You can’t move for music-related Youtube channels or podcasts these days. Frankly, if we mentioned every time a new one popped up online we’d never have any space for anything else on these pages. However, it is worth giving this one a shout out. Especially if you’re a Tool fan. Or a drummer. Or, indeed, both.
Danny Carey is the man behind the kit for the LA progsters and now has his own Youtube channel. One of the highlights of his initial batch of videos is one, filmed just above and behind him, of him warming up before a gig in May. It shows just what an extensive kit he has, one that surrounds and encompasses him in a cockpit of shells and cymbals. Check this out:
The video also highlights that Carey uses every single one of those many pieces, his limbs flying across the kit as muscle memory takes over. He’s akin to an athlete warming up before a sporting event, and playing, say, a two-hour set on drums for Tool is certainly physically and athletically demanding.
In another clip, Carey takes viewers on a guided tour of the huge kit that he uses when he’s on tour with the BEAT supergroup, the King Crimson tribute project that also features Steve Vai, Adrian Belew and Tony Levin. In another, we see Carey’s tech Joe Slaby do a quick-fire Q&A with the 63-year-old drummer.
“Who was your favourite drummer when you were 12 years old?” asks Slaby, to which Carey replies, without hesitation: “John Bonham”.
We also find out that the one spot in the world that he’d like to tour but hasn’t yet is South Africa, and that he once asked Stewart Copeland of the Police for an autograph. Interestingly, Carey says his best ever concert experience isn’t actually a Tool show, but seeing Yes during their Going For The One tour in 1977.
Fascinating stuff for both drummers and Tool fans alike. Carey and the BEAT group are currently on an extensive North American tour that runs through to December 18.
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