 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I am joined by Great group of guys the most we've ever had on the podcast at one time to talk about Simmons drums So first off just hey to everyone. Thank you guys for being here. Hey, hey Yes, absolutely now we will we will go ahead and introduce everyone so Real quick, why don't we start with mr. Darren Pfeiffer who's been a huge help to this podcast and this Setting this up and getting all these guys together And then I think the best thing to do is maybe have everyone introduced themselves to get the most correct info So Darren, why don't you start it off? Tell us about yourself and then your connection to Simmons kind of in a brief manner. So go ahead and take it away. Cool. Well to start I'm a huge fan of the drum history podcast It's wonderful every time I have a question or something I you know, I hit one of the podcasts and there's always, you know, 10 times more of an answer there than I was expecting so I wanted to get a Simmons presence on the drum history podcast and in my world. It was such a huge influence Music to the 80s and 90s and even today There's Simmons fans. The equipment is still in use the equipment is collected like crazy It's all having a moment on eBay and reverb, you know, prices are sky-high It's wonderful. Wonderful equipment. It's a pleasure to play Pleasure to restore to collect all that kind of stuff. I wanted to get some Some experts and Simmons experts together some of you have worked at Simmons And some of you were responsible for keeping all of the Simmons equipment That's around today alive and well and still on the stage in the studio so that was kind of my goal here and Outside of that, I'm it's a pleasure to be here meeting all of you on the video here and I'll be taking notes Because this is a real treat for me. Just information and history and I love it all so My personal background. I'm a drummer. I'm a huge Simmons fan Recorded a lot played a lot, you know, same old story on the studio. Yeah, that kind of thing so I wanted to start with Steve Watts if you kind of give us Introduction and tell us about you and your Simmons history bet Yeah, sure so I'm Now working down in Devon, which is on the the south coast of the UK I Started at Simmons I'm sure Pat will correct me if I'm wrong here because I'm terrible with dates. It was about 1983 And I started off working under Pat most memorable thing about starting there was Making my first ever cup of coffee Pat telling me off for how appalling it was and making me go and doing it all again Because it was so bad Stuck with me. It's frightening. Isn't it 40 something years? And that's that's what I remember But yes, I started at the old mill And I started in the drum department where we were assembling the sgs-5 pads And then when we moved to Auburn Park Which was more kind of getting into the sgs-7 era I moved from the drum department into initially running the stores and then From there I took the the grand title of international customer services manager Which basically meant Just kind of dealing with all of the the studios and the artists and the support and acting as a kind of liaison between All of those guys and the and the technical side Simmons and that's me Nice incredible. Well, why don't we jump because so Pat you worked at the same time then back, you know Your original employee as we heard and you're pretty tough on coffee as we've learned as well So what's your background and story with that? I started work at Simmons in 1982 I was a 10th person to be employed by it when I started working there There was three directors. There was three managers and it was for employees. I was a fourth employee I was the second person to work at the drum department. It was me and a drum department manager So it was like that, you know for a few months maybe three or four months and then We had a fellow called Dave start working with us David H and then we had a fellow called Jim Yeah, Jim fellow called Tim and then I believe Steve Watts come along and He was terrible at making coffee like he's already used me to and You know, we all just sort of saw the company grow started off very small in a kind of a rundown mill and Originally Sims electronics had two floors of one of the buildings and then the drum department expanded and We took over another building like a third building And I think, you know, when I started there, I started in 1982. I was a 10th person by 1985 We was in Patfield Road And it was a hundred and fifty employees So that's how the company grew and it grew rapidly and Obviously as everyone knows it was a world leader and it was a real pleasure to work there We'll play even though to work Awesome, thank you Pat and then Ed real quick when you tell us about you and your involvement with Simmons, which goes It comes we'll come back more in detail later, but tell us about yourself Ed Well, hi, my name is Ed Rose. I run a business called the Simmons guy Out of Lawrence, Kansas, and I buy Sell and repair vintage Simmons drums Very cool. Yes. So we will obviously be talking about that later with more of the what's going on with Simmons stuff today and who's using them but Steve Graham once you tell us about yourself Yeah, basically I started off as a collector of drum machines and old electronic drums of various things from the 80s and Then started writing about drum machines initially and then I moved on to electric electronic drums and Yeah, that Simmons book basically came about just I'd already compiled all the information on the actual British Drum history of the 80s. There were quite a few Companies, but the Simmons one I was a particular fan of just mainly because of the music the groups at the time I was a teenager in the early 80s and It just developed from there just by getting in contact with various people from the factory including Obviously Steve there and the the book just grew from there to get more of a story behind the actual book Basically update the book that have been written back at about 1985 just to try and then put a conclusion onto the company really Yeah, which is great because a lot of these histories don't get like archived the way they should as you did in your book So it's it's great that you did that and we're kind of doing a little bit of a mini version of that right now Which we will plug the book more as we go, but All right guys before we jump into the actual company history Let me say very quickly. I want to give a big. Thank you to mr. Adam Parsons Adam is a great guy and has a great YouTube channel called Adam's drum room He joined up with the upper tier and patreon which really helps support the show So and he's just a very well connected guy and has an incredible collection that I recommend all the guys on this Interview right now check out because it's mind-blowing and Adam is like connected in some very cool stuff So thank you to Adam Parsons for joining patreon if anyone else wants to patreon.com slash drum history podcast And you can learn more there. So thanks to Adam Parsons. All right guys Steve Watts Pat I don't know whoever wants to start first here But like let's just go to the very beginning and really learn about the beginnings of Simmons drums I know you guys were Pat maybe you start off because you were an earlier employee But really go to the origin of Simmons drums. Okay, well, you know So by the time I'd come along, you know, they would start producing the SDS 5 I don't really much about I don't really much know much about the company, you know prior to that so I've turned up and You know, there was two people in drum department and I think we were trying to produce about a hundred kits a week and These plastic shells polycarbonate shells came in and we had to spray them, you know, we sprayed them You know by hand and though, you know, we assembled, you know assembled them off assembled them as well so there was two of us, you know doing that and You know to come, you know the sales You know for the company why it was getting larger and larger So ultimately we had to employ more and more people in, you know, drum department and So that's what happened, you know As time went on, you know, we employed no more people. It was a very friendly company, you know to get, you know Very very friendly company You know, I started there, right? I had I had a really severe speech impediment Well, I felt comfortable, you know going into work on a daily basis. I felt valued there They was all kind all considerate, you know people, you know, they never hurried me And they explained things to me, you know, I'm really concisely and it was a really nice pleasure to work and in in the early days, I Think there might have been No, they'll certainly backdoor repairs. I don't know if there's any backdoor sales I can't say if there was or wasn't but you'd be working away and the drummer would walk in Maybe not a Maybe not a drummer that was immediately, you know, recognizable, but over the course of the years, you know, I did work I did end up, you know, coming across a few of them and Yeah, that was it. I met a few roadies a couple of them, you know stand out I'll get I got asked in particular Like interesting things I had