Our drummer Luke plays through two tracks from Ellipsism (2020): ‘Long Live’ and ‘Tarred & Feathered’.
drums
Playlist: Luke’s ‘Ellipsism’ Influences
Continuing the lead up to the release of Ellipsism on the 30th October, today we turn to our drummer Luke, who looks back over his biggest drumming inspirations and how they ultimately led to what he played on the album.
You’ll find a Spotify playlist at the end, now with Richard and Luke’s tracks within, and more to come in future posts.
Tracklist:
Green Day – American Idiot
Avenged Sevenfold – Sidewinder
Slipknot – All Hope Is Gone
Lamb of God – Ruin
VOLA – Ruby Pool
Periphery – The Way the News Goes
Meshuggah – Behind the Sun
My drumming was initially influenced by the rock bands that I came across from the TV music channels. The first song which really caught my imagination was Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’, which was only enhanced by their live album Bullet in a Bible. The drums were fast and energetic and Tre Cool looked like he was having so much fun. I just wanted to be like him.
My second main influence was from Avenged Sevenfold’s City of Evil album, with Sidewinder being my favourite track from it. I considered this as my first intro to progressive metal, as it was a 7 minute song with a structure unlike anything I’d heard before and incredible drum parts.
Slipknot and Joey Jordison then introduced me through All Hope is Gone to ridiculous spinning drum risers, blast beats, and insanely fast drumming as you can hear me trying to imitate (to a lesser extent) early in our song ‘An Orchestra of Flies’.
Getting into Lamb of God and Chris Adler, songs such as ‘Ruin’ really showed incredible technical ability while driving the music, and enhancing the other parts which our song ‘Jouska’ particularly took advantage of.
More recently I’m influenced by bands such as VOLA, with songs like ‘Ruby Pool’ where the drums are more minimal, bringing space into the music and adding tasteful flourishes. This style of drumming isn’t so dominant in Ellipsism, but there are certainly some parts to listen out for.
Periphery, as one of my favourite bands, with songs like ‘The Way the News Goes’ has influenced my groove substantially, using syncopation and polyrhythm to add flavour like what’s found in the second part of our song ‘Long Live’, and various other parts throughout the album.
Meshuggah have been a big influence for the heavier, darker elements of my playing, with songs like ‘Behind the Sun’ influencing the end of our song ‘Tarred and Feathered’.
Generally though, my drumming is influenced by all sorts of external and internal forces, and while the specific mentions above have had a definite impact on me, there are countless other bands & drummers ranging through metal, jazz, funk, rock, & pop that I’ve heard and they’ve all played important roles. But when writing specifically for a band, I’d say the most important influence (for me at least) is listening to what the rest of the band is doing and creating parts which compliment that. This is only made easier by listening to as much music as possible to build a musical vocabulary which can be drawn from and expanded on.
-Luke
Gear Talk: Drums – Luke’s Kit
It’s been a while since we wrote a gear blog (see the other entries in the series so far here), so in the run up to the release of our debut album Ellipsism, we thought it was about time we shone a light on the beast of a kit that Luke sat behind for the writing, recording and performing of it. Luke’s been in the band since the very tail end of 2019, and his incredibly accomplished style is all over the album. Get to know his tools of the trade below.
This is the drum setup used for the recording of Ba’al’s Ellipsism with Joe Clayton, our lovely mixing engineer, for scale. Unfortunately I do not have access to the drum kit while writing this as it’s in storage through lockdown, so I will provide as much information as I can be confident about!
The drum kit is a 6-piece Mapex M-birch Kit which I’ve had for at least 10 years. The sizes are:
● 22″ Bass Drum
● 10″ Rack Tom
● 12″ Rack Tom
● 13″ Rack Tom
● 16″ Floor Tom
● 14″ x 5.5″ Snare
The toms use 2Ply clear heads, the snare has 2Ply coated head and the bass drum uses some sort of heavy duty clear head with a kick port on the resonant head.
For tuning, I generally have the batter heads quite tight (especially on the snare), with the resonant heads tuned lower. This achieves a fast attack with a nice beefy tone from the reso’s. Also I generally have my snare wires super tight.
I use Pearl Demon Drive (direct drive) pedals in the long board configuration for my feet, and Vic Firth extreme 5B drum sticks for my hands.
Cymbal-wise, my setup has evolved a lot as I’ve broken them and have had to find replacements from whatever the local shops have in stock. Going left to right:
● Zildjian Avedis Hi-Hats (13″?) with a drop clutch (not enough people know about drop clutches!)
● Dream Energy Crash (17″?)
● Istanbul Xist Crash (16″?)
● Dream Bliss 10″ China
● Sabian AAX 10″ Splash
● Sabian AAX Crash (19″?)
● Sabian AA Metal Ride (20″?)
● Istanbul Mehmet Session China (20″?)
My cymbal setup started out with a Zildjian ZXT starter pack. I then got obsessed with Mike Portnoy which led to me replacing the crash cymbals with Sabian AAX’s as the ZXT’s broke. Also thanks to Portnoy, I started getting a silly amount of Splash and FX cymbals. Now most of my AAX cymbals have been broken and replaced with other brands found in local shops. The Istanbul China cymbal was a particularly nice find as I have never found a China cymbal that better suits my sound. I also love the Dream 10″ china FX even though it’s got a large crack in it.
You’ll also see I have a Pearl drum rack which I managed to pick up Second hand at a very affordable rate. This has made mounting silly amounts of cymbals substantially easier. Besides that my hardware is all sorts of brands. But generally for gigging I have a set of lightweight Tama stands and quick release cymbal toppers.
Back at the practice space I do have a lot more toys that I have purchased through the years. My YouTube channel has old drum videos where you can see how much of a drum hoarder I am (bless my parents for putting up with all this!). But some of my early drummer influences were Jimmy (the Rev) Sullivan, Mike Portnoy, & Joey Jordison who led me down a path of huge drum kits and small bank balances. You can probably still hear their influences in my playing today.
To finish, I have a Yamaha E-kit for practice at home. I acquired an electric kit when I started uni so I could practice in student accommodation – although the poor girl who lived below me still wasn’t best pleased. The E-kit is great for practice, and enabled us to get demos done for the Ellipsism album at a rapid rate, which made the entire demoing and recording process a lot smoother. But as great as E-kits are, they just are not as fun as sitting behind a big acoustic kit which I can barely see out of. I just fucking love it.
-Luke
Ba'al 