 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today we have our old old friend back on the podcast Mr. Nick White. Nick welcome back on man. Good to be here Yes, it has been 200 episodes since you were on when you did a very very early episode on Vintage sound effect instruments, which is what we're here to talk about today because Nick has the world's largest collection of these incredible wild wacky Very unique Instruments so Nick no one's gonna explain it better than you. Tell us what these instruments are and what they were used for They are percussion sound effect instruments They're not fully instruments That's a more modern term They are percussion sound effect instruments and a lot of percussionists call them traps, which is short for contraptions They are used for the everything I collect Specifically was used for silent film accompaniment. You explained it great, but truly like Old movie theaters. There was no sound the science and the technology had not caught up to put sound to picture So again people would be sitting there like you like you are right now if you're watching on YouTube Or if you're listening Nick is sitting in the room with his incredible Collection, there'd be a train on the screen You would be creating a train sound with something that we're gonna see today. There'd be a gunshot then there'd be a gunshot Surefire machine or whatever it's called something like that But that went away in 1927 correct. Yes, it slowly phased out. It wasn't like night and day but They they invented something called a vitaphone, but there was different technologies for adding sound We eventually became printing the sound onto the film next to The actual negative of the film which made it impossible for them to be separated because they're on the same film together Yeah, but it's we take for granted how hard that is and how jarring it is when The sound of someone talking is just a fraction of a millisecond off You know, we can actually give people vertigo to watch that You know, yeah, really it's bizarre and it's like like like I've gotten that with the podcast or something you download And it's slight. It's it's five frames off And it's like wow that is something's wrong like I have to read on undo it and redo it and And it's it's a mess, but so to jump in here Nick Why don't we start? There's a whole bunch of stuff to talk about first off just as a kind of a cliffhanger Nick was in the recent Martin Scorsese movie killers of the flower moon in a really cool scene towards the end with our friend Paul Wells was actually in the same scene as the drummer and you guys didn't really know each other until that but We'll talk about all that I want to get to that after because I don't want to like, you know There's there's tons to talk about there But for starters now Nick, do you want to maybe give us like a presentation of some of maybe your your favorite instruments and the Classics and you know because you do this a lot I can't wait to hear more about what you do with them and the the performances that you do It's it's really cool. These are living breathing instruments I learned more about them by using them and one thing I learned by using them is Just like drum set playing you try to have both your feet and both your hands moving at all the same time a lot of times I'll have to make two sounds at once and so The more than an instrument can be one-handed the better So I'm going to start with all the kind of cranked instruments If you can make it dumber and easier, that's even better too If you can just make it like all I have to do is turn the crank That's great because especially when you perform in the dark It helps to just feel the crank and turn it so one of my favorite instruments that one of my students calls the coffee grinder is um the walber ganange company's auto imitation and it is basically a little metal maraca inside This big wooden box and it has a geared crank And you have to imagine an old model t car this instrument's from 1917. So I'll give you that and I'll give you the horn as well And it even has um I used this in the last show I did an ability to make the sound sound like it's going farther away and closer by opening and closing Yeah, so that is the coffee grinder while you're on that one I'll just throw out there that it makes you think that like That would be very topical of the time because these the cars were like relatively new and they're featured in movies We're now movies are like There's like ai and movies because that's in the news all the time So like the sound effects would match what was like popular and in media at that time Yeah, we just did a harold loyne movie that was um that was just car chases the entire movie So an instrument that I made Is the glass crash machine And it's not an antique, but I copied it exactly from the catalog Luckily the catalog gave its dimensions And you built this I built this Wow, because I needed the sound and I couldn't find the genuine article Um, so I'll just give you that sound So, uh, so an audience member just asked me what's inside there and I was like, it's what you hear It's filled with glass So, um, one of the rare items, uh, it's made by the very drum company um is this Dog bark effect and they made it into a crank a normal dog bark um Would just be this tiny tin drum with a string And um, you have to pull on the string But they made it into a cranked instrument Where you just Turn the crank like this It's a little bit of a smaller dog sound, but I I used it for kind of a yappy dog in the last show So that's very convenient Yeah What else is cranked I have, um I'm going to call this the rarest thing I own Um, it's a Ludwig and Ludwig, um auto imitation Which according to the catalogs almost didn't exist They, uh, they showed a picture of it one time in 1915 Um, and I think the reason they didn't make it is because it doesn't sound very good Um, you have to crank it really fast. The other one has like a double gear system So that one crank is twice the motion this one doesn't have that But um, that is the rarest thing I have it's just wow a box With a board that flaps up and down inside It almost sounds like a machine gun instead of a car Yeah, like it almost could be repurposed as something else. The other one definitely sounded better But the rarity of that is super cool. Yeah, it's just all right. What else is cranked? um Ratchets are certainly cranked, but that's that's more of a drummer's Item this ratchet actually says I'll show you up Up close This ratchet actually says trap drummer the guy's name and I love that So the other category is kind of friction drums a friction drum is a dog bark like I showed