 Hey guys, welcome to the drum history podcast before we start today I wanted to take a quick second and just thank everyone for listening and Following me on Instagram and social media and just creating such a cool community that I'm honestly Extremely proud just to be able to talk to you guys and get feedback of what you're liking what you don't like and Tweaking it and kind of making it something that everyone really enjoys To hear every other week on Tuesdays when it comes out And while I'm here and have your attention I wanted to give a big shout out to Samantha Price who is helping me out as my producer and doing the booking for the show So for the last month or so she has been taking care of lining up all the guests and doing everything like that She is the manager here at Gwynn Sound and handles everything on my day-to-day Schedule for things to do for work. So it just makes sense. So everyone give Sam a big welcome and Yeah, without further ado, let's hop right into the history of Yamaha with Jim Haler Jim. How are you? I'm doing great Bart How are you today? I'm good. I'm good. Thank you for joining us I should say Jim's been with Yamaha for 16 years and is in the the drum department on the sales side of things We met at the Chicago drum show. We were booth mates We were side-by-side there and I got to mess around with the the EAD 10. Yeah, that's great It's a great new product for us and we're having a blast with it. It is it's a cool It's amazing how you can just have that one little module there and get so many sounds out of it But yeah, that's modern. So why don't we jump into the the history here of Yamaha and like I said Yamaha makes so many products I was telling you before I've owned two Yamaha motorcycles. You said you've owned three I mean the breadth of the products is is very impressive. So this will be really cool I'll let you take it away and why don't you start at the very beginning of Yamaha? Okay, that sounds great. Well way back in 1887 the founder of the company Torakusu Yamaha was repairing pump organs for the missionaries that were bringing Christianity to the Far East and From repairing the pump organs that they were bringing over He came up with a design for a better pump organ So that was the very first thing the Yamaha ever built So we began as a musical instrument company and the motorcycles and everything else in the world of Yamaha came after that Wow, so you notice all Yamaha products have a tuning fork on them Yes tuning fork being a you know tool used for for tuning, you know acoustic instruments Well, the first version of the Yamaha corporate logo was a Phoenix bird with a tuning fork in its beak And you know you can go online. There's been several permutations of the logo You know throughout the years and we actually have a branding committee with very strict rules on the use of the Yamaha Logo has to be a specific way where the tuning forks and the Yamaha have to be in a certain position and a certain scale And they they police all that so they They're pretty strict guardians of the logo Sure, and you'll notice the different legs of the company like Yamaha music and Yamaha motors The logo is just a tad different when you look at the Yamaha motors logo the M on the Yamaha It goes all the way down to the bottom of the M whereas on musical division It's held up a little bit So just there's a little subtle differences in the logos that we use throughout the company cool So yeah, so you know, of course, you know throughout the years we've expanded to quite famous for pianos and guitars It's my understanding John Lennon owned the Yamaha acoustic guitar, you know back in the day Yamaha has been an important part of musical history on all sides of you know when it comes to symphony work and popular music and what have you The Yamaha has been heavily involved and even today when you look at the educational market Yamaha Probably is more involved in music education than really any other company in the industry when you look at the support at The elementary school middle school high schools if you ever go to a bands of America world finals in Indianapolis You'll see lots and lots of Yamaha where Yamaha is the main sponsor of the event You look at drum cores colleges universities, but you see Yamaha everywhere. Yeah, yeah, absolutely it's cool because you're building the brand awareness from a really young age so people grow up seeing Yamaha and Knowing the quality because it doesn't break if after you play it for a year and it's not for lack of a better term A piece of crap that's gonna be it's not built to break. It's built to last. Yeah, and it's funny I actually I joke with people because you know one of the things that I do at Yamaha Here quite often is when dealers call in and and somebody comes in as if they've got a 20 or 30 year old Bass drum pedal or some piece of hardware and rather than trying to get a new one They want to get parts to fix that all the way. Yeah, so When you think about it, I mean, you know, we've how often do keyboard players? How do you look at a parts for a 30 year old synthesizer? Yeah, it's that stuff changes when technology changes You're always upgrading, but you get a drum set. I mean it can last forever. It should last forever Yeah, which a lot of them a lot of them are still out there, but All right, so pulling it back here. So 1887 it was founded I'm gonna probably say it wrong, but Torakusa Yamaha Making the pump organ then right? Yeah, what happened after that? We had Yamaha motors, you know I believe was in the late 50s I'm not gonna claim that as a as a stone-hard fact but late 50s early 60s Yamaha motors began and Then we're just gonna circle around back because we're really here kind of talking about drums Absolutely, we'll kind of go through the history of Yamaha drums Sure, we started making drums in 1967 at our world headquarters in Hamamatsu and that the D20 Was like the first kit we launched back in the day and you'll see some of those I got seen them at the Chicago Vintage show We've got a We got a couple those kids floating around the company that we will show sometimes at trade shows But the interesting thing is you going back when the people that are really Yamaha fanatics are they're familiar with the way we make our shells and The staggered diagonal seams slash air seal system that we're famous for Yamaha actually created that Manufacturing technique back in 1967 when we started first making drums and then you know You move forward a little bit, you know in 1972 and you know Al Foster was the first artist to sign on as the Yamaha drum artist the hideaway boom stand where they're boom When the boom arm drops down into the vertical tube. Yeah of a symbol stand. Yeah Everybody makes one now, but we actually invented diet and launched it back in 1975 really interesting Now pause for a sec. Okay back up as as a guy who I've owned some Yamaha drums But I don't know that history that you just said what is the technique and the the technology that was on the first kit Can you explain that a little more sure? It's a it's a Japanese woodworking technique called kachikomi and If you look at a lot of drum shells you look for the wood Joins and joins together. You'll see a straight vertical butt joint or There's another company out there that uses what's called a scarf joint where the end of the where the plies are all glued together And it's sort of tapered off at the end and then wraps over itself. Okay Kind of like you look at like a lot of the old like the well like you would do a solid shell drum Where where they taper it off and then they roll it into each other Well, the kachikomi technique is where the ends of the master plies are cut at a diagonal and Then when that when that wood is put into the mold You know you run it through the glue machine and then it goes into the mold and you overlap that diagonal on Onto itself and then you take a block and put it against the edge of the wood and you strike it down with a mallet Well when that wood slides down and the joint Locks in and touches all the way down the whole length of the joint the wood actually makes a little bit of different sound So the people that are making our our shells Know that sound of when they've driven that that wood down far enough and the joint locks and then What we call the staggered diagonal seam is that seam of the wood is placed every hundred and twenty degrees so that The concept behind that is that when you take a flat piece of wood and you bend it into a circle or into a tube It wants to be flat so that creates tension in the shell By staggering that seam every one hundred and twenty degrees the tension in the shell is Evenly spaced all the way around the shell So there's nothing that conflicts with with the shell