 Welcome to the Drum History podcast. I am your host Bart Van Der Zee and today I am joined by Mark Cooper. He is the owner of CoopersVintageDrums.com, which is an unbelievable resource for all things drum history. Mark, how are you? I'm great, Bart. How are you doing? I'm good, man. I'm really excited to talk to you because, like I said to you before, I use your website all the time as a reference. I've talked about it a thousand times on the show and I just look at it for fun just because you have the best historical knowledge and photos and things I can't seem to find anywhere else, so it's a great resource. Well, thank you very much for saying that. That's so nice to hear. I always love hearing when people are referencing using my website as a reference, a historical reference, and it made all the work I put into it worthwhile. So you've got Slingerland, you've got Kent, you've got World War II drums, you have your own collection. It is awesome. I recommend everyone checks it out. Thank you. Today, though, we are talking particularly about Slingerland, which is such a classic drum brand and they don't really exist anymore. Well, they kind of do, but we'll talk about that later. Yeah, so why don't we just start, per usual, let's just start back at the beginning of the company and we'll run through the history. I've got your website open here as a reference and anyone listening along, I recommend doing that too because you can see a lot of cool pictures that follow what we're talking about. So, Mark, I'll let you take it away, man. Why don't you start at the beginning of Slingerland? Sure. The Slingerland Banjo Company was the original name and they got off the ground somewhere around 1923 and it was formed by members of the Slingerland family in Chicago. And at that time, all they were making was guitars, ukuleles, banjos, and some various other instruments of that type, but not drums. They didn't begin their drum production until around 1926 and they ended up buying out the Liberty Musical Instrument Company that was going out of business and they bought all of their drum making equipment and machines and everything else that goes along with that. And I think the way they got into making drums, in addition to banjos, was the Ludwig and Ludwig Company in the same city of Chicago. Initially, they were a drum manufacturer and then they started dabbling in banjo making and I guess Slingerland went, hey, wait a minute, you're going to do that, then we're going to make drums. And that's kind of how that took off. And by 1927, I guess they became the Slingerland Banjo and Drum Company. I always think it's really interesting that banjos were so popular at this point in time because banjos are obviously around now and people love them, but that was the big instrument at that point in time, which I think is just a cool, you know, just puts you in that timeframe there. Yeah, the banjos were different than they are today. They were more strung as opposed to the picking like you see in more modern-day banjo players. And it was from that jazz era. You see the flappers and the ragtime music and the banjo was hugely popular for a while. But that music, it kind of has that tinny sound to it, so it lends itself to that kind of an instrument. And it's probably not too huge of a departure having a head on it. It has a drum head on the, or I guess it's a banjo head on there, so it kind of makes sense. Yeah, it's sort of a logical association. Like you said, it's basically a drum with a guitar neck on it. And then you throw some spite in there against Ludwig and Ludwig, and you've got a drum company. Right, a banjo and drum company. Yeah, all right, so they have entered the drum making world in around 1927, right? Yeah, they bought out Liberty Company in 26, and it's a little sketchy on how long it actually took from the time they bought them out to when they started actually producing drums. But definitely by 1927, 28, they were going strong with drum making. Okay, cool. All right, so then we enter the 30s, right? They are definitely known for being a pretty major company in this period. Yes, definitely. And they lost no time in producing some really beautiful instruments. One of their flagship drum at the time was called a tone flange artist model. And if anyone's not familiar with what a tone flange is, this goes back to the banjo making thing. It was sort of borrowed from banjo technology. And what it was, they took a regular snare drum with a flat edge, a bearing edge as opposed to a normal edge. And they would put this thing that looked like a hubcap on top and it rested on several screws, kind of floated on them. And it was designed to take out unwanted tones, give you more range and cut the ring out of the drum. It basically kind of deadened it. And that was there. There was a big push from the company on this drum, and it wasn't real popular. It didn't last too long. By 1934, 1935, they were starting to do away with the tone flange in favor of just more standardized drums. Well, it's definitely progressive. And I think that's something worth noting. It's just the progressiveness of Slingerland. I did read early on in doing these episodes. I read the Slingerland book by Rob Cook. And it seemed like time book. Yes, it seemed time after time like they were just pushing the envelope and mixed with, obviously, with Gene Krupa making things. You know, if it didn't work out, it didn't work out, but they tried it. So I think that's pretty cool. They're definitely ahead of their time with that. Yeah, definitely. And like I said, it just unfortunately, it really didn't catch on. It didn't really do what they claimed it would do is for it making it sound like a machine gun or give you extra pop and all that kind of colorful descriptions they used. Yeah, I'm looking at that right now. It rejuvenates and clarifies the tone and staccato notes pop out like the crack of a machine gun. That's a pretty good description. It's a pretty bold claim, considering it really kind of flopped. They made a lot of them. A lot of them were sold, but I think people, like I said, by around 1934, 1935, definitely by 1936, they were just no thanks. Yeah, okay. So they learned from that. And then in the 30s, they just kind of, they lose that and they move on to just your standard drum with the reinforcement ring, right? Yes, exactly. And at that time, they were making them out of, usually out of solid walnut or solid mahogany. And then just a single ply. Although there are a few oddball drums that I've come across that were actually two ply and three ply before they were really doing that. But yeah, mainly they were going with a single ply drum. And they switched over to maple solid maple, which is what slingerland and slingerland radio kings