Director’s Note: “I’ve always loved drummers because they’re the keepers of the invisible thing—time. Not just tempo… time as truth. In this episode, I’m joined by Matt Ochoa and Carlos Verdugo, two musicians who helped carry the Southern California ska/reggae/rock lineage into a modern touring reality—where community is currency and groove is sanity. We talk about punk as an origin story, Stuart Copeland as a gateway drug to reggae, and the weird spiritual math of practice: how your body learns a language your brain can’t explain. We also get into the behind-the-scenes reality of touring life—from drive-in shows to one of the most chaotic live scenarios I’ve ever heard described: a biker rally in the Ozarks that makes “normal concert” sound like a bedtime story. This isn’t a polished TED Talk about rhythm. It’s a real conversation—human, funny, messy, and full of the kind of musician-to-musician honesty that makes you remember why music matters in the first place.”
The Copeland Bridge
Matt and Carlos unpack how Stuart Copeland became a blueprint—an entry point where rock technique meets reggae feel. We talk about the beauty of unpredictability: thinking you know what the drummer will do… and then watching them swerve, elegantly, into something smarter.
Punk DNA, Reggae Soul
Carlos traces his earliest influences through punk and speed—then explains how reggae became the foundation of feel. The conversation moves through technique, tone, and the deeper question underneath it all: what do you keep from your origin genre, and what do you let evolve?
Touring Family, Not Rivalry
Matt breaks down the real relationship between Dirty Heads and Sublime with Rome—less competition, more kinship. Shared management, shared history, shared stages, shared ecosystem. It’s the kind of music “family tree” fans rarely get to hear explained clearly.
The Ozarks Story (aka: “What did I just hear?”)
Carlos describes playing a biker rally that was not a socially distanced show—complete with chaos, mud, and that very specific American energy where anything can become a concert venue if the universe blinks.
Practice as Survival
Under all the jokes and stories is a deeper thread: rhythm as a mental health tool. The way musicians use groove, movement, and repetition to stay sane when the world gets weird.
Watch video version here:
RAW TRANSCRIPT (Pardon the old-school glitches):
Ari Gold: How about you, Powell? You like drums? I’m not pussyfooting. I’m double bass drumming. Welcome to Hot Sticks Drum Show, presented in conjunction with Drum Channel. I’m Ari Gold, Guinness World Record holder for air drumming and director and star of the air drum cult comedy Adventures of Power, featuring Neil Peart and an all-star cast. Stream Adventures of Power at airdrummer.com and support the Grammy Music Hairs Foundation. and check out other episodes at hotsticks.fm. And now, let’s chat with the world’s greatest drummers and more about music and the human heartbeat. Imagine that... I am here with Matt Ochoa and Carlos Verdugo, who have played together. They have brought the Southern California ska, reggae, rock experience to the masses. Single-handedly. Single-handedly, actually. Single-handedly, but double bass drumedly.
Matt Ochoa: Yes, yes.
Ari Gold: Actually, no, Carlos is a single bass drum. He’s not doing a... Currently single bass drum.
Carlos Verdugo: Yeah. Currently, yeah. Seeking other bass drum.
Ari Gold: Under the level of Terry Bozio with his bass drums, one for each note in the scale. So, yeah, so we’re talking about drums. We’re talking about my movie, Adventures of Power. I’m in the Guinness Book of Records for everything.
Matt Ochoa: That’s amazing.
Carlos Verdugo: That’s amazing.
Matt Ochoa: I didn’t know you could do that.
Ari Gold: I didn’t know I could do that either.
Matt Ochoa: That’s pretty impressive.
Ari Gold: So, so yeah, I would love to hear a little bit about, well, first of all, I noticed that you guys both cite Stuart Copeland as influences drummers. Is he like for you guys, the foundation of like the merging of rock and pop and, and reggae and ska?
Matt Ochoa: Yeah.
Carlos Verdugo: Yeah.
Matt Ochoa: I would say so.
Carlos Verdugo: I would say so.
Ari Gold: I mean, have you ever air drummed to Stuart Copeland?
Matt Ochoa: Oh yeah. Many.
Carlos Verdugo: Oh yeah.
Ari Gold: Oh yeah. Yeah. And I never get the parts right though. I’m always off. Like, I think I know what he’s going to do, but then he changes it up.
Matt Ochoa: Yeah.
Carlos Verdugo: Yeah.
Ari Gold: Yeah. Stuart Copeland, amazing drummer. He what’s interesting, you know, Neil Peart is in my movie and they seem like such different drummers, but there was a great mutual respect and friendship between those two guys. And you can actually hear some Stuart Copeland influence and some Rush stuff from the early 80s. Did you ever get to meet Stuart Copeland?
Matt Ochoa: I haven’t met him yet, but I did send him a Airdrum video last week that I filmed on Mount Whitney in the snow. And he liked it on Twitter.
