Category Archives: Magazine Writing

Steven Spence dreams of clicks. Late into the night, after the stage lights have gone down, the drum kit has been packed away, and the bus has begun rolling toward the next American city on the tour list, Spence is in a world of regulated clicks: tick, tick, tick, tock. But the clicks are not coming from the wet leaf that’s flapping against the front wheel of the tour bus as it races along I-70 toward San Antonio. Like John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, it’s the sound of numbers ricocheting off the walls of Spence’s brain. Continue reading →

It’s well into a Thursday night in January and R.E.M.’s Bill Rieflin is making himself a cup of Scottish breakfast tea. It’s not a terribly cold night in Seattle, where Rieflin has lived almost his entire life, but the wind makes it feel more intense. The gusts are evidence of January’s last gasping moments, and even then, it’s still only a few degrees above freezing at this late hour. It could be worse. Continue reading →

Brad Morgan is often the guy behind the wheel when his band, Drive-By Truckers, is hurtling down Interstate 85 on the hunt for a Waffle House. And with some 200 shows a year, the Drive-By Truckers bus almost never stops rolling. Continue reading →

As seen in the January 2008 issue of DRUM! magazine. If you’re looking for Riley Breckenridge, you might want to check the insane asylum. Each morning, while the rest of the world sleeps, the 32-year-old Thrice drummer inevitably finds himself … Continue reading →

No one knows a drummer better than his bass player, so we asked Avenged Sevenfold bassist Johnny Christ to share his impressions of The Rev Continue reading →

As seen in the November 2007 issue of DRUM! magazine. James Owen Sullivan is staring at his feet. It’s a sole-melting afternoon in July and the Avenged Sevenfold drummer is fumbling with his black nail-polished fingers inside a discreet, air-conditioned … Continue reading →