It’s been 22 years since Tool unleashed their masterpiece third full studio album, Lateralus, and even though over two decades have passed, there are still hundreds of moments in Danny Carey's drum parts to learn and take inspiration from.
Recently, young drummer Tyler Visser — who first uploaded a video of himself playing along to Foo Fighters’ My Hero to his YouTube channel three years ago — set himself the challenge of playing along to the album in full.
This is no mean feat - for a start Lateralus (which features Carey classics, The Grudge, Schism, Ticks & Leeches, Parabola and more) is packed full of rhythmically challenging time signatures and polyrhythms, along with fills at physically difficult tempos around the kit, demanding speed, power and accuracy from all four limbs. That’s before you consider recreating Danny Carey’s kit size and sound too…
However Tyler not only completed his self-set challenge, but we think he aced it too. Playing Tama Starclassic Maple shells accompanied by a 14”x6.5” Tama Soundworks Steel snare, Rototoms and a relatively modest number of Zildjian A Custom cymbals, he manages to approximate the core of Carey’s drum set nicely.
The one-hour-16-minute video is shot in a single take with the only edits coming from the changing camera angles, and shows Tyler seamlessly working his way through every song while the album plays in its originally sequenced order.
Tyler, whose channel currently has 4.85k subscribers says in the description, “Super happy to have completed another challenge I set out for myself!”
“I have gained an extreme amount of appreciation for Danny and TOOL and those that can write music in a way that compliments everyone’s part. Being able to create parts that not only support the foundation of the song, but also participate in the musical experience is certainly not an easy task. I really hope you enjoy this cover as much as I enjoyed giving it an attempt!”
Indeed we did, and if the comments are anything to go by, so have the other viewers with calls for Tyler to tackle the rest of Tool’s back catalogue next, as well as multiple appeals to get a reaction from Danny Carey himself.
Earlier this year, Danny Carey named Lateralus opener, The Grudge as one of Tool's most physically demanding songs to play live, adding "If we’re not in tour shape my hands almost cramp up because of all the Swiss Triplets. It’s just a real physical song overall…"
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