Ari Gold: Yes. Yes. All right. I know the guys at Modern Drummer know him, too. So, you know, maybe one of them will will, you know, are getting some hearts on Modern Drummer, which is nice. But, yeah, I’d love to know, Carlos, why don’t you, you know, because you’re in the top of my screen and you actually have a real drum set, which makes me a little insecure as an air drummer. But I’d love to know how you got into rock, into playing, but also, like, did you start thinking about, like, you know reggae ska type beats or you know what was your first influence
Carlos Verdugo: i mean my my first upbringing was a lot of punk rock you know so my first band was punk and and i kind of
Ari Gold: well what is punk to you because punk means different things to different people
Carlos Verdugo: well i mean when i was growing up i i mean i’m i’m kind of a little bit later generation but you know i like a lot of suicidal tendencies um ideas last week on the show
Ari Gold: Oh, awesome. Awesome. Yeah.
Carlos Verdugo: I mean, just, you know, all kinds of different bands, you know, face to face was a kind of newer punk rock band that I liked. I liked a lot of the descendants, you know, Bill Stevenson.
Ari Gold: Okay. He’s one of my favorite drummers. Yeah. I, I, I had a girlfriend who was really into descendants and I was a little confused because I felt like drums should be louder. Yeah. But I never saw them live. So the way it’s mixed, it doesn’t sound as intense and aggressive as metal drumming or suicidal tendencies, the way they mix their drums, where it’s like you feel like if you’re standing next to the drummer, you might get killed. Whereas the tendency has a more technical approach.
Carlos Verdugo: Well, suicidal tendencies had Brooks Wackerman playing for him for a while on Freedom, that album. And that drumming is super technical.
Ari Gold: Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, so you got in through punk and speed was, speed was your thing, but then, you know, playing with not speed, but like, you know, speed, like fast.
Carlos Verdugo: Yeah. You know, I meant speed. You never know. I mean, the original meaning of speed. I mean, it is COVID age right now. So, I mean, you never know. people are going doing crazy stuff
Ari Gold: yeah
Carlos Verdugo: um well so but but sublime with realm is not a um either speed or speed um the drug uh yeah you know that’s not the foundation of the feel yeah reggae is the is the feel you know but there’s a lot of punk rock influence you know which is does have a lot of fast uh drumming you know But I feel like Stuart Copeland was kind of my bridge into reggae, you know, because he had so many really cool reggae licks and different... diverse ways of playing the drums that you wouldn’t hear as a normal something on the radio that you’d be listening to you know i mean he was listening to lebanese music as a child so oh wow there’s a lot of influence of north africa in his sound as well which i don’t think the other guys in the band really had that but you you know that’s one of the things that gave it such a weird uh sound i think he’s very worldly i would say
Ari Gold: Yeah. I think his dad was in the CIA. If I have that correctly.
Carlos Verdugo: That explains a lot.
Ari Gold: Yeah. Um, so, and Matt, like, so you, I’d love to hear a little about your, um, your background, what got you into drumming, what inspired you?
Matt Ochoa: Yeah. Uh, I started, um, basically in, in, uh, middle school, like a concert band, you know, uh, It was one of the classes that I had.
Ari Gold: I mean, you’re playing classical music?
Matt Ochoa: Well, I mean, you know. It’s a grand old flag.
Ari Gold: Yeah, it was like, okay, what would you like to play? You have flute and trumpet and trombone, and then there’s the percussion section. And I saw the drums, and I was like, I mean, anything to make loud noise. So basically gravitated towards that.
Matt Ochoa: Did you start on a single triangle or something like that? Basically, you have to take a test. As long as you can go right, left, right, left. And basically just, you know, stay on the beat, then you passed and you were able to do it. So that was extremely difficult for me, but I eventually passed. And growing up, it was just, yeah, paradiddles was like, that was the hard part. That was, that was like, you know, level six or something like that.
Ari Gold: By the way, I’m going to turn Modern Drummer on the side and just say who we are. And for those, you guys, what are your Instagram accounts so I can give it to the Modern Drummer people?
Matt Ochoa: Yeah. At MattyDH.
Carlos Verdugo: And mine is at C-L-O-S-D-R-U-M-S.
Ari Gold: C-L-O-S-D-R-U-M-S?
Carlos Verdugo: Yes, sir.
Ari Gold: Okay. Um, pin. Okay. There we go. So you better now. Oh, and I should say sublime with Rome and, uh, very heads. Okay. Whatever. This is high tech. We’re living in, we’re streaming to the people. This is a live show and it’s like the microphone’s broken. We’re still, we’re still rocking. So, um, And so I’d love to hear a little bit about how Dirty Heads and Sublime with Rome kind of our cousin bands, how they work together, how they inspire each other. You guys have played on stage together as part of these bands, but as part of other touring bands. Like, what’s it like? Is there a rivalry between you?
