to have had the opportunity to not only meet them, but become friends with them! Super cool people! Anyway, we then did a headlining tour for a few weeks on our own in March, followed by the Launch tour in April which was an east coast tour with Carousel Kings, Major League, and Auburn. All of these dudes are awesome. Check out their music asap! The last date of that tour was at the end of April in Lancaster, PA. We played and hung out for a couple hours, but had to start driving back to Nashville that night because we had to start writing for our new record! We got back to Nashville, then turned right around and went up to Kentucky for about 4 days to a cabin to start writing. We wrote for all of May and most of June, then we finally started recording. Needless to say we spent about 6 months on this record, which brings us to today. We are just waiting on the mastered tracks and our album art to come back and then we can get the ball rolling on this stuff :)

So that's just a little bit about what I do and what I've been up to this year. Also, you should follow me on twitter. @CaseyParade22

Thanks for reading! Share with your friends. I will get the cool stuff rolling soon. :)

Keep it real!
Casey