Drum! Magazine
"Hot drummers of '96."

by Teri Saccone

"Almost ten years ago Rick Allen lost his left arm in a car accident that,
at the time, seemed to spell the end of his promising career with Def
Leppard. But he beat the odds with a souped-up electronic drum kit that
enabled him to play his drum parts using a complex series of pads and
pedals. 

It was an incredible triumph for Allen, who has fought an ongoing battle
for sobriety since the accident. 'I stopped boozing a while back and
that's kind of helped all avenues of my life,' he explains while on tour
in support of Def Leppard's latest release, Slang. 'I think I've always
had the potential towards an addictive personality. The good thing is that
when I obsess on something good, then I go out of my way for it.'

His current obsession was hardly predictable. He has returned to using
real acoustic drums. 'I missed the physical aspects of playing,' he says.
'I've been digging out my albums and getting back into Stewart Copeland,
Bonham, Ian Paice. I'm sort of touching base and realizing why I started
playing drums in the first place. Although, playing the electronic drums
during the '80s was very convenient.'

Tempted to point out that the word 'convenient' is the understatement of
the decade, we instead ask Allen how he manages with the acoustic kit. 'I
ended up using it on the album, but the only problem was that there were
whopping great holes when I really needed to use my equivalent of a left
arm. So we cloned whatever drum I needed to use by using a sampler. We
sampled all the different dynamic levels that I would play on that
particular drum and that gave me the opportunity to express myself again
on real drums.'

Allen's rediscovery of acoustic drums comes at a time when he's also
discovering himself. 'I'm more comfortable with myself,' he says. 'The
thing that I'm really emphasizing now is getting to know myself. Some
people go through their problems early and then wake up and get it
together. Other people just bloom late. I guess I'm a late bloomer."

Better late than never."

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Copyright 1996 Drum! Magazine