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The next chapter
Pro audio magazine Mix publishes online a short interview with SMB drummer and musical director Van Romaine. Everything you needed to know about microphone placement while tracking drums, and then some.
“We thought we might never make another record again because Steve was so committed to his schedule with Deep Purple and I had to be available for Enrique Iglesias, whose musical director and drummer I’ve been for years,” said Romaine. “I saw Steve in 2024 and learned that he had taken a step back from touring globally with Deep Purple. Because he wasn’t traveling as much, we had an opportunity. I smoothed things out with Enrique’s schedule and suggested we do some short runs with the Steve Morse Band.” Once they were touring together, the concept for a new album began to take shape.
Read more in Mix Online.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
You meet Van in the most unexpected places, deutsche Fräuleinwunder included ..,
https://youtu.be/NDW5bXLh5Zw
https://youtu.be/mWJ9NAY8SLM
October 29th, 2025 at 12:54Thanks for the article, a fine drummer is Van Romaine. Good to hear a little about his recording technique and the drums do sound quite nice on these new tracks. Drummers, where would we be without them? Cheers.
October 29th, 2025 at 19:55Elaborating a little further on my observations that a drummer can survive quite well without a bass guitarist. But can a bass guitarist survive without a drummer? Interesting isn’t it. Not really, but anything to give Uwe a thought or two to ponder, dozing in his rocking chair while contemplating his fate etc. Cheers.
October 30th, 2025 at 06:42An excellent drummer. I also like the Steve Miller cover with WS guitarist Joel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As4DLqpOtjA&list=RDAs4DLqpOtjA&start_radio=1
October 30th, 2025 at 07:56A bassist without a drummer is really like a – to loan a pertinent German phrase – Fisch ohne Fahrrad, that’s how vitally important these drum tribes(wo)men are.
I would not say that the crouching and mystical-ghostly quality of the Steve Miller Band original
https://youtu.be/tY8B0uQpwZs
is met by these guys, but Arnel Pineda’s vocals really elevate the performance. And compared to Ronnie Romero, a man with a similar background, his English has improved in leaps and bounds.
October 30th, 2025 at 10:32Sometimes the drummer can take a break when the bass man and the rest do their work:
October 31st, 2025 at 07:01https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4EI7t-22h0&list=RDw4EI7t-22h0&start_radio=1
That’s a beautiful piece, Georgivs.
In traditional Jazz, the roles of double bass and drums are actually somewhat reversed. It is the bass which – often through relatively steady walking bass lines – delivers the foundation while Jazz drums have a lot more freedom playing “over” that. In rock, pop and black music the drums over time however became the anchoring instrument with the bass guitar representing the connection between them and other instruments such as keyboards and guitar.
The drum styles of, say, Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa wouldn’t have evolved if the traditional role of drums in Jazz had been relegated to just a foundational rhythm provider.
I’m a rock guy at heart and by upbringing of course, but some of that Jazz influence lingers. I personally prefer drummers like Ian Paice, Neil Peart, Mark Nauseef, Simon Phillips, Les Binks, Ginger Baker, John Densmore, Billy Cobham, Jeff Porcaro, Bill Bruford, Mitch Mitchell and even wild man Keith Moon to those sheer foundational rhythm providers. The beat is important of course, but I also really like it if the drums conduct an “animated percussive discussion” with what else is going on in the music. To stay in the discussion picture, someone like Phil Rudd, great as his overall groove may be, is “a bit too quiet in words” for me.
I’m cognizant of the fact that the general development of drums in rock music has been moving into the other direction for decades. Maybe because someone like Little Ian still learned from the Jazz greats while a kid picking up the drum sticks today will have other, more recent role models subscribing to a different drumming philosophy (like drumming “behind the beat” which I find pretty much awful).
October 31st, 2025 at 09:44Good comments regarding the ‘world’ drummers there Uwe, so much more interesting overall. A good list too. Jazz and other ‘world’ drummers who delved into a little rock music for a while. Not ‘rock’ drummers who sort of try to do jazz etc. A huge difference. A minor quibble I have with the last incarnation of King Crimson. Pat Mastelotto and Gavin Harrison are the main drummers. Much more modern rock players playing the older jazz Crimson. They get away with some of it, however much of that older Crimson is very jazzy, Michael Giles, Ian Wallace and of course Bruford were the drummers of that era. While Mastelotto did pair up with Bruford in Crimson in the mid 90’s, Harrison I don’t get. A fine drummer with Porcupine Tree, but not so playing old Crimson as such. Jeremy Stacey playing the third drum slot occasionally but also playing piano and keyboards is more jazz than the other two. Cheers.
October 31st, 2025 at 21:48Interestingly, Van Romaine basically recorded his drums himself (though that’s hardly surprising in 2025) and used only 3 ambient mics to capture them, while he didn’t use any microphones directly on the drum kit, so just stereo recording + 1 ambient mono mic…
October 31st, 2025 at 21:50maximum output, minimum production time!
