Charlie Benante (Anthrax), Alex Skolnick (Testament), Ra Diaz (Korn, Suicidal Tendencies)
INTERVIEW WITH CHARLIE BENANTE, ALEX SKOLNICK, and RA DIAZ on Hot Sticks Drum Show, transcript below.
Plus, see more about Charlie, Alex, and Ra Diaz on the “Adventures of Power” Official Site.
Ari Gold
How about you how you like Drums? I'm not pussyfooting I'm double bass drumming. Welcome to Hot Sticks Drum Show presented in conjunction with Modern Drummer Magazine. I'm Ari Gold Guinness world record holder for air drumming and director and star of the air drum cult comedy Adventures of Power featuring Neil Peart and an all star cast. Stream Adventures of power at Air drummer.com and support the Grammy MusicCares Foundation, and check out other episodes at hotsticks.fm. And now let's chat with the world's greatest drummers and more about music and the human heartbeat. Imagine that.
Hello everybody my name is Ari Gold, the director of Adventures of Power the air drum movie, I'm also in the Guinness Book of World Records for air drumming. But more importantly, I am here to introduce the most amazing trio of wannabe air musicians who actually play real instruments of all time. Charlie Benante, from anthrax, and many other things, one of the geniuses of thrash and more Hi, Charlie, Alex, guitarist of many different genres, from metal to jazz, who has the distinction of turning me onto metal when I was 13, when he was when his band was called Legacy, and Ra Diaz, bassist extraordinaire of suicidal tendencies. I feel like this is America coming together we have metal, Southern California thrash punk metal, and New York, thrash metal finally together. And so America is America is going to be whole again, thanks to this trio. So thank you all for being here.
Charlie Benante
Thank you glad to be here.
Alex Skolnick
Yeah, Ari Gold in the house.
Ari Gold
So you know, we're gonna be getting questions from the audience. And, but I would love to know how the three of you met because it's such an amazing pairing. We also know the movie having Neil Peart in it and a Rush connection. And you guys playing Rush together as a trio? How did this happen? How did you guys come together in need and? And make rock together?
Charlie Benante
Wow. Well, I mean, I've known Alex since the 80s. A lot a long time. Our first one of our first tour is in Europe. Testament were accompanying us on that tour. But did we meet before that in San Francisco or somewhere? Or was that the first time on that tour?
Alex Skolnick
We testaments first show outside of the Bay Area was supporting Anthrax. And it was like in southern like outside of LA not LA proper. Corona.
Ari Gold
Metal allowed. Metal wasn't allowed into the center of city back then. Right.
Alex Skolnick
At that time, that's
Charlie Benante
just outside the city.
Alex Skolnick
Yeah, not but we I started with that show. Yeah. We ended up on Megaforce. And they they had a big connection with Megaforce. Right. Johnny Z. Was
Charlie Benante
this Yeah, give us our manager. And he had a manager and, and he
Alex Skolnick
was our label guy. So yeah, we ended up Yeah, so we ended up doing two tour dates together. And then yeah, that was that was how we first met but we never played together until quite reasonably
Charlie Benante
well. Legacy played with us state. They were supporting the show in San Francisco one time before they before they would Testament. And I don't know if you were there, though, Alex. At that time. This was like 85 maybe 86
Alex Skolnick
Yeah, I might not have been there. Oh, wait, I came right around that time. Yeah. Already a band before?
Charlie Benante
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So they, um, so we've known each other since that that time and then Ra was
Ari Gold
like what this big at that time so you guys rub tip rubs along the bass strings and that's how we got so tough. Right.
Alex Skolnick
That's what I heard.
Ari Gold
I mean, right the first time
Charlie Benante
we met Ra on the on the cruise, that's the first time and
Ra Diaz
and before that there's been like, you know, like, random festivals that like our bands have played at the same festival but with I don't know if we didn't, I don't remember. Like actually like me. I remember watching you guys play, but I don't really remember like meeting you guys there. So I think I would say it was probably a cruise that we all did together. And that was like the first time that I guess we all like interacted with each other I guess.
