Uploaded October 2007 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
-- me seeing if I can pull off this Copeland masterpiece. It's hectic, it's fast and it's damn hard to remember what the hell is coming next. So I had to resort to writing out the part in a sort of drumming shorthand, and that is what you see me staring at with my 'serious' face.
As the track progresses and becomes increasingly outrageous, I begin to look more and more like I am laying an egg. I make no apologies for this!
I have heard that Stewart actually recorded this in one take, the first take, and that he was basically having a jam! In fact, the whole band was practically jamming. I don't know if this is true, but the way Stewart plays this, I would not be at all surprised if it were true -- the drums sound incredibly 'live' and improvised and full of energy and confidence. It's just stunning.
Even by Stewart's standards, this track is complex. Each verse has a different intro, and a different outro, and of course, these often involve starting and coming out of the fills in a bleeding awkward place. The final couple of 'verses', just before the outro, when Stewart is moving in and around the beat with those nightmarish toms, is just genius. It's one thing for all of us to try and copy this, but can you imagine actually creating and playing this in a studio for real? I can't. Stewart Copeland is a God.
This first take is essentially ok, but I fail to use my new zil-bel as often as its purchase and the song demand. I got out of all the tom fills in the right place I think, but for me, the lack of the critical zil-bel at 3'56 (and elsewhere) and a missed tom at 3'36 (I hit the hi-hat instead) means this take was not quite there.
So I tried again, with different results, as you will see on Take 2, if you want to watch me try again..........
-- me seeing if I can pull off this Copeland masterpiece. It's hectic, it's fast and it's damn hard to remember what the hell is coming next. So I had to resort to writing out the part in a sort of drumming shorthand, and that is what you see me staring at with my 'serious' face.
As the track progresses and becomes increasingly outrageous, I begin to look more and more like I am laying an egg. I make no apologies for this!
I have heard that Stewart actually recorded this in one take, the first take, and that he was basically having a jam! In fact, the whole band was practically jamming. I don't know if this is true, but the way Stewart plays this, I would not be at all surprised if it were true -- the drums sound incredibly 'live' and improvised and full of energy and confidence. It's just stunning.
Even by Stewart's standards, this track is complex. Each verse has a different intro, and a different outro, and of course, these often involve starting and coming out of the fills in a bleeding awkward place. The final couple of 'verses', just before the outro, when Stewart is moving in and around the beat with those nightmarish toms, is just genius. It's one thing for all of us to try and copy this, but can you imagine actually creating and playing this in a studio for real? I can't. Stewart Copeland is a God.
This first take is essentially ok, but I fail to use my new zil-bel as often as its purchase and the song demand. I got out of all the tom fills in the right place I think, but for me, the lack of the critical zil-bel at 3'56 (and elsewhere) and a missed tom at 3'36 (I hit the hi-hat instead) means this take was not quite there.
So I tried again, with different results, as you will see on Take 2, if you want to watch me try again..........
