DAMAGEPLAN's VINNIE PAUL Offers Drumming Tips To TOMMY LEE

In a recent interview with Rhythm magazine, former PANTERA and current DAMAGEPLAN drummer Vinnie Paul was asked to offer some drumming tips.

"Okay, well first off, every drummer I meet wants to know how to play [PANTERA's] 'Becoming'," Vinnie replied. "The way I came up with that part was just messing around in the studio with patterns on my right foot — I came up with that groove and it excited the guys in the band and we wrote the tune off of that feel.

"If you try and play it with with alternating storkes you'll be fighting it all day and all night. It's all about bouncing that right foot every other stroke. I've had [former MÖTLEY CRÜE drummer] Tommy Lee sit at my kit and try and play it and he couldn't get it. So I had to show him how to do it."

Asked if he adapted his playing much from what it was for his new band, DAMAGEPLAN, Vinnie said, "Not particularly. As far as my playing goes I've always had this thing that I want to play enough that it keeps drummers interested but not so much that it goes over the average listener's head. A lot of players lose sight of that and they want to show off their chops all day and all night. To me, that's not making music, that's playing drums.

"People ask me all the time, 'Why don't don't you ever do drum clinics?' And my reply is always that I like playing music, I want to play with a band. My drum parts are a song within the song, that's the way I look at writing my drum parts. They follow patterns and they're written to interact with the rest of the band. There's quite a bit of thought that goes into it."

With regards to the interplay between him and his brother Dimebag (DAMAGEPLAN/ex-PANTERA guitarist),Vinnie said, "The relationship in PANTERA and with DAMAGEPLAN is the opposite of the traditional rhythm section. It's me and Dime, not the bass, locking in always. Dime's such a strong rhythm player that we just walk in and we're good to go. We've been playing together forever and when he goes somewhere, I instinctively know where he's going.

"My playing is always just a little on top of the beat. I can't lay down the kind of groove that Brad Wilk can. I'd really have to lay back to do that, it just doesn't feel natural to me. But that helps give the PANTERA stuff and DAMAGEPLAN songs the intensity that they do, because I'm slightly pushing all the time — and Dime's right there with me."