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Over the past few weeks, I was pleased to hang out with some really nice drummers from around the globe. While in Melbourne, I grabbed dinner and did some double-drum jamming with Peter Marin. What a cool dude! Then, a couple days later, I hooked up with Jeremy Stacey in London. We chilled out at his recording studio listening to the various tracks of Steve Gadd, Andy Newmark, Ari Hoenig, and more. Quite inspirational! And earlier this week, I met up with Michael Iveson and Kevin Stevens in North Hollywood… and coincidentally Peter Marin again (that globe-trotter). I feel fortunate to be part of such a great community of drummers.

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This week, I had an awesome time playing with Aleks Syntek and his band in Cuernavaca and Mexico City. What a great group of people! The musicians, the engineers, the crew, the management, the stylists. They made me feel like I was part of the family. And for a bonus, he invited legendary Thomas Dolby to join us for a few songs. Plus, I spent my off-time walking the streets of Condessa and Roma. Cool neighborhood. Oh, and I broke my bass drum head at the very end of the show. That happens about once every 4 years or so.

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During our Leehom Wang tour of Sydney, Melbourne and London, my bandmate Eric Holden and I went out hunting for some of the best coffee we could find. Kikko in Sydney was great. Simple, Italian, thumbs up. Brother Baba Budan’s in Melbourne was pretty good, too. And I really liked the machiatto at Nude Espresso in Soho, London. There were dozens more on our list, but time and caffeine-threshold did not allow us to sample all of them on this trip.

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Scott Donnell from Drum Workshop put together this fun photo shoot for a great new series of drums called the Pacific Concept line. We did it at the House of Rock in Santa Monica. Also featured in this pic are rock & roll photographer Rob Shanahan and rock & roll model Lauren.

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Every artist places a different emphasis on rehearsals. On one end of the spectrum, the Shakira organization has been known to rehearse for up to three months before a big tour. There are so many details to cover. First, we put a band together, and we rehearse both old and new material. A few of the songs from the previous tours may need new arrangements to surprise the fans.

After the band works up all of the music, Shakira comes in to begin singing with the band. Then, the choreographers arrive to start working on the dance moves to go along with the new arrangements. Next, the monitor and front of house engineers, and the video and lighting guys come in to work on the sound and visuals. It takes a while to put a show like that together. On the other hand, I have worked with artists who keep the rehearsing and production aspects to a bare minimum. Just show up and play!