Matt Ochoa: No, it’s more like it’s like it’s like a brotherhood actually is a. When Dirty Heads, I’d say 2010, maybe 2008, 2010, we were going to a studio in Costa Mesa. And there was this kid, Rome, that was kind of just going to the studio and writing his own music and whatnot. And we kind of just met Rome at the studio and... a cool kid wrote awesome songs and started collaborating with him. He started writing with our guys. I started doing some sessions for his solo stuff. And that’s kind of just how we became like friends and just to kind of know each other and all that kind of stuff. And then sublime with Rome formed and we have the same management. So it’s all kind of been like in the same family as far as Rome and dirty heads and, and yeah so that’s been 12 12 years now probably 12 years now and we’ve since then we’ve had like tours together and and before that actually i i used to play in a band called tribal seeds and we played with dirty heads a bunch of times and and uh We actually did a tour with Tribal Seeds, Sublime with Rome, and Dirty Heads. And that’s pretty much how I got there.
Ari Gold: Yeah, you were in Tribal Seeds at that time, right?
Matt Ochoa: Yeah.
Ari Gold: Yeah.
Matt Ochoa: Yeah, I was in Tribal Seeds at that time. And so that’s how I got to know all the guys. And then kind of the next tour that we went on, or that I went on with Sublime with Rome, it felt like my second tour because we hung out a bunch and it was all good times.
Ari Gold: That’s right. Now, do you ever go back to like first wave ska in terms of, you know, studying influences? Like, I happen to be like a huge fan of like Justin Hines and, you know, early Toots and the Mantles and this kind of stuff. Like, is that stuff like too ancient history and the drums too crunched to even know what to do with it in terms of influence? Because the recordings back then, you know, they’d have like one microphone in the room of... you know the back of a record shop but you know and the drums and the piano would sort of become one instrument from the recording but do you guys ever listen to that stuff or
Matt Ochoa: yeah i feel like that’s the just the evolution of music you know everything changes down the line and things have to get more technical for some reason but those are magical recordings you know that that uh
Ari Gold: Yeah, there’s something for me in the lack of fidelity that I really like in those early, early first wave ska recordings. And actually, we’re working on doing a show with some like second wave ska, like specials and untouchables and people like that.
Matt Ochoa: Awesome.
Ari Gold: Awesome. And I love that the influence to that island show. has sort of has spread out in such a beautiful way into different sounds that it’s infused you know dirty heads obviously is not exclusively in that genre but like it’s still the lineage is still in the music and in the feeling the feeling of like sunniness yeah which uh for me is like a lifesaver when i like i listen to I listened to music with, with Jamaican influence to cheer me up and people like, Oh, you’re happy all the time. I was like, no, I’m, I’m happy all the time because I listened to this. Otherwise I would be screwed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, So by a message. Oh, by the way, Archie, do you guys know Archie’s ice cream? I’m not sure if you personally or someone on your team, but I just I want to give a big shout out to Archie’s ice cream. A guy named Shan who has this rock and roll ice cream truck that you can rent for your events. And he’s how we ended up meeting. So. So thank you. Orange County area or LA area, if you want to rock, his ice cream director is signed by all the biggest rock stars in the world. So you guys belong in there. We got to get you over there.
Matt Ochoa: Yeah, I’ll get in there.
Ari Gold: Yeah, I’ll get in there. Well, I’ll sign your personal. I’m going to get inside your drum set back there because as an air drummer, I have insecurity issues when I see a guy and I’m like Carlos with an actual drum set.
Carlos Verdugo: Oh, come on. This is a green screen back here, actually.
Ari Gold: OK, good.
Carlos Verdugo: Yeah, it’s one of those background filters for Zoom.
Ari Gold: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, I get, because I’m in the Guinness Book for Air Drumming, I do get a lot of questions. Do I play drums? And I have played drums, but I’m definitely a better air drummer.
Carlos Verdugo: I am a drummer.
Ari Gold: Nice. And so, Matt, you were able to watch Adventures of Power?
Matt Ochoa: Yes.
Ari Gold: Tell me if you have any moments of touching yourself watching my movie.
Matt Ochoa: The entire time.
