Drummer Matthias Bossi (The Book of Knots, Tom Waits, Mike Patton, St. Vincent) played every drum in Brickwall Drums on his own Allegra kit. We talked with him about restraint, the "time-machine" drums at the heart of the library, and 15 years of making records with Jon Evans.
We're calling this "the quintessential rock sound" — big, open, economical. Was restraint a challenge, coming from such a complexity-driven career?
I've been known for playing in very busy, progressive bands — lots of interlocking parts, often two drummers, where we just tend to go maximalist. But especially since Jon and I started working together — and with projects like The Book of Knots, which is big, spacious, doom-metal, where we have a 75-BPM-and-lower rule — I've really learned the power of economy. Living in the space of a single note, capturing the drums at their most epic, letting a single kick or a 14x8 snare ring out to its absolute end. For someone like me, high-strung and energetic, it's very good to have to sit back in that space and just breathe into individual hits with lots of air around them.
How does that translate to sampling, where you're hyperfocused on one drum at a time?
It's meditative — you have to sink into it. It's like a marathon; actually more like an ultramarathon, a marathon with a marathon tacked onto it. It's rhythm and breathing, almost like sight-reading, where you're reading ahead: "okay, I need to be here the next time around." Sometimes you backtrack — "oh, this is what my pianissimo feels like, this is what one inch off the head feels like," all the way up to full-forearm ogre smash. Working this way forces you to really examine what you've told yourself a particular dynamic has been for the last 30 years. It's a long day, but a rewarding one — honestly, it makes you a better player.
The kit itself has a story. What is it, and how did you know it was the one?
I bought that first Allegra kit with Jon, with our first royalty check from our first big soundtrack, about 15 years ago — on the heels of our first Binding of Isaac hit. We were trying to make Jon's dad's 1958 Gretsch Champagne Sparkle kit occupy that Dale Crover, Phil Rudd, Alex Van Halen headspace, but it took a lot of studio magic. In the automotive world we say there's no replacement for displacement — if an engine's 500 cubic inches, it's just going to have horsepower. That Allegra kit is big: a nice 24 kick (about 18 deep), thin, super-resonant Keller shells, not wrapped, just rubbed with an oil finish. They feel like antiques, like they were born as antiques — very delicate and huge at the same time. Time-machine drums. I got them in 2011 at the Allegra factory in Vancouver, Washington — "this looks good, this smells good, let's build something. Make me the Bonham kit." I've never taken them out of the studio.
Tell us about the tuning.
The dive is important — the bottom head being ever so slightly higher than the top head. That's how you get that boom. Even at its loosest it's at least a half step to a whole step apart. I tune the bottom heads first, just to the point where I feel tension, then bring the top head to that level and back off a little, and it's got that "wow." They were very loose, those drums — a lot of flop, which keeps the air moving. The looser the head, the more movement you get; that's technique. The floor toms on this kit are really fun, really resonant.
You and Jon have long layered Heavyocity libraries into your own work. How does that inform this?
Your drums are more real and better than any we've ever used, because they have a more organic quality. A lot of our game soundtracks feature this very kit, with Damage and other things layered on top — a lot of our sound comes from a judicious sprinkling of the Heavyocity library on top of our organic sounds. If we start with real music first — real drums, real bass — we'll use you guys for a puzzle-piece part, an adaptive layer, or a punch-up. Layering in one of your absurd kick drums with mine levels things up to a crazy degree. So recording this for you is a fun full-circle moment.
Across prog, theater, Americana, film and TV — what's the through-line in how you think about a drum part?
Since Jon and I got together in 2011, I think of myself more as a composer than a drummer. Because of the bands where drums are a melodic element — as important as the vocals or guitar — I love to think of a part that way. The drums always go down first for whatever I do, and that can be challenging: often that's when we revisit with a Heavyocity instrument. It's my sharpest tool, so I'm always thinking like a drummer first, but trying to think melodically — that's my jazz training, a little freer, a little more four-limb independence, rather than just the freight-train support guy.
Scoring seems to be veering toward intimacy — and getting scale through it. Does that line up with how you're working?
Things have grown so quickly with technology, which can be scary. Those of us who grew up playing our instruments, and the younger digital natives, are all yearning for something organic — there's a bit of a mini-revolution going on. That's why I've always loved your stuff: the people who work for you are makers and experimentalists, and it comes through even when we activate all that hard work with the touch of a button. You're not recreating a Wurlitzer or a Steve Vai guitar — you're like anthropologists, collecting ancient relics and synthesizing them into something that sounds like nothing else.
You and Jon have worked together for 15 years. Is there a shorthand between you?
I've made a lot of music with a lot of people — close relationships with singers, string players, horn players, bassists, guitarists. But there's nothing like showing up almost every day for 15 years with someone. Jon and I are like the Brill Building — we're either making video game music, generating samples for a library, or writing weird ambient drone music. We'll literally spend a day where we don't even talk to each other. We have a whiteboard with the menu on it; I'll roll up the driveway, take my shoes off, head into the drum room, put on my headphones, and he'll just turn the rig on. There'll be a weird default tempo going, and that's the basis for the day's output. Over the years you know each other's tendencies, especially a bass player and a drummer. Jon has been making that particular kit sound so good for so long that when you guys came to us, the mission was clear — pull the big drums into the big room, aim the lovely microphones, send them up to the Quad Eight, and it was going to play itself. That's shorthand at its finest.
Your resume runs through Tom Waits, Mike Patton, St. Vincent, The Book of Knots. What did those sessions leave in your playing here?
The Book of Knots stuff is interesting — the drum sounds on those records are very similar to how we went about recording this. Enjoying the gesture. Believing in the single sound. Having confidence in the tone of the drums, not needing fireworks or additional studio magic. It's purely organic — the room, the drums, the microphones, the console, and the understanding between Jon and me. At last count we've made over a thousand pieces of music together in 15 years. All those people are heroes and experimentalists, but they're also so unique in their being — their singular voice.
If you could tell someone using these drums just one thing, what would it be?
I came from a jazz background — Tony Williams is my hero above all heroes, Billy Cobham — and it's a joy to know you can play the fast lightning stuff. But it's also a real joy to just enjoy the sound for the sound's sake. It's like a very simple meal — pasta with parmesan, a little olive oil, salt and pepper. It's elemental. I tried to make these big beautiful things sound as natural as possible. I was making music with my best friend, drinking coffee, looking out on the lake, having such a good time making these sounds for you. Regardless of what you use them for — the most oceanic doom-metal thing ever or just your new song — I want you to feel how good a time I was having, and how much I love this drum set, which I bring out for special occasions. It's like my tuxedo.
