 Welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today we are joined by Jim Catalano, a 36 year veteran at Ludwig. Jim, welcome to the show. Thank you, Bart. It's great to be here. Yeah, and I should also mention that you were 41 years in the music industry. You mentioned to me earlier at Slingerland and all that kind of stuff. We'll hear more about that, but I think today's goal is just to hear about in those 36 years at Ludwig what it was like, all the changes, everything that was happening and just your journey through the company with the chief, with B2, Bill Ludwig II, who was a very revolutionary guy. So I'm excited to hear about it. Why don't you just take it back and tell us how you got into all this? Okay. Well, how I got into it all, of course, you know, I mean, going way, way back, of course, just I was that guy on February 9th, 1964, who was 10 years old, and I was captivated by the Beatles and Ringo Starr and his Ludwig drums. And I told my mom and dad right there, that's it. That's what I want to do. And so I got, became a drummer. And before that, I was actually a trumpet player. But I did it the right way. I sort of took lessons from a guy named Cootie Harris. Isn't that a great name for a jazz drummer? That's a jazz drummer right there. That's right. And he was a great drummer from New York. And he came to my town in Pennsylvania, Meadville, Pennsylvania, and he was sort of like retired there in a way, but he took lessons and taught me things. But I went on, got very involved, of course, in school, you know, playing both jazz band and then I was in rock bands. I was in drum and bugle core also, and learned how to read, just, you know, learned so much about it. And then eventually I went on to music school at a place called Indiana University of Pennsylvania. And from there I got a scholarship to go to grad school at the University of Notre Dame, which is interesting because right now I'm on faculty at Notre Dame. Nice. Just a part-time adjunct instructor, but that's still good. It counts. It counts. So what happened was I graduated from my Notre Dame, and then I became a band director for a short period of time. And then I had, by doing that, I went to certain shows. One of the shows was called the Midwest Band and Orchestra Convention. And while there, I met different people. And the guy that I met was a guy named Jim Coffin. And Jim Coffin didn't work for Ludwig. He actually worked for premier drums. And one day he called me out of the blue after my year of teaching as a high school band director, and he said, Jim, how would you like to work for the summer? Working part-time over here at Premier, which was owned by the summer company at the time. And so this was in the summer of 1978. And I said, well, I don't know anything about business, but, you know, sure, I'm looking for some summer work, so I'll come over and help you for a couple of months, then I'll go back to being a band director. Well, it turned into a career, a long-term career. I became a product coordinator or product manager for premier drums, which was kind of cool because it was partly owned by Summer here in Elkhart, Indiana. But yet it was still a British company. And so I got to be involved with things on an international basis, got to learn the business. I got to meet Bill Ludwig for the first time at my first convention, which was a Percussive Art Society convention, I think, in Tempe, Arizona. And from there, I actually had an opportunity to move on. After about three years at Premier, I went to Slingolin. Slingolin was now owned by a guy named Danny Hinkin. And most people in the drum business wouldn't know that. But he was in Elkhart, too. It was during a time when CGCon owned Slingolin. So all this time I never had to move because now they come to me and they say, Jim, would you do our advertising and marketing work for Slingolin? And so I left Premier, which was a fairly small company at the time, and I went to Slingolin. But it was also in Slingolins, let's say, waning years, 1981 to 83. So it was pretty difficult. But while I was there, I gained a lot of experience on shows, on marketing, advertising, all those things. And I caught the attention, again, of the Selmer people who now owned Ludwig. And they eventually brought me in to be the marketing manager for Ludwig. And part of that history there is that, remember I told you, Selmer was the owned part of Premier. But they divested themselves of all of that in 1981, when on November 1st, Bill Ludwig sold the Ludwig Drum Company to Selmer. So Ludwig to Selmer. And that brought about a significant amount of changes. Some of the major changes that happened in 1981 was a lot of people lost their jobs. Not so much factory people, but people that were in marketing and sales type of positions. So much to the point where by 1983, they felt that they went too far. And they were looking for another person to add into the marketing area. But it needed to be someone that they knew, and that they trusted. Even though I was very young, they knew me and trusted me from the three years that I worked at Selmer before doing Premier. And so they asked me to come back and be the marketing manager for Ludwig, which I did starting in May of 1983. And I had to say, when I joined that company then, there were some major things that I noticed such as, as I'm coming in, more people are being let go. So therefore put tremendous pressure on me of having to do multiple jobs, sales, marketing, advertising, which we'll call that as one thing. But also product development, educational programs, all of a sudden it became an all-encompassing thing with very limited resources. But when I did come in, I did notice that why don't you guys use Bill Ludwig more? Because at that time, he was 67 years old, which is interesting because that's the age that I am right now. And so the Selmer people, they kind of, well, kid, he's got his money, he sold the company, he's out, he's retired, he doesn't want to work. You know, he's going to be at his condo down in Sarasota area in Santa Belle Island, and he's going to be living it up. He's living the good life now. Well, that wasn't the way Mr. Ludwig was wired. Yeah, he's a worker, he's a drug addict. He was a worker, he wanted to be involved. And so I asked, I said, well, what if we got Mr. Ludwig involved in some things, like going to shows and doing certain things? And they kind of challenged me, and they would be the Selmer management, okay? And they said, well, kid, if you can get Bill Ludwig to come to work on a daily basis for X number of dollars, and let me tell you, there was a small amount of money, okay? Yeah. Because technically he didn't need the money, however, there needs to be something. You've got to give somebody something, okay? Yeah. And I said, okay, well, I'm going to be in Chicago tomorrow. So they said, okay, well, good luck, kid. So I drove to Chicago and, of course, called Mr. Ludwig in advance, and got there and didn't meet at the factory or at, yeah, we met at his home. And of course, Mr. Ludwig referred to his home as the house that Ringo built, okay? That's great. Yeah. And it's so true because he did. The game changer for Ludwig, but the drumming world in general was changed. That's right. Yeah. So I get there and you would think, I mean, Bill Ludwig kind of knew me a little bit, and he had heard a little bit about me, but he wanted to give me the test. And here's the test. We go down to the drum room and I've been posting different pictures of the drum room that he had at his home, these black and white photos of his collection and things like that. And he walked me through this collection and everything. And I noticed over in his drum room, there were two marching snare drums, both 12 by 15 inch marching drums. There were drums, a pair of drumsticks on each one. This is part of the test. Oh, yeah. And he goes over there and he starts playing on one drum. Da-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra. He's playing three camps, which is a very ancient rudimental snare drum solo. Well, the second camp comes in, da-da-da-da-da-da. Well, he motioned to me while he was playing the