@7 While I appreciate jazz drumming a lot and welcome jazz influences in rock, I still understand that rock is a separate genre and the logic of music evolution is different there. Jazz is African music at the heart, while rock has a strong European side to it. In my view, the European music thinking is more straightforward. It shows in the rhythms. A lot of European classic music is based on folk dances (bourre, sarabande, gigue etc.). Those are rhythmic but not groovy. They can be easily played without drums and often are. In rock, drums are de rigeur but like in the European music, they are needed for power and rhythm, not for groove. So, in rock you can keep playing your 4/4 and be considered a very good drummer. In African influenced music, if you don’t have a groove, you don’t have anything. However, just like you, Uwe, I enjoy jazz influenced rock drumming.
I can recall another fine musician from that cohort – Gary Husband. He did a fine job for Allan Holdsworth on “Metal Fatigue”. And a few years ago I saw him live playing not drums but keyboard for John Mclaughlin. Closer to the end of the show he took the seat behind the second drum kit and did a drum off with the main drummer. That was spectacular!
November 1st, 2025 at 09:46@ 10 – indeed Georgivs, good comments. Gary Husband is a fine drummer and pianist. Ten years ago I also watched him in concert at the John McLaughlin’s 4th Dimension performance. He is also on the Jack Bruce and Robin Trower album Seven Moons and the live dvd concert filmed in the Netherlands. Cheers.
November 1st, 2025 at 12:19I agree Georgivs, European rhythms are more rigid than African and South American ones (which via the curse of slavery originate from Africa of course). European music is based mainly on harmony (a concept unknown in many an ethnic music outside of Europe where everything is single note, most African music prior to European encounters among it) and melody, not really rhythm.
That is btw my eternal issue with Rainbow that they were so “Yuropean”and rigid. And that rigidity did not just emanate from Cozy as a non-funky and non-swinging drummer but also from Ritchie who has a more rigid feel as a rhythm guitarist. In DP, Ritchie’s rhythmic rigidity contrasted well with Jon‘s and Little Ian’s innate sense of swing, but in Rainbow there was little counterweight to it: With the exception of the debut with the Elf players all subsequent albums sounded rigid and stiff to my ears. Even Roger doesn’t swing much when he’s not playing with Paicey – Powell, Rondinelli and Burgi were all “stiffies” compared to him.
Look I’m German, my own culture provides plenty of rigid rhythms
https://youtu.be/cZOVtxUIAZ0
I don’t – danke nein – need that served from a bunch of Brits, I crave for the (from my vantage point) exotic! That is why DP’s inherent swing was and is always so important to me. I notice that for the Anglo-Americans here the lack of swing or funk in Rainbow was never perceived as a drawback, is that because in your culture you weren’t as deprived of rhythm as I was? 🤗
GILLAN didn’t swing or funk either, but their punkish abandon and energy kind of hid that mostly. Whitesnake in the Duck Dowle and Paicey eras however did. (I find Fool For Your Loving danceable while Since You’ve Been Gone is not.) Once Cozy drummed for WS, that went mostly out the window too though Jon was a pocket of resistance for a while with his Hammond groove.
Though very much a technical band, IGB had swing due to Nauseef’s (he has Lebanese roots) world music percussion and Jazz influences, Gustafson’s funk penchant and Fenwick’s session-steeled versatility. Maybe also a reason why I like them so much.
November 1st, 2025 at 15:14You could be right Uwe, it may very well be your roots. “We have ways of making you swing”. Seriously though, I have never enjoyed or disliked a composition because of whether it swings or not. Good arrangements, melody and performance is what it is for me. You will probably find that that is the way for most people, a good tune is a good tune etc. It is also a mood thing as we know, like many things in life………does it float your boat or not at a particular time? Cheers.
November 2nd, 2025 at 00:32@11 Thanks, MacGregor! Bruce, Trower and Husband sounds like a treat. I need to check it out.
November 2nd, 2025 at 10:16“Vee haff ze vvvays to make you swing!”
🤣
https://youtu.be/2vrIWq4m8nA
November 2nd, 2025 at 14:58As Krauts we’re by nature good at something like this
https://youtu.be/EpGwIXXX5Kc
https://youtu.be/gRZ7G59liw4
https://youtu.be/StZcUAPRRac
and that’s all fine, but it’s inherently Marschmusik to goose-step to. 😂
Himmel, even these guys are at their core Marschmusik.
https://youtu.be/u6EdMjo8d18
German bands that deviated from that recipe were rarer and ironically never received the same international recognition:
https://youtu.be/GzKb2tZEqmI
https://youtu.be/zLf1fKuWB9Q
https://youtu.be/2r3ZsqzYa5w
I know what you guys are thinking: “If we really have to listen to German music, then by all means we at least want our Wagnerian/black SS uniforms stereotypes to go with it and not have you irritatingly pretend you’re some black funksters or West Coast Yacht Rock Doobie Brothers!” 🤣
You’re typecasting us! 😑
https://youtu.be/TrSjdjec-I0
(And if you put some DAF and some Accept into a vial and shake it well, you end up with – voilà! 🤗 – Rammstein, I truly believe that.)