you And it is basically a drum with a calfskin head And a string that goes through it And that string is covered in violin rosin to give it That friction and then when you pull some canvas over it Ah It makes a high pitch sound and the bigger you make um that drum the deeper the pitches so I'll show you Um my Ludwig lion's roar Which is a drum, but it's square which actually kind of helps you put on the table Sure, and when you pull the string on this it sounds like a lion That's awesome And um The lion's roar is harder to find the most common thing is you can find these Uh dog barks all the time And they usually didn't come on a frame like that other one was made by ledi this one They would just kind of hang to the roof of the theater pit Underneath the stage or they would attach it to the wall somehow And they would just pull on it when they needed it Very cool, and those are more common you said yeah, that was a very common track back then and um other things In terms of convenience I can segue into the transportation kind of thing the trains Is um the Ludwig A lot of drummers know what these are now um Ludwig and Ludwig starting in 1913 Started making um their training rotation now previously uh going back in like late 1800s early 1900s when you wanted to make a train sound It was always with sheet metal This is one with sheet metal made by walberg and ager The the simplest way would they would just get sheet metal and be it with something and that would be pretty convincing Yeah, with a visual aid, you got to remember that you're seen with it on the screen. Yeah, and so um So um In 1913 when they started making these it doesn't have any sheet metal in it And they advertise that you don't have to beat sheet metal flat anymore Like every time it gets crinkled up in your trap case. You don't have to like flatten it out And I guess that was a problem for people It makes a sound like this Sounds great that metal in particular the bell is very Trainy, you know, yeah You got to have the full effect and um I have uh like there's three or four different ways you can make a train rotation Um Walberg and ager Made these and ledie marketed them This is kind of like a cheese grater With a big big brush on it And this is obviously the more portable version. Yeah Less portable version Which they advertise for large theaters Other transportation, um obviously The oldest form of transportation is Horse hooves Can show those up close And I even have the horse itself And then you go and uh started off fast there I just did a film that had um a carriage with two horses and it was really dramatic and so I put two in each hand and I go I actually use another pair of these I have doubles of everything Bart nice Very cool Is it normally while I mean, you know, I'm gonna try and save my questions But is it normally Just one drummer per theater or does they do they sometimes double up? Uh, it depended on budget and size But um for really, um Large-scale films like, um there's one documentation of A giant battle scene Where they hired an entire group of people behind the screen with swords Making the sounds of the swords fighting and everything like that And um, but it was more common for one drummer to kind of be In charge of everything and um What I'm jealous of is drummers back then Would kind of be a permanent fixture in the theater They would kind of be in the corner of the theater pit If you're not familiar with that it's kind of just underneath the stage But enough to see the stage and um They would just kind of be living there. I have a one photo Where uh, he has a sign on a hall of stuff. Please don't touch my stuff Because it's living there overnight. So I'll get into uh boat whistles um Old catalogs showed a ridiculous amount of variety of Train and boat whistles and I'll just try to get through as many as I can This is the ocean liner Um This is a this is kind of cool. It says duplex on there This is a steamboat It's generally boats are are lower pitched but they also made a A tugboat you have to really be a nautical expert to know the difference between these sounds The tugboat is a little bit smaller than the ocean liner This one's made by ledi Some guy in the audience is like hey, that's not a tugboat If he's watching a movie But um, I have another steamboat This is a a deep cut if people aren't familiar with the ward drum company They were in gary indiana and they kind of went out of business around 1920. So they're Really cool a lot of harmonics going on there. Yeah They made different portable ones. This one's just two pitch. It was made by a grudge company Um The more obscure the company the better this one was made by the uh acme drum company which was in new jersey Do these have like one is better than the other sound wise? Is there a better wood? Is there one you like the most? I mean to me coming through the mic and the room and the headphones they all sound sort of similar Oh, yeah, um, this one sounds the best to me. I like this one a lot Um, yeah, I mean everything could be done badly Um, that's true. Uh, some of them, um, you know, they're just not they're not well made um, the most popular selling one back then And I'll show it up close on the camera a little bit Is the uh Ludwig four on one Which had these switches Where you could turn off one of the pitches Or turn two of them on and one of them off And you could also tune each pitch high or low Very well engineered. So like I mentioned, uh Like steam boats and and and boats in general are the lower pitches and the higher pitches are train whistles You could tune it up to be a train And you could tune it down to be a steamboat And then the coolest part is, um a lot of Music at that time actually had a cuckoo Like a cuckoo whistle written into it. That was more kind of a novelty and kind of a thing back then It was also an operas too if you turn off Two of the switches and just keep on the top one And there's a little tone hole there that you When you close it it lowers the pitch So these are really popular. Yeah, you could have you could have four whistles in one Less stuff on your table less stuff you have to carry. That's kind of the it seems like the name of the game Yeah, um, I can get into a whole thing about portability um A lot of times people say like, oh, can't you make that sound by bringing in like a bicycle? and uh spinning the wheel or something and and I was like Everything's got to be, you know Around my hands and nearby. I can't be running around like, you know, and I'm also traveling So, you know, I'm living the life of a trap drummer back then I'm I'm like packing all this stuff up and going somewhere So, uh, I'm not bringing