Gary James' Interview With Rock Drummer
Brian Tichy



He's worked with some of the greatest name Rock acts in the world. We're talking Whitesnake, Foreigner, Billy Idol and Ozzy Osbourne. The gentleman we are talking about is Mr. Brian Tichy.

Q - Brian, if you weren't a drummer, would you have become a boxer? I ask only because of your interest in speedbags. Did you ever entertain the idea of becoming a professional boxer?

A - No, never. I think, like most young kids back in the day, you'd see when Rocky came out or when Muhammad Ali was at his peak in the sports world you couldn't help but see the speedbag being used by these guys. I always thought it was cool, but it never leant itself to me thinking I should get into boxing. Speedbagging to me was more of a controlled, cool looking and sounding thing. If you really look at what's going on in the speedbag, it's accuracy and consistency and it's based around rhythm. So, some years ago I finally set one up and started doing it after watching some speedbag freaks on YouTube and seeing how advanced it could be I started going for it. I got really into it.

Q - Have you persuaded other drummer to try it?

A - Oh, yeah. Anybody that's asking, whether it's a musician or a buddy, yeah. I've had friends around the speedbag and showed them the basics. There's been a few people over the years that have gotten into it. It's one of those things when you do it you're either like, "Oh, this is cool but I don't feel like dedicating the time and learning all the stuff," or there's other people that are just fascinated by it. "Oh, I can almost do it. I'm going to get one myself." If someone's around and wants to know, I'll gladly show them the basics.

Q - You actually teach people how to play drums like John Bonham? I always thought John Bonham could play the drums like he did because he was a big guy. Can you actually teach someone to play the drums like he did?

A - I can't teach anybody how to play drums like John Bonham 'cause I can't play drums like John Bonham. All I can say is he's a huge influence and inspiration and this is what I've gotten from it. This is what my take is on trying to get into that world of sound and style. As far as him being a big guy, I think that's just a misconception. He's a regular guy as far as I can tell. If you look at the pictures when Zeppelin came out, he's just a regular size bloke, right? But over the years it looked like he gained some weight, but that was not hurting the mystique and imagery of what he was delivering on a drum set. He set a bar that hasn't been hit by anybody since. When we were growing up we'd all hear he uses drumsticks the size of tree trunks. He hits harder than anybody. There's times when you can see him digging in, in a video. It certainly sounds like that on a lot of Zeppelin tracks. I don't want to say it couldn't be further from the truth, but I just don't think that's accurate at all. He had an amazing touch. He knew how to hit a drum. He knew how to tune a drum with a larger than normal size drums. I'd say he tuned them a certain way and hitting accurately to create a certain sound and make the drum set as one, sound like one big, full instrument. I just think he had a certain way of doing that. I don't think anybody's done that since that's made a drum set sound that monstrous. But you say that and you go listen to any of his drum solos or playing within a song, there's an insane amount of dynamics all the time. So, he had a great feel, a great touch and he was insanely dynamic. For example, when "The Song Remains The Same" came out, when I first saw it as a kid, I guess in high school, I was expecting to see this drummer all night long smashing through the drum kit and I was surprised when that wasn't the case. But then I'm like, the drums just sound massive 'cause he knew what he was doing. Somebody had to do it and it was John Bonham and I'm damn glad it was him because he was in the best band in the world, having a chance to play his style. Everything just worked in Zeppelin. His style worked with the other guys and what Jimmy (Page) was writing and just the delivery of the whole band. He's one of these guys, without him, if you replaced him with somebody, maybe they could have carried on to a certain extent, but he really just added a sound to the band that I think all of us musicians want. When we play our instruments we want to sound like ourselves. And he did that in a big way.

Q - But again, to clarify, if someone comes to you and says, "Brian, can you teach me to play drums like John Bonham?", you say what?

A - I can do it as far as you want to know some details, I can get into some details. I'm not John Bonham. It's just like pick a drummer, Steve Gadd. Hey, I've studied some Steve Gadd. I want to show you Steve Gadd licks. You want to learn certain things about him, I can explain it. Yes, I can as far as I've put a lot of time into studying John Bonham, but it sounds a little egotistical to make a statement like, "Yes, you will learn how to play like John Bonham if study with me." You're not going to study with anybody that's going to teach you how to sound like John Bonham in the way that you have to pay respect to John Bonham. Yes, sit on this bigger drum kit and tune it a certain way and play some beats and most people will go, "Yeah, that's John Bonhamish." So, yes and no. Yes, I can get you to a place where you're learning about the way he did things. I'm not him and I wasn't there when he did things. So I can only try to mimic and recreate with as much respect as I can.

Q - You're a college educated drummer. You went to Berklee College Of Music. What could you possibly learn at Berklee that you couldn't have picked up on your own?