first camp to pick up the sticks and play along. This is a test. Yeah, that's a real test. It was a real test. And I picked up the sticks. I knew the solo. I had it memorized. And I come right in on camp number two and then we went into camp number three and we played it out. And he had a big smile on his face the whole time. And then he goes into another one. And he said, we're going to play the Downfall of Paris. And I said, OK. And so he starts counting off. And now I moved so that we were on the same side so that we could have the stickings be exactly the same. And so our stickings were the same because there's a unique stick into that. So here I am playing this particular solo with Bill Ludwig, you know, meeting him sort of kind of will say as an employee for the first time before we discussed anything. That's the kind of test that I had. And at the end of playing the Downfall of Paris, that's when I got the big smile and the big handshake. And it's sort of like, you're going to be just fine. I like that it was the test was actually playing. Like, let me hear your marketing plan and what's your, you know, your degree in and all this. It's no can you play? Yeah. Well, the test went further. I mean, there was a marimba there, too. And I'm a full percussionist. And so he wanted to have me play marimba for him. Then he had timpani there, too. And I played timpani for him. And so it was he wanted to make sure I was a total percussionist because that was the term that they kind of went to in the 70s and 80s, the concept of total percussion. And so I passed the test. And so as we're talking, and of course, I keep calling him Mr. Ludwig, and he keeps saying, ah, Jim, don't call me Mr. Ludwig. Call me Bill. Call me Bill. And I said, ah, Mr. Ludwig, I can't do that. I mean, you're like the guy. You're the chief executive officer. You're the chairman of the board. And he said, well, no, no longer. I sold the company. And I said, Mr. Ludwig. I said, I remember Miss Hathaway called Mr. Drysdale on the Beverly Hillbillies chief. And I remember those terms. And he looked at me and he got this big smile. And I said, that settles it. I'll call you chief. So I'm the one that actually named him chief. Wow. Amazing. And it was it was out of respect. Yeah. But it was also out of he kind of cornered me because he didn't want me to call him Mr. Ludwig. And I didn't really want to call him Bill. So we settled on chief. And that became his name from that point forward, including Ron DeNet making the titanium snare drum called the chief, et cetera. It just went on and on. And so that was sort of my first day with him. And from there, it was, I'm going to say a pretty magical relationship because I was kind of, he knew I was the business guy that was going to handle a lot of the business type things. For the company. And Billy was still there, Bill Ludwig III. He was the artist relations manager still at this particular time. He was really up until 1989 or 1990. You know, so he was still involved. And so we kind of worked together as a team. And I just got along really, really great with them. It just said, now I had the responsibility of running the business, the Ludwig business. Okay. Now, I'm not by myself on this. There's other big corporate people down at Selma that, that they were involved and they called a lot of the big shots, of course. All right. But, but I was the guy that had to lead it from the Ludwig side of things. And it wasn't just Ludwig combo. It was the school side of business, too. Such as master mallet instruments, Ludwig company, Ludwig marching drums. And it was quite a challenge for a 29 year old kid in a way who, who just, you know, got in there. But I did have five years of experience and I had a good business background and my degree from Notre Dame helped me so that I was able to, to manage it. But I'll tell you, I never thought I would survive. Oh, really? Yeah. I thought I might do this for a year, for, you know, two years. And then after that, who knows how long it will, will take, you know, before they bring in some more experienced guy to get this done. Well, you know, it kind of was something where at the end of the end of my career, I sort of look back and I said, my goodness, I survived the whole thing. You pulled it off. And by the way, let me say, threw a lot of change. Oh, God, yeah. Because the Selmer company, which now owned Ludwig, they went through tremendous amount of changes themselves. Three different presidents, two different takeovers of sorts, corporate takeovers. And, and so through all of that, you never know when you're going to get a new boss that comes in and says, um, yeah, you know, you're not my guy. I got my guy. See, I was, from that point forward, I was an inherited guy. Something that was part of, we'll say the old company because I actually started to work for Selmer, but on Damon Avenue, helping to do the marketing for Ludwig. So it was quite a challenge to get established. But I have to tell you, as part of the, I've been showing a lot of pictures on my Facebook page lately of, you know, part of the history of the guys I worked with. And one of them is a guy named Chuck Hewick. Now Chuck Hewick worked for Ludwig starting in 1972. And he would tell me all the time, he says, you know, Jim, when you first joined us, we were going to kill you. You know, it was because they looked at me as the Selmer spy. I was from the corporate company that kind of made a lot of changes. I can see that, sure. And now all of a sudden, their guy is being put in charge of marketing and sales at the time. And so it became a very different thing. And Chicago was a tough town. And back in that particular era, the Damon Avenue plant was not in the kind of area of Damon Avenue as it is today. Back then, it was a very challenged area, urban-wise. Yeah, gotcha. Now it's something that's, you know, very nice. Of course. It's sort of where they will call them. I don't know if you still use the word yuppies or not, but that's where the yuppies live today. Yeah, very expensive. And then that's where there was a lot of gang activity. Okay. So it made it very difficult to even go to work on the Damon Avenue plant, because I would have to take the loop in and stuff like that. It made it very challenging to get around. But anyways, I survived it all. But through all of that, I always had the backing of Bill Ludwig. And I think he saw a lot of himself in myself. Yeah. And that's what I think helped along with the thing. And he knew that I understood the business angle. And I had to understand the business thing, because I had to report back to the Selmer management and through all of the corporate takeovers and all the things. Public company for a period of time from 1994 until 2013. And so when you become, you start playing the business game at those levels, it becomes very real. Yeah. You have to achieve certain profits. You have to achieve certain top line growth. Yeah. And you have to attain to certain budget levels. So it became quite a challenge. But I always was learning from the best guy in the world that could teach me. And that would be Bill Ludwig II. Yeah. And of course, initially he was Bill Ludwig Jr. And so later on, he became Bill Ludwig II. And so that was part of our whole thing. What I would tell you is that I actually got the chance to hear the chief stories behind the stories. Why things happened the way they did. Yeah. One of them that he always talked about was the great battle between Selmerland and Ludwig. And why it was such a big deal. And they truly did not like each other. Truly. Yeah, I've heard a little bit. I'd love to hear more. They were an constant litigation of different sorts. But it all goes back to needing calf heads because the stockyards were there in Chicago. And the type of heads that they needed the most were we'll call them the very thin calf heads, the vellums that were from the baby calves. And because they needed those for the snare bottoms back in that era. Sure. And so whoever got to the stockyards first would get the best, thinner drum heads for the bottom snares, for the snare side. And that's what their battles were always