Charlie Benante
Yeah, exactly. And the rest is history.
Ari Gold
Did you guys talk about doing rush? Like playing rush songs to like, quickly? Or how did that develop?
Alex Skolnick
The first, first, honestly, the first I heard about it was during the shutdown. When we were all at home and their quarantine videos were not a thing yet. Right? Right. We can give ourselves credit for being
Ari Gold
like, you get the most you invented a technology that allowed for like action by playing well,
Ra Diaz
I do remember that. At some point, like very, very early in like the whole quarantine thing. Me and Charlie did one. Like I count like on your birthday or something like that. You send me like a like just it wasn't a song or anything you send me like a beat. Yeah. And I just like improvise something. And then I at some point, you asked me say Hey, we should I get a guitar or whatever. And but I think that was you that came up with the rush thing.
Charlie Benante
What happened was to just to take it from where I was talking about. I was watching the news 24/7. And I was getting depressed, day by day, day by day. And then my girlfriend said to me, you got to stop watching this stuff. Because you're, you're just so bummed out and depressed. Go Go be creative, go do something. And I think it was around that time where I talked to Ra, Alex and I said, We should do a jam. We should do like a quarantine jam. because it reminded me of like, when I was younger, I would come home from school and I'd go to my room just play. And it just kind of had that same vibe. And I think the the Neil that at the meal was still on my mind. And that's i That's why I think we chose to do a rush song. And plus, we all love rush so much. And then that's how it started. It just evolved from there. And these guys could take it from there.
Alex Skolnick
I mean, it was a short time after
Ari Gold
me. It really is because the rush I mean, if I made the movie because of Rush, they've obviously been a massive, massive influence across. I mean, so many people have been touched by that music and they they spoke to something that took a while for people to I think there was a kind of resistance a cultural resistance for a long time. And throughout the while it's not cool or something. Obviously it is cool, but I have some questions that I'm seeing someone's asking this one's that. Alex, do you have the Mad Ball guitar strap still? That's from David cash.
Alex Skolnick
No, it's kind of disintegrated. Okay, those mad balls. I had it in store it mad balls for those who weren't around. Oh, yeah. I don't know if that's a Mad Ball. Oh, yeah, that's what they
Ari Gold
liked. It migrated. And are you still buying boda amps or Kemper.
Alex Skolnick
But ya know, they were these great little toys. They were like, little nerf balls with phases. And I had them on the guitar strap. And unfortunately, you know, it sat in storage for many years. And one day I go through my storage. Oh, here's the bad balls and they were they just completely disintegrated. I don't know what that means.
Charlie Benante
They were foam rubber.
Alex Skolnick
Yeah. Yeah. And I think over the years Yeah, we did a couple tours, a couple of years of touring and all the sweat. I guess. There was some chemical reactions so they completely happens to me no more. Yeah.
Ari Gold
Do you guys see the possibility of the three of you going on tour together when when things change when we know that?
Charlie Benante
I want to I'm up. I'm up for two I wanted my manager to to talk to the Riot Fest people here in Chicago and have us do a whole set of rush.
Ari Gold
Well, whoa. Listen, here's an idea from the Phantom three the three testament anthrax and suicide all together and the three of you as your own act. So it's four acts you guys are the maybe you're the headline.
Charlie Benante
All right, yeah, that'd be great. We but we need Brandon to Brandon.
Alex Skolnick
Robot robot. Robot robot.
Ari Gold
But the how does that does that mess with the Trio The Trio one yeah. It's a good measure. You guys are all good when it comes in
Alex Skolnick
on the vocal songs. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay.
Charlie Benante
We'll start off with instrumentals like, bam, bam, bam and then bring them come in. Nice.
Ra Diaz
Yeah, I'm not gonna sing
Alex Skolnick
nobody has a Geddy voice.
Ari Gold
I know Ra and I know this before your time was suicidal but I did get a report from my sister last night and I mentioned this to her skinhead boyfriend went to a suicidal show in San Francisco in the 80s when you were a small child, and he had this shit kicked out of him by suicide. Oh, cuz he was a white power skinhead. And I want to say that your bandmates did good.