A - I guess anybody can pick up anything they choose to on their own based on what you're going for and what you want to achieve. Being a fresh out of high school, 18-year-old kid at Berklee Music College, you're around thousands of musicians and your life in this college is surrounded by music 100%. Not only are you learning from your classes and teachers, but maybe just as much you're learning from the environment and students 'cause you're all working together on your craft and it's your decision if that's what your thing is. For me it was non-stop. If I wasn't practicing drums I was in my dorm room, playing guitar and I'd be learning from guitar students, students there for guitar. I'd be learning from students there for drums. My buddies are on drums and I'd be learning at the classes and from the teachers. So, you're just in an environment where it's non-stop. If you choose to keep it non-stop like I did you're just going 100% all day around music. There was nothing of interest to me outside of that. So, those three years in the dorms at Berklee, that resonating influence of just being in a college around everybody going for it is infectious if you want it to be. There's maybe some other people there who are there for the music, but they're also there to party. I didn't do that at all. I was really focused on getting there and realizing that I might be a decent Rock drummer growing up in what I did, but to be around all these different styles of music and different drummers that can play stuff that I can't play, that just pushed me so much harder. It was the one time in my life where I really felt myself getting better. I felt at the end of a semester, three or four months ago there was all this stuff I could not do, that I have a better grasp on. That's what happens if you want it to. The pros and cons of something like that is you can get into a college music department and you might think that's somewhat representative of the real world in the music business, which it's not. It's completely the opposite. You're there taking it all in, but when you leave college you have to be prepared to play what's correct for a gig. You don't want to go in and say, "Hey! I'm from Berklee. So, look at all the stuff I can do. You're gonna want me to do that at your gig because I put all this time into it." You still have to be smart about what you're doing behind a kit of drums and your role in the band.

Q - Did they teach you how to read music?

A - Well, you're going to get better at it. Most people who are there have already put time into getting to learn that.

Q - Learning to read music gives you an upper hand in the music business, doesn't it?

A - Yeah. It was there to work on and get better at, but I was already studying privately for many years before going to college, so I could already read. But it's just a matter of are they throwing you studio charts or Big Band charts where you've got to follow along and maybe you haven't seen it before. That's a whole reading thing. It's fine. It's cool. I think knowing music theory and being able to read charts or write basic charts or just understand on that side of things, it gives you an upper hand like you said. It can definitely make you communicate better with the rest of the band and you understand what's going on, even if you don't know the chord changes, you don't know the exact chord changes, but through the arrangement you can understand this is a one chord, this is a five chord. Even talking theory with guitar players or whomever I think it helps a drummer rather than only understanding rhythm. The more you know on that side of things, the better you're going to be in a studio situation or rehearsal situation. Everything's just going to go smoother.

Q - You had your own record label at one point and you were fronting your band, Ball. Isn't it rather difficult to run a record label at the same time you're fronting a band?

A - No, I wasn't running a label. At that time, no. That was like twenty years ago or something. I had a band where I was playing guitar and singing. I just got to a point where in the late '90s I just wanted to see if I could do it and I had a bunch of music I got together and started playing around town. There was label interest. Ultimately I got a deal in Japan and the record came out there in 1999. Later that year I signed with a label in the States, an independent label. It ultimately did not come out in the States, but the label went under less than a year later. They started having distribution problems. My record was one of the ones that was affected as far as getting released at the time. But no, they weren't my labels. On some other things I've done on my own I just stuck my own record label on if I've done something completely independently just to do it, but it wasn't that then.

Q - You were playing drums at 8 and guitar at 12. Were you playing in bands at that age?

A - No. As a kid 8 years old, 9 years old I was playing to KISS records and that was it. For a couple of years I was pretty much getting into KISS records. After that, my dad had his Beatles records. I think he had some Eagles stuff, but mainly I was just playing to KISS. Slowly but surely I got into Aerosmith, Zeppelin, Nugent, Rush and Van Halen. That was my thing. I would just play to records all of the time. You don't realize it at the time, but that was probably the best thing I could've done because my private drum lessons back then were really focused on rudiments and reading books. We really didn't cover that much in the world of Rock drums. But I'd go home and I look back now and that was fun for me, but the amount of intense focus I did on my own, playing to records is what I think set me up to be able to play as a professional drummer down the road. You get in a certain band situation and you want to make the band happy and sound like the band they should be. All those years playing along to records I tried to mimic the sound of the drummers in those bands. So, if I was playing to a Rush record I'd try to pretend I was Neil Peart. If I was playing to AC/DC I'd try to pretend I was Phil Rudd, which are two completely different styles. So, I think that was a good thing to set me up when I was playing for Whitesnake versus Billy Idol.

Q - What kind of a place was Denville, New Jersey when you were growing up? Were there quite a few places for a Rock group to perform?

A - Denville, New Jersey was technically where I was born and I grew up in Parsippany, a couple miles down the road, but basically all the same area. It was straight up middle class. I can't complain. We had a house. My parents let me play drums. (laughs) That's the main thing right there. I had the good fortune of getting a drum set at a young age and being allowed to play it a lot where I know that's not the case in other homes. It's just not going to happen like that. I was lucky.