nothing to pull itself out of round That kind of that kind of thing so once all the plies are put into the mold Then we drop an airbag in the middle of it and that's the air seal system because a lot of manufacturers use a mechanical Clamping system so they'll drop a mechanical device in the middle of the mold Then these shoes will push out and clamp the wood against the outer walls of the mold And then they heat the shell at a high temperature So that the glue will boil and settle in and glue will ideally be everywhere on that shell Well by taking and using an airbag instead we put the exact same pressure 360 degrees around so the glue is evenly spread. It's the same thickness There's no voids in between the shell in the plies where the wood isn't isn't glued and it just creates a stronger drum shell so There's stories when I've taken you know customer service emails and and calls and stuff from people like after Hurricanes I've had guys to email in and say that their drums were completely submerged under water And then once the water succeeded they just dried their drums up clean them up and their drums were in perfect shape Wow Okay, that's there were some years ago Yeah, you know and there were some years ago when the Cumberland River Flooded in Nashville and flooded out a bunch of storage units were a bunch of the local all session guys had their drums stored and there were guys that lost a lot of drums that came apart and Our Yamaha guys they you know they cut the bottom head out drain the water out clean their drums up And we didn't have anybody to lose any drums Wow So that's awesome that that woodworking technique is pretty interesting and if you go Like you know, we've taken dealers over and I've been over a couple of times to go to Japan to go to Kyoto Which was originally the the capital city There are ancient Buddhist temples there in Kyoto made of wooden bamboo that are over a thousand years old where they Don't even use any nails to join the wood just the way the wood is cut and joined It it stays together so that Japanese culture obviously just they're very inventive And I feel like all of the technology from the thousands of years all of that technology was put into everything They do including building drums in an inventive new way And I think that still stands true today where things are done efficiently and to withstand the test of time and Floods and all that stuff. So that's awesome. Exactly. Well, you know Japanese culture is It's it's interesting. It was actually when when I first joined the company I was here maybe three months when You might be you might remember Takashi Hagiwara Everyone knows him as Hagi. He's basically the founder of Yamaha drums He's when Yamaha started to get big into the drum business and expand beyond just the Japanese domestic market Hagi was the one that was responsible for us You know signing the agreement with Sakai rhythm in 1974 to start making our drums and So Hagi was pretty much responsible for a lot of the the drum Innovations that we've had throughout the throughout the decades. Okay, Hagi took me over there about three months after I started working for Yamaha to immerse me in Japanese culture, you know I knew the drum stuff very well, but I wasn't as familiar with Japanese culture So I spent an entire week in Japan Just soaking up Japanese culture and learning traditions and things like that and it was it was an amazing life experience I fell in love with Japan the first time I went over there and it's just people There's a level of respect for each other and for the earth. That's why you see, you know, Yamaha is A very very earth-friendly company. We do a we do a lot of things that are more expensive We could find cheaper ways of doing things But that's making compromise that the company is not willing to make so a lot of integrity Definitely definitely that's you know, I say I you know everybody that knows me that you know that it's hung around with me Any any period of time knows how proud I am of the fact that I work for Yamaha and Proud of the company in and of itself just because of the company's philosophies. Yeah Well, that's a that's the sign of a good company is when people are actually passionate about it And I could tell when I met you that it's like this is it's it's a good company. So Backing up here. I want to go forward with the drums late 60s early 70s But I want to have in in my mind something that I need clarification on is the rise of the stencil drums and the MIJ which stands for Made in Japan for people listening What's going on with that because the way I I understand that from I think episode 3 or 4 one of the early Episodes was talking about how they're just these companies that would like Thomas started out that way with star and all that stuff about just Mass-producing these drums to copy slingerland and Ludwig. So how was this happening with Yamaha? How do you how does Yamaha fit into that into that part of history? Well You know if you like city when you look at like our 60s lit the kids that we made 67 up into you know the late 60s and very early 70s You know they have that kind of sort of American drum kind of look to and use that We had a lot of what if you look at like there's the the brown willow and the Blue willow and some of those other finishes were very similar to some of the oyster finishes You'll see on like American drums of that that era. Yeah So there was a certain amount of I wouldn't say imitation so much as I I think they sort of You know the feeling I get was that they were sort of kind of I know it was kind of a style Yeah, they were just kind of fitting into absolutely. That's totally But but but you're looking yeah, and you know the early drums You know have a rail mount on them and some of the other things that that was kind of the way drums were mounted You know back in the day But then it wasn't really long after really that though And it was ten years after we started making drums that we came up with the Tom ball mount system Which was you know, of course Rodgers with the swive a mattock Was pretty much the the beginning, you know, the ones that started with the ball and socket Yeah, and then Yamaha took that and improved on the system by making That phenolic ball that were known for and you go all the way back into the early 70s You know once we came out with that Tom ball mount with the hex rod in it We've used the same Tom mounting system on our drums ever since cool and on every drum set that we make So you can look at pretty much everything except for there was a There was a series back in like the 80s there The power road series that had kind of the the pipe into the shell kind of Tom arm Yeah That's this popular on budget kits, but other than that every drum set we make and have made since like the early 70s Uses that hex rod phenolic ball mounting system gotcha to clarify here for myself So then like Yamaha wasn't in that world of the Stencil drums where they were making a bunch of drums and then putting other logos on them and then Producing them or I should say no, no, okay there There are rumors out there and I've heard people say like for instance that Yamaha made drums for Rogers at a certain point in time and Everyone that I've ever spoken to with the company just says that that's That's kind of an old wives tale. That's not something that we ever did So we have never really been what we call an OEM company for other drum companies Okay, technically, you know, of course when we signed on when Sakai rhythm started making our drums in 1974 They're an OEM company because they weren't owned by Yamaha Sakai rhythm was a independently owned company that was making like marching drums like low-end marching drums for the Japanese domestic market But when we went to go expand and and get you know into the drum business full on Rather than building a new factory what we did is we signed a contract with Sakai to make drums exclusively for Yamaha And then we outfitted Sakai with all the molds and all the machinery to do the staggered seam The air seal system the gluing machines everything that was in the Sakai Factory with Yamaha machinery and then we taught Sakai how to build our drums the Yamaha way and then That's the way the relationship went until It was I'm thinking back now when we split off from Sakai was well a what seven eight years ago when Sakai went off on their own and when we moved our Manufacturing of our most of our professional level series drums to our factory in China Gotcha that clears up a big history question on my end of what companies fall into that category and it sounds like Yamaha Doesn't they were just a drum manufacturer Obviously building super high quality equipment out of Japan. So true perfect I believe we're into like the 70s