How does Mike come up with his drum parts for a new song?
MP: Whenever I hear a new piece of music that I’m trying to come up with parts for, I try to become a certain drummer. I’ll hear a piece of music and immediately think of somebody and how they might approach it. I could pinpoint places in just about every song we’ve done where I’ve played parts that were directly inspired by other drummers. When I’m creating drum parts, I’m trying to come up with interesting patterns, things that hopefully haven’t been played before. I’m not thinking about the technique when I’m coming up with parts; I’m thinking in terms of the composition and creating something that will fit and maybe expand on a composition. And then I’ll stretch it further by overlapping time signatures or changing the meter.
