 Welcome to the drum history podcast, I am your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm joined by Mr. Wes Faulkner of Explorers Percussion. Wes, welcome to the show. I'm very glad to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Sure, my pleasure. So today we're talking about Ziko strums, which is, I would say, a well-known brand in the drum nerd community, but maybe to people who aren't as interested in this stuff. They may have never heard of Ziko strums, but it's definitely something that's affected through the acrylic drums really that made a huge impact on drumming. Back during the time, I think the very first time I got to see one of his drum sets is probably like around, it's probably close to around 72 when they did the newer lugs and stuff on them and everything. And they were very futuristic looking because we're now getting into more of the more plastic, acrylic world. And we saw them, it was very futuristic. Seeing them there, they was like a very new cap and material. You see something made out of it, you can see through it. And that was like, wow, you can see through these drums and everything. So it was really cool to see them. And I remember the most popular set I always saw was the they call it the 400 drum set, which was like 214 rack toms and 18 inch floor tom. And then the deep long bass drum. And that was like $750 and brand new. That's expensive for obviously for back then. I mean, and those are huge sizes. But all right, so as you kind of alluded to, these are very early, some would say the first acrylic drums, but why don't we rewind a little bit and let's talk about Bill Zecos, the inventor, founder of the company, who this this was in Kansas City, you're in Kansas City, Missouri. So this was kind of in your the suburbs around you, correct? Right. Yeah. Like I said before, we talked in the past that there's a kind of a dual city in Kansas City, Missouri is the main metropolis, but it's also Kansas City, Kansas. So all the big suburbs around on the Kansas side are really kind of suburbs are still Kansas City, Missouri. And that's where he kind of settled in at in the early to mid sixties, where he did a lot of teaching, but a couple of the big school districts, they're like Shawnee Mission School District, and he worked with all the school bands, and he composed music that they played. And Bill Zecos also worked with like little percussion ensembles back in the schools. He had lots of students. And they even did like sometimes halftime shows at the Kansas City Chiefs Games back in the sixties and everything. So he kind of had a little thing invented kind of like four or five drum sets together. They did like, you know, kind of a quartet drum sets. And I think it was later on went to Jim Casey, Jim Casey Conservatory that was used it over there, over there a lot too. And he would like take breaks solo, where you kind of get them a little motif going and everything. But yeah, Bill, though, I think it was mostly a big band drummer, he played in the same kit and band and a couple other bands as well. And before he came back to Kansas City and he just grew up in Fulton, Missouri, which is not too far away from here. That's great. So obviously his background, like you said, as a performer, I'm sure he was like tinkering around with drums. So you said he was building some kits for his students, right? Those were not acrylic though at that point, right? Yeah, not that I know of. I know that he had like a little small, where he taught drum lessons at. Like half the shop was kind of mostly drums and half the shop was guitars and other musical instruments. And he was really into sonar drums a lot. And sonar was really, he really loved sonar drums. He played, that's what he was playing for. He, you know, of course, came up with his own drums. But I did ask him, would you first think of, you know, the clear drums and everything, you know, clear drums would be cool. And he said that he's like late fifties, what he told me. But one of the first things I heard he started doing was he was ordering, we had this little shop, he was ordering drumheads from Bob Beals, who ran, you know, Heaven's Drumheads, which is out in Dodge City at that time, Dodge City, Kansas. And he was special ordering drums. He was actually, I think, taking the coating off the coated drumheads, which would then be clear because they were just sprayed, the coating was sprayed on the clearheads. And he was asking them to especially, you know, just send the heads about the coating on there. So he's one of the first guys that actually kind of kind of invaded clear drumheads to a certain extent too. And later on, definitely was a big influence on the hydraulic heads, the two ply head, but the real oil in the middle, not the, a lot of people kind of thought, you know, pinstripes and emperors or oil too. So he had a big influence on that as well. I think made the clearheads, some think, might've gave him the idea at the time to go into clear drums. But he, like I said, he told me that he thought of clear drums back in the late 50s and everything. So, you know, and I mentioned it, I did an episode about just kind of broad acrylic drums, which we didn't go deep into ZECOS or anything much on that. But I remember mentioning that like, there's also the like whole thing where like plastic became more readily available. And you think of like, I think of like skateboard wheels, where they turned into like, you know, they went from being hard to like this more like, like softer rubber. And it was all around that time of like the late 50s, early 60s. So I guess it's, it's the materials became more accessible. And he saw it as an opportunity, which is pretty innovative. That's very true. Yeah, I think I can remember as a kid, like around, you didn't really start seeing even plastic in cars, like around 68. It might have been very little for that, because it was all metal, you know? And it's a plastic, I might remember my dad got a new car in 1968, and he started seeing the plastic. Then by like, you know, a couple years later, 70 or 70s and everything, you saw a lot more plastic in the cars and taken away from the metal and everything. So, so I always say, I said, because a lot of acrylic drums were looked very futuristic back then. And of course, I think Ludd would come out with their clear, the vislides like around 70 threes in the catalog, but they weren't, I don't think they're very many in the, in the stores yet. But yeah, these drums were very, very, very futuristic. I think the first that he made, by the way, did have Sonar hardware on it. And Sonar lugs and everything. That's neat. I know Sonar, guys, would like to hear that. It's always neat to piece together little bits of history like that. But all right, so do you know more details though, like that first time he was in his shop? I mean, I mean, maybe he's obviously more inventive than me, but it's not like you can just go out and like, you know, heat some plastic over, clear plastic over a candle and melt it, you know, like how did that process go? Yeah, I'm not for sure exactly how they first made that first kit. If they were, I think they were, it was pretty crudely done before they got the big oven, which was like a big pizza oven. I think it was like around eight feet