George Kollias here...

yeah that's true. have you tried e-mailing him yet? (the contact e-mail on that page) i'm sure he has somewhere that is selling them in the US, i know there are a ton of guys from sickdrummer etc that bought them in the US.

edit: sorry for hijacking your thread george, i shall leave it in peace. cheers.
 
big ups on your playing man. new nile album is dope. your dvd is sweet too. nice one.

p.s. is what joeysnare asked trued? if it is then i better stop doing it now.. please message me if you don't want to say on the forum, thanks.
Thanks man,
no this is a Gabriel snare, that was actually my Signature Snare which is still in the market, i am just with Pearl Drums now so i don't use it anymore.
 
hey George, u rock! But i have a few questions,
1. When you do the swivel technique on your pedals, are you doing double strokes, like a RRLL Pattern, or are you doing a straight RLRLRLRL?
Yes, straight singles.
I never do doubles, at least never for the fast stuff anyways.It's all singles, with or without swivel, there isn't much difference in there.

2. Why do you need triggers? I saw on one of your videos that you said you cant play metal without triggers, why? Couldn't you just turn up the mic in your bass drums?
Yes, but it just doesn't work.
Playing at those speeds triggers are necessary, not only to keep the intensity on the shows (metal shows NEEDS loud and clean kicks) but in order to keep the band together on stage.My bands, always follows my kick, the need a clean kick more than i do so they can lock with me.At those speeds, you need a clean sample kick so you know what's up.
Also, it's the drum itself.You just can't make a bass drum sound that clean at those speeds because of the air inside the drum and the mic possition.

I hear people sayind triggering is cheat and stuff like this,well it's not since you are still playing the drum, but it's the speed you get on the drum and the drum is too boomy to respond clearly.I also hear people talking bad about triggers when:
a) They are not able to go fast, they can't so they think 180bpm is the same with 250bpm+. Wrong, it's a totally different world.
b) They use mics and they compress the shit out of the drum, ha ha. This is exactly the same thing, compressors / gates etc. is kinda like triggering.
Now, can someone play the same fast without triggers??? Of course, speed has nothing to do with triggering, it's all about feet.

3. Do you use your fingers or wrists to play your crazy blasts? Cuz I tried using my fingers to control the sticks but i cant get enough velocity going.
I use wrists, Moeller motion.
It's just the way i learned and i am happy with it since i can get a lot more control and power.Still, this is just a personal preference.
 
Pretty sure for #2 there'd just be too much "mud" if you turned up the mics that high. There's simply no way to get the kind of attack that you'd get at slower speeds, which means with the volume cranked it'd sound less like a clearly delineated line of kicks and more like a wash with pulses.
Exactly my friend, it doesn't really work.Especially when you get more than 110db on stage...
 
Yeah. Triggers are pretty much the standard for fast metal. Now George obviously rails against ABUSING triggers, but not using them at all ain't gonna work out.
Believe me, i never use triggers outside Nile anymore.Only cause i love having dynamics on my kicks and i love the natural kick sound.
Triggering is a part of music today, i've sen more and more drummers using tiggers on every drum no matter how fast they play.Heavy Metal Drummers,Rock Drummers, Pop drummers...To me that's a bit sad, like Sound Replacing in the studio.I prefer accoustic drums 100 times.
 
Believe me, i never use triggers outside Nile anymore.Only cause i love having dynamics on my kicks and i love the natural kick sound.
Triggering is a part of music today, i've sen more and more drummers using tiggers on every drum no matter how fast they play.Heavy Metal Drummers,Rock Drummers, Pop drummers...To me that's a bit sad, like Sound Replacing in the studio.I prefer accoustic drums 100 times.

Not that I like to name names (Joey Jordison), but I've seen some metal drummers that trigger literally every drum and cymbal surface on their kit. It definitely is sad, and to be honest I'm not really a huge fan of the sound of triggers in general. But if you're playing 250bpm there's just no way to avoid it, I suppose.

To me, my problem with triggers and whatever else has nothing to do with whether or not it's "cheating", just the sound it makes. I've heard drummers on albums that weren't that fast where the whole kit's been run through filters and processors and it really sounds like sh!t.

Also, and forgive me if I'm mistaken here George, but I've heard that some drummers use triggers SPECIFICALLY to remove dynamics. For example, that gravity blasting can be a problem because the upstroke won't have the same power as the down, so the snare is triggered so it sounds the same both ways. I can't do a gravity blast to save my life, but that's just one example I've heard.
 
I know it's a drummer's forum and we all talk about drums, speed, technique etc. but there is something else great going on here too! We can talk like friends with some of the greatest drummers in the world! George is one of them! Gavin Harrison is another one! Todd Sucherman a third one and many more of course! What i mean is that we have to say a huge bravo and thank you to all you guys because you find some time to talk with us...the mortal ones! It's great honor for me and i want to believe that all of the drummers who write in this thread feel the same! And i can say from experience that George Kollias is one of the best drummers and one the greatest guys out there!

And some drum ideas now...George if you find some time listen to this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6kvOKWrCAo
I've been practicing doubles on the feet for some time now and i played in the beginning of the song and generally i play a lot of foot-based patterns that are really challenging!
I'm waiting for a comment when you're able to write one!
 