Ari Gold: okay what part of the movie was like this my face was melting acid yeah no i was i was said jokingly that we’re drug-free zone here at airgomer.com but um uh that my movie is is good on acid but but that was a joke it was a joke i’m going back now i’m going back for a second round um after this what what do you what are you guys doing to keep yourself sane during lockdown i see matt is learning how to play string instruments because as a drummer he thinks you can also do melody
Matt Ochoa: i mean i i kind of have just been using this time like i’ve been playing drums all the time um i have a uh a rolling kit in the garage uh shout out to roland thank you awesome but not only that like i’ve been using the time to like pick up another instrument or or or take an online course of mixing or just doing home projects or you know learning how to build a bench that comes out very
Ari Gold: are you doing carpentry are you really doing carpentry
Matt Ochoa: i’m attempting to do i bought a circular saw
Ari Gold: By the way, there’s a lot of I love you’s and hearts in the comments, which to me indicates the possibility of bro love. But if it’s not bro love, then there may be female love, which may be, and then I’m just reading into this, but maybe they’re thinking of you shirtless in the shed, like doing your carpentry. Oh, with my circular saws. Your body glistening as the sawdust flies all over you. Building birdhouses for the whole neighborhood. Wondering if maybe that’s a thing. Starting drum, making drumsticks.
Matt Ochoa: Are you making drumsticks?
Ari Gold: I’ll leave that to the professionals. Yeah, but I do. Speaking of drumsticks, I wanted to show you guys this. This is an amazing Christmas present that I got from my lovely Aunt Kim.
Matt Ochoa: Sick.
Ari Gold: Sick. I think even though as an air drummer I don’t use real sticks, I might make an exception.
Carlos Verdugo: No, for those I could make an exception.
Ari Gold: These are against the rules in air drumming, aren’t they?
Carlos Verdugo: Vader baby.
Ari Gold: I don’t know what brand these are. There’s a thing in Adventures of Power. that um even having a stool is cheating um and or it’s not cheating but you know you separate the the men from the mice when you air drum with no stool because being in that squat position for a long period and i did i did a hop for teacher in finland in front of 7 000 people and Doing that opening with the double bass drum and the tom.
Matt Ochoa: While you’re standing in a squat position?
Ari Gold: While in squat position. And I had made an edit of the song at 60 seconds. Literally just 60 seconds. And I did those 60 seconds. Rocked it, I will say. There you go. Air drummer.com if you want. And then I was hyperventilating for like four hours afterwards. Level of exhaustion from 60 seconds.
Matt Ochoa: That’s got to be a workout.
Carlos Verdugo: That’s an intense workout.
Ari Gold: Like I’m telling you guys, like if you want to get in shape, forget the drums. We’re doing it wrong, Carlos.
Carlos Verdugo: Yes.
Ari Gold: Yes. Yes.
Carlos Verdugo: Get in a squat position.
Ari Gold: My bad.
Carlos Verdugo: Do a hopper teacher.
Ari Gold: I applaud you, sir. yeah yeah it’s um earned me well some free free plane tickets around the world that’s great i will say about that i don’t want to spoil it for anybody i mean i don’t think it’s spoiling it for anybody in the movie but i am very impressed with how accurate the air drumming is to all the songs that i heard in that movie when you do an air drum movie You got to be on it. Okay. So like there’s an air tablet player in the movie. And so for that, I was like, I tried to cast a bunch of Indian actors who were not drummers and they’d come in and they’d have a, you know, a good look and a good accent. And then they would, do this in your hand and it was terrible and so i was like okay so for this this part i need you know i need someone who actually each finger looks like in the correct place for playing tablas yeah so i ended up casting a dental student who played tablas and by putting up signs around la i found a guy who was a real tablet player also dentists and uh he ended up doing the part of the indian guy who he did great he’s the king of the of yeah until um until he gets well for those who see the movie he gets disqualified he gets disqualified for playing hand drums because there’s a kind of like a air drum racism theme in the in the movie
Matt Ochoa: Was there a lot of editing that had to go down to actually match those parts?
Ari Gold: Well, I mean, me and everyone else who was in the movie learned the songs really accurately so that we could have the shots go as long as possible with accuracy. I’m just trying to get... are you a one take kind of guy or like, is it like, are you punching in on the air drumming?
Matt Ochoa: Good question.
Ari Gold: As a musician, I know you, you understand this. No, but yeah, I mean, some of my life, like I did YYZ when I, when I’ve done it live, it’s a one take thing on screen. You know, we would cut for the best take, but like, yeah, I did. I mean, I, I’ve done rush. I’ve air drummed rush in front of rush.
Matt Ochoa: Yeah.
Ari Gold: um and you’re probably nervous about that you can mess around no i mean i air drummed tom sawyer while neil peart was playing tom sawyer on drums in the same room uh yeah i i i’m a one one take wonder okay here’s the question matt how are the corona concerts with fans in the car
Matt Ochoa: They were awesome because it let us actually have concerts. They were, you know, not like a normal concert, to say the least. So we did some on the West Coast and we did some on the East Coast. The thing about the East Coast is that I feel like there’s a lot more... room and less restrictions as far as uh noise and and sound ordinances or whatever so um i definitely enjoyed the east coast ones because it uh i i just felt like people were closer like it was it was closer to a normal show than it was here uh on the west coast but they were all they were awesome you know i was like With what’s going on, I didn’t, you know, who knows when shows are coming back and to be able to do a drive-in or, like, you know, come up with something like that, you know, like a drive-in concert. It was pretty awesome. So I enjoyed it. Carlos, you did some too. Yeah, what did you do?