wide and four feet deep. And I think that what they did, what they did at first, it was very crude the way they did it. They didn't have that regular, you know, obviously full size oven or anything. But I do know that they did make their shells. He made them. He had like these molds. When he heated up the acrylic, they went around the molds. So it was kind of from the outside around the mold. I do know that Ludwig made theirs from the inside of the mold, but there's an inside. But he did have in mind, when he did his shells were eight or a quarter inch thick, they were thicker than anybody else's even in the future. I think the Ludwig Grums were like around three sixteenths thick. So he advertised that too. And supposedly he did get a patent like about 1970. So now he's always advertised in his little pamphlets, you know, they're patent because they're so unique and everything that patent on like clear acrylic drums. I mean, how did that work with like Fibes, Ludwig, you know, various companies doing because other, I mean, most companies had acrylic drums not too far after that. Was that a big problem for him? I think it was at first. I think they did call Ludwig or hadn't, you know, send an attorney, send a letter to them and everything. They just pretty much laughed at everything. They said, you know, we don't care, you know, we're just going to keep on doing what we're doing. And I think they didn't, they made a few sets, Ludwig hardware too, just only a few of them. It's because the first set was, had the Sonar hardware on it, Sonar lugs. I think it had a camco. They used a camco double tom holders a lot. And one reason why too, because camco was then out in Chinook, Kansas, which was not that far away on the Kansas side. And they were pretty good holders back then for that time. So the first set was made for Ron Bush, you know, the iron butterfly drummer. Wow. That was the very first, the very first drum set. And then second set was made for Keith Moon and he used Slinglin hardware on that, Slinglin lugs. And then the third set was a demo kit that had Slinglin lugs as well, that was supposed to kind of go with the Bill Ward of Black Sabbath, but he never did supposedly buy it. But I think I did see him playing the clear set of, you know, Zico's there around the mid-70s. I think it was like the volume four album. Man. I began it inside that album. He's playing a clear set of Zico's drums. Those are like, I mean, I think there's a lot of independent drum builders today who, I know it was different in the 60s and 70s, but like, man, I mean, your first kind of, I don't want to use the term endorsers, but you know what I mean. Like, your first guys are using them are, let's say Sabbath and the who, and we'll throw iron butterfly on there because they're maybe not the biggest band in the world. But Inagata DeVita is obviously a part of like rock history. Sure. Those are like the biggest drummers you could ever get in the world playing your drums. Very true. Very true. And this is like, you know, like 69 was the was the Rambushi set. That was the big Inagata DeVita drum solo. That solo there was, they had a lot of influence on people. You know, that was it. That was the solo. You know, I mean, for rock drummers, you know, back in the four on the one, you know, point, I mean, the four on the four bass drum, you know, thing going on and everything. But so in 72, then he had, they got their own luck casing. So their own, you know, design and everything. But back up a little bit though, one little thing a lot of people don't know about Seaco's is that he had a little bit of a, him and this, the guy that had the other side of the music store, I think was Mike Wagner, he had, they formed a production company called the MWZ production company. They brought some of these bands in to Kansas City. And when they came in there to the venue to play, which is usually at this place called Memorial Hall over in on the Kansas City, Kansas sides, he would bring a clear kit down there and show them the drums and everything. And that's how he kind of, you know, kind of, I guess you could say, you know, homegrown direct advertising there. And a lot of times when they did this, they had these stamps they made, but they would stamp their names on the drum heads, wherever drum that was, they brought the drums down there. So the Bill Ward drum set is still around Kansas City. Oh, cool. And you see, I've seen it before. And it's just a nice little stamp on that. Nothing fancy, just a little of his name, you know, Bill Ward on the clear, clear heads and everything. It's kind of cool. That's really kind of nice homegrown, you know, playing. In fact, the first time, it might have been technically the second, but I think it was the first time that when Zeppelin came, Led Zeppelin came to Kansas City, they rented, they actually played Bonham played as Ezeko's kid. Whoa, that is deep on so many levels, because obviously like Zeppelin, you think Ludwig, but on top of that, you think the amber Vista lights. So yes, nuts. That's awesome. Actually, they did two shows. I think the second show not to go off record here, but I'll have to beat her, but he supposedly got to get really sick. And to my third, second or third song, he just like threw up all over his drums and one of Bill Ezeko's students finished the show with Zeppelin. Yes. Oh my God. I don't know. I can't really, I don't know the kid's name that did it. But yeah, in fact, he was using, it was actually his drum set. I think he was like, this is like for, this is for John, John Bonham was a big legend and everything. But he's like really excited. It's, you know, Rockstar was playing his drums and everything and all of a sudden, all of a sudden, then John got sick and threw up all over the drums and everything. Man, you think of those like the stories of Keith Moon passing out from like horse tranquilizers. It's like, I wonder if John Bonham was like, he had food poisoning, or if he was like completely partied out or something, you know? Yeah, I think it was in between the shows. I think he was just drinking a lot and someone said it was his birthday. He was celebrating. But I think I look at the date before, I don't think it was his birthday. I don't think I had any continuity there between his birthday and the day that they were in town that night. But I will say one thing too, Bill Ziko's wife, her name was Barbara Ziko. She was quite instrumental in a lot of the book and all these bands and stuff too. And also working within the Ziko's company and everything. So it was kind of a... That's awesome. Can we, I just want to clarify our dates here a little bit. So what would you say was the like... When was the founding of Ziko's drum company? Like in the history of the company, if someone goes, oh, I love Ziko's, it started in like Ludwig, 1909. What was Ziko's starting date? I'd say like 1969, probably when they made that first drum set for... But it became Ziko's corporation though in like 1972. Wow. So you had all these sets, you know, you had the ones with sonar, you know, the sonar lugs on it. And you had the other ones with the very few that had slingling lugs on them. But they also made some sets that had the camco lugs on it too. I think there's like around 20 kits were made with camco