a bicycle um If you want to get into cuckoo whistles as everyone wants to these days, I do yes um, a lot of them actually had pitches so you could tune them because some music actually Uh will be in like the key of D major And it'll say which pitches the cuckoo should be sounding It it still happens in opera these days and um If you want to see what Ludwig also made A um, I can show you that decal there, which is my favorite Yeah, that is awesome the gold decal Yeah, um If you didn't buy the foreign one you could just buy the cuckoo by itself tune it down and uh similar whistles was um A quail whistle, which is actually I'm doing research on this there was music around 1900 that asked you to play this If you want to get into animals um instruments like this um Which are basically a duck call it has a reed If you don't know what a reed is it is a Little thin piece of brass that vibrates Niclare and that they have like a wooden reed, but it's basically what makes the sound it's vibrating All of these have reeds and they're and they're very similar to where our duck calls are actually But this one is made by Ludwig and it's a rooster Is there crossover? But like you said duck calls. Is there crossover between guys who would just go hunting? I mean, they probably wouldn't buy a Ludwig one. They'd buy like whatever hunting brand Some companies just sold a um an actual duck call but the distinction is That drum companies were making Their own things just for that purpose. Yeah, sure Um, and I have to convince people on ebay that it's not a duck call. It's a Ludwig and Ludwig instrument Uh, a baby cry dynasty A baby cry is a um, it's kind of a comedy sound And um another comedy sound um Believe it or not, I played more than one silent film Where the guy like, you know crashes his car into a chicken coop and he leaves And there's chickens all over him and the audience just cracks up when you go Yeah, this was made by the duplex company. The oldest things I own Um are made by a company called Charleston and he was just a guy in chicago And it was really the turn of the century like 1900 to 1906 And um, he made this quail call And he also uh made this one Sheep call and it just it just says you can see up close It just says sheep So that's good, uh, or you could be blowing your nose I would say all of these are more for comedy Than being realistic I have um another one made by ward And these all break in two for portability Okay This is a cow imitation And they even sold This is made of wood. It's a little bit different, but it's a calf imitation. And how do you know that? It just says calf right there. Yeah So that's great. I imagine your wife hearing these noises and you're like, I'm practicing Oh, it's my cats that don't like them Yeah A lot of the things I play with are for comedy There are times especially with things like the glass crash Or another instrument I have which is a wind machine It's actually, uh, one of the cooler things I have it can't be in the house because it's so big It's in a storage unit But it is a hand cranked machine that makes a sound of wind And a hand cranked machine below it that makes a sound of rain Uh, those were used very effectively in silent movies where there was a giant monsoon And you're actually creating tension by providing this loud uncomfortable sound But a lot of these things are actually used for comedies um The origins of the the word slapstick comedy come from the slapstick Which this is a Ludwig one And you just whip it like that and um And would that be like, you know, the three stooges kind of slapping each other kind of thing or just yeah, um I also use my drum set for a lot of funny sounds um I use a china symbol underneath a um 10 inch symbol and it kind of makes a funny Yeah, you can just imagine a guy getting slapped in the face and falling to the ground Yeah Or a guy Throwing something and getting hit in the face You know a lot of that is just comedy sound. Um, and you can even use the ratchet as a comedy sound A lot of times if someone If you're making an uncomfortable sound of someone getting their nose twisted off or something use that and um These aren't made by drum companies, but the holder was made by a drum company Um, this is called a squawker They were invented to beat duck calls, but um drummers figured out that they're kind of useful It kind of makes a frog kind of But I've used it for times where you know There was a movie where a cat got stuck in a glue trap You know like a rat glue trap and that like sticky uncomfortable sound You know, oh, yeah, that's so it's kind of hard to explain what things are for But when they're used right They're they're perfect. Um, yeah, I also use a cowbell um For people who are more into um drums. I use a very Utilitarian drum set from that era. Um, I never saw photo of a Silent film trap drummer with the temple blocks and a million tom-toms or anything like that very simple I really think we can get it. It's a different topic, but most Uh drummers from that era were using a kit like this and not, you know, something with a painted bass drum head and flashy color That that was more marketing but um You know, I just keep a cowbell And like a lot of the photos the cowbell is just sitting on a piece of cloth Is nothing fancy So a lot of a lot of slapstick comedy is just right there with This in my mouth and get my left hand Hmm nice, that's what makes me a drummer Who plays sound effects and not some sort of Sound effect technician or fully artists as they call it sometimes if you get rid of the drum set Then that's not you're just really more doing fully in sound effects. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Um I don't know how interesting this will be to everyone, but I love this topic It's kind of a recent discovery of mine I found a newspaper article from 1895 I think um And it describes sound effect instruments like this being used in um In a band when I say band I made like a concert band, you know with trumpets trombones tuba and What I found really interesting right away is okay Here's sound effect instruments, but film isn't even invented yet. So I didn't know that I didn't know that a lot of these instruments predated film itself so what the article described is that um During a play or an opera a lot of times it was play or vaudeville They would have the band play during the intermission And just to kind of keep people entertained And the most popular of that entertaining music usually had some sort of theme like it would be like spring day Among the roses or something like that and um or the birds chirping in the trees They would have some kind of theme to the name And the drummer would