Q - You've toured or recorded with so many name acts. When you finally got to meet Ozzy Osbourne or Billy Idol or Mick Jones, what went through your mind?

A - It's always exciting and it always first starts with respect. I'm just excited that I got to a place in my life where I'm either going to end up not just meeting them, meeting people is cool, but when you meet somebody like that and it's under the umbrella of this is me as the drummer, it's not just me as a fan, that's even better if they end up being your boss or whatever. Yeah man, it's great. When you play in these bands that you've grown up as a kid, playing to their records, dreaming about someday if I can ever do this and when you get there it's not like I fulfilled my dreams. It's nothing like that. It's cool. I've gotten to a place where I put the time in through my life and this what I am and here I am and now it's time to prove myself. If you can prove yourself it really gives you confidence, confidence to be able to keep moving on because this business is crazy and there are not guarantees. Because you did this doesn't mean you're going to do that. Just because you're here doesn't mean you're going to go there. It doesn't mean you can sit back and enjoy the ride. There's ups and downs all the time, and no guarantees. But to get there is exciting. I don't think anyone would disagree or speak differently when you get yourself in a situation where you're hired by somebody you grew up on that had that legend in the business. It's a good thing. With that said, maybe some people can think they're on that level and that's the way it goes and their ego gets inflated. But I never looked at it like that. I was like I'm happy to be here and I want to kick ass and I want to prove myself. But, I also know I'm not the only one that wants to be here, so if I don't keep kicking ass there's a thousand other drummers that want to get in here.

Q - You were in Whitesnake for what, two and a half years, touring all over the world. A lot of drummers would probably consider that a dream job. Was it? And if so, why did you leave?

A - I was in Whitesnake 2010 through 2012, but really we did the record in 2010 and toured in 2011 and started back up in 2013. When they started back up I made the decision to try to get into other things. But yeah, it was great. I was the kid who brought "Slide In" on a cassette. I was the kid who heard "Slow And Easy" and "Loving No Stranger" on MTV. Cozy Powell on drums, (David) Coverdale, bad ass, one of the best Rock singers out there. It was really cool to be a part of that, but it's 2010 and I had been doing this for a couple of decades. You're a little older. You have a little more experience. A little bit of a resume with you. So, you just look at the big picture. If I join, what am I taking on? What do I commit to? But on the drum side, on the Whitesnake side, that was fun and it was an honor following in the footsteps of drum legends like Cozy Powell and Tommy Aldridge, Ian Paice. That's always a great thing. You put the feather in your cap and you keep going. But when you say a dream job, you have to ask everybody what's their dream job. What is it, you know? (laughs) It's different for everybody. Where are you at in your life? What do you need and what do you want? Where does it put you in your mindset compared to where you were? All those things. Prior to joining Whitesnake in 2010 I had already gotten a call from David Coverdale back in 2003 and I was playing with Billy Idol at the time and I was happy playing with Billy. Billy is awesome. He's an awesome singer/frontman, Rock icon. But he's also a great guy. He's a no bullshit, straight shooter. So, I was having a good time in Billy's band. And when David called me I really wasn't sure if I wanted to switch things up then. Ultimately he was putting together a new version at the time, or whatever it was, and he had called to see if I was interested. But as it ended up I think his first call was to Tommy Aldridge, who ultimately did rejoin at the time, which made sense, and that was great. So, it never got to the point where I said yes or no. He just asked me if I was interested and we just said we'd talk later. He said the main guy I was calling was into it. I was going to stay with Billy anyway at that time. But it was cool. I had a great time in the band. People say, "Why do you leave these bands?" Part of the reason, a big chunk of the reason is I look at my bosses, whether it's Coverdale or Billy Idol or Mick Jones, with so much respect. There was a time when they weren't Mick Jones that wrote all the Foreigner songs and got together with Lou Gramm and this Foreigner band came out and took over, or Coverdale who left Deep Purple for Whitesnake and created this big, huge band that had huge songs, or Billy Idol who came out of the Punk scene and came to New York and became friggin' Billy Idol. I look at these guys like there was a time you weren't that, but you worked hard and you got to this place and that's what I want to do for myself. I don't know if I want to necessarily be the drummer in this band for another x amount of years. I just want to push myself and see where I can go and that's why I always wanted to have my own band when I was a kid. To me, that was the pinnacle of the Rock music business, being the drummer in a band that's your band and you're associated with, meaning Van Halen, Rush, Zeppelin, Queen, where you look at those drummers and that's it. Alex Van Halen is the drummer for Van Halen. That's all that matters. Angus Young is the guitar player for AC/DC. That's all that matters. That's his band. That's what he does. That's what he's known for. I think that's the pinnacle. So, I've always pushed to see if I can get there. It's not easy to start your own band and get the right combination and everything is gelling and write songs, the label is behind you, you have a hit single and you get successful and all of a sudden you sell records and tickets. There you go. That's not easy.

Official Website: www.BrianTichy.com

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