over. And that's what made it such a difficult thing. I also know that they would do the things where they're going and looking at the people's garbage at night and stealing different things and trying to battle like that. Any other fun stories like that? Even in the time that I only worked on Damon Avenue from May of 83 until November of 84, which is when we moved to North Carolina. And the number one item that was stolen from the Ludwig factory was bongos. Oh my gosh. And you see at that particular time, that particular neighborhood was very Latino, very Puerto Rican at the time. And the bongos were very popular. And so there were elaborate schemes and stuff like that that would be found where bongos would be put on like a pulley and hanging out a window so that you couldn't see them when you left to close the window. But yet it was easy for someone at night to come along and pull the bongos down and then take the bongos. So it was something that Mr. Ludwig would tell me about, that it was his number one problem he had with theft was always with bongos. Man. Yeah. So funny. Not funny. I mean, that's terrible. I'm sure you actually do end up losing a lot of money and all that. See, one of the reasons why, there were many reasons why Ludwig left Chicago. Maybe not all of them are well known, but one of them was something that OSHA put a ordinance onto Ludwig that they couldn't use certain types of glues with their wrapped finishes. So some of the types of glues that they needed to use, if they were burned, could leave off a nauseous fume. And so therefore that was banned. So that's why, although we all hate them, but that's why the era of Mr. Ludwig called them the anchor locks. We call them rivets. Yeah, sure. So that's why rivets came into play. And then there were other things in that there was a lot of political strife at the time and a lot of union strife also. And that, like I said, that particular area of Damon Avenue became a kind of a more blighted area. And so it was having a lot of trouble with gangs and things of that nature. And so therefore it became something where we need to get out of this particular environment into a place where we can have a lower cost, safer, where we don't have all these ordinances that are on us of little things that can inhibit business. And so that's why the company looked at moving. And a lot of people want to know, well, why did you move to Monroe, North Carolina? Well, now we go back to Selma. Selma made cases for their band instruments in a small factory in Monroe, North Carolina. So from what I've heard, because this happened, I didn't do these deals, okay? But one of the vice presidents said, well, the factory that is next door to the case factory, the lease just went up. So in other words, it was available and the company that was in there wasn't going to renew the lease. And so this relatively large building was now available. And so that's why Ludwig put a bid on that lease and that building. And that's why they moved to Monroe, North Carolina to get to a lower cost area. But not only lower cost, it also got you closer to your wood because it moved into a furniture area where furniture was being made all over the place. And so now you have skilled workers that were used to working with wood. And Ludwig made all of our own shelves as they still do today. Sure, yeah. And back then, even in 1984, when we moved there, one of the first things we started making was the Rocker and the Rocker II drum series. Oh, yeah. I was behind all of that. Really? Well, that was my first, like, I went to hear, I don't know how regional or how wide it was, but Buddy Rogers' music and got myself like a nine or 10 or 12-piece Rocker set. And that was like my big real deal. It was 700 bucks and it was a big deal. So that's right. Thank you for that. Yeah. And so what we had done is the hardware started coming in from Taiwan. But the drums, the shelves themselves were actually made in Monroe, North Carolina. So we had over 100 workers at the time. We had an assembly line. It was a pretty big deal, a pretty big operation. And so, you know, it was a very good line of drums that sold really, really well overall in a time period when the drum industry was going through a lot of change and a lot more competition. Yeah. The Japanese brands were coming in and taking over, obviously. Oh, very much so. Yeah. So, yeah, it was a big challenge. And, you know, a lot of major artists were endorsing other products, you know, other than Ludwig. And so it became very much of a challenge for us. Yeah. I'm sure. Can we pause for a second? Can I ask you a question that you're probably just going to shut down right away and say, no, that didn't actually happen. But I just feel like you're the guy to ask. So I had Mike Ellis on who did an episode about the history of premier drums. And he mentioned, and it seems it is just like a rumor that he said that in, like, I believe the 70s, as you know, you're the perfect person to ask this because he worked with Premiere in 78. So he said, as I think a lot of people know that Premiere has very famous, like, quality chroming. It was the chrome process would be used for Rolls Royces and stuff. He mentioned that there might have been something where Ludwig 400, the Supraphonics, maybe Premiere was involved a little bit in helping out with some of the chroming of the snare drums for Ludwig because there's a certain quality in some of them where maybe some other ones got pitted and other ones didn't from the same time period. So there's a theory that Premiere was involved a little bit in helping with some chroming. Is there any truth to that? Never heard Mr. Ludwig talk about that ever. Got it. Got it. Okay. Interesting. You know, there's always someone puts it out there and says it. Now I'm repeating it for more people here, but I just love the stories, you know. I have my stories from the times, the things that I experienced, okay? Sure, of course. Going forward. But I listened to the stories of the chief going backwards. Yes. And that was something that I never heard him talk about. Okay. So we'll just say it's a theory and, you know, I will mention then that I heard from someone who recommended you, who I'll give him a shout out at the end of the show, but Andy Dwyer, who owns a drum shop in Liverpool, said he heard that and said, you know, his theory on it is that it was sort of post-Ringo boom, you know, maybe 10 years later or whatever, but the production just got so bogged down that maybe a little bit of the chroming quality, I'm sure it was still great, obviously, but they were making so many drums that maybe, you know, that's why they got a little pitted. The quality dipped due to the huge number of productions. That's what he said to answer that premier question. So, you know, I don't know. I have to think just being a guy who was involved, even though I'm not a manufacturing guy, but who was involved and saw the process of manufacturing. I cannot imagine gathering up raw aluminum shells. That's what they would be in the 70s, okay? Yep. And shipping them off to Liverpool, well, to Leicester, Leicester, England. Yeah, exactly. To be plated and then sent back over on the ocean, because ocean was never a friend to chrome plating, because of the salt, because chrome plating works great over bronze and brass, but does not naturally work super well over aluminum. Yeah. And so I just find it very hard to believe that there was this whole system of production that left the USA. And the final reason that I'm going to stick to that is that most all of Ludwig suppliers were in the Chicagoland area. Okay. That's a good, yeah. So it's implicitly sake and just ease of doing business. Yeah. That answers that. Okay. It's just fun to kind of maybe to put to bed a theory from someone like you and say, no, that didn't happen. So I appreciate that. Sure. All right. Now back with like, you were kind of getting into the rocker, the rocker too, all that stuff. There's different like coatings on the inside there, right? It's got that like, what is it called? Not granitone. Granitone was, I think, a name. Mr. Ludwig, what did he like? Acoustic coat? I