Page 27 - Sick Drummer Magazine Issue 29 - Hannes Grossmann

SDM: How important is seat height for your playing?Frankly, I used to experiment with different drum throne heights, but did not pay enough attention to that for the first couple of years playing. Later, when I started to struggle with various fast double-bass stuff I switched to the “traditional” height, when your hips are parallel to the floor. George Kollias’ educational DVD revealed the importance of balance you gain by the right seat height.SDM: What types of gear do you play?I use Vic Firth sticks, and find them perfectly balanced. I admire this company for a decent amount of educational material their site provides. Holding a pair of sticks and understanding what great people say about their products is great feeling. I use 5BN, 5XB and the Dave Weckl signature model.My snare drum is Orange County Black Burst Maple 14x6. I use Evans Hazy 300 and Hybrid heads along with Puresound Custom Pro wires. Finding exact combination of heads, wires and drum is not an easy task. I always wanted that “punchy” snare sound with a faster decay. I tried out many drum heads and before using Moon Gel, I decided to check Hybrid. Fortunately, this drum head provided me a desired sound I have looking for without using dampers.My cymbal set includes only Sabian models (I should remind that I do not endorse their products though). From left to right: HHX-celerator 14 Hats, HHX Evolution 18 Crash, AA Raw Bell Dry Ride 21, AAX-plosion 18 Crash, Holy China 17. I have been collecting them for a couple of years; each cymbal provides me the exact sound I want. Raw Bellride has a great, distinctive bell sound and hitting the bow gives the nice clear ping, so this ride is appropriate for all kinds of music. I treat my crash cymbals as “Beauty and The Beast.” AAX-plosion crash is raw and aggressive; I use it mainly for “washing.” Evolution is much more responsive, sounds great no matter how hard you hit it. I use it for accents mostly. As for Holy China, I think enough words have been already said about this cymbal, for everyone knows it is a masterpiece.I use Axis LongBoards double bass pedal with maximum spring tension.SDM: What are some different things you tried on your latest album drumming-wise, that you haven’t before?If we are to compare latest EP Atlantis Prime (2013) with LP Cult Assassins (2011) you may easily notice that the band stepped away from being pure death metal and joined the progressive side. Songs became much less straight-forward, same goes for drums, so we added ghost-notes patterns, tricky double bass patterns, odd time signatures andall that stuff that any progressive metal drummer should be able to play.SDM: What is the fastest BPM on the latest album?The fastest BPM is 190 on the “Insanity of” song, but in the middle of the song there is part where a 16th triple pattern is played (that’s hell of a pattern I should say, it made my legs burn even when I thought about it). We are not rushing for highest speed, but the new album we are currently working on features some pretty fast songs around 230 BPM.SDM: Are there any new drummers out there that just blow your mind?Well, you know, usually everyone we meet on the road is already familiar to us and my mind is already blown by these people :)SDM: What did you listen to for inspiration on the latest recording?I can’t say that any particular bands inspired us for composing the EP. Mostly we try to listen to each other and ourselves. The ability to self-express and exchange ideas is the key for creative process. You may find that some parts of our songs have much in common with what you have already heard from other bands, but such coincidences are inevitable.27