Derek Roddy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Derek Roddy is a death metal drummer. Roddy gained his popularity behind the kit of several extreme metal bands. Among the more notable are Malevolent Creation, Nile, Divine Empire, Aurora Borealis, Council of the Fallen, and Hate Eternal. He left his most recent band due to the stress of touring. He is also known to enjoy playing straight jazz, blues, and other non-metal music forms.

The Derek Roddy forum, which can be found on his web site, is a popular resource for death metal drummers, on which questions and advice regarding drumming are exchanged, often with Derek himself answering them.

Recently, Derek has also announced the launch of his new "Artisan Foundry" program; an online paid-subscription service offering direct lessons and information for drummers. Derek (along with drumming virtuoso Virgil Donati) are among the first drummers in history to have offerred these sorts of services via the internet.

1 Biography
2 Discography
3 External links

[edit] Biography

Roddy is known as "Derek 'One-Take' Roddy" in reference to the accuracy of his studio drumming (it is said he can record a track in 1-2 takes unedited), and the speed with which he can learn new material. In a Metal Observer interview, he refers to session drumming for Nile's Black Seeds of Vengeance album, saying "Yeah, the Nile record, recorded in about 27 hours. I had never heard the stuff."

Derek is well known in death metal communities for his extreme speed and endurance, that is to say, not only is he one of the fastest drummers alive but he can also keep up his astonishing speed for minutes at a time. He is also unique in that he's begun to receive critical acclaim for his playing and musical approach outside of the death metal community, receiving name checks and interest from many notables in the broader world of drumming.

In recent years, Derek's playing has also taken on new levels of finesse, control and experimentation. Such musical maturity can be heard on I, Monarch; his most recent recorded performance with death metal giants Hate Eternal. As one drummer put it: "If you threw Dave Weckl and Pete Sandoval in a blender, Derek would be the phenomenal new concoction!"

Derek is widely known among other death metal drummers for one-footing his blast beats, that is, only using one foot for the bass-drum portion of a blast beat. This method is much more difficult because it requires twice the speed, in a single foot, as opposed to half the speed spread over two feet. Roddy is one of a minority of death metal drummers (such as Nile's drummer George Kollias, Morbid Angel's Pete Sandoval and 1349's Tony Laureano) who use this technique. In the Metal Observer interview, Roddy says regarding footwork in blast beats:

"I don't understand the 2-foot thing myself. Seems to me that if you were really 'brutal' you would put as much effort into it as possible. I've had drummers tell me they do it because they're lazy. Well, why are you playing Death Metal? These guys play double bass the same speed as they blast, half the time, what's the difference? So what, you leave the left foot out of it. You know that doing one foot will help your double bass more if you make sure you're 'practicing' keeping your left foot up to par! Hell, you can one-foot-blast with your left foot, that is great practice! The feel of the music also changes [with the 2-foot-blast], I can tell if a drummer is two-footing just by the 'feel' of the music itself. It almost feels lazy, like it's dragging or something. It doesn't have the same drive or conviction. And I don't believe that 2-footing allows you to go faster, if you're lazy it does. Then your double bass will suffer due to the lack of time that you push yourself. What difference does it make anyway? 2-foot -- doesn't mean they aren't killer drummers! Most of them are better than me, it's just the difference between why I play Death Metal the way I do and the way they do it, that's all."

As of March 28 2006 Drummer Derek Roddy has announced his departure from Hate Eternal. Roddy's official statement on the matter reads as follows:

"Real-life situations have forced me to resign as a member of HATE ETERNAL. I can on longer afford the expenses of touring. I have put MUCH thought into this for the last several years and kept coming to this conclusion. I must be able to afford the quality of life that I enjoy, and thus far... touring in extreme bands has not allowed me to do anything other than go into a financial hole. Every tour has put me in finanancial burden. Now, I'm not complaining (because I never expected to 'make it' playing metal), but I cannot continue to pay to do it either!!! Too expensive. Besides, I value the scene and would rather GIVE my music away than be insulted at the end of the year with a $600.00 royalty check!!!! This in NO WAY means I won't be recording and releasing extreme music. In fact, you will hear more from me (as I now have the freedom to do what I want when I want.)

"I wish HATE ETERNAL the best of luck."