Modern Drummer article - December 2002

Print interview with Patrick Wilson
Publication	Modern Drummer
Published	December 2002
Interviewer	Adam Budofsky
Interviewee	Patrick Wilson
Title	Weezer's Pat Wilson
Sub-title	The Unlikely Drum Hero
Format	Print
Associated album	Maladroit
External link	Archived via Internet Archive
References	See where this article is referenced on Weezerpedia

Weezer's Pat Wilson Author: Adam Budofsky (Modern Drummer) Published: December 2002 The Unlikely Drum Hero Like many great bands, Weezer seems to inhabit two distinct worlds. On the one hand, they're college-geek super-heroes, concocting catchy power-pop songs about sweaters, unrequited love, and living the life of a slacker. On the other, their blistering tone and volume prove they've got a serious jones for metal, straight up. (You didn't think their logo just happens to recall Van Halen's, did you?) Drummer Pat Wilson shares his band's tendency toward contradictions. A teenage Rush fanatic who today refuses to play more than a four-piece kit, Pat consistently finds unique ways to spice up Weezer's unshakable pop songs. Undeniably, he's a rock star: Weezer has sold millions of records, they're perennial favorites on MTV - Pat's even the "lead man" in their latest video. (Just ask Miss Piggy!) Yet for this interview he asks us to call him at 7:00 a.m. his time, because, well, he gets up early. And besides, today he's got to fit in rehearsals with his own band, The Special Goodness (where Pat rocks front of stage), as well as a recording session with Weezer. Despite his busy schedule and the earliness of the hour, Pat was eager to talk to MD about drum gods, dead-end jobs, and the hidden dangers of compression. Adam Budofsky: Weezer is in a particularly productive period now, with touring, recording two albums in as many years, shooting videos you've even got a whole new batch of songs you're already starting to record. Plus you've got your own band, The Special Goodness, which is a fairly consistent project. Are you as busy as you seem? Pat: I very much am. In fact, today I'm going to rehearse between 12:00 and 3:00 with The Special Goodness, then I'm going to go record with Weezer around 5:00. Adam Budofsky: What's Weezer's recording method like? Pat: The way we've been recording since our last album, Maladroit, is that we'll play maybe three songs, perhaps three takes of each. If it's there it's there, and if it's not we move on. We used to think that there was a particular way that we had to play to achieve certain ideas, instead of just listening and finding an easier and more natural path. Then Rivers [Cuomo, guitarist/vocalist] kind of stumbled on this idea of, 'Hey, just play what you hear.' This has allowed us to go places I don't think we would have gone before. I think otherwise our new stuff would be a lot more rigid, like the green record [Weezer's third album] was. That's a tight little record, but in some ways it's generic-sounding, and we wanted to avoid that. Adam Budofsky: Give us some examples of this new way of thinking on Maladroit. Pat: I'd say "Fall Together." It's a huge riff, and it just immediately sounds natural. Same thing with "Dope Nose." For a long time I couldn't figure out how to play it, so one day I just got angry and started going off, and that's how that intro came about. There's no click on that record either, which is kind of strange for a modern record. Adam Budofsky: Is that different from the way you've done things in the past? Pat: The first and third records were done to a click, and consequently sold much better. [laughs] Adam Budofsky: Do you like working with the click? Pat: I don't have a problem playing to it. I know a lot of musicians who are really bugged by it. Sometimes it's a drag to be the timekeeper - you know what I mean, to be responsible for the time because people are pushing and pulling you all over the place. It's like, 'Man, this sucks.' It doesn't feel musical. But if I just let go and let the click be sort of a subconscious thing that I don't really pay attention to but that I know is there then it's everyone else's fault if it doesn't sound right. Adam Budofsky: Are the other guys hearing the click as well? Pat: No, I don't think anyone else wants to listen to "bing, bing, bing" in their headphones. I like it live, too, because, like I said, it frees me up and lets me just go off. If you just give in to it, you don't rush any fills. Rivers says it bums him out to play live to a click, probably because he can't just sing where he wants to sing. He has to kind of pay attention to what I'm doing more. We go back and forth with the click so much. Live I think it makes us much tighter, but it does kind of take away some of the feel. Adam Budofsky: How are you hearing the click live? Pat: I use the Tama Rhythm Watch. I'm the only guy who has it, and it goes right into my in-ear monitors. Adam Budofsky: Was using in-ear monitors an adjustment for you? Pat: Yeah, it was. We went through this weird period around Pinkerton when I didn't use any monitors. I just listened to my kit acoustically with earplugs. There