Dave Mattacks on Achieving the John Bonham Sound

[xxxchrist1]

Dave Mattacks is a phenomenal drummer and he was great on Nonsuch by XTC, one of my favourite albums.

He seems a bit uncomfortable here, he can talk it OK, but he can't duplicate Bonham although I respect the tact one of the people asked him how to do it.

But that doesn't mean that he can, no-one can. And nor should they try.

Does anyone try to paint like Michaelangelo? No.

Bonham can't be copied and neither can Zeppelin.

[butuh13]

In my view, Bonham's brilliance wasn't in his tuning it was in his time. He had the ability to play the kick on the back end of the quarter note and the snare right on the money and it made the groove just huge. He also had the ability to use his kick drum inside his fills. Dave Mattacks is such a great, singular artist in his own right. I'd be happy to hear him talk about his own playing, rather than Bonham's. But I'm guessing this is in response to a question.

[sk8rbuoi]

@butuh13 Right no one is arguing with you. And honestly I think there's years worth of great drumming to be taught by the numerous techniques that he employed to gain his sound. This video I think is just looking at a single aspect (the tuning he used was a huuuuge factor in his sound--in fact not a lot of drummers knew that much about tuning and left it to the tech guy).

[butuh13]

@sk8rbuoi I totally agree with you. I think back on the instruction I had and there was nothing about tuning, drums, heads, cymbal choice. I have a couple student who are brother and sister and we've spent a lot more time on tuning and how one's choice of drumheads changes your sound. I had to figure that stuff out by trial and error. I know a few guys in rather high profile rock bands who learned as much from their techs as they did from teachers.

[UncleBoko]

Nobody can play like DM - Trevor Foster came close though!

[hollandrocksls]

Im not really hearing people sounding like bonham. You can copy what he did but you still got to have finesse

[Buhzie15]

bonham's sound was great, but people have to stop focusing all their efforts into sounding like someone else. it should be about discovering your own sound and not about spending countless hours trying to emulate someone else's!

[LedZedLedZepTribute]

@Buhzie15 Thats Crap advise to those that want his sound. Tribute bands etc etc Could you imagine a ZZ tops drum sound doing Zeppelin ??? Get me ?? Didnt think so...

[KaneKahiko]

This was actually kinda fun to watch haha