don't know. He had different names, but granitone really was what it technically was. And of course that's a throwback to them painting, Ludwig in the 60s painted their shelves right on the inside. Yeah. Do you know the story a little bit about some of that? No, please throw as many cool, fun, old chief stories out as you can. Now, again, this is what Mr. Ludwig told me. So whether it was totally true or not, it's how he explained it and it's how I remember it, okay? Sure. Because I wasn't around in the 60s. But he said, you know, Jim, he said, we had so many drums that had to go through production that we worked two and sometimes three shifts a day to make wood shell drums. And he said we had a big problem in finding a constant flow of wood supply. This is why some drums at the time were made out of mahogany. Some drums were made of maple. Other drums were made of birch. He said we always tried to make a set be the same type of wood, but sometimes from day to day we would have this big variety of woods going through the factory, making the same shelves. And not to downplay it, but the need for Ludwig drums and Ringo Starr era type of drums was so big that they had to keep production flowing and so they decided to start spray painting the insides of the drums white. They also did it to help speed up production because they were sanding, prior to that time, they were sanding the insides of the shelves. And sometimes when they would do that, they'd get fingerprints on the shell and things like that. Well, it was taking time to get the fingerprints off the shell. So they decided, well, since we're, you know, we'll just spray paint them. And so they put this special paint white on the inside. And the reason why I bring this up is I was working, I think it was the third Chicago drum show. It was when it was the Chicago show was at the DePaul Music Mart in downtown Chicago. It was actually one of the one of the poorer shows at the time. Sure. And I was there and this young man comes up and he has this red sparkle, eight lug jazz festival with white on the inside. And he shows it to Mr. Ludwig. And of course, Mr. Ludwig was sort of big at the time. He loved vintage drums, but he was kind of big on don't collect vintage drums by new ones. Yeah. Okay. And so he would say, so it was like a little game that he did with me. And in a way, he did it to make other people feel bad. So I would be working the booth and he'd be down there with this young man with the red sparkle jazz festival and he would say, hey Jimmy, I said, yeah, chief, what's up? He said, you know why we spray painted the drums white on the inside? You know, and then I say, no, why chief? Of course, I knew the answer. Yeah. Well, because we used any kind of what we could back then. And so you could sort of see the eyes of the young person that owns this drum, who was so proud of it, his special thing, kind of start to droop and realize it. And so the chief had a way of kind of playing with people. Okay. And so, and that was part of the thing where the production was so big, so they had to do something that was going to bring some unification to it all. And that's what the white spray paint was. And so likewise, when we went into the rockers, rocker twos, because rockers did not have granitone on the inside. Yeah. But rocker twos did. And that was the less expensive model. And the, and so we went to the granitone and that kind of sealed the wood so that we didn't have to sand it any further and finish it off. So it was kind of like as it is, it is. And then we put that, the granitone on and that's the end of the story and we can make a drum at a certain cost point. Sure. And I'm assuming that with the white and with the granitone, I'm assuming like, I know Gretch had something similar, but where like, I would imagine in the back in the day, it was probably, you know, sold that the white was some, you know, acoustic, some super special paint that makes Ludwig sound only like Ludwigs when in reality, it was probably just white spray paint. Right? Yeah. That's it. Acoustic perfect, Ludwig used to call it. Yeah. And so they would, they would spray paint it and that was it. And so yeah, it was always marketing. Mr. Ludwig was the best at, at marketing. I mean, when you think about the catalogs and things that he was the brains behind when, you know, he joined WFL in 1937, you know, when, when senior started that company, even though he was still at college at the time, just graduating from high school and he was getting involved with the company and then eventually by 1941, he had to go off to, to World War II. Hmm. You know, in December of 1941. So anyways, he was still very, very involved, but, but they were, they were just so good at marketing almost to the point where they were probably the most dynamic cutting edge marketing company in the music industry at the time. Color catalogs or at least colorized catalogs, which they had, and I own most of them and, or I have a PDF of them. So I, I have a pretty good collection of them and pretty amazing stuff that they did. Yeah. I mean, you said it earlier about how, what got you into it, but man, I mean, I don't want to call it luck because it's obviously the quality of the drums, but Ringo, Plain, Ludwig, pretty much, I mean, talk about a game changer for the company. I mean, things would have been so different if Ringo said, I'm going to play Slingerland or something. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Unbelievable luck. I think though, the thing that, that the Ludwigs were so good at was they understood the total concept, concept of the market. In other words, marching drums, concert drums, timpani, they were total percussionists and so mallet instruments. And so they, they saw the whole thing. You know, I found out that what senior used to do, and also junior, or the chief, in the 40s and the 50s after World War II, when things started getting, going again, is that they wouldn't just go to, to shows and things and say, hey, we have these concert toms or these temple blocks and stuff. And you know, do you want to buy them? They wouldn't do that. What they would do is they would go to the composers and the arrangers. And they would say, I want to show you some of the new percussion things that we have. Wouldn't it be cool for you to incorporate some of this type of percussion product into your band compositions that you're doing for high school and junior high and college wind ensembles and bands and orchestras? And that's how they built their market. Yeah, really. Up about grassroots. That's grassroots. Yeah. And building a true, I mean, there are guys who are just so passionate. You see it at the drum shows. I mean, it's with the Rogers guys and a lot of these people where I just think we're all friends in the drum world, but there are some die hard Ludwig guys without a doubt. And it comes back to the marketing, which that's your region. That's what Uli Salazar does, who's again, a true just through and through Ludwig guy. And going way back, I think, you know, you were up against, when they brought you and being 29, talk about being thrown into the fire of like a company that things are changing. You said people were looking at you, not liking you as much as the corporate guy, but you kind of had to prove that, well, hey, I'm a real drum guy. I'm here. I love Ludwig. Well, but I think you were 29 helped because the consumer people made me wear a three piece suit when I'm in the factory. Geez, they're like, who's the suit? Exactly. And I didn't want to wear a suit. Plus it was hot. I mean, I didn't want to do that, but they said, no, you got to show leadership, you know, and you're going to do it. And they wanted me to be kind of, you know, I'm going to use the word stern about things. And here I am. I'm a 29 year old and, you know, young kid and stuff, you know, who had a almost Beatles haircut and stuff. And so I was, I was really thrown into it. And I didn't really follow through because I was a drummer at heart. Total. Yeah. But I was a pretty compassionate person too. Sure. And so therefore I became friends with everyone. You know, one of the toughest things