Ra Diaz
I approve that. She was I mean, you said he was like, 85. Right.
Ari Gold
You could have been as it could have been as late as 89. That would be the talent. I don't know what year it was. But I do know that he ended up completely completely blooded but but not by the audience by the band.
Ra Diaz
I'm sure that happened. Probably more than were in those. Yeah. Yeah. In that era.
Ari Gold
Okay, there's a lot of people saying how much they love the rush covers during the lockdowns and they really really meant a lot you guys have such a cool Christopher molar chemistry together, even remotely? Would you consider writing original material together?
Ra Diaz
Me personally, I
would love that. Um, I'm down anything so?
Alex Skolnick
Yeah, we're up for anything. I think
Charlie Benante
I would love to do that.
Ari Gold
You guys switch instruments ever where you know like get Alex on the drums and Charlie on the guitar and raw like singing opera.
Alex Skolnick
Absolutely good to do any instrument. I would. You wouldn't put me on.
Ra Diaz
Charlie plays everything.
Alex Skolnick
Yeah, I could make a little keyboards, but I can
Ari Gold
do some, some foot keyboards so you can get the Geddy .
Charlie Benante
Actually yeah, we could get the Taurus pedals and we could do that. But you know the thing about singing, especially singing a rush song, man, that takes confidence. Because more keyboards bass
Ari Gold
and singing, Geddy.
Ra Diaz
It's it's not just that he is singing the way Geddy sings and playing the way that he plays. You know, it's not like he's not just writing a note and singing. He's doing crazy stuff. And so he has like,
Alex Skolnick
multiple people. Okay, yeah,
Charlie Benante
yeah, he is.
Ari Gold
And his hair. He has two hairs one. Yeah, so look,
Ra Diaz
I am done.
Charlie Benante
I you know, the thing about Geddy to is, um, I don't know if it was because he had to do it. They didn't want to get another member but he had to do it that way. Same with Alex Alex plays, tours too during sort of songs. But you know, just seeing those two come together with the double neck like when they do Xanadu and stuff is just like man, three guys creating all that stuff. And you know, it's pretty amazing.
Ari Gold
Yeah. Alex, you covered Tommy Bolton. big influence on you. Someone's asking. Tommy Bolin, Bolin, Bolin. Sorry. I misread.
Alex Skolnick
Yeah, Tommy. Tommy Bolin was the late. He's the late, great guitarist. He was in deep purple for a time with Glenn Hughes. And he was in a band With Billy Cobham great, great drummer. Yeah. Billy Cobhams album,
Ari Gold
orchestra.
Yeah, and he was most known for my visit. When he did his own thing. It was his first, I believe it was his first solo record. It was called spectrum. And it's like a landmark jazz rock album. And Tommy Bolin is the guitarist. So the most well known song from that album is a song called chameleon. And I recently did a jam along with that on my Instagram Live and just shared that online.
Ari Gold
Nice. A lot of yeah, a lot of
Alex Skolnick
folks don't know that. So it's surprising. I mean, those of us who are fans of that genre, and especially young musicians who grew up jamming on to that are familiar with it, but it seems like it was reaching a lot of people that weren't familiar with it, which is really cool. And more people should know about Tommy Boland, too, because Oh, absolutely.
Charlie Benante
Yeah. A couple of months ago, I went down the rabbit hole for trios. I was trying to find like the best trios and of course, I went on an eel T kick, you know for a while, because they're like that whole prog rock II thing you know, our knee rock. Oh, dude, it's so awesome. Carl Palmer, Keith Emerson and then the it's the thing about a trio is like, you have to know and like I said before, you have to have confidence to just be three. You know? Yeah, you got like blue cheer, you know, Motorhead beam question cream Jimi Hendrix
Ari Gold
Experience I mean, you know this like that. You know, just
Ra Diaz
release what else? The Police
Charlie Benante
Absolutely. So it's the trio's has always been
Ari Gold
very open just did an air drone video with Modern Drummer just posted my air drum video with a period and that a few hours later, Stewart Copeland posted an air drone video I don't know if it's a coincidence. But it was right after Modern Drummer posted me and Neil I think steward wants in on the action.
