The Drumming Of “Nevermind” | Nirvana Album Breakdown 

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i swear if you listen to the isolated drum track for in bloom, the intro flam section...the first tom flam isnt done solely on the high tom, but between high tom and floor tom!

Tool

Is there any possible way you could get Domino Santantonio to do Code of Silence by Grip Inc on the drums like you did with Slipknot? I have been trying to find a drummer to cover this as a challenge for years and yet to find one. At the very least listen to Dave Lombardo play that song its got this drum roll that is off the chain. Thanks for any response.

David hated Kurt Cobain and then he wrote composed and preformed His own album shortly after Cobain's demise...he then became the lead singer and guitarist....(?!)... Dave helped k I l l Kurt.

Exactly. He’s essentially playing SLTS wrong

Rick Beato does 🤘🏻

This!

I try to talk about it, but I never know quite how to describe it beyond saying that he’s got the Bonham swagger, which literally only a couple of other drummers I can think of have. Matt Cameron and maybe Jimmy Chamberlain are the only two I can really think of who have that half swing, half straight time feel.

Exactly, for about 3 minutes 50 seconds in this video he puts emphasis on Dave's kick drum "What Makes This Song Great? Ep.90 Nirvana "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

Thank you. I feel the same way. It's just not the same.

Exactly. Nowhere near the same. I heard a story about some band recording with Steve Albini(who recorded In Utero) the drummer asked if he could make the drums a bit louder. Steve’s answer: just hit the drums harder. Haha, and that’s one of the many great things about Dave Grohl.

​@@caprise-music6722hahahhaa I didn't know that story! Thanks for sharing it

Dave has given Chad credit numerous times which is awesome.

Chad channing is a true gentleman as well if you talk to him in real life and is philosophical about his being fired. He makes a comfortable living just from the royalities he receives still

​​@@pepec52really! That warms my heart, save for one wench that was the wrench in the machine they really had a family level tenderness with each other in their own ways. So happy to hear Chad got to be a part of the rrhof inductions, he deserved it. But the way, this guy nails this song note for note except for one little bass drum in smells like teen spirit... Which I never picked up until Dave grohl himself mentioned in in an interview (wish I could remember what vid), if the last bar of the prechorus going into the main chorus could be summed up to DaGaDaGaDaGaDaGaDaGaDoGooDat Doo do dat da do ga do goo dat do Doo do dat da do ga do goo dat do Doo do dat da do ga do goo dat do Doo do dat da do ga do goo dat do Dave points out that the very first bass drum of that 'figure' is ever so slightly delayed, and it just gives that a seismic -its raining elephants- feeling. So something like DaGaDaGaDaGaDaGaDaGaDoGooDat -Doo do dat da do ga do goo dat do -Doo do dat da do ga do goo dat do -Doo do dat da do ga do goo dat do -Doo do dat da do ga do goo dat do I am unsure if he gets back closer to dead on the 1 with that first bass drum when he starts the later half of the chorus where he is riding on the crash. Hopefully if my impromptu attempt at translating my attempt at mimicking drum sounds didn't make total sense, they entertained you and or in some way made you smile. No discredit to the maker of this video, I literally never noticed until seeing the mentioned interview with Dave grohl. But it's there!

@@pepec52his drumming is only on Polly and taken from in bloom. Everything else is Dave.

I’m almost certain that the the album version of School has double bass in it and then was adapted to be played on the toms by Dave in later years.

Yes, but most of these parts weren't made by Dave. It was Chad. Dave plays it much cleaner though.

@@o0Donuts0oYes - listen to live versions of Blew, Negative Creep, School played by Dave and you'll hear his double bass adaptation on the toms.

@@jebj1 Grohl’s is the better sounding one imo. Those triplets on the toms just give the song the balls it needs.

@@o0Donuts0o Yup, agree 100 percent ! It's almost as if Grohl's rack tom and floor tom are tuned to the same pitch to give them the same flat, "rolling thunder" sound that duplicates double bass. Have you seen the size of Dave's rack tom? It's almost as big as a floor tom! I actually bought an extra floor tom and I use it as a rack tom when I play Nirvana songs on my set. I tune both toms exactly the same and it sounds great! I have a Tama Rockstar Dx. Not as good as the Artstar that Dave used but good enough for me lol !

Would be brilliant to have We Like it Here! The breakdown of what Larnell did during those sessions would be amazing!

@@carloscaiado7320 - ooh good choice.

Abbey Road!

Any album from Tool. You are the man to pull it off Brandon!!

Siamese dream, Matt Chamberlain..

That’s the best description I’ve heard, I like it

Butch Vig, man. Anybody who complains that it's too clean to be grunge would've left tens of millions on the table had it not been produced the way it was.

Thanx to andy Wallace who mixed it ..... he’s one the best imo

Kurt didn’t like the slick studio final edit 🧐🧐🧐

Butch killed it, so fkn good.

Me too!

Tengo exactamente el mismo sentimiento hacia Nirvana y su Nevermind...