are known for solid maple shells. They kind of moved towards that around 1933, I think. Okay. Side note, their radio king is kind of their flagship, their most famous model, right? That's what Gia was playing. That's what the big names were using. Exactly. There wasn't a whole lot of difference from one company to the other at that time until they came out with the radio king line. And it wasn't really a departure from what the other companies were doing, but because of the Gene Krupa association, it just, the radio king name just became legendary and everybody wanted a radio king set starting in the mid-30s. Now, so what you just said, though, is there was not too big of a difference with that and pre-radio king or other drums. It was just almost more that, like, it's just branding. It's really good branding that made people want it. Yeah, definitely. And prior to the radio king line, the drums kind of, they all kind of looked alike from one company to the other. Well, with the exception of Leedy, that's kind of a different story, but the big two at the time were Ludwig and Ludwig and Slingerland. And they were all using the tubular lugs, which really looked identical. There wasn't a whole lot of difference. And then in 1936, 1937, when the radio king line came up, they came up with a lug design, an actual non-tubular lug design. And that gave it a, gave them a distinctive look. That's really the only, I mean, for a lot of drums, that's the best way, minus the badge. That's the way you can tell them apart, really. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, prior to that, they really kind of did look alike. They were using what you talked to today called generic looking, you know, hardware. Yeah. Well, let me, let me pause you for a sec, because before we move on, again, I'm following along on your website here. One thing I know nothing about, and I'm really interested in, is the use of the term black beauty, as far as the snares, and they have the black beauty and white beauty outfits, the artist model. What's the deal with that? The black beauty, actually they coined the term black beauty from what I understand from my research, they were the first company to use that name. And that would have been around, oh yeah, 1928, when their first catalog came out, they were pushing the black beauty drums quite heavily at the time, which was a black nickel shell with hand engraved designs on the shell. And what they, what was known as art gold hardware. And what that was, it was an imitation gold plating, and it started with the hardware was copper plated, followed by a gold lacquer. And it gave it sort of a, that was an imitation gold finish. And all the other companies were doing the same thing, but they just had different names for it, and people get them confused. Slingerling called it art gold, Ludwig and Ludwig called it deluxe, and Lady called theirs knobby gold. I like art gold. Yeah. Yeah, I do too. I think that's the best. It's just cool, because I mean, obviously when people think of black beauty, they think of Ludwig. And you look at it, and if you didn't see Slingerling, like it was turned around or something, you would think that that was a, you know, without knowing with, you know, if you know more about the lugs and stuff. But it looks very much in that same vein. Now, did Ludwig kind of borrow that idea from Slingerling? I think it may have just happened organically. Okay. I think they all, because that was, you know, that type of plating was being used on other things, you know, guns. Gotcha. Yeah. So, you know, I think it was just a logical thing. The L went for like a fancy, you know, engraved look. The one distinctive thing about the Slingerling drums at that time, the black beauties and the other lines like the artist model, they had a double flanged hoop, as opposed to the single flanged that everyone else was using. And they, but they use rim clips to hold it on. So it gave it a distinctive look. It gave it that extra flange that would hide the flesh hoop of the drum head. Yeah. It's a, I mean, what did, do you know what, well, I guess like we can see right here on that this would be, you know, for the whole drum set in that period that was like $120. So that's, that was a long time ago. So that's a lot of money, but that's not bad for something now that's extremely valuable. Yeah. I'm not sure what the, what that amount of money would be in today's economy, but I think $120 was fairly expensive at the time. Oh, yeah. Okay. So obviously we are, if this is 1930, 1929, we are in the Great Depression. So I'm not sure how many people are buying these black beauty kits and all that stuff. Now was the company pretty, were they hit pretty hard in the depression or did they seem to seem to do okay? Well, I'm sure they were, although it's sort of the sort of the case that during bad times, people use music to kind of get them through. And I think, you know, bands were still very popular, even though, you know, the economy was so bad, people were suffering. Music and bands still were thriving. Yeah. And I'm sure had that not happened, they would have been really, really going strong. Yeah. And it seems, it's always good to note that I think to reiterate that Gene Krupa is just their guy. So he's obviously at this point, one of the most popular drummers in the country, in the world. And he is, till the day he died, he is a Slingerland guy. So that's. Yes, definitely. Yeah. That's got to be, you know, a great endorsement for them. So yeah, we're in the 30s. Anything else big happening then? Unfortunately for Slingerland, they, at the time, Ludwig and Ludwig had a drum called the Super Ludwig, which had extended snares and was controlled from both sides. It was, you know, it's still made today that, you know, that basic design is still around today. And so Slingerland decided to come out with something called a do all model. It's called do all radio model. And it was pretty much borrowed from Ludwig's super sensitive mechanism. And only theirs was really, really complicated. You know, multiple small parts, little springs, just totally over designed. And it was only around for about a year or a year and a half. And the story goes that Slingerland, I mean, Ludwig and Ludwig didn't like the fact that it was really similar to theirs. So they sent them a cease and desist notification to stop making these drums that are a little bit too much like theirs. Wow. And so that as a result, there's very few of those around. I've had several passed through my hands. And the same with the Slingerland Black Beauty. Today, only about 16 of them, I think, have been found. Wow. That's a pretty small number. Oh my God, yeah. Pretty small considering they were available for quite a while, but it goes back