to go and buy I had to go I got handed Tambourine the purple tambourine and it come from Prince and went from Prince You know Dave Simmons and then Dave Simmons brought it into work handed it to me I had to go and find an identical match to that paint like the producer I had to paint a kit, you know for Prince and there's a few stories like that And it was just a really interesting company you could go and make yourself a coffee anytime, you know wanted there was no You know, there was no real strictness as long as everyone come in and done their work Everybody was kept happy And that's what it was like, you know, and you know, I used to enjoy going to work I never wanted to take a day off It was a real pleasure, you know to go to work. It really was a pleasure and Yeah, and then I just I grew up at that company, right? I passed my test when I've heard that I come in I've got my first girlfriend at that company. I bought the first flat at company So I kind of grew up with them, you know for a few years anyway How old were you when you started there? I started at 22 You know, I started at 22. Yeah, I can't remember how long I worked there for Sometimes I think it worked there for five years, but I think it was long as that I think it was longer than that. It might have been six or seven years I can't really remember the date, you know, that I left I remember the date started I can't remember the date I left And yeah, it expanded rapidly And with expansions, you know, more people come in and the drum department grew As did the other departments, you know, there was a production department, a test department, you know So the production people, they were making the brains When I started there, there was production employed two people Test employed one person, a physical Roger and a manager, Alan My drum department employed me and a manager called Mike And production, there was two employees and a manager was Peter Great directors, lovely lovely company Real pleasure to work for them The money was piss poor to begin with But it did improve as time went on, it did improve, I must say that, you know Yeah, I think in the early days, you know, they could have been struggling They wasn't really sure, nobody was really that sure about the product I think Jeff had to go in his car and go around knocking doors, selling it And then it got chart success That's that's, you know, that's what happened, it got British chart success And it just flew Absolutely flew, took off and flew, yeah This episode is brought to you by Pocket Percussion in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania Right outside of Philly Pocket Percussion is thrilled to announce that they now have lesson and rehearsal space right there in the shop And on October 14th, mark your calendars for a creative percussion workshop with the one and only Billy Martin That's October 14th with Billy Martin at Pocket Percussion Pocket Percussion sells used gear, stands, symbols, custom drums, snares, hand percussion, vintage gear Plus hard to find parts and everyday necessities In addition to buying, selling and taking trades, he also does great repairs and re-heading Visit pocket-percussion.com to learn more about drum lessons and get all the details for the October 14th event with Billy Martin And keep up with their newest gear on Instagram and Facebook at Pocket Percussion Well, it became completely iconic and it's a symbol of an era, which makes me wonder, Steve Watts, let's jump over to you First off, tell me how old you were when you worked there and then the question at hand really is What was it like to work at a company that was like changing pop culture, basically, you know I mean, the face of drumming, but in general, people see that design and they know exactly what it is I mean, how old were you though? Absolutely. I was about 21 when I started there and in fact, yeah, perhaps right, I'd forgotten this That Jim Pinnock worked in the drum department and then he got promoted up. I think, did he do graphics or something, Pat, was it? I don't think it was graphics. I think I think I think he was saying to do product design or product product management So he had to manage all the different things, you know, that kind of went into production I believe, summing along those lines and then Dave, they've got promoted, he took over packaging, didn't he? Yes. Did you take over the packaging? That's what happened. There's a packing department. So all these other departments, you know, were being created Because, you know, the more drums were produced, the more packing that occurred and we had to employ people just to pack so many of them That's real deal business stuff. When I started there, they gave me a time limit of 15 minutes to produce a bass drum, 15 minutes per drum. And I was really stuck. I was really stuck. I ended up producing 12 an hour, which was really quick. Such an enjoyable job. Quite an easy task. And I just used to listen to music and get lost in it all. It was good. It was flying. Everybody was flying. Lovely place to work. Definitely. So Steve, tell me about, did you realize when you were working there, the impact of what you were doing and the importance of it in culture? Or was it just kind of like you're just doing your job? When I first got there, I mean, I didn't know anything about the company. The only reason that I even knew of it was because Jim got this promotion. His dad worked with my dad. And I was looking for, you know, just any old job at the time. And my dad said, oh, there's all you'll like this because I had been a drummer. And my dad said, oh, yeah, you know, there's this this company they're making drums. He didn't even say that they were electronic. He just knew it was a drum company. And so I went down there, Mike, who ran the drum department, the interview basically consisted of can you use an electric drill? I said, yeah, I'd never picked up an electric drill in my life. But you know, there you go. And so so I got into that. And I even then I didn't, you know, I didn't have any idea of how big this company was in the in the music scene. And then it was it was quite bizarre, we would I wrote again, just these things, your odd things you remember. In my first couple of weeks, we were just talking about what music we liked. And I and I said, oh, you know, I'm a big fan of Howard Jones, who just had his I think then he just had his first single. So a new song had just just recently been in the charts. And I'll never forget Dave Halford, turning around to me and say, oh, yeah, he was in here last week. And, you know, and that's when the cut, you know, the light bulb kind of goes on that, you know, that you're you're actually, you know, into something quite special. And then I have to just I have to say something Pat didn't mention, but it always cracked me up about the company. And he's right, it was really friendly. Friday evenings, we'd all go over to the fighting cocks, which was the old pub, just next to the old mill. And that would include Dave, you know, so it was a nice sort of real family atmosphere. But the thing I remember, because I was terrified of everything I had to do there, I hadn't really had a job like that before I got to the to the factory. And so start off in the pad assembly. And then one day I was asked to go and collect the the drum shells from the the the spray room, the paint shop. And the paint shop was right at the top of this other building, which was what three floors up, three or four floors up somehow, because it was the attic, wasn't it? And the way you got there was to walk up an external fire escape up these four stories just into the door. And you had all these just so you can obviously all you guys would know, and I'm sure the viewers will know what a what an SGS five pad looks like. So that polycarbonate shell on the back would have recently been sprayed. And you can imagine kind of how slippery they are as well. And they were stacked about kind of 10 or so high, just just alternating the pattern as as they went up. And you had to balance these and carry them out of the out of the spray room and down four stories of fire escape. And it's one of these things you wouldn't get away with it now. I can see he knows what's coming. You wouldn't get away with it now with health and safety. But all of the all of the thinners or whatever it is in the in the paint. All of those fumes would be coming up because you were holding these things quite low because it was quite windy. And and you just have a face full of stuff. And by the time I always used to say by the time you got to the bottom of the fire escape, you were higher than you were when you started. It was but it was all kind of like that. Well, you know, it was just not. Not. Yeah, kind of casual. But at the same time, you know, you had to do the job, but it but it wasn't all about, you know, all strict rules and management and all that kind of thing. It was really very friendly. And I guess kind of just returning to your initial question, apart from that that thing I mentioned before about how Jones coming to visit. I think it was really when we got to when we moved the factory from from old Mill to Albin Park. And that's that's, you