was a big awakening when I actually started listening to those other guys. [laughs] I find it hard to get a clear mix if there's more than two instruments plus myself and vocals. It's really hard for me to listen to two guitars, bass, and drums for some reason. There's just not enough background to get everything really clear. So basically in my monitors I only have a little bit of guitar; I listen to the bass, then I listen to the vocals, and then me. Adam Budofsky: Regardless of the priority of instruments in your monitors, you always seem to listen intently to where you are in a song. You accentuate the different parts very intentionally. Is that something you do consciously? Pat: I guess I'm always looking for a place to do something, some sort of hook. I don't want to overplay. Actually. I think on the first and third records I didn't play enough, and to a lesser extent the same was true on Pinkerton. I think on Maladroit I played a good amount. Adam Budofsky: What about feel? Do you consciously try to place your beat far back? Pat: We talk about this all the time. I'm naturally behind the beat. [Bassist] Scott [Shriner] and I are both behind, and I'm always fighting Rivers and [guitarist] Brian [Bell]: "You just have to relax and let a little bit of attitude into the pulse." If you listen to Led Zeppelin, those guys had a monstrous groove. It's not like '80s metal. Bands like Zeppelin and Foghat - they had a feel to them. I think that went away with stuff like Judas Priest. The drummer's job wasn't to make it feel like anything in particular, and the guitars and vocals became more important. I'm hoping we're in kind of a renaissance of that earlier stuff, with bands like The Hives and The Strokes, because those bands have something cool going on.. But you know what? You bring that to the radio person at your label, and they won't know what the hell it is. They don't know what. to do with that. You play that for a program director at Clear Channel or what-ever, and they're like. "I don't hear it." That's why we re-recorded "Keep Fishin'" for the video. We were in Japan, and we knew that the record was meeting resistance from radio because they thought it was kind of "indie-sounding," which is so stupid, because, listen to The White Stripes. What could be more indie than that? But what they are talking about, and I have to partially agree with them, is that even the White Stripes album is done to a click. It sounds all lo-fi, but it's very even. So for "Keep Fishin'" we just went back and recorded it with a click. It does sound more together, in a commercial way, though I think it lost some of its charm. Adam Budofsky: The cool thing about that song is that you go back and forth between swung and straight feels. That's not something you hear much anymore. How did that come about? Pat: Well, it's Rivers. He wrote it. He just got to that part of the song and we were like, Okay, he's playing straight 8ths now, so we just went with it. Adam Budofsky: But there's a little more to it than "just going with it." You nail the transition, and that's a perfect fill you do to lead into the straight feel. Pat: I had to do something to kind of announce the next section, though I don't know why I did that particular fill. It was pretty natural. Adam Budofsky: In a case like that, where you've recorded sort of a signature part, do you feel like you have to stick to it live? Pat: It depends on how new the song is. If it's a fairly new song and I'm happy with how we recorded it, I stick with it. But you just can't do it every night, it becomes a drag. Some nights I just go off. Rivers is constantly encouraging me to play more, so I do. But I really struggle with this. Like I still don't know what I'm going to do on this next tour, for instance, whether I'm going to play to a click or not. Adam Budofsky: How do the other guys feel about it? Pat: Scott wants us to be like Led Zeppelin IV, so he doesn't want to hear a click. I think Brian wants me to play to a click. He needs to feel a solid thing going on. As soon as I start stepping out, if I play over the bar or something, he turns around with this look like, Oh my God, what are you doing? He's more compositional. No surprises. Adam Budofsky: I guess you could get away with one or two "out" fills each show, right? Pat: I get away with about four. [laughs] My problem is that I'll do something and immediately evaluate it. I'll be like, 'Did that work?' It's a huge bummer. Adam Budofsky: Did you have a traumatic experience with a songwriter in the past? Pat: No, I just want it to be really good. I have trouble getting lost, like the way you're supposed to forget about everything and just lose yourself in what you are playing. Adam Budofsky: Let's get back to some specific songs. On "Burndt Jamb," are you riding on a rim? Pat: Yeah. I think it's a shame that take got put down, because since then we've gotten it a lot better. It feels huger now. And plus, I think I made a mistake with the snare drum tuning on the entire record. Adam Budofsky: How so? Pat: It's just so low. I thought I was going to get this sound