Christian Coma's top 5 tips for putting on a show

1. Remember the music

Their image may be somewhat polarising but there is no question that Black Veil Brides know how to put on one hell of a performance – and that all starts from the back with drummer Christian ‘CC’ Coma.

Check out the Brides and you’ll see Coma indulging in all manner of stick tricks and twirls, off while wave after wave of red hot pyro explodes all around him. So who better to take a few tips on when it comes to putting on a show?

Although CC’s number one tip doesn’t involve any fancy tricks. Instead he says before you get into such antics you must remember that it’s all about the music.

“The music is the most important thing,” he says. “I’m lucky enough to have four other band members that are so physically active on stage.

“We have a very theatrical show, so I like to focus on the music first. However, particularly at a festival you don’t like to just sit there and play because you might have a lot of people there that haven’t seen you before so you want to blow them away.

“You need to do that without detracting from the music. It’s music first and then you hit them with anything you can.”

2. Laugh off the bad times

“Shows where things aren’t going right, some of those shows have been my favourites. At the end of the day it’s all music and you can take it seriously but this band is rock’n’roll and we’re here to have a good time.

“When cymbal stands are falling down or whatever I have to laugh because it sucks but a bad day on stage is better than a good day in an office.”

3. Get the balance

“You need the balance between flair and playing the songs. I could do a lot more stick tricks live but I choose not to because I don’t want to get so wrapped up in twirling my sticks and looking awesome that I completely forget how to play things correctly.

“We play to a click which really helped everything become more solid and that means we can put on the best possible show. I used to have a lot of adrenaline and play the songs 20bpm faster than I should have.”

4. Switch up the beats

“I never play the drum beats as they are written. I will always modify the parts and play them differently as the tour goes on.”

5. Aim for the guy at the back

“You need to give the guys at the back something to look at. It was always important for me to see drummers that could really play and that did the stick tricks.

“We have pyro in our show, we have screens, the bigger the band gets the more we have out there. Sometimes I’m so far back, at the back of the stage, and people in the audience might be way far back so you have to pull out some cool stick tricks so they know to look over at you.

“I love watching our pyro as well. I’ll be looking at it thinking, ‘Man, that was badass.’ You can feel some heat from those flames so you need to make sure you have a good fan up there to cool you down.”

Rich is a teacher, one time Rhythm staff writer and experienced freelance journalist who has interviewed countless revered musicians, engineers, producers and stars for the our world-leading music making portfolio, including such titles as Rhythm, Total Guitar, Guitarist, Guitar World, and MusicRadar. His victims include such luminaries as Ice T, Mark Guilani and Jamie Oliver (the drumming one).