be there and they would add sound effects To kind of paint that picture and the audience has found that really amusing and it was a novelty That you know, we're not listening to uh, you know strict classical music here We're listening to something with novelty instruments. It was more entertaining. So they're playing A piece that you know is called, you know, um the birds in the bush it might have And I've seen drum parts from around Before 1900 that will have you playing snare drum Stop for a measure Go back to drums Have you played the wood block for 10 measures and then play quail whistle And as weird as that sounds by modern standards, um I found evidence that all these instruments were even before fell And so when you say trap Trap drummer, um as I've studied through these articles didn't mean, um Sound effect instruments. It didn't mean a guy with sound effect instruments Trap literally meant, um A drummer playing more than one instrument And there's even um evidence that the word trap means gear I've I've heard in in um references to the word trap before and it's just talking about gear Like a bunch of stuff and so, um The word trap drummer came along as literally um A combination of a bass drummer and a snare drummer So a guy doing Many instruments at once that meant trap drummer So to clarify it doesn't mean That you had sound effects per se But a lot of drumming just back then just had train whistles involved with it. I did finish, um, I got through with december Where as a percussionist we play a lot of slave That's just part of being a drummer You might play something with a winter theme or a christmas theme I've played Multiple movies where it's very important that the phone is ringing somebody's calling and I have an electric And um, this is actually was designed to be a bicycle bell But this is also meant to be a doorbell Yeah, which is important. It's and then the lady goes. Oh my gosh. Who's at my house and she panics or something You know, yeah when the film doesn't have the sound of a telephone ringing You just see people going like this and it's a little confusing Um, yeah, and that gets into the deeper topic of why it's important to have sound effects And I've often had to convince people who are throwing a silent film festival that they need me And I have to make arguments like that, you know, like without it. It can be very confusing Yeah, but um, let me try to show a few more things Uh, I do have some instruments from killers of the flower moon that we can talk about later. I think one of the more Impressive items is this car horn And I've often had to create um, the sound of a street car I would use a harder mallet than this, but I have it on my wall here and I think I'll finish with the smallest thing I own Which was made by um, walberg and aget and it Hooks on to your bass drum and it makes the sound of a telegraph Oh, cool And you can't quite see but it has a little wall walberg and aget logo on it And you hook it up to your bass drum It's a very specific sound and it's very tiny so finding it is impossible But that would be common then with like sending if there was like a war movie or something or something Where they were typing more doing morse code or something or sending a telegraph. I mean, I guess that's It's a little obscure because I almost don't even think that you need to hear that sound when you're watching somebody Operate one of those machines, but I I suppose if you if you wanted to add it It was there It was an extremely cheap thing to buy so I imagine people got them for the 30 cents or that it was for sale This is another odd thing. Um It actually came with my train imitation and my train whistle So I know it was used by a sound effect drummer And um, I always use this as a comedy sound For I'll show you. Oh, yeah I always have a pie pie tan. Yeah I call it the frying pin and I almost always use it for like a clown in a cartoon that's dangling off a cliff It always makes people laugh Yeah, yeah I remember watching a documentary and hearing that I think is worth noting and you probably I'm sure are well aware of this But everyone always says 1927. I guess the jazz singer was like the first to talky But I I guess 1926 is it don one was the first film to have a sound track like Music with the vitaphone corporation, you know mixing the two together So it kind of predates that but that's not really talking so it loses its Yeah, it's kind of like when people say the first car was a Model T You know, they don't mean it's the first one or like some of that isn't invented the light bulb. It's kind of we've simplified history um, yes um, I'm not a total expert on this, but I I know I've seen um earlier the 1927 documentaries, but um With people who were experimenting with different ways to sync sound, but uh jazz singer was the the Al the Al Jocin film that really um Made a name for him and was the first really really big hit film with sound Yes, it's just interesting too because we're we like movie stuff It had don won 1926 had john barry moore Who is drew barry moore is like great great great or something which is pretty neat So um, anyway getting back to this two questions that come to mind that I just want to ask you Before we get to the killers of the flower moon stuff um You can pick either or either one or maybe I'll just tell you both of them And you can kind of touch on both is first would be the the engineering Behind creating these is anything known about that and then also I want to hear you talk about um, how you Notate things for when you do these silent movie pictures Well, um the amount of engineering that went into these were kind of ridiculous um I think what I find most interesting about the engineering is that They were going through a lot of trouble to make One instrument and so it tells me that there was a demand for that instrument And it tells me that it was important because you know nowadays a train whistle if you buy one in a store It's like a really cheap little kind of piece of junk. And so um, when you see The Ludwig and Ludwig ford one, which was like the most um engineered but beautifully made um train whistle um Not all of them, but um a couple from an earlier era They didn't all of these were glued together and they didn't A train whistle will start to sound bad when that glue kind of like starts to crack open over time Excuse me and um If the seams kind of crack open it just won't make no sound at all. And so they knew this and um They carved This one Out of one big block of wood like instead of making four walls They like carved out kind of a canoe shape for each of these tomes And then just kind of glued a top on it to kind of