Carlos Verdugo: We did some drive-in shows. We actually played this really crazy, like, biker rally in the Ozarks. And that was not like a social distance show.
Ari Gold: I really want to see this. Paint some images. I’m already imagining what’s happening.
Carlos Verdugo: I heard it was bigger than Sturgis.
Ari Gold: It was bigger than Sturgis. The biker rally was. Am I a stupid person?
Carlos Verdugo: Surges.
Ari Gold: Just Google it.
Carlos Verdugo: Okay.
Ari Gold: Okay. Google it one day.
Carlos Verdugo: Yeah.
Ari Gold: But I don’t have multiple hands on.
Carlos Verdugo: Yeah, of course.
Ari Gold: Yeah. Right now. it’s a huge biker rally okay okay so it’s bigger than storage how did you so is this with the blind with rome
Carlos Verdugo: yeah yeah oh my god what what was it like we played out there it was just chaos man it was it was that was the last actual show we played that i was i was blown away that it number one happened and number two it was just like we didn’t we didn’t know going into it that it was going to be like that you know we just thought it was going to be a social kind of distant show and got there it’s just madness like mud was it i’m picturing mud and like guys like doing burnouts donuts
Ari Gold: yeah yeah and um maybe a little bit of um fist fighting in the front row like what And maybe bro hugs afterwards from the uncomfortably close bro hugs with the audience afterwards.
Carlos Verdugo: Yeah. I, I got a really cool shirt. This, this one biker was walking around the whole day and I saw him in his, um, his shirt said, uh, F COVID let’s ride. And so at the end of the night, I was like, Oh, that’s a, that’s a cool shirt, you know? And he’s like, Oh, Here. He took it off his back and he’s like, here, get out. And I’m like, oh, it should be. So I took it and I put it in a trash bag and I tied it up and I got home and put a bunch of bleach on it and stuff. And so it’s my dogs now. But cool story.
Ari Gold: Wait, why? It’s your dog now?
Carlos Verdugo: It’s my dogs. Yeah.
Ari Gold: Is that a compliment to the shirt? I hope.
Carlos Verdugo: Oh, yeah.
Ari Gold: Because your dog has a good style.
Carlos Verdugo: Oh, he’s got great style.
Ari Gold: I hear he has more Instagram followers than you do.
Carlos Verdugo: I think he does.
Ari Gold: I just love bikers at a reggae concert. That’s amazing. Sublime show?
Carlos Verdugo: Yeah.
Ari Gold: By the way, were they singing along?
Carlos Verdugo: Oh, I’m sure they were.
Ari Gold: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is something that was always amazing about Sublime and Sublime with Rome is the way that it kind of The music for me gives license to macho-ness to be emotional. Does that make sense? There’s something touching about the way the songs are really hard and really emotionally open and vulnerable at the same time. It’s like, it’s a really rare thing.
Matt Ochoa: Yeah.
Ari Gold: Yeah. Pull that off.
Matt Ochoa: No, I hear you on that too.
Ari Gold: I picture someone crying in the back of the biker, biker. Just breaking down.
Matt Ochoa: Yeah.
Ari Gold: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Question. It’s okay to cry. It’s all, it is all right to cry. Crying gets to start. Yeah. Is reggae rise up still happening in March is a question.
Matt Ochoa: The latest I heard. Yes.
Carlos Verdugo: We hope so.
Matt Ochoa: We were really hoping so.
Ari Gold: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Carlos Verdugo: i think i mean it’s on the schedule yeah or actually i mean i don’t know if we’re doing are we doing that one florida isn’t that april i thought well there’s there’s one in april in vegas and then there’s one in florida in march okay and i guess i i’ve been on quarantine for too long i gotta check my schedule again just to make sure
Ari Gold: I just, I just, you know, it’s there and I don’t get my hopes up too much, but, uh, you know, cause late, I mean, lately everything’s just being pushed back another year and, you know, they’re going to do it when it’s safe and, and, you know, they’re going to wait until you can play guitar like Yngwie Malmsteen and then you’ll get back in the gallop fretboard and everything. Um, Our next tour, sorry to cut you off, our next tour is actually with the Dirty Heads. I think our next big tour once everything gets back together. Do you guys both skate? I know Matt skates. Carlos, are you a skater?
Carlos Verdugo: I skate to get down the road. I’m afraid to hurt myself, like break my arm or something. I’ve transitioned my skating kind of more into that now to where it’s just kind of like, all right, take it easy. Don’t want to
Ari Gold: So, Matt, were you, like, actually doing intense skating before?