to what you were saying about the depression who had the money for something like that. Yeah. And the same with the Duol, it was $60 at the time for one, which is big money in 1933. Yeah, absolutely. But again, that drum only lasted until 34 and it was gone. Well, that's a testament to if you find one of these, then, you know, that's the holy grail of drums. This seems like a time where people were experimenting a lot with these different snare techniques and the super sensitive. And I guess later on getting into like the Dynasonic and these like interesting techniques for operating a snare drum. Sure. And it was one of the only things that set one company apart from another. So there was a lot of focus on basically building a better mousetrap coming up with a distinctive design that, you know, to compete. And it got a little crazy with some of these where they were just over designing them. And eventually they went kind of went backwards. They started going towards a more simple design. Yeah. And that think that also was happening with the tuning, obviously, with people trying to get the Joe Mechler talked about it a lot with the single tuning kind of, you know, one knob to tune the whole drum, which obviously time after time kind of just didn't didn't work out. So definitely a lot of experimenting going on. Yeah. There was a company called L&S, Lady and Stroop around that same same time, maybe a little later and they had this crazy design of internal tuning. And it was cables going from interior cables going from one lug to another to another. And you would turn, tune it from the outside and it would push up against the drum heads. And again, everyone was trying to come up with something different. They were great concepts and it's been tried all the way up into the early fifties with Lady and Ludwig and their ill-fated knob tension line. A great concept, but they didn't have the mechanical ability, I guess, or to make it to where it was a nice solid working concept. And then, you know, things broke, things fell apart and drummers, drummers are, I'm speaking for myself, are basically simple people. And so they tend to shy away from things like that. It's just too complicated, too much, prone to breakage, not for me. Yeah, exactly. I mean, when you take a drum apart, like as opposed to fixing like an amp or a guitar or something, it's lugs, tension rods, rims in the shell and the snares and stuff. It's relatively simple for us simple people. You take a do-all apart and you've got to be careful. You're dealing with like 40 small pieces and little springs, you make one false move and you've destroyed this. I've actually never even worked on one. I was shyed away. I've had a few and it's like, no, I'm not getting into this. I'll let someone else work on this. My fingers are too big to handle those small parts. No, it's impractical. But they obviously, they experimented and I think other companies kind of learned from their mistakes and maybe, you know, again, they're pioneers, especially in this kind of 30s era and the finishes. I just love, I always love, looking on your website, I love the Sea Green Pearl. That is one of my favorites. They have tons of cool finishes at this point. They don't seem like they're scared to try things and get out there with the cool finishes. Oh, definitely. There's some crazy looking finishes back then. And when I say crazy, I mean, crazy beautiful. Yeah. And Sea Green Pearl, that's always been my favorite too. I've got several sets and snare drums in that finish. And as well as a band, I have a Slingerland banjo and it's just dripping in Sea Green Pearl. It's beautiful. That's so cool to see the banjo with the same finish next to the drums. I mean, it's just like, that is a collector's dream there. Yeah. Yeah. There's something about that green finish. When I first got into vintage drums back in the early 80s, I was reading Modern Drummer and they had an article on vintage drums from the 20s and 30s and 40s. And they had a picture. Although it was in black and white, I was able to use my imagination. But it was a 1930s artist model Slingerland in Sea Green Pearl. And ever since I saw it, I just dreamed of finding one someday. And it wasn't until maybe about 10 years ago that I was able to locate some. And so it's just always been my favorite. Has some sort of mystique to it. Yeah, it does. And I know, I don't know if this is your kit, but on your website, there's a full kit here, which we should touch on the... In 1934, you say that's when they first introduced tunable toms. So I think it's a cool thing to talk about how before that, toms weren't tunable. You were just basically, you know, at the whim of the temperature and all this kind of things. At least the bottom heads and they were the tack heads. So, I mean, that's huge. That's revolutionary. Yeah, it really was. And because, like you said, you were at the mercy of old man weather. And the heads, a lot of the toms were tacked on top and bottom. And even the ones that had one head where you could tune it, it's still at that bottom head would get real loose. And I can imagine a nightmare it would have been to be playing outdoors near the ocean with tacked on heads and no ability to tighten them up. Which is why a lot of drummers had internal heating units or light bulbs that would drive them out enough to keep even tension on top and bottom. But not everyone had those. So I can imagine it would have been rough. Gosh, yeah. The first time I saw that internal light bulb, I actually, I think I posted something and I said, hey, cool, they got a light bulb. Because now you see that and you go, cool, that's a, it's a showy thing. It's like, there's light in here. It looks cool. And someone actually commented and said, hey, no, that's actually to heat up the heads and to make it so the temperature wasn't fluctuating. And it's just, it's wild. It had a dual purpose. It was for show. It would flash behind the painted, you know, the painted scenes on the front heads were real popular back in. So you have the back lighting inside and it would just give a great look to it. But at the same time, it was keeping those heads taut. So you're saying I was partially right. I'm not wrong. Yeah. That's all that matters. You're not wrong. That's good. That's a first. So I have a, you may have seen it. I have a Gretch C Green Pearl drum set and it has a painted head on the front of a windmill. Cool. And I just got three colored bulbs that alternate when you turn it on. And it's really cool. And again, it kept those heads dry. Man. So all right, two questions here while we're on heads. First one, how, I don't know anything about like the actual tack heads. How do you change those? Do you get like a, like pliers and pull out each tack? Or