reduce the chance that um Anything would come apart and um, you can kind of see that they were just kind of carefully Sliding it over a bandsaw and you can see all these bandsaw marks and they're they're circular You can see that someone really skilled had to like back and forth very carefully Do this over a bandsaw and that they didn't have anything like a router back then. Um, and so Doing making this on a bandsaw is really it's a it's an impressive skill and um These tuners I can take one of them out sometimes I call them plungers For changing the pitch They have this beautifully turned maple Or Nate and to them and so it just kind of shows you where their priorities lie um Obviously things were just made better in general back then Yeah, that's like houses everything was was Laved and beautifully or Nate and it's like that's not the case anymore. Yeah. I mean obviously, um, if you do the conversion rate um, the Ludwig foreign one was kind of expensive close to a hundred dollars and um A lot of these like the wind machine the conversion rate of it was I think it was 12 or $24 or something like that When you convert that from 1910 till now, it's over a thousand dollars and so um, wow, you can you can tell that you know, either the either the theater or the drummer were investing in something that they took seriously and um, none of these were meant to be toys um, and There was clearly a demand um, I have to create demand in 2024, but um Um, but um, there was clearly a demand and um some audiences liked their movies with sound effects and some theaters just didn't use them at all um, but um But film was a huge boom in the 1910s um The 20s of course, but it really took off after 1912 and um And I think people were just trying to go with the craze Yeah, I will refer people as well back to nick's original episode episode 27 Which I have forgotten more from that. I'm probably asking some of the same questions, but it's 200 episodes ago. So I know more now I've done more research And I I know a lot more than I did then I've I also done I don't mean to get off topic. I've done a lot of photographic research And I have a lot of them on my walls here This is blown up, but this is um A double exposure of a man in the corner And it's kind of showing his complete Outfit back then they called it an outfit. You could call it a setup these days He wouldn't call it a drum set back then, but you can see um, he's got a very elementary uh drum set Kind of like a 26 inch bass drum With one of those really kind of primitive Bass drum pedals. He's got only a china cymbal, which was common And he's just got a snare and a bass and um, it's got a glockenspiel And he's got a huge assortment of sound effects. He's got a table and attached to the table he's made Two kind of cranked bingo barrels And if you've been watching already you've seen my glass machine It's just a kind of a bingo barrel crank And so I imagine one of them was filled with glass and the other one was filled with peas or something to make the sound of rain And um, it's got a chinese tom tom in the far corner. He has a huge wind machine And on top of it, he has a another huge lions roar So I can tell from that especially that he was a silent film drummer and not just an average drummer an average drummer did not have A wind machine or a lions roar necessarily It's got a dog bark. He's got a gun for um, that's the easiest way to make the sound of a gun firing blanks um, and Even little duck calls baby cries. He's just got everything and um This used to be a rarity that I find a photo like this But I've found more and more I found one from chicago That was a postcard and the back of the postcard was telling his sister Hey, this is a photo of me in the movie theater And uh, I can make any sound from a lions roar to a bird whistle and and you'd be so proud of me and you know And it's like the rosetta stone for me. Like, okay, this is proof, you know That in 1912 they were going this far and um It shows him Just at the base of the movie theater screen He's next to a piano and he's just got all this stuff Wow So, uh, the second question, how do you notate this kind of thing if if you're doing a silent movie? I I kind of invented it in 2018 when I did my first silent film, but um I've always wondered how they did it back in the day, but I can tell you how I did how I did it I would just take a make a chart on the computer Uh with two columns one column Describes what's in the scene man falls down and Right next to it is the instrument that you'll play for that It's very simple When the man falls down You do this And I'll write down, uh, you know Someone gets punched in the face four times and I'll write the instrument slapstick four times You know and um It's it's quite simple. Um, but a lot of times the film Especially if it's a cartoon There's so much so fast that I have I have a stand there with with a light where I can kind of reference but um a lot of times I'll have to memorize it You just practice a lot. I have to practice a lot and and memorize it um And I've always wondered how they did it back in the day. I've only found one article that referenced it and it um It's different than I perform exactly like they did but I don't prepare like they did I have a laptop and I watch the movie and pause whenever I want And take notes and I kind of study it But back then they didn't have that option of pausing the film and um I found one reference from like 1911 that said that um, you should show up early in the morning and ask the Projectionist to run it through a couple times And maybe they would take notes or maybe they would just memorize and um, that takes Real skill because a lot of this stuff has to sync really well and if you When something is coming like a train Hitting a car It happens like that and if you miss it It you're too late and so um, you have to really know when something's coming and I'm You know really impressed That they could watch movie once and then be ready to perform it that night, you know Well, but movies would have been shorter correct like a much much much shorter than a three hour plus movie such as You were in so I guess that helps a little bit. Yeah, uh films back then were two different categories a short or a feature And a short um would usually be like two reels Um, they kind of measured it by how many times you had to change the reel And a lot of the Buster Keaton slapstick comedies were two real 20 minute comedies Um, but filled with sounds Um, and then features could be any you know, there were long ones, but typically movies back then if there were a feature were about an hour an hour and a half and um You might be sitting for