About Drumming With Goldfish from Fifty Feet of Earth

Interview by Kenneth Fury

How long have you been drumming? Did you get your start through a music program or a family member? Something of that sort?

I've been drumming for almost 14 years, I originally wanted to take guitar lessons but there was only an opening for drum lessons at the time. My uncle was taking violin lessons and was the one driving me there so when I got asked if I wanted to try drums instead, I was like "might as well". I’m glad I did. I was in 7th grade at the time and took lessons until the end of 11th grade.

How has your approach to drumming, not only as a player but someone in a band writing songs changed over the years?

I had an amazing teacher Pascal Deslongchamp who took my spazzy energy and helped me keep a better control on it, and best of all, how to be tight and precise. When I got to university, I started jamming more seriously with bands (5 times a week at some points) and I haven’t stopped since. This is what I think helped me the most because it forced me to get my practice in no matter what every week. My approach has pretty much always been to find new challenges to overcome and better myself really.

What was an early influence on your drumming versus something you might be more influenced by now -Has your taste in gear changed at all?

I remember when I heard Neil Peart’s drum solo from Rush In Rio when I first started out, I was like "That’s insane! I gotta learn to do that!". Of course I was nowhere close to even attempting that, but it set the path for me early on. In my earlier days, I had fun jamming with my uncles playing over some random Eagles and country songs at family reunions and such. I also loved punk and would jam out to some Green Day, NOFX, Blink 182. But the real game changer was 9th grade when I discovered Youtube in 2006. I fell in love with Mike Portnoy's drumming as well as Danny Carrey and Dave Lombardo and with the help of Youtube, I was able to watch performances of almost any song and analyse how to play them. It'd be interesting to see how many hours I’ve sunk into watching Youtube drum playthroughs. Nowadays it’s close to the same approach, but I don’t only look at metal playthroughs anymore; been getting into gospel drumming, hip hop drumming and jazzier stuff. Always looking for new challenges and new things to learn, and I think that’s the best approach for me.

Brands, specific types of drums that may/may not be included now?

As far as gear goes, the first 10 years I paid no attention to gear. I was a high school/ broke university student so I didn’t want to look into that stuff cause I’d just get sad. I focused on what was important for me which was playing and improving. As time went on I started to look more into that stuff and found what works for me. But almost everything I buy is used and I take what I can get. The only thing I’ve really sunk my time and money on is Meinl cymbals because I won the first Meinl Maritimes Drum-Off and got a bunch of cymbals out of it. In one night I went from used cracked cymbals to brand spankin’ new Meinls, felt good to say the least! Meinl has been great with me ever since and they seem to care about the average drummer community so that’s nice.

What’s been your greatest difficulty as a player? Particular parts in songs or general things like double kick as an example.

Probably my biggest difficulty was learning to blast properly. A lot of drummers rush straight for them but I spent a good 8 years at least without really being able to. If I would have spent more time on it I’m sure I could’ve developed it earlier on, but tech death wasn’t really my main focus, I was all about prog. I spent my first years learning how to play odd times, polyrhythms, linear stuff. When I joined Fifty Feet of Earth, that’s when I finally learned to blast, because I had no choice haha. Happy I did cause my god they’re fun to play!

What rudiments/songs really make you feel like, “I got it”? Milestone songs, is what you could call them I guess. On bass for me, it was YYZ by Rush as an example.

An early milestone song for me would’ve been when I learned Under a Glass Moon by Dream Theater. After that, the next big one was Prequel to the Sequel by BTBAM. More recently, Xenochrist by The Faceless. I could go on but that’s a good bunch.

Goldfish is a Moncton, New Brunswick drummer who plays for Fifty Feet of Earth, Dischord, Malixiria and Age of Tyranny.

https://fiftyfeetofearth.bandcamp.com/