Matt Ochoa: I’d say early on in the Dirty Heads career, I was doing more skating. Growing up, I had, like, a half pipe in my backyard, and I had all the neighborhood kids over, and we would skate, like, every day. That’s what I wanted to do. And then I broke my arm, and then I was like, okay, let me put that on the back burner for a while, and then when this heals up, let’s do drums. Yeah. but I still jump on the skateboard.
Ari Gold: I broke my arm shooting Adventures of Power.
Matt Ochoa: You did?
Ari Gold: Yeah, which was... I mean, when you’re making an air drumming movie and you have a broken arm, it was heartbreaking. I had been working on one section of booking this factory, or actually this... a shipping area in new jersey and been working for weeks because we shot it in parts because we raised the money in parts and very unconventionally filmed movie and i had it finally booked and i had a crew ready to shoot this set of scenes and i was so happy that we went for the location scout the night before and i’m like maybe i’ll add a scene where like i’m running up and i just and then i ran across the towards the where the ship was and there was like a post where they put the ropes and to tie the ship down and i ran into it deliberately to make the crew laugh. Yeah. And broke my arm.
Matt Ochoa: Oh, shit.
Ari Gold: And, you know, and I’m in the hospital and they’re like, yeah, you’re going to have to, you’re not going to be able to move your arm for six weeks. And I’m like, no. You’re like screaming in the room. Like, no, you don’t understand. You’re like, I’m an eardrummer. Like, I have to see we’re supposed to start shooting in the morning. And they’re like, you can’t. And so... we disbanded and we had to postpone like a bunch of the scenes for another two months. But some of the crew was like, look, I got another job. Like, but is there anything you can do so we can get some of the stuff shot? So I picked out a few scenes that I could still do with a broken arm. And so if you look in the movie, there are some scenes where if you look carefully, I’ve got a big cast on. Oh, really? I’m like faking it. And, um, you know like trying to not move my I wasn’t tons of painkillers and just like trying to get through the scenes but that’s a bummer yeah broken arms a big deal I can imagine
Matt Ochoa: so you break your arm skating
Ari Gold: yeah yeah yeah it was you weren’t even a drummer at all at that point or you had played jazz in high school
Matt Ochoa: no yeah so it was in high school and I was part of the drum corps and and and the marching band and all that so I had to Pretty much, I had to just sit it out the entire season and had the cast on and it was no fun.
Ari Gold: Did you get sympathy from the girls?
Matt Ochoa: What’s that?
Ari Gold: Did you get sympathy from the girls?
Matt Ochoa: Oh, a little bit. I mean, I was in a band. There were no girls.
Ari Gold: Okay. So I had this cast from here and the way that they had to set my arm was like this. So I had a cast like this and I would, I would take the drumstick, not the glow in the dark drumstick. It was a different drumstick, but I would stick it in the cast like this. And so I would go home and I’d practice just, and I did that almost like traditional.
Matt Ochoa: Yeah.
Ari Gold: Yeah. I did that for three months.
Matt Ochoa: Yeah.
Ari Gold: Yeah. So you became, you became buddy rich when you did that.
Matt Ochoa: Pretty much. If Buddy Rich had a cast on, yeah.
Ari Gold: By the way, Carlos, do you prefer to be called Seagulls?
Carlos Verdugo: Sure, whatever. Carlos or Seagulls, whatever.
Ari Gold: What do people call you in general? I see that
Carlos Verdugo: I mean, if you don’t know me, probably Carlos, but if you’re my friend, then Silos.
Ari Gold: So we’re friends. So I’ll call you Silos. So you have an interesting thing with your drums, your tuning. You want to talk a little bit about, you know, actually Hoffer teacher would be an interesting example that were toms and toms and bass are tuned so that they start becoming indistinguishable. Do you want to talk about how you got into that?
Carlos Verdugo: Yeah, I’ve always enjoyed the sound of real low drums because it just, I don’t know, the frequency hits good for me. And I feel like you can do a lot of fills since I’m not a double bass drum player. I like to incorporate the toms with the kick drum to kind of make your mind wonder if it’s double bass or not.
Ari Gold: Right. Low Tom is the lowest position in Adventures of Power. The movie, like my character is demoted. He’s demoted. There’s a scene where he’s demoted to Low Tom. But it’s nice that you’re, I’m not sure if it’s a compliment to Low Tom that you’re making it sound like a bass drum or if it’s like basically a closeted Low Tom.
Carlos Verdugo: It still has tonality to it. It still has a tone.
Ari Gold: It’s not just a completely dead kick drum with a pillow in it.
Carlos Verdugo: It’s definitely got tone. It fits for what I do.
Ari Gold: Have you ever tried two bass drums?