do you just, how, I mean, how does that work? Yes. They have to be all pulled out individually. And each drum has, I don't know, like 40 of them or something at least. Wow. And yeah, you have to pull them all. Say it broke. You know, if it broke, you'd have to have the whole thing retack. And the heads were thicker. They weren't calf heads. They went for either goat. I think it was basically goat or pig skin. And that gave it a little bit of durability, but still they still would get sloppy. And, you know, in humid weather and if it broke one, then you'd have to take it to the drum shop and have somebody, you know, redo all the tacks for you. Wow. And then you think of retacking in the same place of it kind of like wearing out that hole that the tack was in. Yes. Yeah. It's a nightmare. I've tried it and I've never been very successful at it. In that one drum set you referenced, the green pearl set with the 13 inch tom has tacked heads on both top and bottom. Yeah. I actually had to send that to a guy named Jack Lawton who's famous for his incredible restoration work over the years. And he was able to do it for me. He did a beautiful job too. Geez. I don't envy that. Don't try it at home. No, on your 1934 slinger lens. Let someone else do it. Second question while we're on heads is you mentioned, and I've recently, through your website and through some other resources, been just fascinated by the painted scenes on the bass drum heads. It's just such a cool, just like moment in time where that was happening. What's up with that? I mean, were these, they were all hand-painted, obviously. You're not screen printing back in the day. Oh, no. Each company had an artist, an in-house artist that would basically sit at a, not a conveyor belt, but one after another would come by and he'd do a whole painting and the next one would come. He'd do another one. They had several designs. I mean, every company had several really cool designs. Some were silhouette, just black and white, and others were full-color. The craziest one I've ever seen was a forest fire. A friend of mine has a photograph of that. No one knows who owns the drum now. It was on eBay like 15 years ago. Wow. So I think somebody in Europe may have bought it. But again, it had the internal light. So it's just so crazy looking. Yeah, it lit up the flames and it was like a log cabin on fire in the woods. It's kind of a grim, sad photograph. Yeah, it really is. Wow. Cool. So each individual one is hand-painted, so they have to be slightly different one after the other. Cool. Yeah, definitely. And some have the company logo on them and some don't. Some artists were way better than others. In fact, Slingerland's painted heads, compared to the other companies, they weren't that good. They were more of a, I hate to say it, like a B-grade artist was doing them. And there was one in particular I had of a lake scene with a cabin or something. And it just looked like I painted it. It just wasn't that great. And then you see Ludwigs and Leedys and they're like spectacular. So I guess they maybe had higher paid artists or something. Yeah, wow. That's a whole, I'd love to do an episode on that just on those people. I think if there's enough information, that would be really cool. Yeah, I've only seen one or two photos of an artist in the factory actually painting their heads. Yeah, I've got one. I think his name's Sam Bennett. He posts a bunch of cool photos. And I found one that I'll send to you. And you probably have already seen it, but it's awesome. There were a lot of people who did their own to save the money. They would find a friend or their mom or something that was a painter and copy the scenes. And you can always tell the original from the copied one. Yeah, from the kid who's doing it himself. One thing that's cool too at this point is just looking at these 30s style drum sets. The hardware, the floor tom is not mounted with legs. It's got sort of like a cradle that the drum is sitting in, which you just don't see that very often, obviously with what we're used to. Right. And it's funny. I mean, in retrospect, you think, well, why would they use something like that? Why didn't they use legs? And it wasn't until different companies at different times introduced legs. Levy was, if I recall, was the first company to put legs on. And that was in the mid 30s, maybe mid to late 30s. And Slingerland oddly didn't do it until after the war. 1947 was the first time that legs were used on floor tom with the Slingerland company. Wow. And it's just odd that they waited that long. Yeah. You take for granted, thinking there's legs on there. Yeah. I think there was an aversion to drilling into a drum. Yeah. Unlike today, where they put, they'll drill giant holes and things. Yeah. I think they were, if you look, they tried everything they could not to drill into the drum. You see the little, even going back to the Chinese tom's of the 20s and early 30s, they had weird little holders that clamped onto the base drum and just sort of held the tom in place. But nothing was really, you know, there may be one eye hook or something screwed into the, into the shell. And that would be it. So they went, same with base drums. They didn't want to put drill leg drilling for legs. So they had a attach them to the hoops. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the hoop mounted accessories, which to this day, obviously you still see that people want the virgin bass drum, but it's cool. It's just so cool to see how things have translated and what has stuck around versus what has gone away. And I think definitely as music changed and drumming became more aggressive, maybe with harder playing to a point, the drums and drum sets progressed along with the music and demand for sturdier hardware and drums that you could tune. Yeah. Wow. That's cool. Okay. So moving forward here. So that is obviously the 30s. There's tons of cool stuff there as we get closer to the 40s. Well, let's, let's not skip the, the, the final chapter in the 30s for Slingerland. Sure. They, they came up when, when the do all flopped and they, they were forced to, you know, or encouraged to, to stop making them. They came out with a drum called the broadcaster and they had full lugs, which, which you would see on the radio kings later, which is this launched the radio king drum. And that's basically what they were. And once again, they, they had the broadcaster was around for a couple of years until Gretch noticed it. And Gretch had been using the term broadcaster since 1928. Yeah. And so they said, uh-uh, you can't, even though it was, even though Gretch spelled it with a K broadcaster, it was still too close to the spelling. So they didn't drop that. And then that's when the radio king line was