know, and especially in the job I landed up doing that's when you really knew that this was massive. Yeah, cool. Yeah, you guys are lucky. It's definitely a interesting. I mean, it's a for to be such young guys working in such a cool place. You probably don't appreciate it at the moment, but now it's it's it is history. Speaking of history, let's jump over to Steve Graham. Author of the complete Simmons drum guide, the rise and fall of Simmons electronic drums. And just kind of rewind a little bit. We've heard from two of the two of the kind of original employees. Steve, fill in a little bit more about the origins of the company and how we got to these guys being there, carrying drums down fire escapes and all this, you know, awesome stuff. What? How did it all start? So, yeah, going back to the the beginning, I guess, start with Dave Simmons himself. And obviously drum synthesizers have been around since about 1974. Albeit they weren't very good. I mean, just looking around this cupboard that I'm in at the moment, I've actually got that I'm just surrounded by what I would call or my wife would call old junk. There's a syndrome here and there's various other things that I've got here. But they weren't very good and they only made a certain type of sound. So Dave, he was working basically for a company that with the supplier distributor for ARP synthesizers. So he repaired all those and he kept getting us to do modifications. He was also in a band, so he played keyboards in a band, which, which again, actually came close. Well, one of the bands came close to actually having hits later on when his when his company really got going. So he was coming up with these little inventions and he came up with the first sort of drum synthesizers working for a company called Musicade, which a few people bought the band called Landscape. They had a drummer called Richard Burgess. He was actually he was from New Zealand, while he's he's British, but he was from New Zealand and a couple of sort of hippie bands. He went back to the UK and joined this band Landscape. So he picked up a couple of these early drum synthesizers that David bought and various other people bought these early units. Musicade was struggling. So it was an it was an importer of various, various things that nobody else seemed to want, like asbo drums, which was a French company and various other things that no one else would stock really. So they their their actual things that they were they were trying to sell weren't very good. But in the background, Dave was working in a little workshop behind the shop, which was basically a small residential terraced house. That was their shopfront just had a big window at the time. And he was coming up these little drum synthesizer inventions and came up with the STS-5, really, which was the sort of breakthrough instrument, again, working fun enough with Richard James Burgess, who put a lot of input into how they should sound and also what in time, what the actual shape of the pads were to make them hexagonal like a sort of honeycomb. So you can actually have them all joined together as a pad. There's like a set of pads to make it easy to play. Musicade basically went bust. And from that, Dave basically decided to set up on his own, which, again, is literally when they went to they started moving to Abbey Mill just down the road in St. Oldman, certainly a couple of miles away from the old premises and Hatfield Road, the old residential property. And I think that's pretty much where people like Pat would have come in, Dave Halford as well, who I've been in contact with. He also worked there for a time. And I guess it grew with it. It grew from there really to, I think they said they wanted to sell they could sell 10 kits in a month or something. The company would be successful. And they basically started off selling way more than that. It took a long time for America to get involved, really. But certainly around about 1980, 81, these drums basically started appearing on programs on top of the Pops, which is a big music charge. I run down on the main channel, BBC One. That's where I first saw them. I was just I was a kid of about 13 or something. And it was my kind of music, I guess, at the time as well. All these sort of drums, electronic drums appearing. Dave Stewart, Barbara Gaskin had a number one hit, I think, with with a cover version of the track. And what does he got? He's a keyboard player, Dave Stewart, but he's playing drums as well as having his drummer who played a Simmons kit. There's a bit in the song where Dave Stewart starts doing drum rolls on a Simmons. So what better advert for the company, really, than to have these right on on show in front of 10, 15 million people. Yeah, that's how many we tune in that time. Wow. And they're so visual. And there's the color to it, which earlier electronic drums were cool and sounded good. But they seem to really harness the power of like the visual. Ed, why don't we throw it over to you? We're now kind of they're getting seen on top of the Pops. People are seeing them. They're getting very popular. What happens from there? Maybe through you can jump on some key points, but through to the the end of the heyday. Well, I think, yeah, in America, the heyday really probably started closer to 83 just because it took that amount of time to get from the UK to the United States, just because there wasn't an internet. So, you know, all this information took so long to travel across. But, you know, by 83, I mean, like every song that was released in the United States of America had Simmons drums on it. I mean, it's just like, if you look through the charts of, you know, popular music charts, whether it's, you know, you know, R&B, metal, all that, everything had Simmons drums from like 83 through 85. So, yeah, and just real quick, you know, there are very few instruments that get made that not only have an iconic sound, but an iconic look. And I think that's one of the things that, you know, Simmons really got right with the SDS-5 was not only did it sound killer, but it looked killer and no one had ever seen anything like that before. And I know for me personally, like I started hearing Simmons stuff coming over from the UK and I was like, God, what's making that sound? And every week I'd go into my drum lesson and ask my drum teacher, it's like, you know, what is this? Maybe the star stuff we sell upstairs, but, you know, no one really knew. And then one day I come into my lesson and he's got tiny little picture from like Modern Drummer Musician Magazine of an SDS-5. And he's like, that's what makes that sound. And when I saw that, I nearly died. I was like, are you kidding me? That sound comes from that. That's the most incredible thing I've ever seen. So anyway, yeah, there was that that heyday where, you know, 83 through 85 in the United States, you know, just Simmons stuff was everywhere. You couldn't escape it. And then, you know, things changed. I mean, friends don't last forever. And as that kind of started to die off, not only, you know, the sound was becoming a little dated just because it was just so reused. But visually, it became kind of a thing. It's like, oh, that's for like, you know, this kind of band that uses those pads and stuff. And, you know, by the time rock and roll came back around to the United States, which was like 87 ish one, you know, guns and roses. And, you know, all the ballet rock bands of that era came out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that basically spelled the end of the year for Simmons. So, you know, I think from then, you know, FDS seven was never the hit the FDS five was FDX was never really a player just because there was no, you know, they took too long to get out. And then, you know, by that time, the whole thing was done. And, you know, unfortunately, that was it. Yeah, it happens. It had had a good run. It was pretty incredible, but there seems to be resurgence of things, which now let's hop over to Mr. Darren Pfeiffer and hear more about what happened kind of after that. And then because, I mean, they're still very popular. I mean, you guys and you guys repair them and restore them and collect them and love them there and talk about it from there about what's happened with it and kind of, you know, so it never really fully went away. But what what happened after that? It never really fully went away. But I feel there was a time in the 90s where a lot of this stuff was just jumped. It sat around in, you know, storage units and warehouses and garages and everything like that. And there was a there was an episode or there was an interview with Moby and he was showing his studio and it's just filled just floor to ceiling with, you know, these immaculate vintage scents, like anything and everything you could possibly think of is like, you know, in his in his home. And he said, you know, there was a time about like 92, 93, pretty much after the grunge explosion where everyone wanted real drums. Everyone wanted real guitars, you know, everything was back to just the raw music. And a lot of the electronics just got thrown away, thrown away, put away, pawn shop, thrift stored, you know, whatever. And all the