that I ever had to do was I was put into a position above someone that was in a way my mentor at Ludwig and the person his name was Dick Gerlach. And Dick Gerlach worked for Ludwig, I believe for 40 years. He retired in the year 2000, started in, we'll say 1960 something, 1960. Okay. But by the time I joined Ludwig, he was the marketing manager. And they kind of did a role reversal. And of course at the time he was probably 46 years old. I'm 29. And you can imagine all of a sudden now I'm kind of like the guy calling the shots. Yeah. And it put me into a very difficult position because someone that I really liked, that I learned so much from now was in some ways working for me. But I went to him and I said, Mr. Gerlach, I said, I didn't ask for this. I have been put into this position and I said, I need your help and I don't have all the answers and I know you do. And I said, I hope we can work together because I will never treat you in a superior kind of a way because I can't. I will not. And we had a great working relationship. He always knew that I respected him, that I liked him, that I valued him and his history with the company and his knowledge. And I had to say when I was marketing manager and calling shots, there was never a shot that I would call that I wouldn't sit down with Dick Gerlach first and say, let me tell you what I'm thinking. And then sometimes he would slap me up and say, you know, no. And I, okay, okay. How about this? But he kept me down the straight and narrow. And the chief too. But Dick Gerlach was really a very strong, valued person for the company. And the company recognized that. And what they did is they sent him to the factory in Monroe in 1985 to head up quality, but he did much more than quality. He trained people on how to build drums the right way. And so I valued him in a tremendous way. He's still alive today, living in Tennessee. I understand he's doing well. Good. And I try to stay in touch with him at some level. Yeah, that's great. But such a valuable Ludwig person. Yeah, but man, you were really thrown into it. And it just, it's similar to how you didn't want to call the chief Bill. It's like it'd be kind of awkward to call your, you know, former Mr. Gerlach. You were even there. You said, Mr. Gerlach, it's like, you know, I'm now your boss. You just still want to be respectful, but obviously it's very apparent that you are. So you got thrown into some, I don't want to say weird situations, but that's an odd situation to be in, but it just shows that you were the man for the job. And, you know, I think in the drum world and in most worlds, you got to earn your stripes and go up the ladder. And it sounds like you knew that and didn't try and go, hey, I'm here now. I've got my three-piece suit on. You listen to me. Well, my goal was to, if I was going up the ladder, I was not going to step on anyone's hands or anyone's necks to get there. Yeah. I was going to do it on my own. And I used to tell all the people that I worked with, and I would tell you that if you talk to them also on, they will tell you this, that I was never, I would never ask anyone to do something that I wasn't willing to do myself. Of course, sure. Or to show them exactly what to do and how to do it. And so that's why I think I got along so well with people. You know, I've always said, and I've said it in other interviews and stuff, that, you know, there's four things that you bring to a job. You bring number one, technical competence. And that can be in a lot of things, you know, knowledge of drums, computers, business, you know, sales activities, you know, numbers and stuff like that. Okay. The second thing you bring in is the ability to fit in. Well, I was 29. I had to fit in with guys that were 20 and 30 years older than me, who were more experienced that they should be in charge, not me. Yeah. But I had to fit into that and not be off-putting to them and yet not feel superior or anything, but yet also not feel like, oh, what was me? You know, I don't know if I can do this job. Yeah. I've been in it too. And so I was able to, you know, manage that. The third thing is change, the ability to be flexible because you're going to experience a ton of change. Well, I can tell you, in my 36 years at Ludwig, I had 34 different bosses. So that just tells you how much change there could be. Yeah. And sometimes that change was polar opposite change. So in other words, new boss comes in from generally outside the industry, says we're going to the left. Okay. All right. So we're going to change everything. If you guys are totally wrong and going to the right, we're going to the left. Okay. So we're changing everything going to the left. Then they're gone six months a year later. And now the new boss comes in from outside the music industry and says, I don't know why you guys are going to the left, but that's the wrong way. We're going to the right. Ah, okay. Back to the right. Well, we were already going to the right, but okay, we'll go back to the right. Oh. And then they're gone. And then you go back and forth. So you play this game. So my third thing is you got to be flexible because if you don't get along with management and accept, say, rules of order, you're not going to survive long in the music industry. No. And then the final thing is it's an overused word that is passion. You got to have passion for what you do, which is what you found out with Uli. He has a ton of passion for what he does. Yeah. So, and I had a, I would take it a step further and I would say, you know, everybody, you got to have passion for what you do, even when you don't. Sure. And then we go, what, what do you mean? I'm not always going to like a direction that I'm given, but I have to go that direction passionately. So therefore, that's why I mean, got to have passion for what you do, even when you don't. And I think that's probably why I survived for the total of 41 years or 36 years at Ludwig. I think that's part of why. Yeah. The leader can't, it's like you complain up. You don't complain down. Like the, if you're given something you don't want to do, you don't go, this is so stupid, but we got to do it. You got to go in full bore and be passionate about it. And I would add under your list, which clearly you have is the ability, which might just be the ground level, got to have this before anything else is to be able to spend time with people, and they actually want to be around you and they like spending time with you. Drum shows, being able to hang out with people, clearly you can do that. I use the word authentic. You got to be authentic. Sure. And there's other things that I learned in the business, in my business environment, you know, at Selma and Ludwig. It came from a vice president that I knew and liked and he said, you know, Jim, to get what you want, what are you willing to give up? Hmm. Hmm. True. So let's go right back to the rockers and why we did that. To get what we wanted was we wanted to sell more drums. Well, all American made drums that were high-end were too expensive. And so what were we willing to give up? Well, we were willing to give up American made hardware in order to get drums that could be, the hardware imported from Taiwan, put on American shells, and we could price those drums at a lower level and therefore we could get them into the marketplace to compete with the Thomas and the Pearls and the Yamaha's. Well, not so much Yamaha at that time, but you get it. Sure. So those were some of the things that we, you know, you have to go with. And what I also learned is that there is this constant, I call it the race to zero. So the race to zero is a price analogy, but it just simply means that we are constantly, we're coming up with barriers to the marketplace on pricing that made us constantly be looking for lower-cost type of product. That's why at first we made American drums. Then we had a blended thing where I came up with this, let's bring in our hardware from Taiwan, put it on American shells, and then market a drum priced appropriately from there. That had to give way to, let's bring in all the whole drum set now made in Taiwan. Because the later versions of the