a long time before you need to make a sound effect because there might be Dialogue just comes, you know a lot of dialogue and then the big hurricane scene at the end of the movie so Yeah, that that I could you know prepare less for But um, yeah a 20 minute comedy or sometimes a five minute cartoon a five minute cartoon can have um 100 sound effects of it. So um, it's it's a lot and um, yeah And just kind of because like people might be thinking the same thing I thought without putting myself in that time period Lots of dialogue would all be just captioned subtitle on the bottom Clearly because to say there's a lot of dialogue in a silent movie is sort of like In 2024 now our brains are kind of like wait, but there's no Not literal dialogue, but um, yeah, you can tell the two characters are just speaking to each other And there's no birds or train crashes or anything like that yeah So nick as we get close to the end here something that you have recently done which is just incredible And I I have seen the movie but you have a Very I mean a pretty big part in the end sequence of killers of the flower moon the recent martin scorsese movie with Leonardo DiCaprio robert deniro a bunch of other actors are in it paul wells As well who you guys are up there with the big stars Tell us about that experience man. What what happened and then maybe talk about your scene Yeah, um it all started um with An email to my website Uh, which is not that often if you're out there I encourage you to email me and say hi because I get like three emails per year on my website. Um And um It was just a very polite email that said Yeah, you know, we're making a movie I think they had a name of the movie in there, but you know, we're making a movie in in oklahoma And my job is to find props for the film and um We're in need of These vintage sound effect instruments For the film and if you're interested in either selling or renting them, you know, please let us know And it was just very cut and dry very polite and The the crazy part of the story is that I didn't really think much of that email I I was Biased I said, I don't think they make very big important movies in oklahoma Actually now I now I learned now that they've made several Uh, just just lately, but I I thought like it can't be a real serious movie if it's kind of like made in oklahoma Maybe it's a small student film. I don't I don't know who these people are and um I didn't respond to the email. Oh boy. So um I think I I planned to eventually but I didn't respond right away and 48 hours later. Um, they emailed again and they said, um Hi again, nick like we really hope that you um found our last email and um Again, the movie is called killers of the flower moon And uh, please get back to us And so I said, okay, let's let's It sounds like an obscure name when you first hear it And so I said, okay, let's google search, you know the name of this movie The first thing that pops up is Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese's face Oh my god Like I was in my car. Oh my god. I immediately replied. Um And they were very nice about it. Um, everything was super humble. Um, they didn't say were big hot shots or anything like that um so my first contact was a guy who was just looking for props and um, the more I got into talk with him and and with um some of the producers I was basically saying, you know, I don't really rent out these instruments um for anyone else's use And um, if you want the instruments, your best bet is to hire me to play them on screen Which is a very brave move on my part just to be like cast me But it's true. Um, it was true. I if you're gonna have somebody Playing these instruments It would be really difficult for me to teach An actor to play these instruments um, so Why not just use me? And they told me, okay, uh, send photos of all Four sides of your body toe to head And it would be great if you could get those to us in the next half an hour We're gonna show them to marty And I was like that marty and the big marty I mean, this is all in my memory, but I'm I'm pretty positive. That's what they they said and it sounds right terrified me And uh, I dressed up in a suit I was telling my wife to how to hold the camera. Oh, don't hold it like that. I was for marty I was sweating. They told me do this in half an hour We had to move our kitchen table so that we had like a backdrop like a clean wall as a backdrop um, and we were just running around like crazy and um I sent them the four pictures of all sides of me and I didn't hear back for a grueling like three days And I was thinking oh man They maybe they don't like that. I'm like losing my hair or something It was making me feel really bad about myself like oh It's something about my appearance like I'm sure not not not good enough or something but um, that's just A me issue that you know, everyone goes through every guy everyone has and as a musician We're not used to our appearance being judged For something, you know, we're just used to be on how do you play? um, so they got back and There's a voicemail on my phone That I saved that says You know all the details and then he says well it sounds like you're gonna be uh cast member in the film wow, and You know, I was just I jumping up and down. I was working at a swim school Just to get by at that time And I had to run back to my classes and just take a break to hear this voicemail and it was the most obscure thing I ran out of You know I during my 10 minute break. I would talk to a producer from london And then go back to teaching a four-year-old had a swim. It was very Obscure and the true hollywood's not kind of story right there. Wow the hard thing about doing something like this Um Pre-production like two years before anyone will see it. Is it people think you're crazy? I had to tell my boss, you know, there's someone from a movie calling me and they'd be like, oh, all right. All right Whatever man, and for the longest time I was telling people that you know I'm gonna be in a martin scorsese movie and they were like, all right No, nick got hired to like, you know, ride a bicycle in the background somewhere, you know I've heard a story like that before It wasn't until I think 2022 in february that we filmed it And it got delayed a lot. This was during covid and um They had originally flown me out. Uh, this is the cool thing about big budget things they um They mentioned that you know, and if you're gonna be in the 30s, you can't have a buzz cut I had a buzz cut at the time And they said uh, we're gonna have to try on different wigs for you Um, and they they say things that only movie people say they're like, um, you know, how's tomorrow? Can