new stuff was just sitting on shelves and eventually got, you know, clearanced out of, you know, music stores and everything. So he said, especially like, oh, this 808 here in United, I paid like $200 for it. And, you know, like 93, 94, this, you know, this Juno over here, you know, I got that for like 50 bucks at a garage sale or something, you know. So there was a time where it wasn't, it was just kind of put away and forgotten about, you know, the trend and moved on, the, you know, the style and moved on. And just say, you know, what, throwing this out there last 10 years or so, there has been a resurgence. The 80 sound is popular again, but people are rediscovering what amazing instruments these were, not electronic instruments, not, you know, not fake drums, but actual instruments. If you really got into them, you can, you know, create something beautiful and just as expressive as, you know, an acoustic instrument. So recently there's been collectors, you know, we try to find this stuff. Some people get it out of there. They still, you know, they still own it. So they, you know, they go in their garage and go treasure hunting and dig through and they get the stuff back out. And, you know, most of it doesn't work, you know, batteries have leaked. Everything's corroded inside, you know, there's rat poop in it, whatever. And so just in my experience, everything that I've found is pretty much gone to Ed. It's fixed, it fixed it all up. He still has a whole stash of my stuff that I need to like, you know, text you about a little later. But there's a big push to get all this stuff back out, get life into this stuff again. SDS-5s, 7s, even the 8s and the 9s, the smaller, you know, more portable. There's an SDX on Reverb right now that's, you know, $5,500 with no pads. And, you know, you have to have the pads that go with that one. Wow. Yeah. But there's a push to restore all this kind of stuff, bring it back to life, use it in the studio and stage. I recently sold an SDS-5 to a friend of mine who said, hey, I'm in a band and they're going through their old 80s catalog and we're doing, you know, remasters and everything like that. And we want that sound that was on their live. And everything that was recorded back then was on an SDS-5. So no samples will do, you know, no emulators will do. I need the actual box. I need the actual sound. And I've had a couple of things come my way from clients who, you know, I have a song and I want this sound just last week, a friend of mine called and wanted the bass drum sound, Alex Van Halen's bass drum sound. And he was adding, you know, what, what settings was that? And I actually found a picture of one of the SDS-5s that he had. And it was a snare drum in all toms. So, you know, maybe, maybe instead of a bass drum, he had, it was a tom that was really too low of no idea. So, yeah, still looking into that. Wow. But, you know, even today, some of the biggest tours that are out, Harry Styles, Sarah Jones is a drummer for Harry Styles. She uses two of the Simmons pads to her left on the kit. I don't know what she's using for a brain for those, but that just goes back to the visual impact, having these things on stage. Another one is Ricky Lewis with The Weeknd. He's, he's got what, six, seven Simmons pads on his kit. And they're, they're front and center right next to the toms, right next to the cymbals. It's part of the drum set. It's part of the show. Jeff Friedl, Ray Miorga, like these guys use this, this equipment out there today and it's, it's fixed up and it's modern. And it's right up there with, you know, all the latest and greatest other electronic drum options. But one of the things about Simmons and Dave's vision that I really love was it was so drummer forward. It wasn't necessarily, and you guys can, you know, kind of correct me on this if I'm a little off target, but he was so drummer forward. The drums weren't necessarily marketed strictly for producers and studio owners. There were four drummers and the visual aspect, there needs to be a drummer on stage. There needs to be a drum set on stage. And to my understanding, the pads could have been any shape. There was like a heart shaped pad, a hexagonal ones. And like, there was another shape or two that was at a trade show. The devil kit is the is the is the most famed one, isn't it? Yeah, where is that? Can you remember who that was for? Landscape use those on the top of the pot. I think that was the first time. I mean, ultimately the the hexagonal shape won out. It was, you know, more popular. And then, you know, plus just the shape of it, you can put it together like a drum set, you can put the toms close together. You know, you put a couple of pads. Bill Bruehford had, you know, famously that giant rack system behind him with, you know, look like a hundred Simmons pads up on a Simmons wall. And it was all, you know, it's so much a part of the show. And, you know, even now, if I go to a concert and, you know, see a band, you know, the drums and the equipment and the production, it's all part of the show. And, you know, I'm sorry, it's got to it's got to look cool. It's got to match. Yeah, it does. But that stuff is is being used today on huge tours. And the stuff that's out there, I can guarantee you, probably pass through Ed's shot. One point at one point or another. Yeah. I don't think very many of those drum kits, you know, were made, you know, the head kits. There was only a couple of them made. I think they was like experimental or somebody might have asked for something, you know, totally different. I don't think there was any real idea of putting them in production on a large scale. They were more one offs. Yeah, that's what I remember about those. I'm just I'm just reading it, actually. I'm sorry. This is terrible, isn't it? I've had to Google it myself. So Wolfgang over in Germany that runs the Simmons Museum. He would have been fantastic to have on here as well. And he's he's got a page on those kits, and they were sculpted by a guy called Coleman Saunders, who was a friend of Dave's and Steve Graham was absolutely right. It was landscape with Einstein a go-go that featured that kit. Wow. Pretty wild. But the hexagonal one out, obviously, as we that seems more practical and more easy to produce as well and less intricate. Yeah. Can I ask Pat and Steve one more question about kind of the history related stuff? And then we can we can talk more about the modern like with Ed. I want to talk more about what's going on with, you know, how it works with updating these and what goes into that. But real quick, Pat and Steve, were you guys there towards the kind of end of the, you know, when things were becoming it was less popular, were you there at the shop at that time? Or you had you already moved on to another job? I'm afraid I bailed. I get no, to be to be fair, I can't remember what year. That must have been kind of 87 or something, I think. But I basically, I Dave was doing some work with MIDI and I had a Yamaha DX7 and Dave asked just literally asked to borrow it because then we could do some kind of interesting things. And we had Baz Watts was our our demonstrator at the time, along with Siby from from Germany. And they wanted to put on a thing up at the up at the British Music Fair. And so Dave sent me up there with the with the kits and the DX7 and everything. And then basically like cut a long story short while I was there, I got poached by Yamaha. So it was it was for very stupid reasons, the ones I regret greatly that I that I jumped ship and went to work for Yamaha. So I didn't really see that that phase. But Pat, I know, definitely, you stayed on, didn't you? And yeah, so much more. What was that like, Pat? Well, I didn't stay on, sort of, you know, to the very end. I believe I stayed on to over 87 or 88. And I saw us, you know, I saw a bit of a decline. You know, you know, the company. And yeah, then the left, basically. Yeah, I mean, it's a job. Yeah. All right. And then real quick, before we get to more of the modern stuff with Ed, Steve Graham, why don't you tell us a little bit about what happened with it closing. But then if I'm not mistaken on the Simmons website, it looks like 2006. It got read the brand got relaunched through Guitar Center. Is that correct? Yeah. So basically, my understanding, they had pretty good success, something to really the SDS 9, I think. And then there were kits made after that, like the SDS 1000, which, again, was just more of a brain in a one unit rack, which is obviously easier. The pads, the pads had obviously improved greatly since these ones here that I've got. This is like the SDS 8 sort of pads, a well used pad. And it's literally three pieces. This is it. So again, they came up with the SDS 9 pads for an improvement. The thousands, those pads were like a generation three or four. And then, of course, the ultimate one was the SDS kit, which is like this amazing brain that could sample and everything. But unfortunately, like, like Ed had mentioned, it just took too long to come out by which time all these people started coming up with samplers, just normal rack samplers. They use the technology from the SDX, although only 100 and so kits were sold. The