kind of like on the David Bowie record Let's Dance. I thought that after the mix it would be this big, stomping '80s drum sound. But when we re-tracked "Keep Fishin" I realized what was bothering me about it. Chad Bamford, the engineer, put a little compression on the snare, and if nothing had been done to it after that, I would have liked the way it sounded. But we sent the record to Tom Lord-Alge to mix, and he of course put some more compression on the drums, so now to me they just sound kind of blown out. I wish they were punchier and had more impact. Instead they're just kind of like this pillowy "poooo." Adam Budofsky: Does this suggest that next time during mixing or mastering you're going to be in there with them? Pat: Well, you can't go down to Florida and tell Tom Lord-Alge, "You compressed this way too much." Because if you listen to it coming out of a television, it sounds amazing. Then you go to KROK with it, and they are blowing it out. But everyone is compressing stuff so much that I think it's the more mundane-sounding records that end up sounding great on the radio. If I had any advice for drummers it would be to use less compression while tracking, because you can't pull that stuff out. Once you squash it, that's it. If you could have none, that would be great. Adam Budofsky: On "Death And Destruction," the fill you do at the end of the first line of each verse is really nice, kind of jazzy and subtle. Then you elaborate on it during the guitar solo. Pat: There are so many things on Maladroit that are direct rip-offs of my favorite drummers. Like there's this little hi-hat, ghost-note kick drum triplet thing in that song that's right from Bill Bruford on Yes's "Heart Of The Sunrise." I'm trying to rip off Stewart Copeland right now from "One World" off Ghost In The Machine. We have this sort of weird new song that we're working on, and I just can't do it. Adam Budofsky: Yeah, but it might end up sounding cooler if you can't do it exactly like him. Pat: I know, but I really want to capture that feel. But that's not going to happen. Adam Budofsky: What other stuff did you dig growing up? Pat: I was a huge Rush fan. Enormous. I had a cousin who was about seven years older than me, and when he was like fifteen he showed up with 2/12. That's when I got into Rush, right around when that record came out, which I think is very strange because I was very young. At the same time he brought over Van Halen and Aerosmith's Rocks, so I got into those. In Buffalo, New York, where I grew up, all you heard was classic rock. So I wasn't exposed to much music other than that until I got to high school. There weren't many people who even knew of other stuff. There was this one kid, Don Scott, and he turned me onto The Smiths and a lot of that kind of music. But in Buffalo it was almost completely about Rush, Van Halen.... The funny thing is, I was way more excited about Eddie Van Halen than I was about Alex. I really responded to how rad he was on their first five or six records. Adam Budofsky: Were you playing guitar that early? Pat: I didn't get a guitar until I was nine-teen. I didn't get a drumset until I was nine-teen either. I just sort of slummed it with my friends' kits. Two of my friends had drums and another one played guitar. I ended up getting a bass because nobody played bass. Adam Budofsky: So that forced you into thinking melodically at an early age? Pat: No. [laughs] All I did was look at the neck and think, Hey, if I play this it sort of sounds okay. Maybe subconsciously it did. Definitely listening to bands like Rush made me focus on being really instrumental. Adam Budofsky: Were you taking lessons at the time? Pat: I took some lessons in high school for about a year, and I got hooked up with the rudiments and stuff. But I was really slack about it. If I couldn't immediately do it, then I didn't want to do it. That's been a huge problem that I've tried to overcome. I still get pretty frustrated about the rudiments. Actually, the big problem with that sort of traditional rudimental playing is that it doesn't have much to do with rock music. Though I think if you take your earplugs out and go down a stick size and start playing some stuff that's not backbeat, then all of a sudden you can see how great jazz drummers went off with their technique. Adam Budofsky: You guys sound like you are playing very loudly when you are recording. Pat: Oh yeah. Something just happens when things start to get loud. It gets crazy. I think good rock bands are the ones that can harness that and release it in the way that they want to, instead of just going out there and thrashing. It takes a lot of discipline to play in a rock setting in a more mellow, beautiful way, because and this probably comes from playing in clubs you want to feel like you are absolutely raging when you play a show. I can't imagine what it must be like to play in Coldplay. I think their music is beautiful, but you see them live and they are just kind of standing there like, Yep, this is what we do. If we did that live it just wouldn't be that great - unless we wanted to cross