right where we last left off, right? Yeah, so carry on So you get into the 70s 1976 we came out with what we called system drums and system hardware and Which is kind of an interesting thing That sets us apart as well in the industry is if you look at Yamaha hardware You take a 700 series cymbal stand 800 series 900 series you look at our snare drum stands our Tom arms Tom holders all of that stuff. We use the same 7-8th diameter tubing on Everything so that you can mix and match parts You can take a cymbal stand take the middle section out drop a Tom holder in there Turn it into a double Tom stand drop those top two sections into an empty hole in your Tom holder You can mix and match that stuff and that's from everything from stage custom all the way up to our phx series This is all that same stuff. That's so So that system Hardware that we launched back in 76 is something that we still do today And then 77 we came out with the whitey 9,000 and the whitey 9,000 is the kit that eventually Became recording custom which are famous just in in the history of drums That's kind of a very sought-after piece of gear Yamaha has always been you know Maple has always kind of been like the choice tone wood for drums for American companies and a lot of companies for as long as we've been making drums Yamaha started making drums with birch before we started making drums with maple We use what was called a Hokkaido birch from northern Japan Hedges is very interesting tonal characteristics to it and So when recording custom came about Getting into the whole studio drummer thing A fairly famous studio drummer by the name of Steve Gad came on board. Yeah, heard him and Yeah, I think you know he played a lot. I think a couple of songs back in the day And so Steve Gad came on board and he was actually the artist that helped develop the original recording custom Hmm and Steve being the studio guide those drums were Targeted towards being very microphone friendly. Yeah, easy to get into the studio set them up get drum tones really quickly You know back in those days. There was actually guys that made a living Just doing studio work and they would just go from session to session to session to session He had to be able to you know get drum sounds quickly Nail the song move on to the next one That was just the way those guys made their living and the faster you can get drum sounds the faster You can get the cut and move on to the next gig and get your next paycheck. So Recording custom took off because with the birch shell and the tonal characteristics with a strong mid-range Strong low-end not a lot of high-end frequencies that were really complex that you had to deal with and then that high tension lug that helped control the shell you could take those drums in the studio and get sounds really quickly and So everybody started playing recording custom. That's how we kind of became Still known as the most recorded drum set in history because when you look back through the 70s and the 80s and early 90s When all that studio work was going on The bulk of the guys that were doing a lot of that work for Yamaha guys Interesting, I didn't know that I mean I've always I've always seen the guys playing a bunch of Yamaha's But I didn't realize that it was actually kind of like you think of like a Acrylic or a supraphonic is being these are the snares that everyone used it's good to know that Yeah, the Yamaha recording customs were were that for the drum set Well, you look I mean you look at the guys that were doing so much of the studio work at the time You know, I mean between Steve Gad and JR Robinson. Yeah, I mean that was absolutely a lot of it right there You know, and then you go in down in Nashville and we got a guy like Paul Lyme that plays on thousands of like country records and Played with Elvis. So those you know those guys that were using recording custom We're we're doing the records and the TV and radio jingles and recording custom would just sort of own that You know now at that point is Yamaha in the 70s a household name for Drummers does everyone know about it around the world as being a drum company in the 70s. I wouldn't think so, okay My my personal experience. I saw my first Yamaha drum kit in 1979 I was stationed with United States Navy Band in San Francisco had been riding Yamaha motorcycles for a while Yeah, I was I of that time I was on my second Yamaha motorcycle and went into a music store in Oakland and there was this kit Said Yamaha on it. I'm Yamaha, this is kind of interesting and I knew that they did musical instruments But I wasn't that familiar, you know with Yamaha drums at the time Hmm, but then that's right about the time Steve Gad started blowing up So all that just kind of sort of happened at the same time But I remember seeing that Yamaha kit and thinking of myself, you know the inside of these drums is finished nicer than the Outside of anything. I think I've seen to this point and I just thought to myself that wow, that's This is pretty amazing. I want you know You have to keep an eye on these guys and you you could see I mean it was it was sanded and finished and It was just like a beautiful piece of furniture and the lacquer finish on the outside were By then Yamaha had already started doing piano finishes on the outside of the drums and they did just look amazing Yeah, I was blown away. It's really iconic and then it I'm a motorcycle guy So thinking about the Yamaha like the RD 350, which is a very iconic Motorcycle which is right in that mid 70s time period. They really are Across the board iconic and really helped shape the American culture. Yeah, I mean you go back I believe it was 1978 when Kenny Roberts was the was the first American to win the 500 cc world championship in In motorcycle road racing before they started calling before it became Moto GP, you know when they rode those those 500 cc You know two-stroke bikes Kenny Roberts is you know, just a country boy from I think he was from Modesto, California was a dirt track racer and Started racing the 500 Grand Prix bikes and first year he went to Europe won the world championship That's awesome. You know and it's funny because my my association with Yamaha motorcycles and Yamaha drums Kind of all started about the same time I got my first motorcycle in 1978 and then a year later Stepped up to a bigger bike and at that point in time. I was really heavy in the road racing I'd you know living up in Northern California I had two really good motorcycle tracks that I could go to and see guys race Between Sears Point and Laguna Seca So I was kind of wrapped up in Yamaha motorcycles and Yamaha racing and Yamaha drums sort of all at the same time Wow Man, that's brand loyalty right there. So as much as I love motorcycles bringing it back to drums here So mid 70s you had the yd 9000 which became the recording customs, right? And then right then people like Steve Gad brought them into the forefront of music and recording by using them on everything and trusting them And I think that's something that you can you can attribute to this is you can trust the sound and you can trust the quality of that Japanese Ingenuity and technology and all that stuff. So there's touring, you know musicians where you're not schlepping your gear along You could play a recording custom kit in LA and then do a fly-in gig to Yugoslavia And get a backline recording custom and it's going to be just like the one you played in LA because that That going back to that staggered diagonal seam aerosol system creates such a consistent shell That what brought a lot of guys on board with Yamaha is the drums sound great The hardware is functional extremely durable and the drums are so consistent that as I travel around the world And go places where I can't bring my drums I know that if I get a Yamaha kit from a backline company, it's going to work for me. Yeah, so that's great There's where a lot of that loyalty comes from yeah, but then you go back into Like 1986 we made our first electronic drum kit So a lot of people don't realize that Yamaha got into the electronic very early on because you know We were making world-class synthesizers. You look at the Yamaha DX7 I mean it's as iconic as you get in the synthesizer world absolutely We have one we have one here at the studio right where I work and it's it's awesome with the little cartridges that you put in everything and Really iconic sense. It's amazing, you know, and you look at the early Yamaha electronic It's it was a lot of kind of the same way where you had your little little cards and stuff that you dropped in Before electronics got to the point. They are now You get back 1988 with the super rack system You know, that's another thing that we were you know in on very early on you know, you look