Thanks a bunch for answering my questions, George, btw i think u are THE best metal drummer out there
 
It IS funny that if you go around on YouTube, whenever there's a video of ANY metal drummer, inevitably someone says either George, Flo, or Derek Roddy are better.

That's gotta feel strange. To realize just how high in regard you're held by the musical community. Pressure!
 
I've listened to a fair bit of Nile, I quite enjoyed Annihilation of the wicked as well as some of your other work, I found it had a lot more depth to it from a musical stand-point then most death metal, you were playing fast but I could hear technique to it.

One question I have which you may not get asked all the time is about achieving high foot speed with a single peddle.

Do you believe it is essential for fast kicks that you utilize a double-kick pedal or can you reach some fairly impressive speeds with a single foot?

I noticed you said the right foot often leads, how essential is it to have the left foot complimenting it?

The reason I ask is because some friends have been showing me a lot of metal drummers who do bass kick fills and they believe it will fit the dynamics of a couple of songs but I'm quite unwilling to move my high hat away from the snare, I like having it close and I like the ability to clap it and create different sounds with pressure on the high hat pedal.
 
Was just watching Intense Metal Drumming again, felt like bumping the thread 'cause George kicks ass.

I've discovered one big problem I'm having with single foot blast practice: at certain speeds my power just collapses. I don't "tap", more like the opposite. The beater has a lot of motion, but it doesn't hit the drum head very hard at all. It's really messing me up.
 
Hey George!

Honored to see you here!

Attended your show at "Roskilde Festival" and enjoyed it immensely!:)

I have a question concerning pedal work and thought you'd be the right to ask.

I am currently not using double bass due to the fact that its inconvient for me atm. So i've made the best of it and since my favorite band is Led Zeppelin i've been practicing my double kicks and foot a lot in general in order to jam along with Bonzo. But after a talk about a more experienced friend about pedal technique he explained that most of the better drummers in the field use heel-down only due to it being more healthy and efficient at a higher level. So i came home and watched some of your vidoes yet agian and saw that you played heel-down all the time.

I've only been playing for little less than a year but im very active and i drum as much as i can everyday which means around an hour if im lucky and i would like to be able to use my foot effectively while drumming for quite sometime. So my question is: Is Heel-down superior?

Sorry for the lack of puncutation and commas.

Regards Victor
 
George,

I watched your dvd and I noticed you're a multi-instrumentalist. I'm a drummer of 12 years, currently learning guitar.

How did you balance practicing your instruments?

What carried over from playing the drums to playing the guitar?

Also, the dvd is great.
 
George, I think your drum compositions are very musical and a-typical for metal drumming. Keep at it. :)
 
Hey George!

Honored to see you here!

Attended your show at "Roskilde Festival" and enjoyed it immensely!:)

I have a question concerning pedal work and thought you'd be the right to ask.

I am currently not using double bass due to the fact that its inconvient for me atm. So i've made the best of it and since my favorite band is Led Zeppelin i've been practicing my double kicks and foot a lot in general in order to jam along with Bonzo. But after a talk about a more experienced friend about pedal technique he explained that most of the better drummers in the field use heel-down only due to it being more healthy and efficient at a higher level. So i came home and watched some of your vidoes yet agian and saw that you played heel-down all the time.

I've only been playing for little less than a year but im very active and i drum as much as i can everyday which means around an hour if im lucky and i would like to be able to use my foot effectively while drumming for quite sometime. So my question is: Is Heel-down superior?

Sorry for the lack of puncutation and commas.

Regards Victor

Was just watching Intense Metal Drumming again, felt like bumping the thread 'cause George kicks ass.

I've discovered one big problem I'm having with single foot blast practice: at certain speeds my power just collapses. I don't "tap", more like the opposite. The beater has a lot of motion, but it doesn't hit the drum head very hard at all. It's really messing me up.
 
Not that I like to name names (Joey Jordison), but I've seen some metal drummers that trigger literally every drum and cymbal surface on their kit. It definitely is sad, and to be honest I'm not really a huge fan of the sound of triggers in general. But if you're playing 250bpm there's just no way to avoid it, I suppose.

To me, my problem with triggers and whatever else has nothing to do with whether or not it's "cheating", just the sound it makes. I've heard drummers on albums that weren't that fast where the whole kit's been run through filters and processors and it really sounds like sh!t.

Also, and forgive me if I'm mistaken here George, but I've heard that some drummers use triggers SPECIFICALLY to remove dynamics. For example, that gravity blasting can be a problem because the upstroke won't have the same power as the down, so the snare is triggered so it sounds the same both ways. I can't do a gravity blast to save my life, but that's just one example I've heard.
There is no cheating with triggers, in fact i find it harder to play with triggers like i do without them. The sound is super clean and there is no chances for mistakes...

In metal we don;t use dynamics on kicks, that's right. We use a flat sample to keep the intensity up there and lead the band. Triggers are more important for the rest of the band than the drummer...they need to hear a clean bass drum to lock with the drummer.

I like with or without triggers, i mostly play with them but like i said many times for metal triggers are a necessity.

I don't like triggering the snare or anything else, i think it takes away all the feel from drummer.It all depends on the drummer of course, if your band needs triggers then ok. As for gravity blasts i am not a fan at all, single had roll is great but in a blastbeat doesn't do it for me...
 
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