technology was used for some of the other kits, again, onto the Trixas, which is quite a good device. I think I've got about three of them somewhere. I must have the biggest collection of Trixas, I think, in the world or something. Various other instruments. And the last I heard was people were literally the company went bust. So going from a turnover of several million a year, it dwindled to virtually nothing, rather, about 87 with the SDX. And I just heard the people said the fact it was shut and the last thing people were doing when they were leaving the factory was literally taking like the service manuals of the things because they thought who's going to service these right? We don't know what's happening with the company. So they just bailed and that was over at Auburn part of the big factor they had. So Dave, basically, his company got bought out. He developed another company and just set up in smaller premises, just 10 or 20 miles up the road and carried on for a couple more years. And then gradually the the sales and the repairs and everything for these devices just like dwindled to nothing. He ended up setting up a silicon device for nails for making for people to do manicures and things. And he made his made his money from that for many, many years. I didn't expect that. It's a change, a complete change. And again, by the time by the time he finished, I think the only person working for him was Mike Sears, who was one of the managers that the Pat and Steve will obviously remember. I think he was his last employee, along with Daphne, who was the basically secretary. And she also I think she was like the personal manager, Dave, Steve and Patty or correct me and things like that. So she was she was company secretary. They were the last employees. And then, of course, years, many years later, someone, one of his friends, like an old musician friend, rings up Dave and says, what side do you kit you bought up? And he says, well, I don't know anything about it. And it was just basically. And this has been going on for what the last decade, I think you've seen with other companies as well, that people said, hey, this name is up for sale. The logos, the trademark is a lapse. So people were started using his trademark, reactivating the Simmons brand from Guitar Center, which was a company again, that had quite a good relationship with them Simmons back in the 80s. And they just started coming up with quite cheap Chinese made electronic kits and just put in the Simmons logo and brand onto it. Wow. So he wasn't associated with that. It just sort of like nothing to do with it. He they just started using the name. Yes. So basically what happened is the rights had a lapse. And again, you'll see this with them. I've done one sort of, I guess, with with other books, things like Len electronics and so on. You'll see that the rights basically they after so many years, they allow just like the patents to in time, like Bob Moog's patent for his synthesizer is there's only a limited time for the patent. And then, hey, anyone can make a mini Moog if they want to, because the patents are lapsed. And this is kind of a thing that's been going on. So Guitar Center obviously came in and they said, hey, we can just put this cheap kit out. We'll call it a Simmons. So I mean, without I'm on, I'm not a lawyer, but he obviously went to court over it and got some pretty famous people on his side, as well as former people from his company, like Buzz Watts, for example, I think, appeared on Dave's behalf as a witness and things like that. And they just, in Britain, certainly, they managed to get the rights restored that they couldn't actually use it. And I'm not sure, I'm entirely sure we happened in America with that one. But they were quite fortunate that someone actually came along who worked for this new company that was bringing out these kits and said, well, would you like to work with us? And that's basically what resulted in some of the later kits that were quality kits. He did actually have input into it and said, if you're going to use my name, at least bring something out that's good. Sure. Because he didn't want his, you know, the history of the Simmons Tarn is really by these very cheaply made Chinese kits. Yeah, and that was my understanding as well. They after, after many years of manufacturing these, you know, they're beginner kits. They brought them in as a consultant starting on the SD 2000, I believe. And that kit is quite a departure from the earlier Guitar Center Simmons kits, just because, you know, the hexagons are back. You know, it looks it looks like Dave had a hand in designing that one. But there's such a disconnect between the Simmons now and the Simmons of old and on social media, the Facebook groups. There are, you know, new Simmons that, you know, people post pictures of their brand new Guitar Center Simmons kit, you know, like, hey, you know, I'm just discovering Simmons for the first time, you know, these kids are buying these kits and then they discover the rich name of the history that goes back forever and then, you know, has all these, you know, these wonderful dimensions to it. So if you're however you discover Simmons or how, you know, whatever generation you're in is discovering that rich history of Simmons, if it's, you know, just through social media or if it's through buying a new Simmons kit and discovering it, you know, backwards, then, you know, then that's all great. But yeah, Guitar Center has been making those kits for for a while. I want to say, you know, maybe 10, 12 years or so. It happened similar to the Orange County drums kind of story, how they took over and it's just a part of it. Is it good or bad, whatever, that's up for people to decide on their own. But it's sort of the name would go away without it. And then it brought Dave Simmons back in and it's it is what it is. But Ed, I want to jump over to you and talk about like, let's hear more about like about what you do with these. So if someone finds one at a garage sale or something or they're a huge touring drummer and they want to get it fixed up, how does that process work with you and what's the whole what's the deal with it? Well, yeah, I mean, with repairs, it's like, you know, I've got a repair schedule that books about six months out. So yeah, I mean, if you find something at a garage sale and you're like, hey, Ed, can you fix this? It's like, yeah, I mean, yes and no. Because because of how busy I am right now, I've had to kind of be a little selective about what pieces I take on. So I don't take on any of the budget stuff anymore. I'm just purely, you know, the top level stuff from here on out just because there's just not enough hours in the day for me to support you know, the SDS-9s of the world. Well, it's good to be busy. I mean, that's pretty cool that there's now like a sub category beyond the company going, you know, it's still in business. But let's just consider we're talking about the classic Simmons, basically. But the you can there's now an ecosystem where you can survive and pay your bills by fixing these things. Is your background in like working, you know, electrical engineering kind of stuff that it made sense for you to do this? Well, no, I mean, the first half of my life, I was a record producer. So it wasn't until 2018 that I started doing Simmons a guy supposed to be part time, but now it's full time. And I've been working towards it for, you know, better the better part of a decade. It's just I never had the time to really fully pursue it. So now, no, what started off as like this can be a fun little hard time job has now turned into, you know, more than a full time job. It's awesome. Oh, it's fun, though. It's pretty cool. So congratulations on doing it, though. I mean, you've built yourself a job, you know. Yeah, there's a lot of this stuff still out there, and it's all broken. All of it. I mean, like I said, I guess the guys who made it originally didn't make it well enough, right? No, I'm kidding. It was it was made fine. I mean, it just wasn't cared for after the yeah, it's a long time. Yeah, yeah. So like I said, Ed has a whole stash of, you know, my stuff that's piled up somewhere in his workshop and, you know, he does great work. And if you, you know, need anything fixed, lindrums and star instruments and, you know, anything that's no. You know, I'm not doing anything other than like the upper end sum and stuff now. I just got there's only so many hours in the day. There's plenty of it. It's like the stuff is rare, but, you know, it's not that rare. There's, you know, you can find it on, you know, the used markets or craigslist and Facebook marketplaces and stuff like that. But, you know, pretty much 99 percent of the time there's something wrong with it that needs to be taken care of. I mean, look, the older stuff, you know, the SDS 5, it's, you know, it's analog gear, you know, sometimes, you know, smash it on the top of the casing and it works fine after that, you know. But, you know, for the for the hefty stuff, I got to send it to the to the professionals. So, you know, just a personal thank you to Ed, the Simmons guy for, you know, for taking care of the stash of gear I have