hardware on them. Those are very, very early kits. Again, that was like 69 to 71 or so, you know, with all those mixture of these different sets, different hardware, you know, was made. But I know there were the 20 kits that were made with them. And I think, like I said, a few sets that were made with Ludwig lugs. And Ludwig said, no, we're not going to, you know, they're going to come out their clear drums. They'd cut them off. And then, of course, they had their disagreements with the patent and all that stuff as well. But yeah. So 72, the corporate, it became a corporation. My understanding is that one of those students' father helped and he made an investment into the company. So he was like, you know, say, stockholder or one of the big investors. And that was kind of one of the maybe errors that maybe Bill might have made there, because he let them have 51% of the company. Oh boy. So down the road, there was some issues with, you know, I guess, some conflicts with money, you know, they thought they were, he was like, but the money was being used or some other type of conflict. And one day, those Ecos came to work and they pretty much told me they didn't need him anymore, you know? Oh man. It's kind of like the George Way thing where like he goes home for lunch and then they just send him a message. What is it? John Roshan, they're like, don't come back from lunch. We don't need you here. Very similar to that. Yeah, it's very similar. And I think it, next, that's when it became Ziko's corporation. And I was told by one, the friend that works there named Dave Dyke. He's really a very knowledgeable guy that works for, he's kind of pretty much a very important person that played a big important part in the company. He said that they, I think it bought like 50,000, like the lugs, the tincture mods and a little claw hook. Like they bought 50,000 pieces all at the same time, you know? So there's a big, it's a big plus, you know, as far as going forward and becoming a, you know, a regular drum company. And I think they were probably, I would say around 1974, you know, 75 was probably when they were at their peak, you know? But I did hear too that Bill Ziko, like late 71, very early 72 is when he let the company, but then he was asked to come back though too once it began, the corporation came back and later, later on in 72, but then he left again. So. Yeah, it's also similar to North Drums. Um, doing that story with Roger North, it was like a, the founder leaving and then coming back and then not having, you know, like they need him and all that stuff. Um, now on the camco stuff, so this is, I have, I have two huge regrets, uh, drum-wise in my life. And one was recently where I was selling, so long story short, I was selling a camera that I had that I used for work, like, you know, doing video stuff and selling it for like 700 bucks, expecting to get 600 right at the time. And I'm a big believer in if you sell like gear or a camera, then that money shouldn't go back into like, don't pay your mortgage or whatever with that money, take that money and like buy more drums or buy more. I was going to buy a computer or like, or put money towards a computer. Then on Facebook marketplace, a Zikos set pops up that had camco hardware that I believe he said was like 69 or 70. Say that we wrote earlier. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And it was, I don't think I have, I should have like screenshoted a picture of it or something, just to save, which as I'm talking, I'll kind of look, but I kept being, it was like $650 for, I think it was the camco hardware, it was, there was no snare, I'm assuming they didn't usually come with snares, but it was two toms and a floor tom and a 22 inch bass drum, I think. And I was like, I probably could have just bought the drums and then taken the money that I sold from the camera and kind of replenished that in like a savings account, but I didn't. And I was like, do you still have it? I'm still waiting to sell this camera. The guys sold them and like three days later, I ended up selling the camera for the exact amount of money that I needed to buy this Zikos drum set. So I would probably regret that for the rest of my life. That's very rare, for sure. Very rare. Yeah. And I think they were in like somewhere kind of middle of Ohio or maybe in Indiana. And if anyone's curious, the second one was a set of fives. The second giant mistake I've ever made was I missed getting this really cool set of fives for like no joke, like $75 for the full set, clearly a person who didn't know the value of what they had. And he said, you just missed it. And then he also texted me and said, I've gotten like 90 messages about this. So those are my two. And you know, you think about it, everyone. So you're like, man, that Zikos kid. Well, you might get the chance again. You might get the chance again. Yeah, it might come back up again. We'll get back on like the history stuff, but what do they typically go for? Like that set, I mean, obviously, I just said, I think there was some scratches and it wasn't in perfect shape. It had the original bass drum head with the Zikos, but like what do they typically run for nowadays if you're trying to get your hands on old Zikos? I think it's all over the place. I mean, again, it depends on what the person, you know, if they know what they've got, you know, a lot of people these days, they look on the internet, they'll see someone's asking whether they're asking for a drum set. That's a price they'll think, because what things are going for. But that's really why people are asking for something. So it's not really what it's sold, it's probably still for sale. So it might be on a really low inside, might be on a really high inside. But I would say the average Zikos set now is probably, you know, and it's been a really, really clean condition, maybe like $800 to $1,200 and you might find some sets for around five or 600. You know, I think about clear drums is that they can, they get scratched up pretty easy. You know, it's almost like satin flame type finish drums. It shows a lot of scratches are easy or chrome drums. They look great when they're, they've been taken care of and they're clean and everything. But if you don't, you know, if you're doing gigs and everything, you're tearing down, setting them up, tearing down, setting them up, then, you know, there's going to be some, probably some marks on them and you get yellowing factors and stuff like that. Zikos drums, you know, too much to have. There is some, there's a few plating issues once in a while. You might see like the other chrome might be coming off, you know, mainly on the hoops or maybe some small little cracks. Like a lot of people back in the 70s took their front heads off the bass drum. They took their heads off the bottom of the toms and everything. But for clear drums, it was usually better to get a lot of tension to the very top of the head to have both heads on top and bottom because especially we have a seam there. It puts me at the tension point from the very top side. It wants to split open the seam and everything. And they happened a lot on bass drums. Even with Ludwig, I know, we'll get the tom-toms on the bass drum and they don't get the bass drum up high enough and they get the front