at Wayne's world You know, you see the big recording custom kit on the super rack system. I mean, that's that's iconic Yeah, now pause there So as a big Wayne's World fan and growing up like making my VCR explode by Rewinding that scene any cool stories or anything anything you know about that situation with being in the movie I don't you know, that was way before my time with Yamaha, so I wasn't really involved But it's my understanding that that kid belonged to I not could be wrong But it was my understanding that that kid belonged to Steve Anzavino who was doing artist relations at the time I think that was his kid. Yeah, and it was provided for the movie. Yeah, but Yeah, because there's Yamaha drums all over that movie like I know the other band Like Cassandra's band or whatever Crucial taunt. He's playing Yamaha drums So cool. Yeah little inside scoop there. Yeah, I think it was I think It's funny that who knows that might even been some of the some of the earlier, you know Product placement when you when you just start looking about you know You look watch movies and stuff like that and you see all kinds of a little Product placement things and yeah when the guys eating a certain candy bar or drinking a certain soda They make sure they turn the little label to the camera that kind of stuff and you can yeah, you can kind of spot it Exactly. Well, it worked again because like like you said growing up playing In the school band you see Yamaha. You love it growing up. I see Yamaha Dana Carvey I see Garth playing it and I go oh my god, and honestly, I think that's why I like Yamaha And that's why I like Zildjian because it's like there they are there's this iconic movie and they're being featured so So it worked exactly Late 80s show the super rack, but then we did did the the rock tour custom which was like a mixed-wood shell, you know it was a birch and mahogany shell and We we talk about something we talk about Yamaha a lot of we talk about vertical integration where we'll create a feature for one of our higher-end drums and Then it eventually more sits weighed down into our mid-level and entry level Instruments, so we don't save all the good stuff and just keep it for the higher-end kids So you look at that you go back to the rock tour custom or the outer the outer ply on that was that phenolic resin outer ply We just launched the kit at NAM in January the live custom hybrid oak and the center ply of that is that same phenolic resin Really, so the way things morph their way down you look at the yes mounting system That came out on the original, you know, we made our first maple kit in 1991 with the maple custom and then in 93 We developed that yes mounting system, which is an acronym for Yamaha enhanced Sustain system that's the same mounting system you find on our $650 stage custom birch kit some of those things they they work their way down and then Yamaha does this with With all of our other instruments as well We you know we do it in our woodwinds and brass instruments and guitars and that sort of the Yamaha Philosophy is is using your higher-end product to develop those those cool new features But we want to try and morph those down so there's many people can take fan advantage of that technology as possible That's nice not like holding it above the person to say you can't use this unless you pay $4,000 for a drum set putting that technology and everything to make it equal. That's a good philosophy exactly Which but you know in the flip side of it now, you're also challenged it that way So when you want to make a drum set you're gonna sell for $4,000. There's still got to be some really cool stuff about it It makes you want to spend a four grand for a drum set. So yeah, yeah, there's that there's that challenge But same time we came out with with the yes mounting system We invented the locking hi-hat clutch, you know where you take in the bottom nut that screws on the underneath side Of your hi-hat symbol it's got a little drum key Screw that you tighten down so that that can't back off because I think all of us at some point in time in our career Have been in the middle of a gig yeah, you're pounding away And and all of a sudden that bottom nut backs off your hi-hat and the rod goes up and down But the symbol just sits there looking exactly I've seen that though on a Yamaha kit. Yeah, that's that's a really cool Innovative, you know technology. Yeah, and that's one of those things that there has been copied by some of the other companies But there again, we were the first guys to do it other little things like you look at our symbol stands We have that threaded symbol seat where rather than just putting a loose washer and a piece of tubing on the symbol stand To keep you know from key holding your symbols the sleeve and the symbol seat are all incorporated into one cast composite piece of material and that's actually threaded and it screws down on to your symbol stand and We're part of my training. I always try to get people to guess Why we originally did that most people think that it's because you know when you're tearing down at the end of the gig You know you're pulling your symbols off you pull felt off you pull that sleeve off There were the sleeve just kind of comes off when you pull your symbol off and it just disappears into that Yeah, that alternate third year universe where all the wing nuts and tuning everything else just appears to the extra sock from the dryer and all that so But the actually the reason that that was originally done was when you go to the studio And you put a bunch of high-end condenser microphones over your drums those loose washer and symbol sleeves Can rattle yes, and sometimes it just makes you insane trying to trace down some of those those little noises and rattles So Yamaha developed that threaded symbol seat to eliminate that problem and there again that came about because we were so Active in the studio scene with the recording costume and everything else that it just was kind of a natural thing for us to create that Wow, that makes me think from 67 to even today and we can kind of get back into 90s But what is the like R&D side of of Yamaha? I've never really thought about that with like that's got to be an awesome job I mean thinking of these cool innovative ideas. What does that look like? Well, it's sort of a Multi-headed sort of monster. We've got You know obviously we do a lot of our R&D work in Japan where a world headquarters is but being an international company We have subsidiaries in Canada and Mexico and in Europe and Great Britain and Japan and all over the world And of course everybody's got ideas. Yeah, we all feed sort of ideas into the company And of course every market has certain demands that people are asking for So we feed all that information to Japan and look at it and say, okay. Well, which ideas are going to have the broadest appeal first And let's work on those and so we'll create ideas around that and we'll build prototypes and Then send stuff on the road with artists And we'll let guys tour around the world. They'll say we're working on a new bass drum pedal or something We'll have guys tour all around the world with that pedal and Till they blow it up and then we see what they blew up and figure out why it blew up and then fix that and and go on about the process so Sometimes it takes us a little longer to develop stuff But we do that so that once we launch it We're not having to backtrack and then solve problems that we let kind of slide through. Yeah, no that makes sense You know, I'm I'm I'm fortunate in that the 16 years that I've been here You know, I've been able to be involved in you know, the development of several new drum lines from club custom absolute hybrid maple live custom all those where We're testing prototypes. I've had a chance to play like prototypes early on and voice a little input along with everyone else as far as what I liked and didn't maybe particularly care about a certain prototype as we go throughout the the development process and One of the things we did to help with that development was several years ago. We hired a designer an American guy named Daryl Anderson and Daryl was from back east like Connecticut and he had a little small boutique drum company where he's Building his own stuff and we wanted to start doing a lot of R&D work and stuff here in the U.S So we built the facility in North Hollywood and Daryl was hired as a drum designer really innovative He was used to working with drums a very good with finishes. He's an amazing paint guy. He's phenomenal Paint guy. He's really creative So Daryl was hired and of course he's got to go to Japan was trained by our best paint guys and everything else So Daryl now that facility is in Calabasas. He's got a full shop