over and be like Train or The Goo Goo Dolls. But then we'd just be played on adult contemporary radio. Adam Budofsky: One of the techniques that you employ effectively is crash-riding, which always looks all gnarly, but still requires some technique. Pat: That comes directly from Alex Van Halen. He's got those Paistes going shhhhhh. I learned from Dave Grohl that you can just hit quarter notes and it sounds cool too. Though after a while.... Sometimes we'll be playing something, and I won't be able to find what I'm looking for, and I suspect that I'm getting tired of just riding on the floor tom or a crash or ride or hi-hat. I think we are starting to step into a new land of different kinds of rhythms. For instance, once I heard The Meters I realized I was a complete idiot, because the stuff that's going on with their drummer is so amazing. He's not going "ding, ding, ding, ding" all the time, like most pop music. So if I can throw in a beat that's linear in any way, then I'm totally into it - like "Fall Together," for instance. I love playing that song because the beat isn't straight, and when the rest of the band comes in and does it with me, it's huge. I love it. I guess a great "not-straight" type of band would be Tool. We played with them last summer in Europe, and I sort of had this mini epiphany, like there's three guys, each doing his own thing, but it sounds amazing. And the drummer is just out of his mind. I really want us to be more like that, because it's not like they're just throwing stuff out there. The parts fit together, but they're so interesting. Adam Budofsky: So what are you willing to do to get there? Pat: Take it as it comes. It all comes back to the song, but if I have an opportunity to play something that's not 2 and 4, I'll take it. Adam Budofsky: You play slower tempos well. That's not easy. Pat: No, it's hard, especially loud. Adam Budofsky: Any tips to make that happen? Pat: We were playing a show in Toronto once, and through a friend, I met this guy who is a jazz drummer. We started talking about what he was studying. He said that when he met this teacher, he thought he was going to impress him with all the insane chops he had. But the teacher got out a metronome, set it to 40 bpm, and said, "Play quarter notes." It is so hard to play quarter notes at 40. So I would say to anybody who wants to become a better musician, definitely fool around with a metronome, because then all of a sudden you'll realize, Okay, I really have to just mellow out here, and really accept that things are going to go really slow. I mean, it's easy for me now; I just use a click. Adam Budofsky: But just because you've got a click, it doesn't necessarily mean that your feel is going to be good. Yours is. Pat: You just have to accept that tempo. Try not to be cerebral-which, again, is a huge battle for me. Adam Budofsky: Another thing you do well is go in and out of double time. Pat: Generally if I change up something like that, it's because I feel like if I didn't, there'd be something seriously lacking. In fact, that's probably my motivation for whatever I play. If I do something different it's because I feel like if I don't, it won't be as cool. I think the biggest struggle with this band is it's sort of rock versus metal. Rivers grew up just full-on metal. He was a huge KISS fan. But I never got stoked listening to KISS. So Scott and my tendency is to play these huge, big grooves like "When The Levee Breaks," and Rivers' tendency is to want to be like "Master Of Puppets." He's done a lot to break those habits. But I think he's still more on top of the beat. That's why I think maybe the click is the best choice for us, because we sort of all find a place close together where it makes sense. Adam Budofsky: Do you have any warm-up routine? Pat: Before we play I'll warm up for fifteen minutes doing paradiddles and single strokes, and maybe some stuff from Stick Control. Adam Budofsky: How about a practice routine at home? Pat: I have a small Ludwig kit at home, and if we haven't played for a while I'll just play quietly, without earplugs. Suddenly I'll realize that all of the things that I hear in my head are achievable at that volume. That will be exciting, because I'll be like, 'Oh, that's how you do that?' And it's really fun. It's a period of discovery. But once the volume goes up, a lot of the subtlety is gone. I think if people hear things in my playing that they think are kind of cool, it may be because I'm trying to approach things in a not quite full-on rock way. Believe it or not, I've been exposed to very little live drumming in my life, and that's almost always been rock. So I've heard music mostly through recordings. I remember when I was very young, I would listen to Rush, and Neil Peart would hit the hi-hat and I'd think, 'Why doesn't my hi-hat sound like that?' I had these old Zildjian hats, and I'd go to the corner of my bedroom and hit them: "Clank." I'd be like, 'That's not what he has!' What I failed to realize is how processed, either through EQ or mastering or whatever, drums can be. It wasn't until I heard Zeppelin and