born. Hmm. Interesting. And it's on, on that note in the previous episode, we'd, two episodes ago, we were talking about Gretch and I asked why broadcaster, why, and then it's like, why radio king? And it's, it's really, if correct me if I'm wrong, but it's because of just the popularity of the radio, of radio and broadcasting and all that stuff. Yeah. Cool. Exactly. Yes. So that was pretty revolutionary. That's obviously what their, their, their famous drum line and what Jean would always play. Yeah. And Jean actually played a broadcaster. I guess it would be 1935 and Brooks Tagler, who's the total expert on Jean Krupa, pointed that out to me that Jean's first drum wasn't a radio king. Even a little, it looked identical, you know, from a few feet away, but it was actually a broadcaster. Wow. That's interesting. It's kind of like that pre-law suit. You could call it like before they got sued kind of thing. Wow. Right. And all that stuff, the legality, the legal issues, it's, there's not much information on that. Some of it's speculation, some of it's rumor, but there's been enough of it to suggest that this, these things did happen. And maybe it wasn't formally, you know, it wasn't a formal cease and desist order through a court, but it was, you know, back then people did things differently than maybe call, the one company would call the other company. What are you doing? You can't do this. Yeah. Stop. Well, I know with the Zuljan stuff, Gretch wasn't like shy about getting into lawsuits and things like that. But yeah, I'm sure that's pretty blatant. Like, hey, you're using our name. We've been doing this for, you know, X amount of years now. So you better stop. Yeah. It's almost as if slingering wasn't really paying much attention to what the other companies were doing. Yeah. You know, basically I quote unquote, borrowing concepts from other companies. Now, let me ask you this before I forget. So there was, I remember reading in the book, I think briefly in the Slingerland book about Slingerland owning their own farm and they would raise cows to have for obviously their calf skin heads. Do you know anything about that? Only from what I had read in Rob Cook's Slingerland book. Yeah. I don't have too much information on that. Okay. I'll look into that because it's just, and I think I remember reading that they had like at one point like the world's largest cow. I think its name was Greta or something. Yeah, that does sound familiar. Okay. We'll just plant that in people's ears so they can think, you know, think about Slingerland's giant cow. There you go. There was a company called Amaraco American Rawhide Company. It was also in Chicago I think, I'm pretty sure. And a lot of the companies were getting their heads through that. The drunk companies were getting their heads from Amaraco. Okay. That's one of those little pieces where you think, because I know a lot of the companies, they'll say they were drying out hides on the roof and they were doing this and that. So, but I'm sure times changed and all that kind of stuff. Sure. Yeah. Okay. So Radio King in 35, we are introduced to that. Some hardware updates. Things are getting more modern in this period, right? They're pushing the, I like how you see on the broadcaster on the actual rim it says Slingerland Broadcaster, which is such a cool touch. Yeah, it really is. And it was, that was hand engraved too. It wasn't stamped into the rim. Wow. So that was somebody on an assembly line doing that by hand. And even if the first Radio King's had hand engraved hoops like that. And that didn't last too long because once their sales took off, it just wasn't practical. So they were stamping the design into the, into the hoop as opposed to hand engraving. Wow. Okay. And they had Radio King's are full kits. They're a lot of people, a lot of times you see them and it's just the snare drum, but they are full drum sets of Radio King's. Yeah. They attached that name to everything. And yeah, for years people would say, Oh, it's not a true Radio King if it's not this or it's not that. That's really not true. It just, they would, I mean, they had practice pads that said Slingerland Radio King on them. That's interesting. It's kind of a, just a branding, a branding ploy because I honestly, when I was first looking into this, you kind of, you see Radio King and you wonder what exactly that, that is that what makes it that special thing or Radio King, but it kind of just makes sense that it's like anything today. It's like a, it's like a series of drums. Now they were making Radio King's. Were they making other lines of drums? Like did they have a lower tier entry level kit at this time as well? They did, but still they would, even their student model snare drum is called a student model Radio King. And they did that for years. And even though it's not a solid maple shell or it just was a branding thing, like you said. That's interesting and it's cool. I'm looking on your website here and I see they were making, they were also making the, like they've got the Pax All Trap console with wheels, which would be their kind of all in one trap drummer setup. Yeah, those, all the companies back then were using, were offering those rolling trap tables and I have, I've had a couple here, I have one still. And from what I understand, they were being imported from Europe, from England. And like Premiere was big on these elaborate, these big elaborate things that they could wheel out with the bass drum. And the whole set was on this thing and had a trap table and everything attached to it. You just wheel it out on stage. Just to visualize it, it is literally basically bass drum, snare, two toms connected to almost what would be like a rack right now with wheels, a Chinese Tom Tom, and then you've got your temple blocks and just a gong. And then I'm sure on the table you'd put all your little, like your rattle and all your little noise makers, which would accompany theater shows, silent films, which obviously if this is around the, you know, 20s, 30s, it's not long for this world. No, not at all. I think that may have come from, it was basically the vaudeville era they were using those. Yeah, wow. Alright, so then we are approaching the 40s, which as we all know, and in the previous episode we've talked about, on episode two we talked about the World War II stuff, Slingerland is pretty much synonymous with, if you think of World War II era drums, you typically think of the rolling bomber, which over like the Ludwig victory or the victorious and all this stuff. So they were big in the World War II era. They were, and they were the only company that had top and bottom tunable heads during World War II. All the other companies had it, just went back to basics and had tapped on bottom heads. Interesting. So