Building the Phil Collins Gretsch Kit - Part Two

Well, after being on lockdown during this Covid-19 pandemic, I decided to finish up some long overdue projects. The one that has been gnawing at me the longest is putting together my "Phil Collins" Gretsch Kit. In "Building the Phil Collins Gretsch - Part One", I described how I assembled the shells, the badges, wraps and lugs to build a replica of the iconic black drum set made famous by the legendary drummer of Genesis. 

I had a few recording projects that required an acoustic kit without all those unwanted overtones one gets from a double-headed tom. The single-headed concert toms, first made famous by the late, great Hal Blaine seemed the perfect choice.

The drums were outfitted with Evans Blue Hydraulic 360 heads; They looked great, sounded warm and wet enough for recording and deadened the toms enough without much tweaking. I installed Remo Muffl' Rings on the larger concert toms; 18", 16" 15" and 12", leaving the 10" and 8" alone for that high pitch sound. In the later years with Genesis, Collins used a 4" x 14" Noble & Cooley snare for that crisp, gated attack. That was great, however he also used a deep 8" x 14" Gretsch snare for his fusion and rock performances. His Birch Pearl kit he used with Robert Plant, Pete Townsend and Eric Clapton featured that snare drum. I liked that sound as well, so I found a Maple 8" x 14", stripped it down, wrapped it in black (again from Jammin' Sam in Arizona), obtained more lugs, Gretsch strainers, a coated Evans Blue Hydraulic snare head and the Collins deep snare was born. I'd never owned anything deeper than a 14" x 6.5 snare before, and was surprised at the depth a drum like that could generate. One great example of how this big, "marching snare" could sound, can be found on guitarist Al DiMeola's solo album "Scenario". The tune "Island Dreamer" features keyboardist Jan Hammer of the Mahavishnu Orchestra/Miami Vice fame, alongside Collins in a beautiful trio. Afer a gorgeous beginning by DiMeola and Hammer, Collins comes thundering in on those toms and that deep 8" snare.


In addition to Genesis, Collins would delight audiences in the prog-rock ensemble "Brand X", where his talent for instrumental music would be brought to the fore. My upcoming projects were also borne of a jazz-rock ensemble setting, with 7 string bass, keyboards, percussion and guitar, not unlike Brand X and the aforementioned DiMeola album. Although I am ambidextrous and open-handed, like Billy Cobham, Lenny White, Simon Phillips and Rayford Griffin who play with their ride cymbal on the left and their kick drum on the right, I am not a true "left handed" drummer like Collins, few drummers are. Collins places his ride AND his kick on the left, and his hi-hat on the right; A mirror image of a right handed drummer. Collins' son Nick Collins uses an identical Gretsch kit, just like his father, however Nick is a right handed drummer and sets his kit up in "normal" fashion, as any right-handed drummer would. I decided to take the younger Collins' approach and set up my kit accordingly. I really like the idea of the ride cymbal over the kick the way both Collins employ it. Drummers that use only one rack tom, or place two rack toms on a stand to the left of the kick will know that ergonomic feeling all too well. Ultimately, I will add more triggers and mics to this kit before I record, but for now, this latest project kit can be deemed an absolute success. 


 


 

Popular posts from this blog

Building the Phil Collins Gretsch Kit - Part One

Building Bill Bruford's Symmetrical Tama Kit

Building the Bill Bruford Signature Snare - Part One