Carlos Verdugo: Early in my drumming, I played double kick a little bit. And it was when I was playing in like more punk and stuff or what?
Ari Gold: Yeah, it was in punk rock stuff. And we were playing really fast stuff. And it was really early in my in my drumming career. And I remember playing with a bunch of older bands and and I was playing a punk rock beat, but cheating playing playing with the double kick. And one of the older drummers came and hit me up and he’s like, he’s like, it’s cool to play double kick, but he’s like, if you’re going to cheat and do that kind of thing, it’s like, makes you look like a bad drummer. And so after that, I, I got rid of my double bass and concentrated really on getting my, uh, single pedal to sound like double pedal, you know, 30, 32, 30 second notes.
Ari Gold: Yeah. So some lamb of God kind of stuff, you know?
Carlos Verdugo: Yeah.
Ari Gold: Um, did you have one of those freaking Frankenstein drum kits when you were younger like
Carlos Verdugo: when I was younger I had like my drum kit and then like somehow I came up on like this other like floor tom from some other drum kit but then I had two floor toms because I had those and then you know exactly i you know like 10 different cymbals and you just kind of like piece it together and get the biggest drum kit that you can find i mean i had a really crappy um i had a olympic premiere drum set that was my very first kit it was like a off brand of a premiere you know
Ari Gold: yeah yeah or it was like the their lowest model you know it’s like the export series or whatever but i i had that and uh I ended up getting a DW Tom and I put it as my, my rack Tom. So, so it kind of looked like I had a DW kit going on there for sure. And then, and then, and then, and then I eventually got a different kit and it had lugs on it that I didn’t really like. And I was a big fan of orange County drums when I was growing up. And yeah. And so I got all orange County drum lugs and put them on my drums to make it look like a, different kit but eventually along along the road i ran into these guys and now i can actually have a custom kit without pretending it’s a frankenstein custom kit um my eardrum kit is dw in in adventures of power you actually see there’s you there’s a shot where you see the stool and it’s got the the dw is on it
Matt Ochoa: yeah nice yeah that’s maddie maddie’s dw play dws
Ari Gold: yeah yeah you deal with vessel drum co nice no it’s it’s nice to the smaller shops are are still rocking yeah yeah tough with these to keep a small business going so um and don don has become like the the biggest fish around in drum history um i mean lombardi i mean um so uh question for
Ari Gold: well actually one thing i just want to plug um we do that everyone who watches adventures of power on amazon even if you’re streaming for free the money goes to support music cares music cares is a organization that run by the grammy association that supports musicians in need and in this very very difficult time for for everyone but particularly for musicians it’s so helpful and um there are some musicians who are not able to tour and unable to do anything and don’t have the the prospects in front of them and so anyone who wants to contribute directly to music cares uh they can go to adventures of power.com we have a link to donate for us or whenever you watch the movie or if you buy it on vimeo um you’re supporting music hairs so please please uh please support
Matt Ochoa: yes please do that that’s so awesome of you too
Ari Gold: i also want to give a shout out to modern drummer that has been so helpful with uh this whole process and is a really fun partner on this and uh For anyone who is interested in drumming, the Neil Peart Festival Special, which is still is available at the shop at air drummer. I mean, at modern drummer.com. It’s four hours of interviews and music and people talking about Neil Peart and I, It’s a beautiful thing. I’m in it. I’m in it for five minutes talking about air drumming, but more important, actual drummers rocking and talking about what an influence Neil Peart was. So please check that out and eat your Archies while you’re doing it. Those are the important things I have to share because they’re our partners and wonderful, wonderful people all around.
Matt Ochoa: Yeah, modern drummer, man. I grew up reading modern drummer, for sure.
Carlos Verdugo: Me too.
Ari Gold: It’s the one you wanted to be on the cover of.
Matt Ochoa: Yes, of course.
Ari Gold: Have you made it to the cover yet?
Matt Ochoa: No.
Ari Gold: All right, well.
Matt Ochoa: I’ve been in it. I’ve done it. I’ve been in it with an article.
Ari Gold: Okay.
Matt Ochoa: I was actually trying to look for it the other day, and I had a box of Dirty Head stuff I was just going through, you know, and I was looking for it. I found a couple other things that we did that I definitely kept and I wanted to keep, but the Modern Drummer magazine was one, too. And I was looking through it and I found a modern drummer magazine. I was like, this must be it. And I went through every single page like four times. I went through the whole thing. And all I could find was a long article about Josh Freese. So why did I keep this magazine? It must have been because of Josh. I don’t know why I did that.
Ari Gold: You guys both are in the Josh Freese lineage. So it kind of makes sense, right?
Matt Ochoa: Yeah.
Ari Gold: I guess like maybe at the time I held on to it because I wanted to show him. I don’t know why I had it or I don’t know.