I’d almost gave up on music, & then like: NEVERMIND

There hasn’t been another album like this since it came out. I believe that in terms of sheer enormity and massive influence (inside and outside the music work) there was the Beatles and then there was Nirvana and it’s likely no artist will reach that level ever again because of the way music and modern culture have developed. I remember when Nevermind came out. The first 5 songs on the record were all in heavy rotation on rock radio. Keep in mind Radio was ubiquitous back then. All of a sudden runway models were wearing torn jeans, and everyone (regardless of what type of music you listened to) was wearing flannel. My mom, who couldn’t name a member of any band except…well, the Beatles, had an opinion on Kurt Cobain and I remember my grandfather (a man in his 70s) expressing his opinion of them during Thanksgiving dinner. Nirvana was bigger than just the biggest band in the world. Kurt was looked upon as the voice of his generation. It had wide reaching implications on the culture at large and absolutely completely shook up the record industry overnight. Prior to it, bands in spandex with mountains of makeup and Aquanet were shoveling paint by numbers power ballads down the mainstreams throats and image was more important than substance. With Nevermind, all of that died IMMEDIATELY. It was like people heard it and instantly recognized that this was authentic in a way that nothing else widely available was. Every independent band in the world got scooped up by major labels and 99.99999% were left to flounder and got dropped when Kurt died. All those great bands…Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, take your pick…none of them could take the mantle and just as fast as it started…it was over. And we went right back to the contrived, insipid nonsense, this time with Limp Bizkit and Korn were the biggest bands around. But they couldn’t lick the bottom of Nirvana’s shoe in terms of sheer massive cultural impact. With things like the liner notes to Incesticide, Nirvana made it cool to be a thoughtful, decent human being who was comfortable in their own skin. After he died, the Bros who Kurt called out in those liner notes took over. I’m not so sure they have ever been displaced.

Never heard the Beatles?

Thank you!

Love it

That's great Joa! 🙌

It's a mad song

@@hard_top im dead serious rn .. endless nameless is the mad one

@@MadMalikBand I never said anything about who originally wrote the songs, but thanks for the info. Lol

@@MadMalikBand Grohl has credited Chad many times.

@@riiidhoo3824 They'd both be mad songs - endless more so

Better yet, Incesticide. That was a truly great, diverse drumming album.

No one can replicate that Steven Adler feel

Glad you enjoyed this one!👊🏻

@@BrandonToews Your guys and what you put out on your channel for free is insane! I love it! Already bought the 30 day drummer course back in september last year. I really hope you do something like an davanced course with Domino - she was a fantastic teacher and a lot of fun. Liek i said, I'll definitely have to get a subscribtion to your website for Nevermind. Maybe you could do "In Utero" too? :) That is my favourite Nirvana album to date.

Amazing! It's never too late to learn more!

@@Clumpfy - Love it! "In Utero" would be a great one to cover, too :).

kurt was a drummer, he was probably dictating everyone what to play

Being the 110% standup guy that he is, Dave is the first to give Chad a ton of credit whenever possible

Great man! 😁

This is pretty much my story...this album changed my life-came out when I was fifteen...the same year I got my first drum set

@@bpaboyce thats awesome to hear. What else did you drum along too? Crazy how far technology has come. The nirvana Live tonight sold out concert vhs tape I got for my bday was another video I played along to. Only way I could see what Dave looked like behind the drums lol. That and black sabbath Paris 1970 performance my dad gave me used to drum along to that too.

Nice choice!

He hits hard as hell and has a push/pull feel that's hard to nail. Definitely tough to sound like Grohl. But I'm more impressed with his writing - restrained, creative, and expressive all at the same time.

When U sell ur soul anything is possible.

He's super solid and tight and hits the hell out of the drums

He’s pretty wild but still precise and perfect timing

According to a Butch Vig interview, he hit the drums so hard, they’d have to retune them after a take.

a good old Tama Imperialstar, nice to hear this vintage snare...

Thanks!

🙏

Love it!

@Nicholas Time, Bro, neither had I. I learned too late.

Awesome!

Nice!

U got this

One of the most iconic drum intros ever

More like Hail Satan,... right Dave

Hail Chad you mean

who cares?

He got song writing credits and royalties.

Appreciate it!

That was on the with the lights out box set 🤘🏾

That's some amazing details, thank you.

The invite is open! Send me his cell number and I'll book him :P

Cheers!

Nice!

They were looking to match Sonic Youth, decently big for the scene and genre, but Sonic Youths biggest commercial successes actually comes from Nirvana. They knew it could be big, just not the biggest band in the world

🙏🏻

Not "underrated," completely ignored. Most people think that Nirvana is only Kurt and Dave but Dave himself always mentions Chad, he mentioned him during Nirvana's induction to the R&R Hall of Fame so stop using this word wrong.

@@redacted2275 not gonna say ignored because theres many comments about nevermind era vs bleach era

shout out to the original early fans who bought nirvana demos then bleach then later nevermind. not as many of those fans out there compared to nevermind years, the band was way underground, to anyone outside the geography.

Cheers!

You are welcome! Glad to hear!

Cheers man!

There's a nice clip of him talking to Pharrell about this. Grohl's superpower is his taste, not his technical ability.

​@@ricobarthyes. When he played with Rush after Neil Peart's death that's exactly what he showed. It never sounded precise like Peart but he didnt care, it was great

🙏

Vans!