there So Japan can feed him raw shells and he can do bearing edges and paint them and mount hardware and and create things Artists can come by and play prototypes and say wow like this You know what might be better if you did this and we get feedback from our artists So, you know, what we'll do is like We developed absolute hybrid maple After, you know, we moved from Sockeye to our Chinese factory What we did was we used the maple custom absolute as sort of our benchmark For the new absolute and we wanted to make something that was going to be a little better than that We didn't want to just recreate what we'd already been doing. We wanted to take this opportunity that we have this new factory Let's see what new things that we can create So we started experimenting with that hybrid drum shell where we take a very hard dense wood And put it in the center of the shell and what that does is it vibrates at a faster rate than the rest of the Tonewoods in the shell sort of activates them and pulls more of the characteristics out So we would set up maple absolute 22-12-16 in our vintage finish up in the in the showroom in Calabasas and Then Daryl would set up two or three different prototype kits the same finish same configuration But no markings on them and we'd have artists come in and play them And we would record and videotape all of it all the sessions and get the artist's feedback as far as well Yeah, I like the bass drum on kit number one The four Tom on number three is killing but the 12 inch Tom on that fourth kid is is is the one The artists never knew what they were playing They just knew what they were hearing and so that we would take all those notes and then we go back and build other prototype kits and Over a period of about three to three and a half years and a hundred and fifty artists coming in and playing prototypes That's how we developed the absolute hybrid maple kit and a couple of the features from that Which is the latest version of the yes mounting system and that hook lug We're originally created for the phx the flagship and then those morphed on down So there's a needle that vertical integration kind of kicked in again. Yeah Wow for a for a company to be so Massive and large and have so many different verticals within the company to be that in tune Pun intended with everyone who is actually playing the drums and out on the road I mean, that's just pretty impressive that you guys can actually Can manage that and handle it and not just be this behemoth company and kind of have a small company feel with How much you listen to people, you know when you look at the corporate umbrella There's you know Yamaha Corporation of America, which is us in the musical instrument guys And then there's Yamaha Motors who's over in Cyprus of just about ten minutes from us They're run as entirely different companies. Sure, even though it's under the same corporate umbrella Each facet of the company that does its different thing because we have in Japan will make high-end cabinetry for your home We have resorts, you know, there's a sporting goods division You know used to where we did you know golf clubs and tennis rackets and all that stuff We do Yamaha boats and our outboard motors pretty much rule the pro-bas circuit right now So every aspect of each of these different arms the company or run as separate companies So we are basically a collection of small companies Under it's almost like a big shopping mall. Yeah, you know, we have all these different companies under under one roof But at the same time we still communicate with each other because for many years our Yamaha drum hardware was made in the Yamaha motorcycle factory in Indonesia and how that came about is they had this motorcycle factory and It wasn't profitable because there wasn't enough demand for those small Motorcycles they were making so they invited us to make our drum hardware in there So you would see, you know on the conveyor coming down You'd see handlebars and you'd see mufflers heading for the chroming tanks and then you'd see some cymbal stands and that kind of stuff When you look at a Yamaha cymbal stand and you see some of those parts of the stand that are kind of a satiny sort of finish Instead of being chrome-plated that's a piercing casting and those castings were done The same way that they did castings for motorcycle parts So because of these other different companies were involved in we borrow technology from each other The tone wood for the PHX, which was our flagship kit The Kapoor was a wood that was being used by the high-end cabinet guys And then they say something that got to the musical instrument guys that this interesting wood that they're working with and Next thing you know, they grab a piece of it and they start banging on it and makes these interesting Tonal characteristics and they start making drums out of it And so we have there's a lot of this cross-pollination between the different companies where we're sharing technologies and Manufacturing techniques and materials It's a big benefit to have all of those resources and put everyone's minds together to make everything The best that it can be it really is and we come out, you know, so come out with some pretty cool Ideas because of that. I know when we did our 50th anniversary of Yamaha drums We did it, you know, there was a big interesting display that we did in Japan Basically what we did is we had the motorcycle guys from their perspective not knowing anything about drum sets and The rules had them create a drum set And then the musical instrument guys created a motorcycle from their perspective really how that turn out It was really amazing. You looked at what the motorcycle guys came up with For a drum set and there was this big sort of circular cage thing with drums Kind of sort of spread around and it was it made you think sort of way outside the box because of a different approach But it was very playable and you could create interesting music musical ideas on it And then the motorcycle created by the musical guys had some different ergonomic features to it where you wouldn't maybe necessary to think of from a motorcycles perspective But at the same time it was a very functional So it was it was pretty cool. It drew a lot of a lot of attention at the NAMM show that year. That's cool Well, it was it was pretty cool. So yeah, so it's it's a really really amazing company that there's a lot going on Yeah, well, all right, so let's back up. I think just to kind of cover the whole thing So I think we were in the Entering if not in the 90s. I think we were in the 90s. We have Wayne's World going on right What happened then well, we got in a 1996 we launched the stage custom Yeah, and stage custom was the first like lacquered finished like entry-level kit Yeah, I had one and it and it took over the market because they were amazing drums We made them in Indonesia in a Yamaha factory. They were staggered dial seam air seal system So the shelves were made exactly the same as our high-end drums were made We put a high tension lug on it So it's sort of it was like a poor man's recording custom and they were just amazing, you know and then 98 the absolute series came out where we had the maple and the birch and then later on added the beach So you had the same finishes the same lugs same hardware with three different kinds of wood So now you can have a maple based drum and birch toms, which is something that Steve Gad was famous for You could do maybe a beach bass drum and birch toms or you know and maple four times You could mix and match however you wanted and you have it in a matching drum kit But you could do, you know, whatever you wanted, you know, yeah late 90s I think it was around 1999. We had the hip gig series, which was like the first like Modern like portable drum set, you know, there was the Rick Murata and then The Al Fosser series hip gig kits where all the drums, you know Kind of stacked inside of each other with some there were some latches on them And then all the hardware dropped down into the canister throne and you basically had two bags to take all your stuff into the gig And then then in the early 2000s we came out with oak custom and Oak was a very very difficult wood to work with it's a very coarse grain So in order to be able to get a nice shiny Lack or finish on that it took a lot of experimenting and what we ended up doing is in one of our other divisions our Automotive parts division we make all the woodwork for the inside of a Lexus automobile So the manufacturing techniques we use to seal the wood to get a shiny finish on that exotic wood Was something we applied to the oak so that we could get a shiny finish gloss finish on the oak Without having to put too much lacquer on it. So the next thing big kind