Charlie Benante
I want to get it what's what's air drumming,
Ari Gold
he actually didn't even put on music. He had a couple like Christmas toys or like little dolls and he was like here's here's for the air drummers or something like that. And then he'd like ship the toys like this.
Charlie Benante
So as far as air drumming goes to me it's like I've always thought of Tom Sawyer being one of those songs I've created air drum
Ari Gold
Parts of my movie is that
Charlie Benante
whole Phil I would have to share like you know the Phil Collins in the air tonight.
Ari Gold
Movie to ….God. Recently, Jack and Diane produced by trivia people, do you know who created that sound for that song Jack and Diane? Anyone against David Bowie he created the David Bowie sound.
Charlie Benante
So that was Kenny Aronoff playing that
Ari Gold
Kenny Aronoff played it? But
Alex Skolnick
Brian Eno.
Ari Gold
No, it's It's one of my brain is it Sorry. It's the great greatest guitar one of the greatest guitars of the 70s My brain is like melting. Oh Mick Ronson? Yes, thank you. Mick Ronson produced Jack and Diane. He was the one who came in and said let's try crazy drum fill here and this big guitar thing. And John Mellencamp has, you know, credits Ronson for creating his like Mega stardom.
Alex Skolnick
Yeah, there's a great documentary on McRoberts. Yeah, recently, that's how I found out I didn't even know that. Yeah.
Charlie Benante
I didn't know that either. I mean, I thought the Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel record that Phil Collins played on include. Peter didn't want any symbols, no symbols on it. So I think that helped to achieve that drum sound that they got, you know, the gated reverb and everything, you know.
Ari Gold
But I mean, who played on talking about like security or Peter Gabriel? Three?
Charlie Benante
Phil Collins plays on?
Ari Gold
Oh, he played on? That's right. Yeah, he was in the studio. And they were like, no symbols. And then he was like, what do you learn from Peter? imitated on? On?
Charlie Benante
Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
Ari Gold
I mean, you're allowed to influence each other. They were in a band together. So,
Charlie Benante
you know, the funny thing about those two guys is like, okay, so Peter Gabriel has this distinctive voice. It's, it's so when you hear it, it's like, That's Peter Gabriel. He leaves the band the drummer, Phil Collins steps up and has a similar voice to Peter Gabriel. How does that happen? And they don't miss a beat. No pun intended. But yeah.
Ari Gold
And you know, if you listen, if you listen to Adam Ant and you hear the at Adam ants record later, or some of his records, or one of his big Records was produced by Phil Collins, and then you hear what sounds like Phil Collins. It sounds like Peter Gabriel in the background, but it's Phil Collins singing backup for Adam, man. It'll come slowly.
Charlie Benante
I'm learning so much tonight from this.
I mean, Adam Ant was uh, you know, for like a pop up like a punk pop. Dude, he was very drum. You know? Absolutely. Super drum driven. Have you had the opportunity to meet Geddy, Alex or Neil. I obviously worked with Neil but any of you this.
Alex Skolnick
I met. Yeah, last last year, I met Geddy at Cosmo fest, which is this little as the year before 2019. And it's this trade show in Toronto, by the public Don't buy this big music store Cosmo music, and he was there promoting his book. And yeah, what a cool guy. I was there giving a masterclass and Simon Phillips was there as well. And Omar Hakim? So I was already I was hanging with those guys and he he comes in and I think it helped. I felt more comfortable because I was hanging with those guys. So yeah. And all of a sudden, Dave Grohl walks in, which was like a total shock is he we have just happened to be there hanging out with Getty. It was a really weird thing. Well, he was I never fanboy.
Ari Gold
I mean, yeah, you know, he ended up
Alex Skolnick
just kind of shadowing Geddy. For. For some projects they were.