head off. A lot of times the bass drum would split open or something, you know, so. Well, it's like, it's like a guitar where if you have a guitar with like the strings off of it for a long time, it's like that's really not good for the neck. That's true. I never thought about that. That's probably very true too. Yeah, it starts going their direction kind of maybe or too much tension or too much tension could probably do the Zach and maybe, you know, bow it in a little bit, I guess too. But I mean, there's, I think some drums, it's just been out of it. They're taking care of, you know, they're in cases for a long time and not taking out for gigs a lot. They're going to be probably very, you know, clean. They're stored in the right places, but I said the average price on them again, but it's probably like, you know, exit 800 to 1000 if they're, you know, pretty clean. So not a lot. Yeah. Not crazy money. I mean, one thing about the sale of all these drums are things like in the late 70s, I think I think it was kind of clear drums, maybe because of Ludwig had come out to all different colors and everything. People just got, there was just so many, I'm out there for a while, I think it kind of hurt the price of them a little bit. So we went into business in like around 1984, people were getting rid of like clear kits like crazy. And I think wood kits were really in style. I could, you know, Tom was coming out with their superstar kids and, and of course in prehistoric, more, more covered kids, but, but they had, you know, Billy Cobham and Neil Thurbs advertising all these wood drums and silent films and stuff. So people just went like from clear to wood to totally, you know, opposite direction. And so we got, we took in a lot of clear kits back in the 80s and they were, they were probably when they the price of those drums were kind of bottomed out, you could say. But it's kind of interesting. You've made me feel better though about not getting that kit for, because I thought 625, I was like, oh my God, this is the best deal in the world. But it sounds like that's honestly about right. Like he did his homework. Yeah, probably so. And then, you know, you get the sets with the Ziko's lugs on it, you're going to get all those other features too that he kind of like advertised a big deal, which they were kind of futuristic in a way as far as at the time, you know, compared to other drum companies, you know, he had the bigger tension screws. They were thicker, supposedly thicker and stronger and everything. Of course, only his tension screws work on his drums. There were no springs in the lugs or anything. You had the little plastic sleeves or gaskets behind the lugs, you know, to isolate. I mean, of course, the no springs, everything cuts down all the, you know, vibration sound of the springs and everything. The buzzing sounds used to have a lot on the drums in the studio and everything. But of course, they came with two ply heads back then and then when they got him going to 72 and the quick release poops, which was cool, which was very similar to the Miyazi drums back then. The Miyazi out of Italy was a kind of, the lug was very similar to the Miyazi lug. Can you explain that quick release? Because I'm looking at the pictures online and I think I, I mean, I, it's, if you see it, you kind of understand it, but how does that quick release system work? Well, basically there was like a little round roller pin that the tension rod went down into. And then the tension rod, you know, and like for the, probably the washer would be, it has that little claw hook and that hooked into that little slot. There was like little cut out slots around the counter hoop that it hooked into. So you just hit it back off this, this tension rod, just a couple of turns and then you just pulled out away from the drum and you can turn change the head a lot, a lot quicker. Yeah. It's cool. It's smart. I feel like I've seen that elsewhere and it's kind of escaping me, but that, that technology. Yeah. Tom, I brought it back in the late 80s. They had a snare drum that they brought it back. I think, I think it was around 87 or 88. It's been, I remember right. They brought back kind of a glass stone drum too. It was kind of a different concept. They were kind of looking at other people's drums and everything. And I think they, they brought it back again though. And it was kind of popular in some of their drums in the 2000s too. They, they're the only company that actually, they did that. And the roller pin, of course, would come out very easily too. You had to kind of line it up with the hole and everything. But it's, you had the curved spurs, which is before Ludwig had, they even had theirs out, which was definitely an idea from the camco style. Yeah, for sure. And all the lugs and tension rods worked for all the drums, which made it really simple. You had to have different lengths or anything or different sized lug casings. You know, it's like the toms, the bass drum or snare drum. So they were, they were all the same size. Of course, they had the stag drum on the snare drums, because they're too big, which, and there's not a lot of non-executive snare drums out there anyway. So they use the, they use the same claw and hook design too on the bass drum rims too, because they had to use those metal hoops. So there's no wood hoops or anything. So now why were there less snare drums? I mean, because when I think about it, I think like typically companies like maybe they make more snare drums than drum sets because people, it's easier to buy a snare than it is to buy a set for the most part. Why didn't they make more snares? Yeah, that's a good point. Give a great question. I don't really know why. That's another reason why you probably could have like marketed the drums with the snare drum, get the snare drum out there and later on, you know, buy the drum set, you know, kind of motion on that too, but it didn't do that. Usually when you saw his drums in the music store, he had the three toms in the bass drum. And I know that I could say, well, maybe because they didn't have their own throw-off made or the other snare strainer, but they usually use, I saw quite a more slinglin' zoom addicts on their snare drums and the iter model views, but that's a good question. I don't know why the snare drums weren't, there wasn't more emphasis on the snare drum because a lot of their tomtoms were 14 inch, and the hoops snare everything. You know, they said they cut a hole for the snare wires and put a snare bed in there and you get, you know, snare brunt, snare drum is born, you know, besides the drum getting right through the office pick, but yeah, it's a good question. Also similar to North where you don't see many of the North snare drums with these, and I'm only kind of using them as parallels because they're sort of independent smaller companies that got bought up and then that, you know, grew and were more homegrown, like you said. Right. North snare drums are probably more rare than Zico snare drums. Those are super rare. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, you know, the snare drum is one of the more complex drums to make too, in some ways, getting it right, you know, but still, you could have done it very easily, you know, and the ones that you have are pretty decent. This episode is brought to you by Dream Symbols. Dream just sent me over five symbols to try out, including the Dark Matter Bliss, paper thin crash in 17, 18 and 19 inches, and two Dark Matter Bliss crash rides in 20 and 22, and these symbols are awesome. They're dark, they're gritty, they're explosive, and they're just super unique. Beyond how they sound, though, they look like they were buried for a year, dug up, lit on fire, buried, lit on fire again, and sold to you. They just look so cool, and I highly recommend them. Learn more at dreamsymbols.com and find them on social media at Dream Symbols. All right. Now, looking at the timeline here, so founded 69-ish, 72, they became a corporation, 74 to 75, you said was the peak. So that's when they're just like, you know, what was their, what was the shop like? Was this still being, was everything? I know we were outsourcing like lugs and hardware and stuff, and I guess you said it, but they started making that at some point. What was the factory, if you can call it a factory, you know what I mean? What was that looking like? I think they had regular drill jigs and everything for their drums to make things more precise and take less time and be more accurate, and actually a lot of people that worked there, a lot of their employees were drummers. You know, I've talked to a lot of people over the years. I used to work in the ZECOs, drum factory for a while. I've heard that from a few people, and so it was really set up like a regular factory. I know that back in the early 70s, like 72, they might have been like maybe making four or five kits a day, but I think around 70, like around 74, it was like around 10 kits a day or so, probably, which was like on a big scale, wasn't a lot at first. That's a very small boutique company compared to what someone like Pilot would make a day. I was also heard that, talking to Dave, that worked there, he told me that they were considering, they were talking to Jasper, and they actually for a short time period were considering making some wood drums for a while. Makes sense. They actually considered it. Yeah, they considered it as just a widen their scope on drums in their market a little bit, but it never did happen. Yeah. Now, I'm always interested in this. If you're making 10 kits a day and the demand is pretty high, how does distribution typically work for companies like that? Because the ones I was looking at, that was in Trenton, Ohio. How does it spread around for distribution? Did they typically send some kits to major stores around the country, or how does that process work? Yeah, I think it's pretty much how it worked. They didn't have any distributors, want to understand. They had no distributors in Europe or anywhere else, but just their own home office here in Kansas City. Most everything was made in Kansas City area. Only a couple of things were made out of Kansas City. A lot of people, I think, that brought them over, I've heard of Great Britain or Holland or whatever. I think it was someone that would actually call them up and just order some drums and bring them in to, or they would bring them into their country by handing out handful of kits, and that's how they got brought into them. So it was a very small scale thing. It went like a distributor ordering 30 kits or 50 kits or something. It wasn't like that. It was never a distributor. It was mostly stores and everything. So he told me, I kind of funny story about Keith Moon. I told the guy his first kit, I guess when he paid, I guess he, I guess they, he had problems getting paid for the kit. I guess they were buying the kits back then, where instead of getting endorsed, like they do at Nat, they do now. And I guess they called Keith Moon a couple of times. Every time they called this house, his wife would say, he's down and he's not the pub. He's not the pub. A couple of days later, hey, well, he's down at the pub. So he's kind of hard to get hold of. It's kind of a funny story. And that is funny. But it's kind of a, it's funny, but I'm sure Bill was like, okay, yeah, need to get paid for this because I'm sure shipping, I mean, you're looking at like putting it on a ship. I mean, shipping was very expensive over there. It was a very shipping ship that gave me all these drums over here as well. And very, very expensive. Geez. Well, hopefully he ended up getting paid. I mean, and you know, it's funny too, because like Keith Moon, Bill Ward, both English drummers, so that pretty cool. I wonder how many Ziko drums there are floating around the used market in Europe? Yeah, it's kind of interesting, but probably not very many. I don't think it would be that many, you know? Yeah. They treated this kind of how many, you know, Haman kits over here, you know? Exactly. At the Chicago show recently a couple of months ago, I saw one or two which they're like oddities almost, you know? It's more like you just don't see them, but they're really cool. They're beautiful drums. So, all right, 74, 75, you got a peak, but typically with a peak, that means you're going down after that. So what happened as the peak dropped off? I heard it went like around, like there's so many drums, it's like my 1977 or so. And then I think they were just like down to like just selling parts and stuff after that for the next few years, you know? So I do remember seeing Ziko's corporation in the phone book here locally, like around 1981 or so, but they gave it to someone just selling off the rest of the parts and stuff, but so that's kind of, you know, then of course they'll build for making drums again back in the 90s and then they come back, but that's kind of going forward. I guess the one thing that we could maybe mention here in the history was the supersonic drums and artistry drums back then. I guess, you know, Bill Ziko's had a non-compete agreement with the guy who owned 51%, which was the kid's name was Fred McGraw. We can draw the same names here or not, but like that's Bill came out that artistry kit was called the egg drums, you know? Kind of shit like eggs, if you ever saw those or fiberglass drums. Now, I have to look it up. Yeah, and they're like eggs and it wasn't very many of them made, you know, I mean, like 20 or 30 kids. And so in reaction to that, they came out that supersonic kit, which were the kids that had like, I think a 13 to 15 inch rag Tom, 18 inch floor Tom, and then the other side was a smaller head, like 18 inch had a 14 inch smaller head, the 15 had a 12 and a 13 inch rag Tom, big rag Tom said it had 10 inch on the other side, so you could play both sides if you wanted to. The 22 inch bass drum had a 16 on the other side was reduced down. These were fiberglass as well. And that was a reaction to these artistry drums just made those they made, I guess on 150 kids, those white, blue and red, I think. And that was kind of interesting. You see them out there, they're kind of rare to have you type in Zika supersonic drum. Yeah, they're they're very they're just interesting looking. They they almost like I know they're different, but like they remind me almost of like the like the PV drums or something. Yeah, just like like they don't look anything like that, but they're just so outlandish looking. It's almost just like kind of like Jetsons. Yeah, it's