of that came along the pike after Oak custom was the nouveau lug and there had been other companies that had made Removable drum lugs before but there are always some rattling issues with them some of had springs in them and other things Yeah, so the nouveau was a little bit different whereas the post you know was anchored to the shell and then the lug just kind of hooked on it and It had a couple of a couple of benefits Once you've worked with the lug a little bit, you know It's got uphead changes But the main reason behind doing that lug was that the post that screwed onto the shell puts such little Contact on the shell that you weren't really restricting the resonance of the shell very much Interest so and at the same time that the nouveau lug was launched That's one the absolute series drum started coming with the aluminum die cast hoops And those hoops were pretty innovative in that you got all the benefits of a die cast hoop Where it was very rigid and stiff. So you got that accurate tuning of a die cast hoop But it was made of aluminum So it was you know lighter than a than a 1.6 millimeter steel triple flange hoop So you weren't adding that mast of the drum So you got like the open tonal warmth of a triple flange hoop with the accurate tuning of a die cast hoop So it was like a best of both worlds Yeah, and they were originally came out with the absolute but when we were developing the PHX series That was it was kind of a no-brainer to use that lug. Yeah, you know They put in so much technology in the actual shell and all of the the doing things the right way with building the shell It it makes perfect sense to not have a bunch of metal Basically interrupting letting the shell breathe and actually be itself. So that's that's smart. Yeah It was you know, and it had a couple of quirks to it You know being that they mounted on a round post Sometimes a few if you were in a bit too much of a hurry you put it together and the tension rods wouldn't run Perfectly vertical. Mm-hmm. So when we were developing the PHX series the PHX came out We developed the hook lug and the hook lug is the lug that's available on the absolute hybrid maple But what was did it was basically a new version of that new volug whereas the post that attached to the shell was square So now when you hook that lug onto it, it wasn't gonna run, you know crooked Yeah, it would always be perfectly vertical. Gotcha And the PHX development was kind of an interesting story Because you know, we go all the way back to when we talked about recording custom and recording custom pretty much owned the industry Yeah there for for for a certain period of time as as time went on I would say probably we got lax and we got out marketed by Some other companies. So we needed to kind of regain that sort of by the way Yeah, we make amazing drums. Yeah, really and we wanted to kind of kind of like throw the gauntlet down so to speak So when we developed PHX the whole goal was to make the best drum kit that we could make and Price didn't have anything to do with it. Typically when you're developing a new series of drums There's a target price point whether it's okay We want to build a kit that sells for a grand or we want to build a kit that's gonna sell under a thousand You know, you have your different price points if you go into any music store, you'll see there's different price points for drum sets Yeah, oh with PHX it was kind of the the Ferrari approach We're gonna build the best drum kit we can build and at the end of the day, whatever it ends up having a cost That's what it cost to ride this ride. Yeah, so the price was never Never even came into the discussion. It was all about let's just make the best kit that we could make and that's where The hybrid shell thing really took off. We used a center ply of the South American wood called Jatoba and Then the Kapoor Was a tone wood that there again was wood that was being used by our cabinet makers to make these really high-end home cabinets But it had these really interesting total characteristics kind of a mahogany kind of warm dark smoky kind of total characteristic to it and then We infused some North American maple So that what happens is that center ply vibrates at a higher rate pulls out more of the total characteristics of the Kapoor and of the maple and made these drums with this incredibly wide tonal spectrum that that were very musical sounding and You know, I was talking about before with the absolute hybrid maple and stuff We made several different prototypes and we would test them and we'd have artists play them and Then those prototypes we get crushed and we do new ones and stuff. So when we did the final prototype testing To of the, you know, the phx to see if this was the final recipe What we did is we rendered in our G studios in North Hollywood hired Nathaniel Conkel as an engineer and We picked like I think we ended up using nine artists at this final prototype testing And what we did is we cartaged in their favorite Yamaha kit So Tommy Alderidge brought in his carbon fiber kit, you know Russ Miller brought in the kit that he done a busy in records with Paul. I'm brought in his best kit All these different guys brought in their favorite Yamaha kit and what we did is we recorded their drums in the studio Some of the guys brought in like a record So the tracks off a record that that kid had been on and then re-recorded the drum track some of the guys just recorded their raw drums and then we replaced them with the same size phx and Recorded their drums and then the guys all blind tested them in the control room and every single guy picked the phx New out of the box over the best Yamaha kit their entire fleet And it's like, okay We're on to something. Yeah, you can't beat that. So that's when so that's when phx was launched man, and And I'm actually the guy that came up with the name for the series really so when we yeah That's that that's my that's my 15 minute claim to fame Because you know when we're trying to name like a new series or a pedal or something We have to go through all these, you know Copy rights and make sure that we're not using the word that's been copy written and things like that So we kind of bounce some ideas around for names and stuff like that But the whole concept of what when you go back to our history what the Phoenix bird and what the Phoenix bird means is when the Phoenix bird is comes up out of fire and it's sort of of the rebirth So to speak, you know, it's kind of what the Phoenix bird is sort of a symbol of well This kit was gonna sort of be our reestablishment of like the ultimate drum kit And so it just kind of came to me like why don't we just call it the Phoenix series? And then of course, we couldn't call it Phoenix because it we're getting in a copyright territory But we could use the phx without getting into any trouble. So thus the phx was launched man And awesome. I'm looking up. I love looking at them right now. I've never seen them before they are beautiful and Oh, they're gosh, they're amazing and yeah, they they they don't appear to be cheap They're looking like used ones are about five thousand In that range. Yeah, like a 22 by 18 inch bass drum MSRPs about fifty five hundred bucks for the bass drum For the bass drum. Yeah. Well, you know not that that's like, I mean you get what you pay for. Yeah That's more than my you know, and yeah Well, you know and and phx they're they're still made in Japan because Those were never made at sockeye. Those have always been made at our world headquarters in Hamamatsu We have a mall small shop. They're called Yamaha music craft and there's three craftsmen there They're they're like the best of the best and so there's three guys that work in this shop that make all the phoenix for worldwide Distribution so that's like that's one reason it's a four to six month special order. Yes small batch Kind of thing here, man, I hope someday to be able to Try them out and so what year was that launched and then what does that take us up to to kind of to kind of bring it on home That was 2008. Okay. That was 2008. Okay, so that's we're in we're in the modern era. Yeah, we're in the modern era now. Yeah, I Mean you could You know if you if you wanted to get back in the you know the nuts and bolts and all this if you could Talk about Yamaha drums all day long, you know but Yeah But so, you know, then you go from from 2008 and 2011 we took What was the main tone would out of the ph actuals was the Malaysian Kapoor? And that's where the club custom came from and that was a drum set that was marketed Towards the vintage drum market. So it had that, you know, sort of the vintage drum kind of vibe to it It was the thin mahogany Shell would round over bearing edges and that's when they developed