concert, I don’t care if it’s Taylor Swift, or if it’s
Metallica, or if it’s the Foo Fighters or Maroon 5,
or Drake, or Beyonce, or Garth Brooks, or the
Rolling Stones, you don’t see plexiglass around
the drums because all of the drummers in those
bands know how to play the right volume for
those songs and how to bring it down. A lot
of church drummers just want to show off and
play too loud.
A lot of engineers at churches don’t really
know, they don’t mix like the guys who’ve
mixed the Rolling Stones every day for forty
years. On Sunday, they just do their thing, so
they don’t really know how to get a drum set to
sound good without going into the vocal mics.
So they just put plexiglass around the drums,
put the guy in a little goldfish bowl and make
him feel excluded from the band. Engineers
need to read your magazine and learn how to
mix without having to put plexiglass around the
drums, and drummers need to play dynamic
so that guys who don’t do sound seven days
a week can get you to sound good without
having to put you in a goldfish bowl.
[WM] How important is reading music and
charts in your world?
[Gregg] Very important, I just did an episode
two days ago for the Fox TV show Family Guy,
and it was a 120-piece orchestra at the Fox
soundstage which is about as big as a Ralph’s
grocery store out here in California. And there’s
the big screen and the cartoon goes by and the
frames of music and I’ve got drum charts, and
if I could not read those drum charts I could not
be there.
I even use drum charts when I go on tours with
Ringo and the All-Star band. Ringo said once, to think about it!” (laughs) I said, “I’ve got a tempo… then see how your worship band
“What are you writing down and putting on your metronome song starter here and I want to get wants to do it. There’s always going to be
cowbell there?” I had a little file card box, like everybody’s tempo of where they want to start someone who turns around and says, “It’s too
a notepad, and I write down the endings of the songs”. fast or it’s too slow!” So, you find out where
songs “Frankenstein”, or “Rosanna” because
they want to have it at with the tempos and you
all of these songs have different endings live As worship leaders, it’s really important not put it down on your chart, and you’ve got a little
and I don’t like to make mistakes so I write just to figure out where Chris Tomlin, Lincoln song starter. Ringo said, “What do you mean a
them down. And he said, “You keep writing Brewster, or Hillsong United have the album song starter? I thought you were starting the
them down and cue me, because I don’t want tempo, but also figure out the live version songs”. I said, “I am, but I’ve got a little click
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June 2019
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