they were really primitive, and that's why the rolling bombers were more successful I guess, and more in demand today as opposed to the other companies, they're more playable, and they're just works of art too. Absolutely, so top and bottom heads could be tuned, but no floor tom legs, because that came post World War II. Well, there's some, there's a little bit of a discrepancy there. World War II may have been the jumping off point for them starting to put legs on, because the rolling bomber floor tom actually had wooden legs on them. They had these wooden, three wooden brackets on the drum with a hole drilled in it, and then you would have this thick maybe inch and a half piece of wood, like a dowel rod, and it would fit in to the hole, and they weren't very reliable at all, and they would fall out. But that was their first excursion into floor tom legs, so they were starting to catch on by World War II. Yeah, as things are just completely changing. Now were they still, so we're in this kind of early 40s, late 30s, early 40s, were they still making banjos at this point in time? I don't think so. I would have to check on that when they actually stopped offering banjos. I would think once they became the Slingerland drum company and dropped that banjo name, which I guess was around 1936. Okay. 36, 37 when their first catalog came out for Radio King. Yeah, the banjos were pretty much the thing of the past, especially getting into swing bands, and the banjo didn't play a real big part in those from what I can tell. Yeah, if you're obviously doing the best with drums, why keep making something else that doesn't seem to be? I think I heard in one of the previous interviews that the hype and the obsession with banjos kind of dissipated a little bit and wasn't quite as massive as it was in the 20s. Yeah, definitely. Cool, okay, so now I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who want to hear a little bit more about hardware such as lugs and the stick saver rims and all that stuff. What was going on in this period of time there? Was it changing their lugs a lot or has it been pretty much consistent through the whole history of the company? Well, starting with the Broadcaster in 35, up until 1940 they were using what was known as the Streamline Lug. It's the one everyone is familiar with on Radio King drums. In 1940 they came out with something called a Beaver Tail Lug on their Super Radio King line and they were small lugs made out of cast metal Streamline Lugs were but it was just a distinctive look. There was really no reason for them that maybe they were a little bit lighter weight so it might make a drum set way a little bit less but they became pretty popular, the Beaver Tail. They were available at the same time as the Streamline Lug so it was an optional thing. Those little Beaver Tail lugs actually you could order Tom Toms and bass drums with them and the only bass drum I've ever seen with small Beaver Tail was one I had a few years ago and it's really kind of unusual looking but it did make the drum a lot lighter. That could have been a reason for it. They were available up until about 1955. Now like what you just said there with this drum has this is the only bass drum you've seen with the Beaver Tail were they pretty consistent with like here in all these drum companies it's almost like I've come across a couple that have this and a couple that have that it seems like as times changed they just kind of put whatever they had for various drums. It wasn't as much of a this is this goes with this drum this goes with this drum they seem to have a little bit more discrepancies in what was going on. Yeah, you see that a lot with Slayerland more so than any other company that they were mixing and matching parts and especially as they transition from one era to another you see some unusual combinations of hardware. Cool, so side note here just to kind of keep the timeline going with who's running the company so HH founded the company HH Slayerland he is in charge up until in the 30s then I believe he died of a stroke and then Henry Jr also known as Bud took over and I think that's kind of our current owner at the point where we're at. Yeah, and he was the owner up until into the 60s. I don't know the exact date but he was the main man all through the 50s and 60s. Yeah, Bud with two D's is whenever you hear about Slayerland you typically hear about Bud, big personality. Right, and there was also Walter Robert Slayerland was HH's brother I believe. Okay. He was heavily involved in the company early on too. Well the family nature of the company was obviously super prevalent until later on when it gets sold off but we will get there so we get out of World War II Now do you know any cool interesting kind of secret tidbits about was Slayerland making anything in particular during the war effort besides drums? I don't think they were. I know the other companies like Ludwig and Ludwig I think they were making altimeters for airplanes and different things. I don't think Slayerland really they kind of just aside from the rolling bombers they kind of just backed away. Gotcha. The government in June of 1942 they issued their order that companies had to use only 10% metal in producing their instruments. Yeah, the L-37 ruling? Yeah, that's it. That was in place until 1944 I think middle of 1944 they started to relax as the allies were winning the war and the tides were turning they started to relax the restrictions but it was still a tough time and it took the companies a couple years to get back on their feet crucial metals were still not available until like 1946 because brass was a huge part of the war effort so they had to make do with what they had. I have a letter from the company that was sent out to the dealers saying that symbols weren't available in order to radio king set except for the snare drums everything had wooden hoops because there was such a scarcity of raw materials. Now do you find those? Have you seen some of those? The war era radio kings that have the wooden hoops do those come up? Yes, as a matter of fact there's a white marine pearl set on the website on the Slingerland History website that's a good example of that I'm looking at it right now it's unbelievable. You asked about the rolling bombers because they had the ability to tune top and bottom heads they were quite playable as a matter of fact I used them at gigs over the years and they were great with the exception of the snare drum in the middle of the song I broke two lugs on the snare drum because they won't take much tension you need a lot more tension on the snare obviously than the bass drum or the tom-toms the bass and tom's were great the snare drums were a little dicey. People would be using brushes it