to that to swirl painting technique where I'm not going to get into it too deeply and give away any trade secrets But that's where if you remember the swirl finishes on the club custom kits from from back then It was very innovative. They were all done by hand. So each of them is different Um And actually during the develop the whole development process That's the drums I fell in love with so I did was playing on an oak custom before that I sold my old custom kit and bought myself a club custom and that's my personal home kit to this day That's my problem my forever kit. Yeah, because they're just so amazing. Yeah, and they're real I mean, they're an attainable price too, you know, which is which is a factor Yeah, and then it wasn't long after that That we discontinued our association with sake rhythm and moved to the xy factory in xiao shan in china which is Was originally built from the ground up as the amaha factory It was originally a piano factory where the mid pianos and then parts for high-end pianos And then band and orchestral instruments were added. We had you know woodwinds and brass instruments concert percussion And then the first drum set that we launched out of that factory Was the live custom We did live custom first because oak custom was interesting in that it it sort of It occupied a really Interesting price point where it was completely 100 handcrafted high-end drum set But because the materials involved were less expensive It hit a magical price point and once Everyone kind of got the idea of how great these drums sounded Then oak was a huge success So when we went to basically when we left sockeye, we discontinued our entire catalog And then started over from scratch one series. Yeah recording custom the absolute series all of our scenarios everything Went away And then we started over again at the new factory. Geez. I didn't so yeah, so this is Yeah, this is the challenge. Yeah, you know, and there were you know, we you know We had we had competitors tend to tell dealers that yeah, yama I was gonna quit making drums and dealers would tell me that and I said well now It's what they meant to say is they wish we'd quit making drums but uh Yeah, so man. No, I think like like the phoenix you shall rise again and uh, and you are rising I mean, it's yama has never yeah, there was never a lapse in uh, what the general consumer would think So that's probably all that matters. Yeah, it it well it worked out because It was the the transition and it was well planned We didn't go a year without making drums sockeye was actually making their own branded drums At the same time they were still making yama ha drums towards the end of that relationship And then we moved out we let sockeye we gifted sockeye all the machinery in the factory. Wow So So it was a so yeah, it was an amicable split. There wasn't any animosity. It was just that We wanted to we wanted to have complete control over everything from beginning to end And making our drums in an oem factory. We relinquished a certain amount of control We would develop a new series Get it all ready to go and then we'd had to teach sockeye how to make that series and keep an eye on things With everything being done our own factory You know, we cut out that middle that middle thing. Yeah, which I see yama has been a perfectionist kind of company And that's when you give up that kind of power. That's got to be tough. Yeah. Yeah So then when we launched the new factory Uh first the first drum set was the The live custom and like I said, you know that oak sort of Had that interested that that perfect sort of price point So that gave us a little bit of a jump start We could launch a drum kit that was going to sell well from the very beginning and kind of get the ball rolling again And then we knew okay. Well, we have to have an absolute series because that's our benchmark Pro level kit. Sure. So at the same time live custom was was was getting up and going We would had started to develop but of the absolute hybrid maple But there again rather than just creating another absolute kit, you know, making a maple or birch kid and And pushing it out there. We wanted to create something new So we took that hybrid shell concept that we used with the phx Put that hard center ply of the wenge Sandwiches in between the maple for absolute hybrid maple We launched that kit and then it ran a couple years and But at the same time we knew that Recording custom we did get some blowback from moving to china. Yeah, there were all those other made in china now I'm never gonna buy a yamaha kit And there was a lot of guys, you know sitting there on a $3,000 computer made in china Complete about us making drums in china So, yeah, it was a little it was a little silly, but sure it was cheaper to move there obviously For manufacturing and probably just was a financial choice to to move there. Well, you know, not really Because when you look at the money we put into building that factory and putting in the additions To make drums all new machinery all new molds everything We put millions of dollars into that factory. Yeah, so that we could make drums there So we didn't it had nothing to do with making drums cheaper It had more to do with moving into an established yamaha factory with yamaha standards So that we could make our drums As good or better than we were making them before and try to make this A seamless transition. So it really wasn't about Making our drums cheaper. It was about really that total control of beginning to end Doing everything the yamaha way. Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, I'm glad you addressed that situation because I'm sure people listening We're thinking that but you look at you know, you look at that factory, you know It's it's not your typical chinese factory We've all heard about manufacturing in china and the scorched earth and yeah There's a lot of things that we you know that we've all heard about But the thing is is that that factory is We could run that factory in the state of california and pass the environmental regulation So it's it's a very earth friendly As a matter of fact, the chinese government has approached yamaha to help them Make other factories more earth friendly That's great Cool. And so, you know, they're again using some of that yamaha, you know technology to try and make everything better But you know, they hired a five they hired a chef from a five star hotel to cook in the cafeteria So the workers they have access to to a good good good food they have covered parking which You know, we don't think about it that much over here, but covered parking over there for your motorcycle is a big deal Well, that's great. I'm glad to hear yamaha cares because that's it it comes through in every detail of what they do and They're beloved in the drum community. So I think that that still continues to this day But that that basically that brings us up to where we're at today, obviously, right? So, I mean, I think yeah pretty much Wow, I mean that is the full history of of yamaha drums Which again starting this out going from the beginning of the company in 1887 To drums starting in 1967. There's just such a That that feeling has just been, you know cultivated over all those years. So that's something to be proud of Yeah, yeah, and there's you know, and there's a culture here You know you ask around and the level of customer service that we provide is exceptionally high You know you talk to our dealers. You talk to consumers and You know the the customer satisfaction level is very very high for yamaha And it's something that we work really hard on and something that we stress from the top all the way down Our fiscal year runs through the end of march So in april we have what we call our corporate kickoff Where we basically we rent the the serrito center for the performing arts We shut the office down and everybody including the warehouse people all go to this big meeting over there And everybody in each of the divisions talks about okay, here's what we did last year Here's where we ended up. Here's what we got planned for next year to take us to the next level So even even the people packing boxes out in the warehouse know what's going on with the company know where we stand know where we're headed and then After the meeting everybody shuffles outside They have a little thing where we have some food and drinks and stuff where we all stand around We go back inside the serrito center and There's a private concert for the employees and they bring a guest And you look and there'll be an entire orchestra on stage Every single musical instrument in a place is a yamaha. Of course the sound system for serrito center is a combination uh yamaha board nexo speakers and nexo is a french speaker company