like a Jetsons thing. And I just explained it, but like so you said you can flip it over and play both sides, but like you could. Yeah. Why do they look like this? And everyone should just Google Zika's Z I C K O S supersonic and you'll see but like what is the benefit of this? I don't know how much science is really behind it. I think it you know, because it's like in a way it would be it make more sense to be other way this smaller head would be your main, you know, better side and a bigger head on the bottom side for your resonant head. But that was just you know, what they kind of thought of then, you know, a lot of people would look at those drums to and they called them that would look like kind of an old washer, you know, yeah, make that washer, you know, I mean to if someone's like driving and can't look it up that to describe it, it's basically it kind of looks normal at the top, normal head. And then it goes down. And then I guess the fiberglass kind of bevels in maybe an inch. And then there's a rim that's like like inset. But it's not flush. It's kind of sticking out like it's almost like it's sitting on top, but I'm sure it's connected and has like an edge and all that stuff. But it does look like an old washing machine. It's it's super Jetsons ish. And it had all those regular Zico's lugs on it and Zico hoops. And they know the call quick, quick release, you know, tension rise and stuff. So that was kind of cool. The artistry drums did not have their own those egg shape, the egg drums that they call them. They did not. And those are really hard to find a picture. We've had a kid of those before. But we'll say there's an Al Green drummer. I don't remember his name, but I think he was also a BB King's drummer. He's on a video. And then the song's called Love. And it's like L L dash, O dash, B dash, E. It's like 1975. He's playing one of those artistry egg shape sets. He actually does a little solo. It wasn't like what the soul train, but it's one of those TV shows back. It's just kind of cool to see that. Now, can you just real quick, like, so just to clarify, Zico's made the artistry series, correct? Or was that some, that was Zico's, right? Yeah, that was him. So that set was really, the Super Sonic, it was still by the Zico's corporation without those Zico's. Oh, I see. And that's where the non-compete problem came in where he said, you know, hey, Bill, you're basically kind of doing, you're not supposed to be doing that. Right. So it's a reaction to it. He just like made it all these other, you know, Super Sonic drums, drums and stuff. Okay. And as a reaction, instead of like, you know, pick him to court or whatever. I guess he wasn't really, you know, he was selling drums. It was wasn't selling clear drums. So I don't know what the particulars, what the particulars were in the agreement. So it's kind of interesting. It is. What was the name he was operating under as by himself, not as Zico's corporation, but what was he calling himself for the drums? You know, that's a good question. What's Zico's corporation? I think it's just Zico's drums, you know, because he's using his name. You know, he only had like a couple, one store, I know he was selling them. I've been in a couple of stores selling them, because there wasn't very many of those drums sold at all. Yeah. I mean, everyone's got to be thinking it, the parallel to like Ludwig and WFL with that but he couldn't, you know, WFL couldn't use the Ludwig name. So they must have had a different right. Good point. And it was a lawsuit with him because in a very small print that late 30s badge had to, you know, founder was, you know, William F. Ludwig. And then yeah, God, he got taken to court for having those badges and everything. Yeah, I think there's very many of those, you know, were made and a couple of people want to use those for like in videos later on, you know, like in the 80s, like on MTV, there was some ban I heard they did use those. But that only video I've ever seen is that Al Green drummer in 1975. It's kind of, it's strange looking, strange looking catch, especially for a strange and very strange nowadays. I'm sure it's super strange back then. Yeah. Yeah, that's nuts. And it almost seems like as the peak kind of dies down, you said like mid to late 70s, like 77, 78, then it gets to where you were also saying about how people were just getting rid of acrylic drums left and right, getting into the 80s. So it's sort of, seems natural, like it just sort of ran its course. Yeah, I think it's kind of slowed down a lot. I think when Ludwig came out with the Tivoli drums, the lights and they had all the different stripes and you had like, you know, like six or so different, you know, patterns to choose from. They just, you know, they, I mean, it was a crazy time. You know, it was very busy in the mid 70s for those, for this light drums and everything, but I think they just kind of exhausted it, you know, to the peak. And by the early 80s, you know, it was kind of people kind of ready to do something else. I mean, the business is, there's always a trend side to the music business, you know, and where's the depth of your shells or the depth of your bass drum, size of the bass drums. It's very trendy, certain colors, you know, where it's solid colors to burst or to fades. Sparkles. I mean, sparkles, you know, and stuff, something like when sparkles can, even like sat in flames, sparkles, when we started bringing Beatles back, you know, like final last 20 years, you got an older people, older drummers, you know, to come in the store, our store, they'll see those like, what's the big deal, man? We've already done this, you know, but again, you got new customers. You know, it's kind of bringing like always like bringing the bell bottoms back in the fast, fast industry every 10 years or something like it's new people, new, new generation has seen it. So yeah, that's how I have with clear drums, I think, you know, in the late 90s, now in early 2000s, and that, you know, Bill kind of brought him back. And when he started back up again, and never still kind of early, you know, and Fibes came back, you know, with when Tommy and Austin, you know, bought Fibes name and everything, but still wasn't really coming back. And, you know, of course, Pearls make clear drums, Tom brought the clear drums back, and now Davey's making it too. And so, and they're still, you know, they didn't buy nice to set for, you know, $1,200, $1,500, you know. Exactly. Exactly. I always kind of think about it where I'm like, you know, you can get a nice high end DW or Tama Kit for $1,200. And then you kind of got to think to yourself, though, like, okay, it's plastic. It's not really a DW like collector series or whatever. There's sort of that like, yes, it is what it is. I mean, that raises the question, which maybe you can shine some light on like, company to company. And I probably asked this in the acrylic episode, company to company, Z-Coast, Fibes to Vistalite. I know there's different manufacturing techniques and seamless and inside of the form and outside of the form. Is there any difference when you're really playing these drums? Because they're just, there's not wood. They're just plastic. I mean, difference between different brands, you mean? Yeah, like the sound. Is