The day after he recorded “Think Twice,” for Welcome to Detroit, I look at the drum set, and I was like, “Wait, you recorded that on this?” And it was the most dingiest, dirtiest, not even second-hand. [It] looked like the Fat Albert junkyard gang drum set. Screws were missing; some of the heads were broken. Matter of fact, he didn’t even use real drumsticks on “Think Twice.” He used a vibraphone mallet, and he had a broken drumstick that he got some toilet paper from the bathroom, and some rubber bands. I was like, “You would rather go through this MacGuyver shit than buy new drumsticks?” He’s like, “I didn’t know where to get ’em this late at night; I had to make due.” I was like, “Well, why did you hit the drums with the mallet?” He was like, “I didn’t want the dynamic to be too aggressive. I wanted to sound muted, so I decided to play the drums with the soft cotton mallet.” It looked like putting a marshmallow at the end of a toothpick [Laughs]. Next thing I know, I’m now flying to Philadelphia—I think the next week, [to work on] The Roots’ Phrenology record [and] I tracked both “Quills” and “Pussy Galore” the same way. I went and got some orchestra mallets, and then I too started, just ’cause I seen how he got that sound.
Read the full interview at XXL.
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