that yamaha acquired some years ago, so I mean every instrument on stage the sound system everything is yamaha And there's not another company in the world that can do that. No, no not at that level. No, absolutely not. Uh So um Yeah, it's you know It really kind of brings it all into perspective and then you know, it's all you know You have yamaha artists that are performing and we've had our power earth wind and fire natalie coal and You know the reverend al green one year and you know sarah mcloughlin and sarah berellis and all these You know different yamaha artists come and perform For us, you know and yeah, and it's like they're they're a gift back to us And everybody in the company that way feels like they've okay now. I see what I'm contributing Yeah, what this cog is going to or what this yeah what this widget is going to be put into Yeah, I'm packing boxes in the warehouse But then you know that box ended up at this guy's house He took it out of the box and now he's making this incredible music with what came out of the box So that's cool. There's that tie-in for everyone. So like everybody Sees their contribution and everybody has that sense of importance To the success of the company and I think that's something that's you know I'm 61 years old. I've had a lot of jobs This is one of those few places where it just feels You know you feel appreciated and you get to see what your contribution is giving to the company, you know Yeah, that's so cool. So my final question then would be can I have a job at yamaha? Well, you know if you go to our website and go to the HR section they do post all the all the jobs available That's funny. People don't leave very often. I mean every year, you know, um, you know, we've got some people that are retiring But but you know, we have people retiring after 35 and 40 years with the company Oh, I came on board kind of later on. So, you know, when I retire at 67 I'll only have 22 years in with the company, you know, but um, yeah Well, I need to say I'm joking and I love my job at Gwynn Sound where I work But and also it's cool. We have a we have a yamaha c7 piano which people come here and are blown away by it and it is just everyone's favorite piano when they come in and that is a absolute, I mean again that you could buy You know a small house with instead of buying the piano, but um Yeah, you know, and it's I've been to the piano factory where they make them and That's another one of those things when you see how they make the pianos and and what they go through It's when they're like leveling the keys. I mean they have shims Like the thickness of tissue paper That they use to make sure everything is and when there's when they make the body of the piano They store them in different areas with different atmospheric conditions. So like A piano that's going to go to europe The body of it has been stored in an area with Atmospheric conditions similar to what it's going to be in europe So that it doesn't go through these drastic changes once it gets to its final destination I mean just the things that they do to Yeah, achieve, you know, they're they're the level of greatness that yeah It's it's just pretty amazing. Wow. Wow. Well, like said, I I've had a lot of jobs. I work for a lot of companies, but just You know when you look around at the History of what this company has done, you know the contributions that they've made to All the industries that they're involved in It's you know, it's it's pretty mind-blowing. It is cool. Well jim. I think we've uh, I think we've covered the whole thing Our listeners won't know this but we've had you in two separate conference rooms now doing this uh interviews We've we've moved around This has been a great experience though talking to you and and it all came from going to the chicago drum show and just meeting people in the industry, which um That was my first time and that was a big deal and I was just standing there and I had always wanted to do that show and um The year actually the year that we launched club custom because it was targeted kind of towards that vintage market I was able to convince my boss at the time who's the marketing manager Let me take these drums to the chicago show and let people see them And not only will it because They're not really in storage yet since we just launched them We got you know, basically the most important city for drums in america. Yes, these guys are going to get a chance to see them Uh And it also kind of drops that corporate veil. They get to see that I'm I'm not a corporate guy. No, I'm a drum guy playing drums since I was 10 It's the only thing that I've ever really wanted to be as a drummer um You know, I played for my first gig when I was 14. I'm a veteran. I mean I served my When I enlisted in this navy as a gunner The gunners made I had the opportunity to audition for the music program and ended up touring with the united states navy band for four years So my whole life is sort of revolved around Drums. Yeah, so to be able to you know, be here and do this and And just to me it was important to reach out to To guys, you know and sort of to kind of drop that corporate veil that we're drum guys too and now every year I go to the chicago show and You know, we all know each other and so I have all these friends there and I have guys that I've sent parts to over the year one of the fun things for me is You know, we get to returns that's like a drum kit might get damaged in shipping And the bass drum gets gets hit with a forklift or something Um, I strip all the usable parts off the drum set before I Scrap the shell and you know, we get guys right in they need, you know, they dropped it They broke a lug or they did this or they need a part for something Maybe I've got it in a drawer. So I'll just go downstairs grab a throwing an envelope and mail it to them And every year when I go to the chicago show, there'll be a couple guys that come up with a dude like three years ago I needed a thing and you sent it to me and I'm never going to forget that It's just it's it's funny how those just just little bitty things that you do Sticking people's minds, you know, absolutely. So yeah It's it's it's a good feeling. It's a good feeling and I love like doing those shows We do the hollywood show every year and for me basic is one of the most fun events we do because it's All the kids coming in they've you know, a lot of those kids have never been out of their little hometown and To see all these different drums and to be able to see a bunch of their drum heroes and just run around and We're definitely the most hands-on booth at basic where we've got kids coming in sitting down playing our drums. I mean You know, we'll have a Phoenix kid on display And if a 12 year old kid comes in and wants to play a Phoenix kid, we let him play a Phoenix kid, you know Yeah, so that's but then again, that's all about cultivating You know the future of the company, you know when the kid goes home and You know, he's been running around all the different booths and Guys at uh booth a b and c were all jerks But the Yamaha guy was really cool with him and let him sit down and play the drum kit and talk to him and stuff So when his mom and dad taken to the music store The first thing he's going to look at is the Yamaha kid. He's going to say dad. I want this uh Phoenix kit No, let's look at something else. Yeah. No, that's great And I got I got that feeling too because you said hey come on in and play these drums and play the The ead 10 and put some headphones on and experiment with it So Yamaha, you can find online everywhere In every category humanly possible. So, um, jim, I want to thank you again. It's my pleasure Thank you for the opportunity to Talk about drums something I love to do. So I can't believe they actually paid me to do that, but you know You're a lucky man Perfect. Yes. I am. Yes. I am Unfortunately for everybody out there that would love to have my job According to my doctor. I'm in town. So you're gonna have to wait a while. Yeah Yeah, I'll I'll keep checking the uh the hr part of the website for that job opening But now you're you're you're a good guy and I appreciate you taking the time and um and talking with me and and teaching everyone about Yamaha I had a great time and uh, if you need anything, you know, give me a call And uh, hopefully I'll see you at the show in Chicago again next year. You sure will awesome. All right. Thank you, Jim I'll talk to you later. All right. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye If you like this podcast find me on social media at drum history and please share rate and leave a review And let me know topics that you would like to learn about in the future Until next time keep on learning This is a Gwyn sound podcast