Spread Hope Like Fire

man-crushes February 20, 2009

So, my friend Jeremy and I were talking the other day. Music is the sun to his earth, just as it is with me, so we were discussing which musicians we have man-crushes on. I immediately threw in John Mayer (seriously, just listen to “In Your Atmosphere”, “Hummingbird”, and “Tracing”) and John Rzeznik (frontman for The Goo Goo Dolls, for the unaware), because, well, they’re both amazing. Actually, speaking of John Rzeznik, here’s a quote from him that’s one of my favorite quotes from anyone ever:

“I’m amazed that I can sit down, put a guitar in my hands and start playing kind of free style, and it will be four hours later and it will feel like it’s been five minutes. I think that adds depth to your being, when something in your life can do that for you. Everybody should try to find something in their life that can do that for them. People find really elaborate self-destructive ways of killing time on this planet. That’s why they take drugs or drink, trying to alter their state of being. If you can find something that doesn’t destroy you, but deepens your character, you’re really lucky.”

fantastic. absolutely fantastic. couldn’t agree more.

So anyway, I then started trying to think of metal musicians who go in the “man-crush” category. On that note, I give you Mike Smith, drummer for Suffocation. Brief history lesson first: back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, the blast beat was mainly used in metal the way Napalm Death used to rock it, with the bass drum and hi-hat synched together and alternating with snare hits. Then Mike Smith and his boys in Suffocation came along and changed all that. He started syncopating EVERYTHING together – the bass drum, hi-hat, AND the snare. Lots of bands do that now, but back then, no one else had done it as prominently as he had, and especially not syncing the hits together while still keeping everything powerful and not losing the punch of strong snare hits. To see what I’m talking about, check the video:

So yeah. AWESOME.