RAYMOND TALKS ABOUT HIS GEAR MEN AND THEIR MACHINES STICKS 'N' TRICKS What sort of equipment do you use? I use Tama drums via an Alesis 64 to a Kyuss 3000 trigger system. I have pads on the kicks as well as the snare which is also used live to trigger all the keyboard samples in the songs. On this tour (Australia 1996), it's just a kit the promoter hooked up for me, but I usually usea 6 inch snare (piccolo), 10 and 12" rack toms and a 14" floor tom. I'm using two 22" kick drums but I used to use 20" kicks because they're punchier, and our music demands a precise sound with less boom. I use Paiste cymbals. How did you get involved in using the trigger systems and the Alesis 64? Fear Factory's music demands it in terms of precision and technique, because we play so fast. I joined the band in October, 1990 and by June the next year, I was using triggers just for the pace we played at and the sound that we wanted. The Alesis 64 is great. I bought it for US$300 and although I'm sure there's better stuff out there I'm more than happy with it. The cymbal sound is distinctive, it's not as up front and splashed as other metal drummers Yeah, you can hear it, but it's not up front. Live, we make it bigger, but next time we'll have the cymbals louder for more accents. You're also a pretty hard hitter. I'm not as hard as other drummers, but I like to keep it consistent. I like to sit above the kit and attack it as opposed to sitting down behind it and approaching it that way. I also have to keep it consistent with the trigger on the snare, because if you hit it too soft you can get double notes. So I don't hit them soft either. ROLL BACK THE YEARS Any influences? You know the band Terrorizer? [Legendary grindcore band that featured Dave Vincent (bass), Pete Sandoval (drums) - both of Morbid Angel - and Jesse Pintado (guitar) of Napalm Death. Their only album was World Downfall]. When I was in the seventh, eighth grade, like 13 or 14, Jesse Pintado lived about 20 minutes from my house so I saw a lot of backyard gigs, and Pete's drumming was simply awesome. I learnt by listening to a lot of records and watching videos like the Zildjian and Paiste drum competitions. Do you consider yourself a metal drummer? Yeah, I am. I mean, I love jazz drummers and the like, but it's been done a thousand times before. I also like to be a bit different from 'metal drummers', I do that with my double bass patterns and the precision of Fear Factory Your drumming style changed considerably between Soul Of A New Machine and Demanufacture in terms of less drum fills and more rhythms. Why is that? Yeah, that's true. With speed metal like Reign In Blood, it's lots of fours [4-4 timing] with lots of snare and tom rolls. We wanted to keep it more industrial, like dance, and we wanted to keep it more rhythm oriented, just snare and kick drums to give it more power. In the studio, we used 22 tracks on the drums alone using triggered and live drums together, so if a song needed to be more precise we used triggers and if not, we didn't have to re-record the drums again. What is your involvement in the song-writing of Fear Factory? Me and Dino do most of the song writing. He'll come up with a riff or I'll come up with a drumbeat and Dino will try to match it perfectly on the guitar. We don't have any lead breaks so we combine it to make a big, crashing, constant rhythm. Any thought's on Fear Factory's new material, and the style in which you'll play? Maybe more accents on the hi-hat and stuff. A bit more subtle that way and maybe a little slower like Dog Day Sunrise and Replica. Also a bit groovier, although that way you do sacrifice some of the technique. BEAT IT UP What's your advice to new drummers? Build up your form and technique. Just listen to different things. A lot of young drummers come up to me and say, 'How do you play so fast?'.You see, they start out by playing fast and they have no form [basics]. If you don't have technique it's harder to build up your own speed and precision. What are your five favourite drum albums? Terrorizer, World Downfall (Pete Sandoval); Morbid Angel, Blessed Are The Sick (Pete Sandoval) - there's some excellent kick work on that album; that Dave Weckyl solo album [which neither of us could recall the name of]; Reign In Blood, Slayer (Dave Lombardo) and anything by The Police. Stuart Copeland's hi-hat work was amazing. He's the king of the hi-hat. I'd like to be king of the kick drum one day.