Ari Gold
I haven't met Dave Grohl, but ever. I hear so many people say What a nice guy he is. And I'm suspicious.
Ra Diaz
He's awesome. Very nice.
Alex Skolnick
Just like he comes across. Yeah, okay,
Ari Gold
good. Let's just enact it's not scared. Like, you know,
Alex Skolnick
it was super cool. Um, yeah, I'd love I never I've never got to meet Neil. Sadly, I'd love to meet Alex up to meet him at some point, I have a guitar just like is right up there.
Ari Gold
The you know, there's four hours of talks about Neil, I talk about Neil but you know, a lot of other like, you know, people who you know, other drummers talk about him in the four hour Modern Drummer special about Neil period. So I really hope everyone buys that if you haven't bought it already. Monitor it's at Modern Drummer comm slash shop. So please get the special and the the profits for it go to support research into the cancer that that took him away from us. So please, please do check that out. By the way, we have 10 to 15 minutes, and then we're going to go watch Adventures of power on the stream. Or if anyone wants to watch on amazon prime for like full screen view, they can do it there. All the streams support music cares. So and that doesn't just mean tonight, I mean, forever. We're giving money, the earnings to music cares. So check out adventures power, I would love to talk about the fact that I'm now waiting for my coffee beans to come from Charlie Benante. Now become a coffee entrepreneur. And let's talk about Charlie, you know, as a drummer who has to drum fast, is that how you got into coffee? Because you didn't want to be into speed?
Charlie Benante
No, no, well, it's partially kind of like that. But I grew up in like an Italian, you know, family, household, whatever. And coffee was always brewing. So either it was, you know, cappuccino, regular coffee or black coffee, whatever, you know. And I've always been addicted to it. And then about 15 years ago, Dave Mustaine hit me up and say I'm thinking about doing the coffee thing. Are you down to do it? And I'm like, absolutely. I know exactly the type I want to do the brew the blend, whatever. And we started doing it, and then kind of lost interest in it. But I kept going so I did it independently on my own. And then this coffee brewer here, dark matter in Chicago. I hooked up with them and then we started doing tree blends and it's been great. It's just it's the blends that i i picked I went down there we did the taste test spitting it out, you know, but uh, I love it. It's like
Ari Gold
my favorite thing. You spent any time in Italy and the Oh yeah. Yeah. Do you do like walk across the plaza holding a tiny little espresso cup going hey, is it's good to tie.
Charlie Benante
I wear like my jacket half on and I just walk around the town just shifting. Yeah. There we go. But I love Italy and I still have family there too. But it's really distinct. Up in like the north part of Italy and then my dad is Sicilian. So we never we never played heaven. Now we only we only played our Sicily. But that Sicily we played Italy of course but we don't. We play like Milano, we play. We played up up north we played Rome Of course. A couple other places to like festivals are usually out.
Alex Skolnick
Yeah their way out. Yeah.
Ari Gold
My favorite place to play my phone was supposed to play in Sicily but that we have a Coronavirus situation. So I was not able to go I was in Ischia, Italy with a film, but not not yet in Sicily. But yeah, I really want to go to Sicily. I hear it's like another planet. I bet it is. I want to talk a little bit about your podcast that you got going on? Sure. You want to share with people who might not know about it?
Alex Skolnick
Yeah, well, I've wanted, I've been planning to do one for a long time. I know. Everybody and their pet now has a podcast. But it's been in the works forever. And one of the shining lights of the whole shutdown. And just not traveling, in addition to cooking up with these guys, and doing our songs has been having the time and energy to get my podcast together. It's called moods and modes. And every episode is different. The original idea was your one on one sessions with different musicians. So I started it out with great Indian musician who's a friend of mine persona, great guitar player. Near Felder, who's a guy, he's he, he plays for Ben Platt. Right? You know, that's, he's kind of known for that. But he's also a great jazz player sits in with Dave Matthews. You know, great. But now, you know, one on one jam sessions are tough to do. So it sort of evolved into stories. So it's almost it's been described as like, This American Life for guitar, or, like an Anthony Bourdain show, but about
Ari Gold
deja vu that way or
Alex Skolnick
ya know, I got some nice reviews, which I was like, Oh, that's a perfect description. Now that is good. Um, so it got it got picked up by the Osiris media network. Okay, they have about 200 podcast or like real pros and their artists on there.