rockers and the rocker elites and things like that, those were actually made completely in Taiwan. Yeah. Okay. So there goes. Then we had to look, I started traveling to China and we had to start saying, okay, Taiwan's becoming a little too expensive. Now we got to start going to China to bring in drums from there for the low end. And then eventually you make it even another change from there from one supplier in China to even another supplier in China in order to keep coming up with lower priced entry level drum sets. And even though the entry level drum set is not as an important element as it is today is not as important because Ludwig really focuses on our middle level and high end drums. USA made drums, okay? Yeah. But still there is an element of the market that that's what it is. And so we would go with the concept that if we can get a young customer buying Ludwig drums at the beginning stages and it's a quality product and they like it maybe they will continue to stay with that brand and buy the next level, you know, up to a classic maple. So that is always the concept that we would go with. That's very true. And it should be, I learned, I had Ron Donette on the show doing a George Way episode and I kind of said something where I was like, oh, and then it goes, you know, manufacturing goes to China and it goes down. And he said, well, hold on a second. Because it's made in Taiwan and made in China, he said, he told me, they have some of the best manufacturing, it's very streamlined. So that doesn't mean it's bad. Absolutely. It does not mean it's bad. And there's a lot of good things. And oh, yeah, absolutely. In fact, I mean, they have more modern machinery sometimes, you know, because they're constantly upgrading very engineering minded. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And quicker. And that being said, I'm sure some people who have, who grew up having a rocker or a rocker two was set or saying, and I can speak to it of like, well, hey, my hardware broke when I was tightening it. I think the evolution of hardware is a different conversation where things were, I mean, that didn't, we didn't get to the era of having solid, great, you know, technology for hardware until later on where that was being figured out, you know, but drum manufacturing and all that stuff is still very, very high quality in that. Yeah, I mean, I like to tell people today, even, you know, I've been gone. In fact, today is one year exact today that I retired. Wow. That's awesome. June 28th. June 28th. That was my last day working at Ludwig. And, you know, I was going to, of course, the first eight months were great. The last four months, not so great for anybody. Sure. But I used to tell people all the time that what's being made today technically is way better than things that we made in the 60s and 70s and 80s. Every, what we make today technically is a lot better. Overall quality and attention to detail. And that's because the price of admission to the market is continually improving quality. And that's what, you know, I'm so pleased with the Ludwig team today that they know that, they understand that, and they're constantly driving that home. And, you know, I'm still friends with everybody. You know, so it's sort of like, I might be retired and stuff, but they know that I'm still there, following them. And I'm going to use the word sharing them on because I want the brand to go good. I didn't dedicate my entire 36 years of my life at Ludwig to say, well, I'm not there anymore. I don't care what happens. No. I want it to be successful forever because it's part of my legacy and heritage too. Yes. Yeah. You're a Ludwig guy, obviously, and that's extremely clear. And you mentioned this before about how if people find you on Facebook, they can look at, you post very cool old Ludwig photos from the chief, which kind of leads me to, so as we get closer to the end here, what I would love to spend some time talking about is just zeroing in more on the chief himself, William F. Ludwig, the second. My first question would be, so you brought him back. Yeah. In a summarized way, maybe because I'm sure there's tons of information. What was the rest of his returning to the company like through the rest of his days there? I mean, what was his day-to-day kind of activities like? Well, when we moved to Monroe and moved out of Damon Avenue, he had to find another office. So he actually opened up a small office near the airport in Chicago by the Marriott Hotel on the way to the airport. And he worked out of there. So did Bill 3. And so that's where Ludwig's sort of Chicago office was for artist relations and for the chief. And so how we got the chief involved, of course, was as a consultant, but he would travel to shows. I tried to bring him to every show. I mean, he was a draw. It was that simple. Yeah. But we also then, and it was his idea. He said, you know, Jimmy, I can talk about the history of percussion. And so luckily I went to our management at the time. And I said, wouldn't it be great to get Bill Ludwig to travel to different dealers and universities and talk about the history of percussion? At the time, it's sort of like, Jimmy, we need to sell new drums, not old drums. I said, yeah, but that's not really the thing. What we're doing is we're positioning Ludwig, the brand, and we're, as part of our heritage, this lineage that we have that goes back to, you know, 1909 and even before that, really. And so we were able to put the chief out on the road traveling, doing these educational clinics on the history of percussion. And they were great. And I would travel with them sometimes. We'd do, you know, tag team them and stuff. I'd talk about new stuff. He'd talk about the vintage stuff. And it was a really great thing. But shows, he was the ambassador. That was really it. People loved to come up and talk to him. He knew everyone. For me personally, I was accepted into the drum industry in such a positive way because when Bill Ludwig introduced me to someone and he said, and this is Jim Catalano, it was almost coming with his blessing. Yeah. And therefore I immediately would be accepted by these distributors from foreign countries and people that he knew and players, all the symphony players. I mean, we were in one of the posts that I did a few months ago. We're walking down the streets of Tokyo, pretty big city, right? Yeah. And we're just walking and all of a sudden the chief turns around and he said, hey, wait a minute. I recognize those guys and he calls out to these guys and I'm sitting there saying chief, what are you doing? There was some, you know, American looking guys and he said, Frank and this guy turned around and it was Frank Epstein and Thomas Gager and a guy named Will Hudgens. It was the percussion section for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In Tokyo. That we just randomly run into on the street. Wow. See, I never would have recognized them. But he did and so that's what was so neat about him and then as part of that association, you know, he brought me along with it and so that's made it just so good for me as far as getting in because when there came a time after that for me to do things on my own, I already had the credibility. Yeah, sure. We kept the chief working up until about 2002 or 3. It's around that time that's when the chief sort of had to start exiting. His health was really declining. And I'll always remember, first of all, I want to say that I'm still very good friends today with Bill Ludwig III. He hasn't been part of the Ludwig company that's been owned by now, Kahn-Sommer since 1990 but we've always remained friends and are still friends today and I still cheer him on in what he's doing with his brand. He has every right to do what he is doing. It's a family legacy to pivot and come up with another brand. In a way, he's repeating history. Yeah, absolutely. We just got along so well and it's important for me to embrace the whole Ludwig family in this whole thing because they're the ones that kept it all together. They're the ones that brought about this cataclysmic change to the percussion industry that made it just so vibrant. Definitely. And