here. And then, you know, also more to come. It's great. You're very welcome. Yeah, that's awesome. So it's sort of like cut across. I just got an interesting thing I don't know if you just just want to cover it. Sure, just because of the the the subject of clones and copies was mentioned. I'm lucky enough to have this famous famous. Yeah, can you describe it for people who are like listening and not watching? They're listening in the car. OK, so basically it's a regular SDS 5 pad. I don't know if Pat actually made this. He might well have done possibly the shell has basically been made to emulate a Japanese flag because we were very proud as a company to be exporting electronics to the Japanese, which obviously in the 80s was was was quite a thing. But something just when we were talking about the copy kits. Oh, hang on. So there we go. There's a photo of it. We've got multiple photos coming up on the screen. Yeah, super cool. Fantastic. And so, yeah, we were talking about people's copy and the kits and so on. And one of the things always made me laugh was was back in my time at Simmons. And this would have happened at Auburn Park that I know that Dave and Daphne and the other directors had to fight a case against a company. Probably Japanese can't can't guarantee that. Who were knocking out some cheap Simmons copies? And one of the things about that made me laugh. I don't know if this is going to come up OK on the camera. But you can see in the rim here that there's a little gap. Just there, Pat will will bear me out on this. The gap isn't supposed to be there. So, Steve, I think I know what you're talking about. Right, I think I think I know what you're talking about. Right, it's not the actual rim. If you just look above where the where the lead plugs into, there's a little dent in it. There's a little dent in the shell. And what happened? The bloke who made the mould for the shells dropped it. We dropped something on it and he had to repair the mould. So the Japanese company that copied the drum even copied the repair. That's it. That's what that's what I was getting to. That's it. Yeah, there you go. And also, I believe I do have a Japanese company, you know, you're talking about. And I think, you know, what happened? Somewhere along the line, Chinese and Japanese companies started mass producing really cheap electronic drum kits. So Dave, in response to that, brought out some cheap kits so that he could compete with the cheaper end of the market. I don't think it really worked. That was your idea of those drum kits still really cheap and stapled together. You know, that that was a reason you had those. That was that was the biggest seller, though, the SDS-8, I think that was the budget kit. And I think that sold something like eight thousand to ten thousand units or something ridiculous. Yeah. But it was a cheap as you saw by the pad, it's a very cheap pad. Yeah, I had a quick question for for Pat and and Steve was just about the early days. As far as Dave Simmons day to day involvement, I mean, was he over your shoulder constantly or did he just have the vision and the design in place and set you all the task? How did that? What was your experience there? He was always kept busy doing his own thing. He never really he never he never ever looked over my shoulder. He, you know, he would work on a bench just down a road from mine. As well, you know, Steve, he was part of the team. He was there. Definitely a worker. He was a hard worker. Well, and just just for the audience, I mean, you know, Dave Simmons is still very much alive. And I'm I'm guessing enjoying retirement in the countryside. Yeah, real hard man to get hold of. I've I've been trying to get hold of him for about ten years now, I think, and never succeeded. Last I heard about Dave, he was breeding horses somewhere. I don't know how true that is. Well, you know, he made as interesting as Mark, you know, he made his mark, his drums and then still continue to make their mark. So, you know, if if he does hear this podcast, you know, thank you, Dave Simmons, for, you know, everything you've done and, you know, the inspiration your instruments bring to us. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, very cool. It's it's a giant. I love to see them. And it's it's kind of it reminds me of in a in a in a different way, like when you see someone playing like a North drum, you're like, look, there's a North drum. Seems similar with the Simmons where it's like, Hey, there's a Simmons. It's got that shape. It's iconic. You can see it from, you know, a hundred feet away and go, that's I can tell what that is. That that was a very smart move where you it played to this day. It's iconic, you know, you can still tell what I was thinking. Almost, you know, Dave's, oh, sorry, down. Sorry. Sorry. Just thinking, you know, like, OK, maybe it was hexagonal because, you know, making circles was too difficult. I was going to say the same thing that does wait. Did I assume correctly? Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. Dave's standard joke, which he when he appeared on the BBC can't think what the program is called micro something. And he had a life. Right. And he had Bill Bruford with him and they asked him the same question. And he said, because we couldn't afford a circular saw. Oh, great. Yeah. OK. Exactly. And I knew just in my heart, I knew that there was some truth to that. Just, you know, like I built drums and, you know, I'm pretty handy, too. But like making a perfect circle and doing that perfectly every time. Yeah. It's easier just to just to cut straight lines and angles. Absolutely. Yeah. But one of the things that I really wanted to touch on just as far as you know, this the iconic Simmons look, the shape and everything. When you see that on stage, you kind of know what you're in store for. I really can't think of any other electronic drum that has a sonic identity to it. I mean, you see drummers all the time with, you know, rolling pad or an Yamaha pad, you know, a little rubber pad somewhere on their acoustic kit. And I mean, it could be anything. There's no identity to it. It could be, you know, you know, chicken noises or something. You know, there's nothing, you know, really could be anything. But you see the Simmons up there and you kind of know what you're in store for. You automatically expect to hear that. That Simmons sound. So I don't know. OK, is there is there any other instrument like electronic drum instrument that has an identity like that? The Keton syndrome. Keton. Yeah, the sin, the syndrome is one as well. But I mean, all I think of with the syndrome is just that. That long diving. That's exactly it. Cars. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that one. They sold thousands. And again, there is literally one sound. I think that was the issue. But you'll see that sound. If you listen to a flock of seagulls, a single Space Age love song, he is one of these. And at the beginning of the song, good, yeah, and he uses these for several years as well as Simmons. So he once they got a bit of money, once they had a first hit single, the next thing you know, oh, he's got a brand new Simmons kit, a nice white kit, STS five kit. Yeah. Yeah. There's an interesting thing, I think, about the about the image and, you know, but you were saying earlier about, you know, when we got into the decline and we kind of move past that whole electronic era because Van Halen were were big users. And I saw them at Monsters of Rock, which is a festival at the Castle Donnington racetrack here in the UK. And when they were when they were performing, they the crew would just run in a camera across that was for the headline act later in the night. And the camera was pointing literally straight down at the stage and just just kind of craned across. And I realized that because I just assumed that Alex was playing an acoustic kit. But what he'd actually done was mounted shells around the Simmons kit. And when you saw the kit from above from this camera, he was actually playing Simmons. But obviously didn't suit the image at that point in time. So, yeah, I'd seen it with the with the Simmons base drums tucked in a base drum shell to get that look. But I haven't seen that. I have to check that out with the Simmons tucked inside regular Tom. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the catch twenty two of it all is like they're so iconic that you can't escape it in a way. Once once the next generation comes along, you're not you're sort of stuck with that in a way of, well, they're so iconic for that era, we want to move forward. And it's sort of, you know, what do you do? You you you hide them in shells, I guess, and pretend you're not playing. Well, I love it. I love it. There's so many options out there that are electronic drums that look exactly like acoustic drums. I mean, you have your Roland V. Yeah, you have your F notes. I mean, if you saw that on stage, you would have no idea that's an electronic kit. But, you know, you see the Simmons up there. That's, you know, unapologetically, like here is an electric drum and it's, you know, it sounds like this and it looks cool. It's right in your face. Yeah, it's a question for the colors. They had so many colors, but one thing I did pick up with my research and again, Pat or Steve White know this was a lot of the big names use black Simmons kits pads because they were endorsed by an acoustic company, for example. So if you look at Phil Collins, oh, he's got a black kit behind him because when they're on stage, all you can see is hitting these things. You can't see what they are because they're black shells. And again, you guys can come in on that. But all these colors that were available initially, there were so many colors. And I think then you dropped to about five. But as I'm looking at all the research of all the people who played them, I'm like, oh, so many of these guys use black kits. And then I worked it out and I was like, oh, I know why they're using the black pad because they're endorsed by Cremier or Pearl or Tamar, whoever. Well, I mean, on that was was Simmons big into endorsing people? I mean, I think Bill Bruford, like I said, Neil Peart, were they not going in the endorser game at all? No. Hmm. No, first verse, I know. That's the the quotes I've seen. I think Buzz Watts, he wrote a pretty good letter in a cover. I think it was a modern drummer or something criticizing. There was some comment that they'd made in a letter. Oh, I think they did a retro thing on Simmons in like the 80s or early 90s. And Buzz Watts himself actually wrote in and said, we never endorse anybody. He said, we gave out kits as a beta like testing. And again, Bill Bruford, you can have the kits, but you've got to use them. And we use you for testing and various things like that. So that's what he did. They were basically lonely kits. And if they had someone who just wasn't really using them, they just take the kits back apparently called to Dave and called to Buzz. I never would have guessed that Bill Bruford was a beta tester as opposed to an endorser because he's the face of the brand. I mean, really, like to a lot of people, they'd see him. Like I've seen that video of you said what it was called before Micro Live, correct? It's like that's just like that's the introduction to the brand. So you'd think they'd be like, you know, given the endorser thing. But whatever works, whatever works for the for Simmons, right? And of course, famously on that on that same programme, Dave introduced the SDS6 as being able to play the drums considerably better than Bill can. I don't think Howard Jones was too impressed with the SDS6 because he did a live show. And again, this is when Steve probably had just met him. He got an SDS6, which had an amazing a matrix system, which no other drum machine at the time had. Funny enough, Roland picked up on the matrix where you can all see all the notes started using them for some of their later drum machines. So Howard Jones had this SDS6. He appeared on some programme. It's a lot. I think it was a London TV show, only shown in the London area. And it was a live performance. And within 20 seconds, the SDS6 went off, just died. So he's Howard's like starts playing and he's got about four keyboards. He's got a couple of big prodigies. And I think it's, you know, 60 or something. And he starts playing and he's just like and Howard just goes, it's blown up. Oh, man. So his manager, his road manager, does the old are not technician. Let's just hit the master power button. Flicks the power button offered on SDS6 comes back on, powers up. Everything's restored. The programmes are saved. And again, that's this is a live program. The TV host is just sitting there going. Well, is he going to come back? What we're going to do? So they're talking for about a minute and then Howard's like, ready. Wow. Again, press the play button. I've got to say, I mean, that kind of thing was still happening to him. Howard, I'm talking about, you know, sort of 20, 30 years later, when it we know, when he's, you know, when he's using like Mac technology on stage and, you know, things at the last minute would just just all descend into complete chaos. And there was one time, I haven't spoken to ages, but there was one time I texted him or something. And then he asked me a question about the Roland. The Roland Phantom. Was it a was it a G8? Something like that is the the 88 notes, big phantom keyboard. And this was about an hour before he was going on stage in some major venue. And I said, oh, you know, what's I'll come back to you tomorrow. You said, oh, no, it's all I'm just upgrading the firmware now. An hour before. Wow. Quick question for Ed and Darren. You know, whoever wants to take it or both you guys can. Like nowadays, it was probably different back then. Well, of course it was because you don't it was, you know, it's hindsight kind of thing. Now, what is the holy grail right now of, like, you know, that you want to come across if you're in a pawn shop or something and they don't know what they have or you're at a garage sale, like I said, which I know doesn't happen very often. But like in a box that you just pull out of someone's attic, what is the holy grail of like Simmons drums that everyone is hunting? There and you can take that. Sure. Go ahead. There's rare stuff and then there's that there you go. There's rare stuff and then there's stuff that's so rare that no one even knows it existed in the first place. So just off the top of my head, like, OK, so I have a Simmons SDS-64. Everyone remember what that was? The SDS-64 was it was software that came on a cassette tape. Well, then came on a cassette tape like so. And it was drum sequencer software for the Commodore 64 computer. And it had breakout cable come out of the Commodore and the inputs into your module. And it was a sequencer for the SDS-8 and 9 and the other ones were work on at the 200, the 400 and, you know, and so on. I had never even knew it existed until I, you know, found one at a garage sale. And, you know, it's so incredibly rare that it just, you know, no one even knows it existed. But as far as the stuff that, you know, people know, I guess you mentioned the SDS-6 and that was a giant. It's an appliance, you know, weighs about 300 pounds. It's got a huge matrix, graphic matrix sequencer on it. And you can do Google image search. You can find them for sale, like what, once every 10 years or so. And it's probably busted. Ed, you have one of mine that's been I rescued that one from a garage. And it's probably been sitting there, you know, from like the group center days in California. So that's, you know, what, 30 years and everything's corroded and blown up inside and everything. So as far as like the super rare stuff, I would say like the SDS-6 and, you know, even the SDX to find, you know, to find one of those a complete kit with symbols, you know, and, you know, memory and disks and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, that stuff just doesn't come up. And Steve, you had the symbol as well. Yeah, describe, Steve, you held something up there. Describe it for the non-visual listeners. This is probably one for Ed. I might have to send this to you. So that's the symbol. I don't know how many of these are made, but it was probably one of the worst inventions that they came up with. That's for the SDS-5. And it's quite simple. I mean, you can see here the piezo transducer just like they use for all the pads. And there's two of them. There's one for the bell sound and one for the cymbal sound. Yeah, this one needs a bit of work. It's the polycarbonate. It's the same shell material, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. And unfortunately, they basically snap and just shatter. And I think Siby Siba, he was a German demonstrator. He just broke them all the time at trade shows. They would sort of quietly take them away, I think. And eventually they would decide for the SDS-7 again, they did come up with some. I think Group Central America came up with a better design and they did have a few, but they didn't actually put in production. But I've got a couple of pictures from Group Center that people have sent me who I think Lloyd Taylor, who basically replaced Steve when Steve left. He sent me pictures of their workshop. And at the top, there were a couple of these symbols which were shattered and they had like names called on. And so there's obviously a story behind those symbols. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they never really called on. I mean, there are symbols. There are symbols out there, I guess now. So I'm assuming that again, Simmons were the first to come up with these electronic ones. Yeah, yeah, that kept that visual identity, had the shape and just looked really, really cool. There's a lot of stuff that I've never seen in real life. And just in pictures. And I want to recommend Steve's book to everybody. This is the Complete Simmons drum guide. And I'm into this book every other day or so. You can find it on Amazon and check it out. But just a wealth of information there and complete with pictures. And Steve Watts and Pat, you guys are in it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There you go. You're published. Yeah, y'all are in some of the pictures building stuff. So yeah, it's just a wonderful resource. So if you want to take a real deep dive into the rich Simmons history, and definitely pick up that book, it's a page turner for sure. Nice. Ed, as we kind of get close here, same question to you. What are you looking for? I mean, you are deep into this stuff. You're only working on the best of the best. What's something that you're like, oh, I hope I find that in some box of old stuff and someone's attic? Well, yeah, the usual stuff. SDS-5's, doesn't matter how they're configured. Ideally, if they have high-hat and symbol modules, SDS-5 symbol pads, any of the sunburst or any of the fade pads, which, you know, tequila sunrise and midnight blue, and then some of the more stuff like the black to white fade. SDS-6, you always want to run into one of those just because it's the coolest way to sequence drums, period. STX, just because it's a monster of a machine, still one of the best sounding samplers ever made. And I think Silicon Mallet, that's Silicon Mallet's another fun one that they only made a couple hundred of that you're not going to see very often. But if you do find one, well, of course, it's not going to work. But if it did, when you got all the pedals and stuff hooked up, it's one of the funnest things you could ever play. Good answer. All right, guys. So there's so many people here. I thought this might be fun to see what you guys say. So as we wrap up, I want you guys to maybe describe Simmons drums, whatever as broad as that is, in one or two words and just see what each of you say. Pat, let's start with you. How would you describe Simmons drums in one or two words? You know, hexagonal, that'd be it. Yeah, I wouldn't allow us to describe them. You know, hexagonal drums. No, perfect answer. Exactly what you mean. Maybe you must decide. Yep. Okay, I'm going in my screen in order here. Ed, one or two words. How do you describe Simmons drums? Iconic. Good. All right, Darren, I got you next. What do you think? That sound that you were shaking your ass to in the 80s and 90s and even today, that's that drum sound. Very good. We'll take that drum sound to be less words. Two. Steve Watts, what do you think? One or two words or a couple words about to sum up Simmons drums? Well, I was going to say Iconic. I'll say Knight Rider. There you go. That sums it up pretty well, too. Yep. All right, Steve Graham, you're very close to this brand through writing your book. How do you sum up your entire book in about two words? It just, it's a story. It's the best of British, I think. And for me to have a British campaign that's so successful. The more I wrote it, though, the more and again, the book is not complete. I think what's the only one Bob Henry's book, the complete Simmons drum book. Well, no, it's not complete. My book is the same. My book is not complete because there are still so many stories. The book would be just thick. Sure. All the all the stories behind. And again, even now some more have come out. You know, it's and again, for me, it was the people, the people I got in contact with, like Steve, Lloyd Taylor, who replaced Steve, David Halford, who you guys will know as well. I didn't get all the people from the company, but especially with Steve's photographs, which again, are all actually in the book, I think it just shows how the company was run. All the people who made these things. So again, you pick up one of these kits, a junk store, you know, here's the history behind it. Here's the book. That lady there sold this module for you. Or, you know, it's an amazing. For me, it was never about making any money because I haven't. I've heard that with writing books. Drum history books don't make money. Yeah. You don't make money. And it was never a financial venture. It was purely for the history of it. Again, thanks to Wolfgang for the site because he's kept people interested for, what, 15 years. I just made a, wrote a book that, you know, some people, if you can't get the internet, at least you could read the book when you're in a power cut or something. But it's a pleasure to write it from my perspective. It's the most enjoyment I've had writing any book. That's awesome. Well, can I, can I change my two words? Please, you can. Sure. Okay. I want to change it to the dum-dums. Now explain that a little bit. Yeah. Now Pat is probably the most likely person to get that. There's a very long running soap opera in the UK called EastEnders. And for decades, every episode lands up on a real cliffhanger. And just after you get that cliffhanger moment, it goes into the theme music. And it's a drum fill on a Simmons kit. And it's known over here as the dum-dums. So that's, that's it. Very good answer. You went from Knight Rider to the dum-dums. Both, both iconic. Very iconic. Good answers, guys. Well, this has been a real pleasure. Why don't we just kind of real quickly, if anyone, if anyone wants to plug anything. Steve, I think we know we can get your book. I will put the links to everything. But maybe start with Darren. You want to tell people your website, where they can find you, social media, and then we'll just go in order, whoever wants to go next and tell people where they can find you. I will include it in the description for easy, you know, ease of finding it. But Darren, kick it off. Sure, sure. I'm mostly on Instagram and Facebook, just Darren Pfeiffer, D-A-R-E-N-P-E-I-F-E-R. There is another Darren Pfeiffer, and we're friends, he's a drummer from Goldfinger. So there are two drummer Darren Pfeifers. I'm the other one, I guess, or he's the other one, whatever. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram. I do post pictures of my Simmons gear and stuff that's working great and stuff that's broken. So I do tell little stories from time to time. As far as my websites, DarrenPfeiffer.com, I also have that drumlifepodcast.com. I haven't been back at that in a minute, but it's definitely something I want to get back to. But yeah, find me on social media. Any Simmons questions you have, I'm happy to answer if I can. If not, I know you find gents, and so I can send that question to the right person. So that's where to find me. Yes. Steve Watts, anywhere you want people to find you on social media or anything like that? I'm not actually on social media. That's okay. But yeah, company website, bigdstudios.co.uk. Can't imagine why you'd want to look me up, but if you did, that'd be great. Because they like you. Yeah. And they want to hear more about the dum-dum drums. Yeah. Pat, anywhere you want people to direct people or just anything like that? No, not really. To be fair, I'm not a big fan of drums. It was enjoyable working for Simmons Electronics, but to be totally honest, I forgot all about the company, and I was reminded of it when I joined Facebook, and I found a group, past and present, Simmons Drums, past and present users. I joined that. I introduced myself to the group, told them that I once worked there, and I was contented by Steve, and that's how it all come about, but I totally forgot about them. But it was enjoyable working with them. I haven't got anything bad to say about them, but yeah, I'm happy to be side. Yeah, that's good. That's a good plug for the Facebook group. Ed, how about you? I'm sure you want to plug your business for your upper tier Simmons repairs and things like that. Yeah, I know. TheSimmonsGuy.com, TheSimmonsGuy on Instagram, Facebook, all your social media, that's pretty easy to find me. Cool. Perfect. Steve Graham? Yeah, really just on the Facebook site, because there are so many members on there. Again, there's ex-company people, people from the Simmons Group Center over in America as well, and they all chip in now and again when they're reminded of certain stories from those days. That's great. I'll link to that in the description. And Steve's book, The Complete Simmons Drum Guy, or I guess The Incomplete Simmons Drum Guy, as we now know. So, real quick though, a big thank you to Darren Pfeiffer for helping to put this all together. He's kind of directed this whole thing and put everyone together. And I've always enjoyed seeing Darren at drum shows. Even before we really knew each other, I just stopped off to remember talking to you and just kind of thinking like, it was an immediate sort of like, I feel like I know this guy and now we do know each other and it's great. So, again, thank you very much to Darren. I think everyone appreciates wrangling all six people here. So, thank you, Darren. Yeah, my pleasure. So, this is purely for selfish means. I just wanted to get you all on my video so I could learn more. Yeah. And obviously there's more to learn. So, head to the Facebook group, learn more that way, get your hands on stuff, look on all the different sites and things like that. So, guys, I think that wraps it up. I think this has been incredible. I want to thank everyone for being here and spending, you know, an hour and a half with me on... We're all, I mean, we're around the world. We got New Zealand, the UK, Kansas. I'm in Cincinnati, Southern California. Very cool to be connecting with you guys. So, I appreciate everyone sharing your time and joining me tonight. Thanks, Mark. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for keeping the memory going. Thank you very much.