Ari Gold
Why you have such a good microphone there.
Alex Skolnick
Well, yeah. Yeah, they they
Ari Gold
are like whoa, we're talking into our laptops.
Ra Diaz
Not even I'm talking to my iPad with like my
Alex Skolnick
Oh, they sent me straight. Do you need a pop filter? You need this software? Yeah. Um, so the first few episodes I mean, people said I did really good for you know amateur that I am but it's definitely you'll definitely rocker Yeah, by by like episode six or seven. You'll definitely notice a difference but no, it's all types of music. I I do my own little soundtracks music that does not fit any of my projects. It doesn't fit my jazz guitar stuff that doesn't fit the metal stuff. I you know, it's it's a really cool vehicle. Did you know so it's called moods and modes, and it's available wherever you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, and so forth. That's awesome.
Ra Diaz
Hey, Alex. Alex, are you are you still doing every Friday they live Instagram thing?
Alex Skolnick
Yeah, well, that's that's another thing. Yeah. So on Instagram. I kind of got in the habit of doing my own version of Saturday Night Live but on Friday it's just a jam session. But yeah, Raj always there. I just go I log on every Friday. Yeah, and it's just an Instagram live but I use I have a guitar and I I jam event and I take questions but I'm amazed like people who show up like Roz, usually they're a hunter was just there. Great musician. You know, comedians there. My friend Dave Hill was just just popped on
Ra Diaz
the field. Phil Daniel was there last time.
Alex Skolnick
I was there. My friend. Maybe. Maybe you could call us from Hamilton was there like it's just crazy. The people that that show up. So that's every Friday at Alex Skolnick on Instagram.
Ari Gold
Okay. And brah you rob who's staying up late because he's in Chile. You want to tell us your day or were you like on the beach today? Let's or you're not at the house. That's why
Ra Diaz
you know, you know, you know what's funny. It's like right now I'm chilling like my parents house. Which is like, the same exact place when I was like 13 or 14 in this exact same room, and I would jam to like Anthrax and Testament. And I'm doing this. Yeah, for real. And I'm doing this in this room and it's like, it's kind of weird or fire like, yeah, you know, it's, it's weird, but I mean, I love it. It's great. Yeah.
Charlie Benante
I love hearing that. That's awesome. That's really good.
Ari Gold
Are there any side projects you want to share raw? Well, well, we've got a cap too.
Ra Diaz
I mean, right now, I've been recording some stuff for like, basically, whoever like hit me up. And we'd suicidal, we recorded some stuff and everything. But with everything that's going on, I don't even know when it's gonna come out. You know. So, at this moment, like, all I'm doing is just basically playing bass at home and recording. Just chilling I guess waiting to see what happens. And I just
Ari Gold
there's some like girl who's like a basis star who always pops up on my feed for some reason. She's like,
Ra Diaz
it's the tiger. She's always playing. Well, there's,
Ari Gold
there's like a bass duet, you could like create a backup of story. It's like bass extravaganza.
Ra Diaz
I've done like, out of out of nowhere, sometimes, like earlier, like an hour before logging into this. So I was just in my room. And I'm like, Yeah, you know, when I go live and play a couple songs, and but it's like, whenever I feel Yeah, I actually last week, I played like a couple like Rush songs and stuff. And it's cool. I like the being spontaneous. I can do that plan thing. Too much. I stress easily. So
Ari Gold
good. And thorough, you got an art show coming up as well as
Charlie Benante
we were looking at, because we postponed it twice already because of the because of the virus. So we're looking at hopefully doing it in February, maybe around Valentine's Day. So guys, bring your girls and girls bring your guys and girls bring your guys Yeah. Or guys bring?