Z-Coast going to sound different than Fibes, really? You know, I don't think the timbre and overall, you know, sound is going to be pretty much very, very, very similar, you know, because you got a very hard reflective, you know, surface you're using, you have there. You know, unlike, you know, of course, you got like those stainless steel drums that were just, you know, very metal, that again, they're very reflective too. You got a little more candy sounding, they're kind of, I think, more thinner sounding. But they're very loud drums, like the, you know, Fibes, you know, Firewood Glass game, what do you have? They have a very hard surface, you know. I think they made a big difference in sound. I think Z-Coast with a thicker shell and his bearing edges were a little bit, a little, made a little more contact with the drum head weren't quite as lively and ringy as the like Ludwig drums and stuff. And Fibes is super loud too. You know, and then later on, when he came back in the 90s and making his shells, he had like almost a round overbearing edge, and which made a lot of contact, a lot more contact with the head. And you could even put a single ply head on those drums then, which is very unusual because most everybody that had played clear drums, when the two ply heads came out, everybody was sort of, you know, was using those. You bought a new Vistlite kit with silver dot heads on there, and you had the bottom clear heads on there. They were very loud. You know, it was 40 of them, the muffled bass drum heads and things like that. So sound was just, you know, just crazy loud. So there wasn't, I don't think there's like a really big difference overall in between them. I don't think so. It's just very minimal. Of course, his again, he goes had the two fly heads and then you could buy him with hydraulic heads too. So again, he was kind of, he kind of knew that, you know, that you just slow down the vibrations a little bit somehow. That's a good, good answer. And I don't think we've officially said it yet, but just to kind of throw it out there for the, you know, the sake of history. And I know that it's hard to determine who did what first because typically, like we said, things are going on with multiple places. And we may have said this earlier, but is it fair to say generally that Bill Zecos did invent the acrylic drums? I think so. I really do. I think he was the first one, you know, that made a very, I guess you could say first home run and first hit out there in the marketplace. You know, they had him. I mean, you know, I'm sure people was thinking about it. It's like, I mean, if you were thinking about, you know, going to the moon, maybe different countries back in the day. So I mean, I mean, I'm being kind of out there a little bit, but I understand though, I mean, I'm sure there's someone else thinking about it, but it's basically who really has the idea, you know, and gets it done. And he really did it. And he did it thinking a good way. I mean, you know, we came up with all the extra features of his drums. And as I mentioned earlier to some of his lingo and some of the verbiage in his pamphlets were kind of very forward thinking, too. You know, you guys said, sir, I'm going to say one thing is don't mind me quoting this real quick. Zico drums make a sound you haven't heard before that they put together thundered or fingertips soft, the heartbeat whisper or slick, stick smashing sound. Zico sounds a rich explosive experience. And he uses the word organic a couple of times, too. Or this organic unity and the sound is part of the tonal concept, you know, and and he kind of says stuff like, you know, you can breathe on these Zico's drums and, you know, it's just kind of an interesting, you know, way. Yeah, really cool. Explain the sound of the drums and everything, which is, you know, it's kind of kind of cool. Yeah, it's very hip. It's very progressive. And, you know, we love that stuff as drummers. We like that. Like, you know, it kind of gets you amped up about your drums. It's not just like, you know, acrylic drums. Here's the sizes. Here's the whatever. It's more like, you know, just thunderous drums. It's just it's really good writing. Well, I think the thing about, you know, Bill Zico's just known to myself, I mean, I know that with a lot of his students and everything, he was, you know, kind of had a very much a lot of times that it was a father figure, you know, he's kind of a mentor. Of course, he was a composer and vener and a great, you know, drummer as well. But the drum, he's a hip guy. I think he's I think a lot that came out is drums. You know, for that time, these are as they have drum coming, you know. So obviously, you mentioned a little bit about the 90s and stuff. I'm assuming that he had some fun doing it. It didn't exactly seems like it didn't blow up and become the next like, you know, Pearl or something like that. But what happened with that stuff? And then maybe take us through to the the end of his his life because he's obviously he's no longer with us, correct? Right. He passed away actually in 2020. That's a year ago in January, January 31st. And he led to be like, no, I think it was 90 years old when he passed away. So yeah, he actually bought back a lot that Zico's company, no drum can be within storage at the the drum shop there in Fort Wayne. And I think I see he used to buy a lot of stuff from maybe some like the throw-offs, the important parts from from them or something. But I can't remember exactly how it got there. But supposedly it was in storage here and they had them, they moved it to there because maybe probably cheaper. And actually, I got a phone call from this, the guy, again, the investor that owned 51% of the company. He called me one day. It's like around 1991 or two, if I had room for but 10 pounds, I said, no, I really do not. But, you know, but somehow he made around and made his way to the bill and bill actually bought the company all the remains of it back. And that's how that kind of planted seed for the next, you know, generation or kind of making the I guess a full trip around 360, you know, you know, back to where he's at. Yeah, made a full circle back. And so he, he didn't use some of the lugs. He started been his own lugs with out of aluminum and everything and a can make and everything. There are a little bit, the drums he came out with then the stealth drums, what do you call them, the lugs and some of the hardware was kind of spacey looking again. And he was making them down as we call it, they'll cook building downtown for a while. And he was doing it by hand. It was working pretty hard. He had the oven down there as well, the regular, the big oven that they, you know, they, he had the acrylics up with. He had that and the molds is going fully, full into it. And then he brought his son into it, help him out, who lives in Canada. And he was a big, played a big part in to help him out, you know, make him everything. But think about the early 2000s, like around 2003 or so, he was just ready to, ready to retire. I think it was, you know, wasn't really ready to, you know, kind of go with the ups and downs of the music industry, which again, a lot more newer trends were coming in and inside to kind of call it quits. So I think there, he might have made a few