then a couple more chief questions here and this actually, I'm going to read this off and I'm very glad I found it because a gentleman named Craig Lee sent me a message. He filmed some of the Civil War presentations that the chief did which I want to talk about that in a second but I need to address something that he said that he said I wish that he would have heard of before. Craig wanted me to ask on the Gary Astridge episode I did about Ringo, he said I was hoping you would have asked about Ringo's gold-plated snare that Mr. Ludwig gave him in 1964. I was curious if you have any info on that because I didn't know about it and he's curious. So do you know anything about that? Well, it was a super sensitive snare drum. Gold-plated and they made up three of them actually. One was, I believe was one was for Joe Morello, one was for Max Roach and one was for Ringo of course and Ringo was the first one that was given away and the Beatles came to Chicago and I forget the venue but they were performing in Chicago and that's where Dick Shory who was the marketing guy at the time for Ludwig arranged a meeting with Ringo. That's where the famous picture that shows Mr. Ludwig with his daughter Brooke and then all four of the Beatles there getting that particular snare drum. So from what the story is and I'm just really kind of going back to the Ludwig 100th anniversary DVD that we did where Ringo says that he remembers receiving that drum was very special to them and then of course there was a police officer that was in the photo also and that drum was handed to the police officer as the Beatles had more meet and greets to go to. So there are people that have said that that drum was stolen, that was taken, that he never got it but according to Ringo he says he definitely has that drum. And that it was given back to him after the meet and greets for that day because it was a very, very busy time. I mean it was still 1964 they were still there at the absolute pinnacle of their success. Okay. No, that's great. But they still has that drum. I do know that of course Gary Astridge would tell you of course the original Beatles drum set, Ringo's star drums needed a lot of rework because of the way it was kept. Ringo entrusted it to someone who really didn't do a good job with it. And thank enter Gary Astridge and the world is well again. Yeah, the world is a better place. It's just funny too because that photo I've always heard the story where the chief doesn't look quite so happy in that photo because Brooke Ludwig is standing next to him and John and John might have been getting a little bit grabby to his daughter. I believe that is the story. Right. Yeah, we can leave that to history. Yeah, yeah. And of course Brooke was only 16 years old in that photo. Yikes. So you can imagine how protective the chief would be. Yeah. Yeah. Different era. Yeah, different era. And then as we get close to the end here, I want to address I want to talk about this because this was a big part of William F. Ludwig the second life was was Civil War drums and collecting and he did educational we'll call them seminars about and presentations with the trap drum stuff and all that. So teach us about that a little bit. Well, that's a part of that history thing that I was talking about a little while ago where he had all of this equipment including all the sound effects type of equipment. Yeah. And so he had his collection of rote drums which I've been posting on my Facebook page and I'm I'm doing from his collection I'm doing one major post a week now with the collaboration of Jack Lawton I don't know if you know Jack but he is like the authority on vintage drums one of the top authorities. He has a company called Lawton Drum Company in Sunbury, Pennsylvania and he and the chief were very close and the chief trusted with him a lot of information likewise he gave to me so Jack has some things I have some things so Jack and I are working together and then I credit him with what he can fill in the blanks on so we can talk about the chief's collection but the chief loved Civil War and even to the point that whenever the chief and I were traveling especially anywhere where there was a Civil War battlefield or something we always took a side trip even if there was an extra day we would take a side trip and we would go visit those those battlefields or museums but one of the chief's best friends was a guy named Frederick Finnell and Frederick Finnell was a guy that was a little bit older than chief but he met him at the interlocking music camp in Michigan in 1933 I believe and he became a very famous conductor and director of the Eastman Wind Ensemble at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester but the chief and Frederick Finnell would take their rope drums and they would go on these excursions especially through the south of these battlefields and then they would literally play their rope drum on these fields and sometimes they would hire people to have them videotaped I think the gentleman you mentioned earlier he may be one of those guys he said he is, that's exactly it and then he became let me slide this in here he said he became friends with Bill Ludwig II and Bill visited his house and he said many people probably have stories like this but he just built a relationship with him and filmed some stuff that ended up I believe in one of the Ludwig historical videos might have been the 100 year or something like that I'm not scrolling fast enough oh yeah and so the chief just knew everything about that and now today I am a vintage drum, a rope drum enthusiast and stuff in fact I already told my wife today I said now dear, I said on Saturday I said our neighbors have a nice flagpole I'm going to play the Downfall of Paris on my 17 by 17 inch Cooperman rope drum which is a revolutionary war era style drum although it was probably made in the 1930s but anyways I said I'm going to play the Downfall of Paris and I want you to videotape me because that's what the chief would do and on Memorial Day of this year I also did another video I put it on my Facebook page and it's on YouTube, you can YouTube it just Jim Catalan on YouTube and you'll see it and it's me playing actually a cadence and that cadence is from it was the cadence that was played at the John F. Kennedy funeral in 1963 but then I went into this three camps which is the solo that I first had to play with Bill Ludwig in order to pass the test and it was his sort of favorite snare drum solo and so what was cool on Memorial Day I did that but then my friend Bill Ludwig III he did almost the exact same thing because that's what the chief and senior and three would do back in the day on special patriotic holidays such as Memorial Day and the Fourth of July and that you'll see these pictures out there with the three of them playing their rope drums and that's what they did and so I like to keep that tradition alive even though I'm not a Ludwig you know when I would go to shows people would come up to me especially at the Chicago show people would come up to me and they would say Mr. Catalan so it's so nice to meet you and of course I'm just a regular guy and I'd say oh well hey nice to meet you too and they said would you sign my drum oh gosh I wouldn't want to hurt your drum in any way and they say well I'm going to take the head off I want you to sign the inside of my black beauty oh boy and then I would say you know Ludwig and then they would say and almost everybody had the same line but you were the closest thing there was to yeah you're an adopted Ludwig yeah and so I would say okay well out of that level of honor then I'll sign your drum for you I said but I want you to know I'm signing for Bill Ludwig you know but I'd write my name I said but I'm signing for Bill Ludwig and I'm doing it sort of in proxy because it was always quite an honor in order to be able to to do that and it was it was humbling sometimes and you know my colleagues they would look at me and they would tease me a little bit but it was for some people they would read the books and you know there's a whole chapter on Rob Cook's history book that is based on myself for example