realized that John Bonham's drums sounded much closer to what a real drumkit sounds like that I started to figure out, 'Okay, it's more about how it was recorded than how people are actually playing.' The flip side of that is jazz. I had another mini epiphany when we were in France. I was in the lobby of this very nice hotel, and there was just a drummer, a piano player, and an upright bass player. I must have been sitting in just the right spot, because it was like there was no filter between what they were playing and what you would want it to sound like if you were to record it. I couldn't believe how big the bass drum sounded. I think the true kit players want to record the drumkit as it sounds in a room. They don't want you to hear everything close-miked and all that. Unfortunately in rock music if you want any other instrument to be big in the mix you have to close-mike the drums. People say Zeppelin sounds amazing, but when you really listen to those records, the drums are huge and the guitars are tiny. It's like the drums and bass are favored in the mix. It was as if they were thinking of the rock band as an extension of a jazz trio. It was like, 'This is how we really are,' rather than, 'We are going to produce ourselves into this other super technologically advanced sound.' Adam Budofsky: Let's talk a little about how you got from Buffalo to LA. Pat: I was twenty-one, living at home and teaching drums. I didn't have very many students, and I wasn't making very much money. I met this guy named Patrick Finn, and he had a Wahl bass. I had never really played seriously with anybody, because there was just such a lack of talent in Buffalo or maybe it was my lack of being able to get into some sort of scene. But when I met this guy and we played, it was insane. He was like mister slap, but he was good at it. He could really shred. We found out that we had the same birthday, and that was it. He was like, "Dude, I'm moving back to California. You want to go?" and I was like, "I'm there." I just took one look around the music store and thought, 'I'm not going to be thirty-two years old and still working here. I don't know much, but I know that.' So we came out here and just sort of bounced around, tried to start a couple different bands. When you're in your twenties you start to find out things, like, 'Oh man, I don't want this, and I certainly don't want what that guy wants.' Eventually you wind up meeting people with similar interests, and hopefully you all become focused on a general idea that you can take somewhere. And that's exactly what happened with Weezer. I met Rivers not long after we got out here. He was leaving this kind of prog-metal band, and he was going through a big change in his life too. He had bought a cassette 8-track and was interning in a studio. By that time I had met [original Weezer bassist] Matt Sharp, and we were trying to figure out something to do. We had a lot of passion and interest in certain kinds of music, but we didn't know how that was going to translate into what we were going to do. So we met Rivers - "He's got an 8-track, let's get with him" and we convinced him to move into this apartment with us. Rivers was just starting to write songs, and he asked me to play drums on a song for him. That turned into a band called Buzz,[sic] with this girl bass player. That was pretty cool, but it had to die. We started a couple of other things, but eventually Rivers said, "Look, we're going to write fifty songs, and then we're going to have our first rehearsal." This is probably '91, '92. When we eventually got to the rehearsal, it was a historic thing for us. It was like, 'This is so much fun I can't even believe it; let's just make it official.' And the rest is history. Adam Budofsky: Ten years later, how do you feel about the whole trip? Pat: I can't believe I was smart enough to leave Buffalo. Nothing against Buffalo, it's just, how was I going to do what I wanted to do there? I wasn't. So my advice is, if you have any inclinations to do something crazy while you are young, just do it. You don't want to look back in ten years and think, I had an opportunity to get involved in all kinds of crazy ideas, and I passed on it. You don't want to live with regrets. A Tom Too Far Pat keeps it simple up on the riser. Adam Budofsky: The picture on the inside of the first Weezer album shows no rack tom on your kit. Pat: When we first started Weezer, there was huge prejudice against having a rack tom. I was bullied into losing it. I didn't bring it back until the next record, and even then I could tell Matt and Rivers were dis-appointed. My whole career has been people giving me guilt trips about using stuff. Like whether it's adding a rack tom or using a China cymbal.... Atom Willard, the drummer in my band The Special Goodness, will just stand there, look down, and shake his head. [laughs] Adam Budofsky: You've got to break out some RotoToms and see what he does with that. Pat: I'd be all over that. I love RotoToms. I had them for a long time. Terry Bozzio was huge on RotoToms back in the day. But, you know, try as I may, I