Matt Ochoa: Oh, so you were already friends with him?
Ari Gold: I, I must’ve, I think so. I mean, I’m friends with him now. So I don’t know if I was when I saved that. If I wasn’t, maybe I was trying to have something come into fruition or something. I was like, if I hold onto this, we’ll be friends one day.
Matt Ochoa: Yeah.
Carlos Verdugo: So, but yeah, I can’t find the article that I was on. So.
Ari Gold: can just keep on looking because i i had one of those two and and i looked through it i think once and i didn’t find it but i kept the magazine and then i looked through it again and then it was there it was my first one and it was like it was (00:37:59): an article about it was real small yeah that’s what it is but i kept it you know yeah i’ll have to look again i’ll check out yeah just look at the small small magazine a paper magazine on print there’s something oh yeah exciting about that i remember the first time i was in a magazine i just couldn’t believe it yeah that glossy paper and you’re like that’s me i’m gonna hold on to this forever part of history yeah it’s never changing
Ari Gold: So what’s next for each of you? What do you want to plug here? I need to have a captive audience. What do you have coming that you can surprise people with that they don’t know about?
Matt Ochoa: Dirty Heads. We’ve released a couple singles during quarantine, trying to put out new music. We’ve recorded some stuff. We’re basically just waiting to see what happens and waiting till we can come play music again for everyone. So... I think Carlos will be joining us in the summertime, hopefully. Things go right.
Ari Gold: In what form, in terms of both of your bands touring together?
Matt Ochoa: Yeah, I mean, we’ve toured together in the past, and I think the plan is to do it this summer.
Ari Gold: Why don’t you guys drag both of your kits on stage at some point and show us where it’s at and do a duo?
Matt Ochoa: Yeah.
Carlos Verdugo: Yeah.
Ari Gold: Yeah. like you should like drum duos there’s a really weird magic that can happen i’ll bet if you like arrange that i’m sure it’d be pain to do it but like do it at some rehearsal if you’re touring together where you actually just create something and the energy of two drummers playing at the same time it’s it’s really crazy or maybe we could have one air drummer like
Matt Ochoa: yes yes i like one of us like maybe maddie can come air drum a song for me or i can come we know we can find an air drummer right we know someone
Ari Gold: i think professional air drummer oh saying that there’s only one you know within the guinness book it’s this guy All right, all right. You got the job. So I forgot I have to keep both of my computers open for this technical. So confusing.
Matt Ochoa: You’re doing a lot over there.
Ari Gold: Huh?
Matt Ochoa: You’re doing a lot over there. I’m impressed.
Ari Gold: It’s all right. I think that I just messed it up. I think we’re good. No, it’s still live. Okay. So we are going to... move to the watch party, which is, um, at adventures of power.com slash Twitch, which will take you to the Twitch channel. Um, those of you who don’t have a Twitch account, you’ll have to make one, which is sorry. And you also need to have an Amazon account because Amazon owns Twitch and the movie streams through Amazon. If you can’t watch the movie with us now, uh, please watch it anytime on Amazon. It’s called adventures of power, or you can go to air drummer.com. If you forget that, um, And, uh, you know, during the, during the watch now you can comment, you can cook your food and you can make jokes at me and I will respond on Twitch. Um, so we will move over there in a second. Um, anything else you guys want to say to your lovely fans?
Matt Ochoa: Yeah, I just want to thank you for having us. This is awesome. Uh, the movie is hilarious. You guys are going to love it. Um, Thank you for partnering up with Music Cares. That means a lot. I know a lot of people are struggling during this time. It’s really rad that you’re doing it. The movie is hilarious. I think it’s pretty awesome.
Ari Gold: Thank you. I’ll see you guys over at Twitch. Let’s do it. Please, guys, stick around for this movie, please. If you guys are you know, not busy doing anything. If not, then make sure you check it out on the next one. If it’s all right, I’d like to give a, just a second, just to, for all the drummers who are out there, just to give a shout out to Aquarian, Vessel Drum Co., Peisty Cymbals, and Vader Drumsticks, and also Traeger Grills. They’ve been hooking Dirty Heads and I up, so much love to you guys, and thank you very much for letting us do this. Thank you so much for listening to Hot Sticks Drum Show. Please stream the movie Adventures of Power at airdrummer.com and support the Grammy Music Hairs Foundation. And don’t forget to subscribe at hotsticks.fm. And of course, feel free to ask me any questions or make drummer requests at Ari Gold on social media. And keep marching to the beat of your own drum, even if you don’t have one. We are air drummers! Every one of us! Imagine that.
This interview originally appeared on Hotsticks.fm.
See more about Matt Ochoa & Carlos Verdugo on the official site for Adventures of Power, the world’s greatest (and only) Air Drum Movie!
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