would be less loud kind of like plain not saying that you were playing death metal on a rolling bomber or something but that's good to know though I'm sure they're extremely well made they're just beautiful drums they really are like I said they're works of art they used rosewood and walnut whatever was available at the time but the result was a very beautiful set. So we get out of World War II and they're allowed to use metal again everything's great people are playing the drums so now we're kind of in the late 40s and the 50s The drums really didn't change much pre-war to post-war they basically were the same product and they very little change until you get into 1947 they started installing floor tom legs which is a big change and in 1948 they redesigned all of their lugs in the style of the small beaver tails they just made them large bass drums and the tomtoms would be put together with these new 1948 lugs with the curved end as opposed to the squared off stream lines and with the exception of the snare drum they kept the stream line look all the way up until 1955 Wow and hardware they seem to be kind of pushing forward with innovative hardware they've obviously they're making their own I assume that a lot of their hardware like the other companies stands and they were produced by a separate company like Walberg and OJ Big maker of they would I think a lot of this stuff was made for them by machine companies Interesting I didn't know that that's good information because you never know who's making what and what's generic and who's got the same thing going on but I guess that they wouldn't have the ability on site to be producing all these metal stands I mean I could be wrong about this but it seems to me that they were shot they were outsourcing some of these parts Versus fabricating all your own metal and all that stuff Even the lugs I'm pretty sure are made by a separate machine company Cool Just to clarify I'm looking on your website in 1954 Slingerland president Robert Slingerland retired and HH Slingerland junior or Bud replaced him so I think I had my times wrong before so Walter took over after HH and then Bud followed Walter Cool, glad I could clear that up and not look like a complete idiot I was going a long way through there for a little bit so I'm an idiot too We're in this together. Alright so fifties, Bud's running the show It's good to note that in 1955 they did a complete overhaul of the looks of their drums the hardware, everything changed they went with what was called the Sound King hardware and they did away with the sharp which some people call stick chopper who they did away with those in favor of a more rounded edge to the top to the hoops in general people call them stick saver I don't even think that was an official name and they went from they did away with the streamline squared off cigar shaped lugs in favor of what everyone's familiar with nowadays very rounded smooth sound king lugs they kept the same the strainers were modified slightly but both the clamshell and the 967 known as the three-point strain they kept with those for a long time if it worked, why mess with it Exactly, don't fix what's not broken So in 1955 they purchased the Leedy drum company from Kahn Kahn decided to drop their drum line so Slingerland and Ludwig both were bidding on the drum making equipment and Leedy got some and Slingerland got some and Slingerland got some and it was kind of a confusing time you got what they call Slinger Leedy where they had a Leedy name on it but it was basically a Slingerland drum and that didn't last too long Yeah, Leedy in general is just kind of an interesting company that was so big and so massive and then kind of got passed around and just fizzled out which is kind of sad Yeah, and when Ludwig acquired certain things from the sale of Leedy they introduced the Leedy and Ludwig company which is a whole different story Yeah, that's its own whole thing and persists I kind of always ask what was the golden era of a drum company what would you say is Slingerland's golden age? Well to me I just I love the early 30s era it's just kind of a magical era for me and especially because the fancy finishes were so much more in vogue during that time once the late 30s hit they started doing away with most of the fancy finishes was basically sparkle finishes white-brained pearl black black diamond pearl things like sea green and coral and abalone all those kind of gorgeous exotic finishes were a thing of the past so to me that's the golden era others would say the Radio King era and some would say the 60s it's just it varies from one person to another the 1930s early 30s late 20s early 30s is my favorite golden age cool yeah out of they all have many I think that's kind of a subjective question there when we get in the 60s I think most people know that in the 60s when the madness with the Beatles happen a lot of people decide to pick up drums and I'm sure there was an upswing for all companies I bet Slingerland wasn't excluded from that obviously Ringo was playing Ludwig but I think there was kind of a trickle effect for a lot of people of just creating the boom of becoming drummers sure I mean the introduction rock and roll that was a boost for every company obviously Ludwig benefited the most with the Ringo association and Slingerland to a point was looked upon at that time is a little bit old fashioned I think still having Jean Krupp as their main endorser yeah it's sort of a throwback to the big band era and not hip, not with it, not modern so without actually knowing I would assume that their sales lagged in comparison to Ludwig definitely so yes Krupp up more old school obviously Buddy Rich was a Slingerland player a lot less loyal particularly just to one company yeah Buddy would play anything pretty much if you paid him yeah but he did play a lot of Slingerland obviously and I'm sure that was a big draw in that era for people so that's important to note yeah he started out on Slingerland when he was a young drummer he was an endorser in the late 30s and he switched to Ludwig at one point and then Rogers in the mid 60s and then back to I think he stayed pretty much once he went back to Slingerland after the Rogers era I think he stayed with Slingerland for the rest of his life even at the end of his career an old fashioned radio king set put together in his final days sort of as a nostalgia thing I guess cool so one thing to note and people have probably seen it is the yellow tiger pearl finish where it's basically the tiger stripe that is by far my favorite drum set I've seen them more as stewards in the Japanese world I've seen them in that finish in various other companies but gosh that is just such a neat drum and finish I recommend people look up yellow tiger pearl