more drums. I think, I think maybe his son did, you know, up in, like I said, up in Canada. And they finally, he didn't want, so I guess supposedly he did not want the drum cut to be sold to anybody else and, and harming the reputation of the drums or anything like that. So they, I think I already destroyed the molds and everything, why her boy, I took it to the scrap yard. So it's dramatic. It is kind of dramatic. I didn't know that till the Saturday. So yeah. So I guess that the stories took a 360 then it's pretty much, you know, kind of put a sharpen to things there. But yeah, if he can't have it, no one can try to destroy it now. I heard the same thing was happening with tricks on drums too, but I don't know. I heard that too. And someone told me it's not folkloric, probably stuff. I don't know. I've been working on doing a tricks and episode for a long time and I keep getting dead ends because people will say, I can't do it. You need to go to, I'm going to mispronounce the name, but Ingo, I believe in Germany, but he's not super confident in his English. And I haven't talked to him about in about a year and a half or a year, but people don't want to do it because they say he's the man. But I think I mentioned that at one point where, oh, I read that like the founder of Trixon got buried with all of his drums or something or he destroyed them all and someone told me, no, that's not true. But I can't confirm or deny, but I can just continue to spread that rumor. Yeah, there's a lot of folkloric stuff happens in the music business, you know, but yeah, and of course, other businesses for industries as well. I heard that he didn't, he was kind of mad because I think I heard like in the late nineties before he passed away, that I guess he, he didn't want to be able to make his drums or anything anymore. And since it wasn't the biggest success, I guess he supposedly had a bulldozer dig a big hole in the ground. Yeah, he threw everything in it. That's what, you know, I've heard, but, you know, yeah, who knows, not to go from a tangent. I heard that Ringo actually wanted to play a Trixon kit before he went to Ludwig. Yeah. And he went to that. I think it was Arbiter was a big distributor over there in Great Britain. And he just got Ludwig a few weeks before that. And, and I think he did see some in the window. Ringo was, you know, familiar with Ludwig too as well, and we liked him. But our first second that he was thinking about playing Trixon, so he's got, you know, a bit more hip to Ludwig and stuff, but kind of interesting how that, how that would have changed the whole drumming world and history of the Beatles and everything, you know, to a certain extent. It'd been interesting what would happen with that. Yeah, man, the world would be totally different. Yeah, all the Trixon drums that would be out there right now would be kind of interesting, you know. Yeah, but it didn't work out that way. I'm sure Trixon would have been extremely happy. And I know, you know, obviously Buddy played it briefly, but that's right. Yeah, that's when they had the Vox name on there. Yeah, Vox, exactly. They licensed the Vox name on there for a while. It's kind of kind of interesting. It's all pretty good. I mean, it's all good that he chose Ludwig. That's a good choice, I think. It worked out. Yeah. Well, Wes, why don't you tell people as we finish up here, you know, I'm sure you do online sales and all that stuff. So why don't you talk about your shop a little bit and then we'll kind of wrap up here. Yeah, sure. Yeah, we've been in business now, I guess, 37 years, and we're a full-aligned percussion shop. Of course, we sell drum set cymbals, cymbal stands, all the hardware for drums, but we also sell a lot of hand percussion, ethnic percussion from all over the world. We sell electronic drums, and we're really into cymbals, snare drums, and things like that, which are part of our specialty as well. We got a lot of that stuff in stock and a very good selection. Everybody that works with us is very passionate about drums, and we love music and love drumming, so it's always a good reason to go to your drum shop. We appreciate everybody that's done business with us before. Yeah, thank you for letting me mention that. Oh, yeah, for sure. And it's Explorz... Procussion and drums, yeah. Yeah, so it's X-P-L-O-R-E-S, correct? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Procussion and drums. What's your website? Actually, that's ExplorzDrums.com website. And you can type ExplorzProcussion.com too, that'll work as well, ExplorzDrums.com. Awesome. Yeah, and you're a dude who owns a drum shop in 2021 who I'm sure has been through some tough times over the last year. But you made it through and... Yeah, it's been interesting times, for sure, for everybody as well. But yeah, it's been... Some of our online sales has definitely helped us out. We've been a pretty diversified shop. We deal a little bit with schools, and we also do repairs and recovering or restoration of drums as well. And that's definitely helped us out to be diversified like that. Yeah, I'm sure. And we do lessons as well too. Of course, the lessons during the pandemic was not very good at all. It's very strange. In fact, we had no lessons going on for a while at all there. All the teachers just had to do it all online because everybody was quarantined for almost 14 months. But by the first of the year, we started kind of getting back into it. It was kind of about half and half. There's a lot of parents that people have the younger players. I don't think they did want it. But they're child in a room, but the drummer is another human in that close-up. And we still exercise mask a little bit right now, if the customer has a mask and all that good stuff. Yeah. Cool. Well, then I want to also give a shout out to Mr. Andrew Moore, who suggested this episode and got me in touch with Wes, who Wes told me is a great drummer, but he's also a great dentist, which is two good things. Dangerously, he's really a great dentist and a great staff. Actually, I'd like to say something about his father. His father taught dentistry for like 50 years. So at UMKC, the University of Missouri here in town, because it's the longest teaching career they've ever heard from anybody. Yeah, 50 years. Yeah, 50 years teaching. It's a big dental school that's down here at the University of Missouri, but that's kind of unique. But Andrew's great guy. I thank him for mentioning this to you and it's been a great pleasure for you and giving me the opportunity to do this, especially talking about, I think, a subject in Ziko's Drums, which definitely deserves to be talked about for sure. Absolutely. And I mean, literally, we first talked in August of 2020 and now it's June of 2021, so I like how I would say these take a long time to just kind of like things fall off and then they go on. And congrats, your daughter's getting married soon, so that's extremely cool. Next week is an exciting week. Just stay out of the way. Yeah. Very crazy right now at times. Cool. Well, on that note, Wes, this has been amazing and one that's been on my list for a long time, so I appreciate you taking the time to share with me. Thank you. You're very welcome. Thanks for having me. 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.