I play heel up. I tried to learn the technique that Steve Gadd is using. He was a tap dancer before, and he uses a heel-toe technique for double strokes. He uses the toe first, and then the whole foot. That way your leg is moving half of the time you’re actually playing. I don’t use that when I play double bass, but when I play doubles with one foot I use it. This a very common and natural technique of course.

To see how it's mastered by a pro take a look at Jojo Mayer's performance at the Modern Drummer festival in 1998, holy crap! There is a clip of this at www.drummerworld.com. I think it's very good though to practise both heel up and heel down since you strengthen different muscles. The faster you play the less time to move your leg and you need to start moving your foot (ankle) more. Once again check George Kollias of Nile on YouTube to get what I talk about. I mainly play heel up because it gives more power and that is what I like in metal drumming!

First time I ever heard this kind of playing was when I saw the video to Death's Lack of comprehension on MTV a couple of weeks prior to that CDs (Human) release in late 1991. I was blown away when the camera films Sean from above when he's doing that double ride (his left hand playing on the hihat bell) plus double kick "fill". We actually used that camera angle when we shot the video for Innocence gone, when I play one of the fills in the guitar solo part, ha ha ha.

Well after I bought and listened to Human over and over a couple of hundred times I started using that sound with the ride and a bell. I first sawed of an old crash so I just had the bell but later I found this amazing bell from Latin Percussion (LP Rancan sheung 6" bell) that sadly no longer is available. But I have a couple of those bells still. I think that that kind of bell/ride playing is one of my most obvious trademarks.

Well to be honest I never really practiced a lot of double bass. I've just rehearsed a lot with bands that demand me to play double bass. Of course all these rehearsals also counts as practise. It's not until very lately that I've started to practise more double bass stuff. Mainly not to get as fast as possible but to be able to play more intricate rhythms. I think on YouTube you can find a lot of great tips. I saw this video of George Kollias of Nile and I was way beyond amazed by his foot technique. Most high speed metal players use triggers (I don't) and George doesn't either as I understand it. Anyway, he's hitting hard (as I do as well) but with lightning speed which is extremely impressive! Well I will try to become faster too since I don't consider myself to be a fast double bass player.

Some advice that I want to give though is to practise your left foot a lot to be able to play even dynamics between the feet. To many drummers have a weak left foot and it just sounds bad and uneven. Start playing slowly something like four hits with your right foot and then four hits with your left. Repeat this and try to get the same feel in your left foot as in your right (assuming that you play right foot lead) that normally are superior to your left (slave) foot. Gradually increase the tempo when you start feeling comfortable. After some weeks or so, depending on how often you practice, you will get much better control and feel in your left foot.

Another thing is to try leading with your left foot. If you normally play RLRL when you play even sixteenths try playing LRLR instead. This will be of great advantage when you sometimes need to start with your left foot playing "advanced" rhythms. Also play groups of three, four or five notes altering between your feet. If you play three sixteenths in a row and then one sixteenth rest (pause) over and over it would look like this:
RLR_LRL_RLR_LRL_
Of course you should also play with your hands at the same time after you're comfortable playing this with your feet only. try just to play a normal groove with eights on the hihat and 2 and 4 on the snare to start with.

I also need to stress the utmost importance of playing tight! This is one of the most important things to a drummer in my opinion. Too many drummers play very un-tight when playing double bass and never hit the snare in time (tight) with the bass drum. You need to glue those hits that are meant to be played at the same time together! It's soo boring to hear drummer play cool stuff but the kick and snare always flam when the intention is to play them at the same time. Practice this a lot! I've always loved and still love the way Tommy Lee (my first true drum hero) plays tight, tight and tight! When he's playing "four on the floor" (bass drum on all four quarter notes and snare on 2 & 4), the kick and snare are always perfectly tight, as it should be. Listen and learn! ;-)

One final thing is to practise both heel up and heel down to strengthen different muscles. This will help you a lot especially when trying to play very fast.

About the same time as I heard Human with Death I also heard Dave Weckl for the first time. I got a copy of Weckl's first solo CD Master plan. Once again I was beyond blown away! How was it possible to play drums like that (I still wonder about that today! ha ha)? He was playing drum solos that I never had heard anyone do before. This was my first close encounter with fusion music. I started to check out all these new (to me) drummers like Dennis Chambers, Vinnie Colaiuta, Steve Gadd and so on. I also heard Trilok Gurtu for the first time and he's just an incredible drummer/percussionist. His playing also got me into world music and especially Indian music with all their advanced rhythms. I also took some lessons in Tabla drumming.

I have to say that fusion drumming has influenced my playing greatly. I guess I listen more to fusion music than actually metal music. I love both these styles of music equally though. I think that Sean Reinert has the perfect mix of fusion and metal drumming on Cynic's Focus CD. That is also another CD that influenced me so extremely much. I guess my drumming was the most fusion influenced in the band Agretator that I played with prior to Darkane. Agretator was a mix of Cynic, Death and Meshuggah. I still think that some of the Agretator stuff is the most over the top drumming I've ever recorded. One day I hope that we will be able to find the time to re-release all Agretator stuff. It's not perfect playing in any way but very creative.

I think it's very important to listen and learn different kinds of music. This way you will pick the stuff you like the most from different styles like metal, fusion latin etc. and blend them into your own playing style. I personally like drummers that when you hear a song you can tell who is playing. A personal style is crucial in my opinion!

I love it! I started to become interested in this after hearing Meshuggah's None (1994) and Destroy erase improve (1995). What they do is not as much polyrhythms as it is different layers of different meters, like playing a rhythmic figure in 5/4 over a 4/4 time signature. Anyway that got me interested and I also had some experience from the Indian rhythms that I was interested in. We did these kinds of "polyrhythms" a lot in the band Agretator.

There are many great books about this like Pete Magadini's Musicians guide to polyrhythms and Polyrhythms for the drum set. I also work as a math teacher and I've analyzed how to be able to "calculate" how different polyrhythm meters sounds together. This is something that needs lots of explanation and I will hopefully be able to put this up as a Lesson in this section in the future. Virgil Donati is one of the drummers I personally think incorporates polyrhythms very natural into his playing.

Yes I have. I play singles, doubles and paradiddles to a metronome starting of with eights, then on to eight note triplets, then sixteenths, sixteen note triplets and last 32'nds. This way you start slowly and gradually increase the speed to get warmed up. I play with my feet at the same time but I mirror the "sticking" just to get my coordination going too. For example if I play a paradiddle with my hands like this:
LRLL RLRR
My feet plays the following at the same time ("mirrored"):
RLRR LRLL
This also helps you build the ability to play tight between your hands and feet, as I think is one of the most important parts of drumming, playing tight! After that I do some stretching of my arms, legs and back.