and you are going to love it well they were the only company that actually made that finish and I agree it's my favorite they had a red tiger version at the same time to me not as exciting as the yellow and definitely the yellow is more uncommon and I think just to touch upon the MIJ thing because the Japanese companies were using inferior for the most part using inferior quality parts and shells they went with the fancies finishes I mean some of their Japanese finishes are crazy I think it was just to compensate for the lack of maybe lack of construction quality they just slapped on some really wild finishes to kind of up their profile don't look at our crappy hardware but look at this crazy finish sort of a diversionary look over here well it worked because I love the MIJ stuff and a lot of people do I think those are making they've not gone away but I think a lot of people are realizing wow I can get a great drum set for 400 bucks that looks a lot like a Gretch set but it's dirt cheap compared to what you would pay for these the real deal stuff it's amazing how they got away with the close copying they did of hardware I mean they even made a radio king looking drum with a three point strainer all Japanese parts and looks like the real deal from a foot or two away but it's amazing they were able to do that really go after a company across the Pacific to say hey you can't do this no and that's exactly from when I talked to Mark Patch about it that's what he said is it seemed like and I think Jim Moritz said the same thing where he said it's not worth it you're gonna sue a company in China that you how do you litigate that it's just not worth it but I bet it did I'm sure it did make the sales at Slingerland because half the people would say we're not sure if you're actually gonna play this instrument little son or daughter so here let's start with this yes and it looks for all intents and purposes it looks like a top quality Slingerland drum set yeah basically the same finish yeah at a fraction of the price and like you said it was to litigate that S-C would be just wouldn't be worthwhile no alright so then in 1970 Bud decides to retire and he sells the company so after 42 years of family ownership the company is in different hands which is pretty sad but I'm sure that that is honestly the way it goes with a lot of these companies right it was sold to a publishing firm and that's about the only information I have but fortunately and thankfully they didn't change anything and they continued to make a really high quality Slingerland drums I guess the the owners, the new owners figured why change it, why mess with a good thing and they continued into the early 80s basically looking the same as ever and you know some changes in the shell design they kept a lot of the the look and feel of the Slingerland drums all the way up until into the 80s and mid 80s and when Gretchen Gibson and some other companies passed ownership from one to the other it just kind of gets handed down and then you see pictures I think it's the gosh I forget the name of it it's like the Trey Kool model like 90s kind of like beginner drum set where it's kind of it just appears that it's the logo slapped on to a like a Chinese yes and that's when it really quality went downhill during that time and it just it no longer to me bore any resemblance to what I would think of when I would think of Slingerland it just they cheapen cheapen the name so nothing like the old stuff but so that basically brings us to the modern day where as far as I understand I'm pretty sure to this day Gibson owns the trademark and nothing is happening with it I don't think there's a plan to do anything else it doesn't seem like it seems like they're just sitting on the name and to what end or for what reason I have no idea from what I understand is no plans for it for the company to be revived I see that as let it let it be what it was let it be the great company that everyone loves it's just absolutely a part of drum history up and down it's just nothing but great stuff and I think it's just it's super cool and your website and you as a just a person is such a great resource man this has been amazing why don't you tell people where they can find you what's going on if there's anything you're working on email anything just let people know where they can find you well the best way to reach me is through my website at www.coopersvindesdrums.com and I've got I have several Facebook pages one devoted to Slayerland history Leedy World War II Drums I've got a lot of I'm in a lot of places I'm pretty easy to find cool well you're a super nice guy and it's been it's been great talking with you I know everyone's going to love hearing this and getting to the bottom of Slayerland because it's not a modern company that you see out and about all the time so it's kind of it's really I think special to learn about this kind of stuff that made us the drummers we are today I'm so happy to be a part of it and what really thrills me is is I'm seeing a lot of young guys getting into the vintage drums and it's you know because for years we all us collectors would talk about the next generation is not going to have any interest in this stuff and you know they're not going to want to hear know about or hear about drums from the 30s or the 40s and it's proving not to be the case I run into a lot of young people that are crazy for the vintage drums so that's the encouraging thing yeah it's just you can't be a drummer and not be drawn to these amazing historical drums and facts and information so the obsession never goes away I'm 61 years old and I've been crazy but I've been in drums since I was 24 or 23 or 24 yeah it's when very few people were into it in fact that's funny it's incurable but it was so hard to find information on vintage drums back then obviously you didn't have the internet there were only a couple people that I knew that knew anything about it so it was kind of a frustrating era to learn about vintage drums but it's really changed and you can find information on any of this stuff at the touch of a keystroke yeah and that all comes back to where people should go which is dot com incredible resource I've shared your photos on Instagram and stuff and it's just amazing so I'm going to have to send you a cease and desist order I'm going to come up with a website that has the exact same name only spelling with a K Cooper with a K that's awesome alright Mark thanks for taking the time to talk with us today and I'm sure we'll see you around at the drum shows thank you so much Bart and I'll be at the Chicago drum show this year I'll be there talk to you later if you like this podcast find me on social media at drumhistory 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