we fly you out in the morning tomorrow? And I didn't fly out in the morning tomorrow, but uh, they flew me out right away and um They had a rental car ready for me at the airport to drive to barthosville, oklahoma Or they just had this huge caravan of trailers and they were filming the movie in What looked like 1900s early 1900s aircraft hangers made out of brick Sound stages basically. Yeah, they they turned aircraft hangers into sound stages and um I sat with a really nice lady who was uh, her name was k who was trying on different wigs with me And they were gonna fly me out on the same day Fly me in fly me out and so uh She was frantically trying to find You know, uh hair pieces to put on me That fit and that that was the whole issue They uh, they have to measure your head by putting saran wrap on your head and taping the saran wrap And it was only there for a few hours. So they um, had the entire props team, which is like seven people around me Interviewing me with questions about different sound effects. What is this? Oh, it's a train whistle. Okay. All right. They had a binder with photos from my website being like, all right Oh, what sound does this make? Would that be used in radio days? Oh, okay. All right, you know, and Because it was only two hours and it was lunchtime. They also had me eating They brought me like this beautiful salmon to eat and so i'm having wrapped in saran wrap My head my head's wrapped in saran wrap I'm eating salmon and there's like a team of people who i'm just meeting for the first time like Barraging me with detailed questions and then jump jump in a rental car and fly back It was like it was crazy. Um, so It was delayed delayed delayed again So they said, okay, just grow your hair out and we'll comb it like the 30s. So the wig was never needed um But uh, it turned out to be a great story. Um, yes So, um without being too long We filmed the radio scene in martin scorsese's high school, which was a catholic high school in the bronx cardinal haze high school and um They chose it because it had a convincingly 1930s 1940s stage and um They built the sound booth for the radio engineers. They brought in original ribbon microphones from the rca era and um, they dressed us all of course and um We had spent months on zoom meetings with the production team To design a 1930s radius to do that would look realistic Not just a bunch of props scattered around they wanted it to look really authentic And you're like a consultant. You're not just a guy standing there pretending to like play a trumpet or whatever or I mean, it sounds like they're they actually they are real musicians in this case, but you are beyond just a Actor performer. You are a consultant. Yes. I mean, I'm not I'm not credited as one but I was consulting we were doing zoom meetings and um So we we designed that scene We rehearsed at steiner studio steiner studios in brooklyn And um, that was the first time that scorsese came in and and he you know came up and um, he came up to me and we we met we shook hands and um He's just started pointing to instruments on the table demonstrate that what sound does that make? Incredibly detailed for A director making a three and a half hour movie to care about like what sound does this make what what sound does that make? All right, all right, interesting. Uh, is that period correct? You know really great questions And um, there was another sound effect man as well who was actually a modern day Foley artist, so he had the skills But I was teaching him a little bit And uh, one of the funnier things is like my coffee grinder um The the car imitation he was like, oh play that for me And he goes, uh Sounds a little bit like a like a projector to me He was just kind of like, you know, yeah making making these uh You know observations about these sounds and whether they sounded real or not, which is really cool um, we rehearsed it and we um, we filmed it with these um Some props were made Um, they had a giant wooden gravel pit Which was not only made but made to look old and aged and stained and scuffed up to look like it was used filled with gravel fully for fully like walking more of a foley type of thing And they use that in radio a lot and we had sent photos from books of of exactly what you should make it look like And um, it was cut from the movie, but there was a scene of me uh With huge medical chains on my hands stomping in the gravel trying to sound like a prisoner in a prison yard and um Other another cool prop that I actually made because if you haven't noticed um, I have silent film stuff and this is radio and so They used a couple of these things in the radio era, but I also had to make things Radio era they they were making more things at home back then Um, they they had space and resources so I made um a doorbell with a doorbell battery and um, I found online they actually make um replica batteries from the 30s And it it's filled with d batteries, but on the outside it looks like a 1930s battery I got the old cloth wire I got the doorbell button and the buzzer And the cool thing about that cool thing there is that Scorsese Signed it for me. Oh, he signed it. Oh my gosh. That's awesome. Yeah Man, that's cool. So that's like my prized possession now Uh And um, just more found props I think pretty, um, prominently towards the end right before Scorsese's cameo actually Um, I'm typing on this typewriter, which is I'm also a typewriter collector. So Convenient there. Um, yeah So I used my typewriter that and um We filmed it in two days And um, it was very white. I mean It's another story there. I I I didn't know he was jack white at first. I was talking to him like, oh, you're a musician. Oh, cool And it's jack white. Yeah, well, I mean it's kind of interesting. I recommend people see this movie It is like three and a half hours long Uh without going I'm sure it'll be on hbo at some point soon Or or whatever apple I my wife rented it and paid for it, which it's you know, january January 12th 2024 It'll be streaming on apple tv Okay, good. All right. Now. I'm angry at my wife for paying 20 dollars to rent a movie. Uh, that'll be out in eight days, but um, no, I'm kidding. Sorry, but um the portion you're in For folks who haven't seen it is very different from the entire movie. It has nothing to do really I mean it explains it and it talks about it. It's related to it, but but like the setting and everything is Totally different from the rest of the movie. So I was kind of just like I would kept being because I knew paul was in it Wells before you were in it. I was like, where is paul? And then I and I remember also then like that day or the day before seeing that you were