Ari Gold
We're in this world. Guys. Bring your guys girls, bring your girls and then not the three of us. Bring your noncompliance as well. We should
Ra Diaz
play the art show the three of us.
Hey, that's a good idea. Yeah,
we can meet up in Chicago and play a couple months. Ah,
Ari Gold
well, you know, any, anything you guys do you tell me I'm going to put you on the adventures of power website because there are no band pages for you guys, that will always be promotional. I will be on on point with what you guys are doing. So I think we'll roll to the movie unless anyone wants to give any another shout out. About one more. I'll ask one more question. When are you guys going to post your next videos? Or next song? Any idea?
Alex Skolnick
Yeah, no need to worry for the holiday holidays came we kind of?
Ari Gold
Well, yeah. Okay. Well,
Charlie Benante
it's, it's gonna be a year in I think, February and March that we did the first one and two months. Quick, quick, quick story about that. So the first one that we did. Everybody was like writing. Hey, how did you guys do this? How did you guys do this? And other bands were hitting me up about it. And they're like, how did you guys do this? You know, and I just wrote one of them back. I won't say what wasn't? I just wrote talent. And then they never got back to me after that.
Ari Gold
Yeah. Well, you know, you're allowed to say that when you're going on Tay.
Alex Skolnick
Skolnick? Yes. Yeah. I don't really get to say that. But yeah, it was it. We people were stumped. Because they don't. Now quarantine videos are a thing. But at that time, people were we kind of started it. Yeah, we did. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I did. That one of the Y YZ just really blew up. And I was hearing from people who were hearing from people that didn't know they knew me. It was just being shared. So many like,
Ari Gold
I put them on air drums y y z in Berlin, and sent a video video to Neil Pierre, that this is after I made the movie, but I was like touring with it played in Berlin. And I did y y z at a club. Like video anyway. That was the response that I've put in something where he wrote back. I was like, is this Are you embarrassed that I did this? And he said in a word. Yeah. In two words back Yeah. Because you know, he knows that air drumming is air drumming is much harder than drumming. Let's just, you know, maybe Charlie may not agree continue some real drama. No. Mr Gummer, but I challenge you, the athletic pneus. Because you have to move like there's nothing to bounce off you, don't you? So you have to create the bounce. So you're actually double, double workout.
Charlie Benante
So I totally agree with you. I'm a really good air basketball player to
go golfer. Yeah.
Well, actually, you did. You mentioned Neil. And of course, the anniversary of his death is coming up soon. Yeah, in two days.
Ari Gold
Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I'll just say again, if you haven't bought the Modern Drummer special about Neil pure, it's four hours of amazing music, amazing stories about new interviews with him. I know, I included a clip of mine, some of my interaction with him. And I don't know dozens and dozens of amazing drummers and musicians talking about Neil and if you can get it at modern drummer.com/helped Me, slash shop slash shop, finding domain comm slash shop. And the money does go to support cancer research. So I hope everyone watching this will get that special. And so we'll roll to adventure the power, which new appeared is in and anyone who doesn't have time to watch it now or wants to see it big screen, you can watch it for free on Amazon. And we do get money from the free streams. And that money goes to support music cares. So please tell your friends to watch the movie. And it's such an honor to have you guys it's like a little bit like my, you know, teen fantasy to have these three bands on the same screen with me. So you guys all rock and everyone watching you all rock and i i hope you enjoy branches of power. And feel free to airdrome along because it'll make you strong enough to fight off. Any virus. Any adversity. So
Charlie Benante
awesome. Well, thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Back. Thanks, Rob. Thank you. Thanks.
Ra Diaz
Everybody, be safe.
Ari Gold
Thank you so much for listening to hot sticks drum show. Please stream the movie Adventures of power at Air drummer.com and support the Grammy music Harris Foundation. And don't forget to subscribe at HUD sticks.fm. And of course, feel free to ask me any questions or make drummer requests at Ari Gold on social media and keep marching to the beat of your own drum even if you don't have one. We are air drummers. Every one of us. Imagine that!
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