BATTERY DRUM INTERVIEW Darrin Zeune /PARIAH

 1.What is your name and what band do you play for?

1. Darrin Zeune (pronounced ZYE-KNEE) rhymes with hynie!

 

2.Who made you want to play drums and why?

1. My High School Marching Band! Rio Mesa High School does in Camarillo, Ca had a killer snare section and I always thought they played with such precision and loved how they hit snares in sync and wanted to do that too.

 

3.When did you get your first kit?

      A. Tell us about it…I saved up enough money doing odd jobs, mewing lawns, etc. and bought my first kit when I was 14. It was a clear blue Ludwig just like John Bonham’s stage kit. I played it constantly. very exciting !

 

4.Where your parents supportive of you and your loud / expensive new habit?

1. Only when my grades were good, but for the most part they were. We’rent too happy about the noise but I guess they got used to it.

 

5.What drum performance on an album is perfection to you?

1. Well Neil Peart’s performance on Moving Pictures to me is perfection in my eyes. A perfect album all around but Neil’s playing, drum sound, precision, and the production is just stellar.

 

6.Tell us about your current kit and set up in DETAIL.

1. My current set is also a John Bohnum replica which is the Centennial series by Ludwig. Action gear I use DW5000 double bass pedal and I use a mix of cymbals by Zildian A’s & Paiste signature series, my ride is a bosporus New Orleans dry ride. My snare is a LM402 for extra snap and my high hat is a Paiste 2002. My bass drum is the fabled 26” that Bonham of course used along with Keith Moon. For my heads I use REMO’s for my rack toms, and 16” black dot floor tom and a Remo pinstriped for the 18” floor tom. and for sticks I use Promarks.

 

7.If you could have a dream kit tell us about it in DETAIL

1. I’m playing on my dream already, although my only upgrade would be to use bent tone wood shells that I made myself but man who has the time for that?

 

8.Name your top 5 drummers excluding Neil Peart and Mike Portnoy

1. Who’s Mike Portnoy? Uhh…, let’s see Bill Ward from Sabbath, John Bonham, Keith Moon, Jor Vitelli from James Gang, Don Henley and Ben Orr

 

9. Do you prefer Live or Studio?

1. BOTH! I love playing live from the energy it provides and not knowing quite what’s gonna happen , or where or how true energy will be channeled. I also love the studio and using the studio as an instrument itself and all the possibilities of sounds we can create then enhance what we create. I built our studio where we recorded Everything’s Breathing myself from scratch which includes an analog soundboard, iso booth, monitors, drum mics, etc. So I’m partial to using the fruits of my labor to our benefit. Not to mention the costs of studio time we save. It’s a wonderful luxury to record what we want when we want to.

 

10.Do drummers really get all the chicks and if so how do we convince the guitarist?            

Hahaha ya know I never really gave it much thought, but now that you ask...of course we get all the chicks! All kidding aside, it’s because all drummers have armadillos in our trousers so the chick are really quite fearful! No whats cool about drummers, and really all musicians are levitated in that department . What we do seems a little magical to people like that so it ,ames it fun that way.