in it And I was like, oh my god, I know two guys in it Where are they? It's like three hours. I was like, where are they? And then it's like boom the whole ending It's just this cool Like sequence it's oklahoma for like three hours and 15 minutes and you're wondering when is a new york city radio studio going to factor into oklahoma here and um, it's a very Very brave and and a sudden move But it's kind of what makes exciting filmmaking is to do kind of swing swing for the fences type of move I remember the first time I saw it in theaters I knew that some scene with me was coming, but I didn't know exactly how But as soon as I knew the end of the movie was coming my heart just started pounding out of my chest Which had never happened when I was in an amc before My heart was just pounding out of my chest because I knew like I'm finally gonna get to see this after by the way Two and a half years That's true. Wow Yeah, man, you know what at least when you bake a cake you get to see it an hour later You know, this is two and a half years later. It was one of the longest post productions for any Scorsese film ever um, I'm not a film expert, but I've read a lot about it. Um, the ending is meant to um kind of break um Break from reality a little bit be a little bit surrealistic And um, it has some anachronisms in it Like for example, it describes somebody's death in the 60s, but we're in the 30s telling You that somebody died in the 60s. So it's intentionally uh surrealistic in that way and the purpose of being surreal in that moment and for Scorsese himself to come up and tell you is that he's supposed to tell you that you know, I'm um I'm responsible here for just telling a tragic story with You know actors and makeup, you know, this is all fake These are just actors and makeup and we're uh sensationalizing tragedy for entertainment And they did it back then with old radio shows And we're doing it right now And so it's just very real moment of like, you know, um You know, this is all this is all fake. This is all fake. Yeah, but the tragedy is real and um Um, yeah, I think it was a very beautiful way to end the movie and um I would agree and I don't think in any way shape or form what we are talking about now spoils or ruins the movie Like we said The movie is completely different. Yeah This end sequence that just kind of comes out of nowhere in a good way but Watch it enjoy the movie then know that Nick is over on one side of the stage and then paul from the neil pierce series Um, the tony williams series on here is in the back on the drum set. Um And it just feels different to be like, oh, I know those guys which has never happened with a martin scorsese to me Um, I should mention though If any, you know, there might be people listening who've who've been a drummer in a movie or in a scene Um, they always make you, you know, fake fake it And in that scene when you're watching you can kind of be um informed that um, the orchestra had prerecorded that And so they they are fake playing a little bit paul plays the timpani like really convincingly um But the cool thing with the sound effects is they had these um antique ribbon microphones that they had rented and that were functioning and and restored And they told me that, you know, this microphone on your table is a functioning microphone. So when you When you play your drum, you know Lean into the microphone because it's a real microphone and um, they had like really amazing Sound experts a lot of which had just finished making spielberg's west side story Who were um leveling The vintage microphones because they genuinely wanted a vintage sound, which is so cool And then to pick up other instruments, they were taping Microphones behind my table taping microphones behind my instruments just like hiding microphones everywhere and so with the exception of uh, this chinese tom tom, which I had to Fake play and I'm I'm I'm really proud of how close I can get to that head without Without hitting. Yeah, I was proud of that. I was like, it's not gonna look like like this like some Or you're like completely missing. Yeah um with the exception of this tom tom they recorded Everything as it was Realistically on that stage. It was just like the ultimate authentic cool touch and hopefully For people hearing this They can appreciate it more knowing these fun details and uh, there's even a couple uh magazine reviews that mentioned sound effects and uh, I think variety magazine called me uh Did it describe me they called my sound effects a goofy? I think another review Called it cheesy sound effects But I think I think that was supposed to be the intended feeling of of kind of uh radio shows back then like just kind of enter turning Turning a tragedy into a cheap entertainment Yeah, well now you're a celebrity in the public eye. You got to let it roll off your back the tabloids and the uh the celebrity magazines and stuff but um, that's awesome man and in this may This may sound cheesy to say but I feel proud of you from someone who's been on the show Like I said 200 episodes ago to be like you're still doing it. You're still passionate about it. You know more than ever You're now literally doing this in movies where you're the go-to guy So I think that's pretty amazing and something to be very proud of So and you it's good for our community of drummers and musicians that you know, you're kind of representing us Um And people taking us taking taking drummers and trap me trap instruments and performers Serious, so uh, great job. Oh, thank you. You know, that's super cool Um, awesome nick. Well, I think that's it man. I think this has been an awesome episode I think it's really unique back when we recorded in 2019. I wasn't on youtube So I'm glad to have this element of it. Um where we can see these things now so this is a really cool episode so um Why don't you tell people where they can find you at your website? Um social media, whatever you want to plug here at the end. Yeah, um, I have a website just for traps and sound effects called vintage percussion sound effects dot com um, I don't have uh social media for sound effects, but I have a um A page just for my playing uh xylophone and percussion called tiny dot xylophone Um, awesome. All right, nick. Well, I appreciate you being here. Thanks to everyone for listening and watching and uh, hope everyone's having a great 2024 so far and um That does it for this one. So thank you very much to nick white for being here and uh, nick, I appreciate it man Thanks for sharing all this info and the great stories and all that stuff and uh, we'll have you back again Some time some other time. I'm sure great. Wonderful. Thank you Bart