November 2nd, 2025 at 17:10@16 Accept in Osaka sounds like the reunion of Axis brothers in arms contemplating revenge. I wonder if an Italian band was opening for them.
That said, this is ze German musik I appreciate:
November 3rd, 2025 at 19:08https://youtu.be/kxMUlDGJyck?si=Pqff2rKFyx42E5el
“I wonder if an Italian band was opening for them.”
They had one, but it only played half a set and then switched sides. 😎
(Apologies to all Italian members here, but that one was too good to let go by! In truth I wish we would have done the same early on!)
November 3rd, 2025 at 22:51#13 MacGregor:
I absolutely agree!
First of all, I have to like a song because it has to respect subjective (but also objective) canons of melody and arrangement, and in the rock context also of riffs and solos.
then comes the overall sound (that’s why for me the various remixes always take a back seat to the “song form”)
For me, swing is secondary and part of the musician’s nature, but it is not part of his technique.
and it is not even part of the taste and imagination of the musician himself!
A musician can have swing, but be technically mediocre, or have no taste, or lack the ability to arrange and color his musical part, or lack imagination and creativity in a solo.
for example -swing aside- Lord had much more imagination and creativity than Airey, even if Don could probably technically even be better than the Maestro.
the same goes for the comparison between Ritchie and Steve, as technically monstrous as Steve is, he never reached the creativity and imagination that Ritchie had in his career, both in what he did on the Purple and Rainbow records, and in what he did on stage.
November 4th, 2025 at 00:24@18
“…only played half a set and then switched sides.”
So that’s what Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft meant by “Do the Mussolini”
November 4th, 2025 at 08:11Oh, I disagree completely 😂, you know it ain’t worth a thing if it ain’t got no swing! ☝️😎
https://youtu.be/aME0qvhZ37o
https://youtu.be/8xro0lpukfs
https://youtu.be/aRlSHG5hRY4
https://youtu.be/0VTcBO4q5kY
I prefer music to which I can tap my foot to as opposed to stomping with it.
Fla76, you sum up an utmostly stern Old World-centric approach to music with this here 😂:
First of all, I have to like a song because it has to respect subjective (but also objective) canons of melody and arrangement, and in the rock context also of riffs and solos.
Then comes the overall sound (that’s why for me the various remixes always take a back seat to the “song form”)
For me, swing is secondary and part of the musician’s nature, but it is not part of his technique and it is not even part of the taste and imagination of the musician himself!
To me, the ability to swing is a gift. It’s not technique, it’s not imagination, you’re right with that, it’s an outlook on life!
Music-philosophical rant over. 😂
Thou shalt not swing!
https://youtu.be/ixJBcmavDeg
November 4th, 2025 at 15:58#21 Uwe:
On The Shed (Subtle) I tap my foot and I swing on myself too!
November 4th, 2025 at 23:33even though Cozy didn’t have Paicey’s swing.
@ 21- “I prefer music to which I can tap my foot to as opposed to stomping with it.” Is that why you go to Judas Priest concerts Uwe? The Iron Hammer Fist etc. One way of putting it, but I know that because you are a JP aficionado, that is all well and good. As you are not a Rainbow fan per se, we tend to get the same old same old, as always. Cheers.
November 7th, 2025 at 00:19Judas Priest are one of my guilty heavy metal pleasures! 🤗
Yet I always identified a certain of elegance with their sound though you are right that their rhythm section is mostly much too static to ever even get near of anything approaching swing. Within Priest, the rhythm section has only the bedrock function of making the guitars sound good and effective, occasional flashy breaks by Scott Travis excepted (like the Painkiller drum intro which is sort of Priest’s Stargazer drum intro).
But I hold Priest to a different musical standard than DP, I don’t expect any swing or improvisation from them though both qualities are key to me when listening to DP. Priest appeals in a more primal sense to me.
https://youtu.be/WNVmu7cY3s4
Sure it’s (more than) a little corny, but in an elevating way! 🤗
November 8th, 2025 at 15:39@ 24 – I know that Judas Priest era rather well (I own the previous album Screaming for Vengeance) as the guys that I were jamming with at the late 80’s into the mid 90’s time, were right into all that metal. That is where I heard it and played some of it much more than anywhere else. I don’t mind some of it, that live version of The Sentinel was rather good. Regarding your previous preference to ‘toe tapping’ to swing comment rather than foot stomping to non swing. I was thinking of you at that Priest gig, toe tapping, he he he. All good fun and I remember you saying about your after work experience at that Priest concert. The younger metal heads giving you strange looks etc. They would have been head banging no doubt and probably wondered about your toe tapping, he he he? Not ONLY your business attire following a day at work. Cheers.
November 9th, 2025 at 23:33