cannot escape the basic four-piece setup. Of course, there's that adolescent fantasy of having a huge drumkit. But even just going to a five-piece is distracting to me. Adam Budofsky: What manufacturers are you affiliated with? Pat: I got with Ludwig in about '96. They've been great to me the whole time. Pinkerton didn't do nearly as well as our first record, but they were just delighted to work with me. I thought that was huge, because they could have been like, Well, you're not really selling that many records. I just ordered a custom kit from them, which I'm excited about. Adam Budofsky: What's it like? Pat: It's a four-piece Super Classic, and it's surf-green with a big white stripe around the center. It looks like I'm supposed to be at the beach with Frankie Valli or something. It looks amazing. Adam Budofsky: Are you taking that out on the tour? Pat: Yeah. In the studio I've been using a psychedelic red kit, which is really cool. Adam Budofsky: An older Ludwig? Pat: No, it's a reissue. It's got a matching 6/2x14 wood snare drum, but it sounds metallic. I have some Supra-Phonics that don't sound as "metally" as that thing does. Very strange. Adam Budofsky: What sizes are your other drums? Pat: I play a 13 rack, a 16" floor, and a 22" kick. Adam Budofsky: Zildjian cymbals? Pat: Yeah. Right now I'm playing this kind of weird hi-hat combination that Atom gave me. It's a Quick Beat top and an older bottom cymbal, from before they start-ed naming them. I think it's really old. For a long time my crash cymbals were A Customs. But at a certain point I decided I wasn't hearing them the way I used to. So I went back to medium-thin As, an 18" and a 17". My ride cymbal is an A Custom Projection. I put a little tape on the bottom of it, and I really love it. And I just started using a China again, a 16" or 17" Oriental Trash. Adam Budofsky: Have you ever experimented with electronic drums? On the Rentals' album [[[Return of the Rentals|Return Of The Rentals]]] you're shown behind some Simmons pads. Pat: No, that's just...whatever. I screwed around with V-Drums when I was in Japan, though, and I was pretty impressed by how sensitive they were, especially the ride cymbal. I could definitely see myself having one of those backstage and warming up on them. I threatened to use it live. We did a tour where we weren't using amps at all, just pods. They made for a really clean look on stage, but it takes away a little bit of the vibe. It was really weird, you'd walk on stage and just hear me. They were all playing and all the sound was way in front of them. I was like, 'I'm getting V-Drums, and we are going to be the quietest band that ever was.' [laughs] Adam Budofsky: How about hardware? Pat: I use Ludwig stands and a DW 5000 pedal. Adam Budofsky: Sticks? Pat: I use Vater 5Bs. They're awesome. Adam Budofsky: Heads? Pat: I have Remo coated Emperors on the toms and snare. Sometimes we'll change to a coated C.S. dot on the snare. And for the kick I use a coated PowerStroke, although I kind of miss the coated Emperor on the kick because it's such an absolutely classic sound. But live it just wasn't working as well. The Moth Man Cometh Slamming Pat's bass and guitar desires In his time off from Weezer - can such a thing really exist for a band this popular? - drummer Pat Wilson leads The Special Goodness, featuring Moth drummer Atom Willard, late of Rocket From The Crypt. A few years ago Wilson kicked The Special Goodness into gear during a down-time in Weezer activities. "I went through a situation where I only wanted to play with my friends," he relates. "So I convinced two of my friends in Buffalo to join, thinking that as long as we were pals, it would work out great. But I'll tell you, it's tricky, because even though they could play, they weren't pursuing it. It just didn't work out. So I had to change it up and get people who would make it their main focus. "Now The Special Goodness has really gotten serious," Wilson states. "Atom Willard is such a rager, when we started playing with him, it made me more excited about the band." Pat is an outspoken fan of Willard, who has worked as Weezer's drum tech. Atom slams so forcefully, from where we sat at a recent Moth gig in New York, he threatened to blow a hole through the opposite wall of the club. "I'm always ripping Atom off," Pat chuckles. "He's got a silver drumkit with blue stripes; I got a green one with white stripes. He doesn't use wing nuts on his cymbal stands; I'm thinking about doing that now. He gets so mad." Wilson obviously likes a drummer with muscle. But beyond pure volume, Pat insists it's an energy thing. "Take Dave Grohl, for instance," Pat says. "He's such a good drummer. I know when he was on the cover of Modern Drummer, some readers were like, I don't need to spend any time on this guy. But let me tell you, in the real world of playing rock music in front of people, you want a guy like him, because you want to feel like you're absolutely ripping people's heads off. You want a drummer who is going to stoke you back there."

See also

• List of interviews
• Category:Patrick Wilson Interviews