and when you're part of a history book and you're part of a tradition and a family it's kind of a neat thing the one thing that I like to say is that when I retired with 36 years with Ludwig I started thinking about it and I just took I retired in Ludwig's 110th year okay divide by three that's 36.6 years in other words I was in a position of responsibility with the Ludwig drum company for a third of its entire existence yeah wow you were a part of it and all of a sudden you just realized that wow I was just happy to have a job yeah that's a good way to put it that's a humble way to put it like really I mean now especially nowadays it's just good to have a job yeah exactly exactly and so anyways it was a very it was it was the honor of my life to work with Ludwig and people have said Jim what's the thing with Ludwig and I say you know sometimes I think the thing I was the most proud of is that we kept Mr. Ludwig active for from 1983 when I entered the company until 2002 for 19 or we'll say 20 years we kept him active with the company and I tell you that makes me feel so good knowing that we were able to do that because think about what company has a person sell another company retire and get their money but yet continue on as an active ambassador for the company that doesn't happen very often no you gave him a second wind basically oh yeah and see he loved it because he was no longer in charge yeah that's fun he didn't have the headaches I had the headaches yeah and so he was relaxed and what was cool is some of the other guys along the shows they say oh man we're gonna be with Mr. Ludwig I said well yeah he's not the same guy anymore he's different and no no he's really ruthless I said no not anymore and so he became everybody's grandpa and it was a wonderful experience well he lived to be 91 years old correct yeah 2008 as I googled it it said 91 years old I mean that's right and then I think there might be something to that of you bringing him back and they always say that if you keep working it makes you your life will go on and on it's getting him out of retirement might have helped him to have such a long amazing life and his second you know resurgence with the company so yeah I would like to think that that is the case I mean even with myself I mean I've retired from corporate life but I'm still I teach percussion at two colleges and I well I did play all the time although I had a gig last week and another one this week so you know I'm getting there but but it's like I can't leave what I what I love and I still play the products okay yeah of course yeah yeah well okay so you just kind of said what you're doing now and I think people can find you on Facebook and and social media at Jim Catalano CATAL ANO and I just have to at the end here give a shout out to first off Uli Salazar who's been on the show before doing the history of the black beauty which we can go on and on about him unbelievable guy I think he's carrying on your legacy and he's your I mean he's your predecessor right he took your position is that correct yeah in a way yeah let me put it this way is that there was a you probably heard this story but it was in like 1986 Mr. Ludwig said Jim I have something I want to do for you and I said okay what is it chief and we are out to dinner just the two of us he said hold out your hand and I held out my hand and all of a sudden he takes a drum key just a regular old drum key it was a drum key in his pocket that day he said Jim this key represents the legacy to Ludwig and he him he planted that key in my hand and then he grabbed my hand and he closed my fingers around that key he said I'm entrusting you with the Ludwig legacy going forward well Uli Salazar and Bob Henry and the guys that are there now that's in a way what I've kind of done with them kind of you know taken all the information that I have we'll call it the tribal knowledge and giving it to them for them to go on and now it's next generation and think about it Uli I think is only 32 years old yeah and he's got five six years with Ludwig in already and so you know he has he has it all ability to deliver this thing and to keep it going for the next generation that's really what it's all about is passing it on from one generation to the next yeah and he's a nice guy who you want to talk to which like we said is the most important thing of just like it's it's just you can't get anywhere without people wanting to you know if you're mean to people and not nice no one wants to talk to you so that I always tried to be the non corporate guy yeah but you in this industry you can't be the corporate people no you got to be more real we got to be authentic about it all and the fact that I continued to be a player and an act of gigging play both on as a percussionist in symphony and as a drum set player jazz player jazz vibes player and even a hand percussionist even though I don't really know what I'm doing I just have the equipment okay yeah but but it's sort of like that gives you the credibility also in order to say well you know here's my business things but I actually play the product and add a we'll say somewhat professional love okay and so those are the things that really help you an awful lot with this business oh yeah definitely and then okay so I also need to say which I just absolutely love this is I this this has only happened a few times before and I think it was about Rob Cook where like three people it's when you started posting pictures historical pictures like three people simultaneously pretty much within a week sent me messages saying hey you gotta talk to Jim Catalano and let me give them a quick shout out to thank you one is John Christensen who you may have heard his name people I know him real well yes the drum engraver people heard about him when I did an episode with John Aldridge about drum engraving amazing engraver he said this is the guy he's like you know I think he's always helping the show in many ways and said you gotta do an episode with him Andy Dwyer gave me some information from ADC drums in Liverpool he said yep talk to Jim and he saw your posts and said do it and then as I mentioned Craig Lee he said my experience I believe was unique in that B2 was accompanied by Dr. Frederick Finnell he said look him up he's a legend and he videotaped their performance on a battlefield at Mr. Ludwig's request and he said it was on the 100 year anniversary where Brooke is talking and all this stuff so thank you to Craig Lee and Jim you should feel pretty pretty special because three people sent in a request for you and like within a week wow pretty cool awesome well Jim I mean you're just a great guy so this has been a real pleasure to talk to you and to get all this firsthand information so maybe down the road we'll do another you know more Ludwig specific episode and I hope you're enjoying your retirement which is not really a retirement because you're gigging and working and teaching and doing all this stuff so it'll keep you young plus I'm still young and working around the yard in the house I love it you know in one of these days I just booked my own booth at the Chicago show for next year for 2021 and when Rob Cook asked me would you like to be right next to Ludwig I said absolutely yeah so it'll be it'll be great and you know that's the one thing that I miss the most you know there's business things I don't miss okay but the hanging with the guys that's what I miss absolutely we we all missed it this year 2020 because it didn't happen so I'll be there next year I will be having a booth with his name is Vincent Leaf from Vitalizer Drums who of course he his business is kind of modernizing and working on vintage speed king pedals so right in the Ludwig family yeah I actually have three of those and I need to get him modernized hey I'll connect you with Vincent because he's done a lot of work for big guys out there and does a great job so we'll talk about that later but okay Jim thank you so much for coming on the show this is a great honor to have you here well thank you Bart I appreciate it awesome thanks Jim okay 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 Gwynn Sound podcast