After lots of thinking, talking back and forth to my good friend Rich Mangicaro…And much more thinking….
I am now playing Innovative Drum Sticks. I did not take the decision lightly. I had been with my former company for nearly 25 years. Since then many things have happened. I have grown. Innovative Percussion has grown. My old company and I…Just didn’t see eye to eye anymore. Conceptually my career is very education oriented. And in many ways the drumming community has never had a stronger festival, workshop and clinic scene. Because of my background I get invited to A LOT of these. I needed a company behind me that not only made outstanding superior products, but one that wanted to go in the same direction as me. I think the soul of a company reflects the needs of the drumming community and thats what is very important to me.
The concept of “Sticks being the physical contact point to the infinite” – I think music has qualities that ancient cultures knew viscerally. Qualities that were maybe considered “magic” and of course spiritual. As we all know the role of music and especially drumming is very heavily steeped in ancient rituals, beliefs and cultural ceremonies. In some parts of the world it takes on part of a religious role. Drumming put people in trances. Trances that transported them to different states of consciousness. One might say “higher states”. We in the modern world are just now discovering through science that all these ancient cultures were right about music. It’s effect on the brain is now visible through MRI studies and others. Its effect is truly amazing. So for the drummer, who is the strongest traveler of these realms…There is the body and there is the drums. Although they are intricately connected…almost one in the same in many ways, the point of physical contact from the body to the drums is through the sticks… for drumset. Me being a Drumset player, the sticks take on a role that I regard very much as a part of the vehicle. The vehicle that moves me through these realms of mind and take me to places where I am outside my body. Where I am in a place that creativity can flow and alternate states of mind can be achieved. I think the longer you play drums the more in tune your are with these special qualities. And the more you allow yourself to enjoy them and make them part of your life…the more you like to have sticks that are conducive to these states. That make you flow through them. That carry your every emotion and sing through the Drums.