Matt Kuykendall

Keep up with Matt here:

www.myspace.com/allshallperish

 

 

I began drumming at 16, just inspired by grindcore and deathmetal's double bass. I was heavily influenced by Dying Fetus, Excruciating Terror, Slayer, and Origin.  I did not get serious about playing until I stated All Shall Perish in 2002 with my friends Ben, Mike, Caysen and Craig. We wrote and recorded "Hate. Malice. Revenge" and did a tour with Agnostic Front, and a tour with Hate Eternal.  We ended up letting craig and caysen go and added Eddie Hermida and Chris Storey.  We then wrote and recorded the most complex and technically proficient release of our career "The Price of Existence". We toured extensively on this record and it really brought my live performance up to par. Tours included  Suicide Silence, Headliner with the Faceless and Arsis, Terror, Throwdown, Euro tour with Bleeding through, Red Chord/Through the eyes of the dead, Euro tour with Walls of Jherico,  and another headliner with Emmure and FASSW.

I now am in the process of writing and getting ready to record our 3rd studio album which is yet to be titled. These days i focus on grooves and Polly Rhythms in our new music, as i feel my playing has been heavily fast downbeat single stroke oriented.

 

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Matt Kuykendall Interview:

 

 

SD.com: When did you start playing drums?

MK: I started messing around on the drums when i was 16, i think i threw away my rudiment book that came with my first drum set because RLRRLRLL sounded like some cheat code on Sega and i just wanted to play some fucking death metal!  Years later i would regret that.

 

 

SD.com: Do you play in a school band or any drum corps?

MK: No i never did unfortunately.  I think all kids who are interested in drumming should if they can, its a great foundation.  Learning rudiments helps so much in all styles of playing, especially death metal.

 

 

SD.com: Have you ever taken any lessons?

MK: I have taken a few lessons over the years and they helped me do what i needed to do at the time….teach myself. When i have downtime from ASP i always try to at least take at least one lesson here or there, because learning anything helps your playing even if you don't think it does at first.  Honestly, ive been so involved in bands and writing music that serious lessons took a backseat for a while now. It's only in the last 3 years have i really stepped up my playing and started practicing every day and pushing my abilities as a drummer. The beats i write for ASP have proved as my biggest teaching tool; but i am always trying to learn new things.

 

 

SD.com: Who are your top 5 influences?

MK: Kevin Talley, John Longstreth, Pete Sandoval, Flo Mounier, Dave Lombardo

Death metal drumming just inspired me. The first time i heard "Grotesque Impalment" by Dying Fetus, the double bass work just made me want to play double bass. Then i heard Morbid Angel and i saw what extreme drumming could be.  Later i would hear Cryptopsy, Origin, and other death metal bands that were just destroying what i thought the limits of drumming were.

These days my influences are varied. Ive always liked all kinds of music, i would listen to Cannibal Corpse and Weezer back to back as a kid.  So now i am really focused on writing good songs; not just intense fast music but something catchy that sticks with you. I gained alot of influence from Chris Penne who played for The Dillinger Escape Plan; he can blast, do fast double bass and do all the odd timed polly rhythms you want.  Also the drummer of Taking Back Sunday is a great pop drummer who is a master at making an off beat drum part work great in a straight forward pop riff; he definitely made me want to learn more.

 

 

SD.com: Assuming that influence doesn't mean favorites, who are your favorites?

MK: Chris Penne, formally of The Dillinger Escape Plan.  John Longstreth from Origin.   Two guys who have also impressed the shit out of me are Aaron Gillespie from Underoath and Jon Theodore Formally from The Mars Volta. Ive recently been really into polly-rhythms and grooves as opposed to just straight 16th note blast beats which have amazed me for years.  Limb independence and complex polly-rhythms are the forefront of drumming in my opinion but i will always be impressed by prolonged speed.

 

 

SD.com: Let us know 5 CD's that are in your current rotation

MK: I say this with complete confidence and indifference that i may well loose all "cred" in the death metal world.

Kanye West "Graduation".  Panic At the Disco! "A Feaver you can't Sweat out". Funeral For a Friend "Hours". TheAcademy Is…. "Almost Home" and Bone Thugs N Harmony "Strength and Loyalty" .

I know a lot of the death metal elite would crucify me for listening to indie rock and rap but im just a big music fan. I like all kinds of music and rap and indie rock groups have been writing some pretty incredible songs as of late.

For me… its hard to listen to death metal when you play, write, eat, sleep, live death metal.  Also i haven't really been into newer death metal bands for a while now.  There have been maybe a hand-full of bands ive heard in the last 5 years that i actually think are breathing life into the genre, the last record i can remember shitting my pants over was Necrophagist's "Epitaph", they actually wrote songs, good, catchy songs that were still full of mind blowing death metal.

If i want to listen to death metal, i throw on Origin's "informis infantis inhumantis" or Dying Fetus's classic and one of my most inspirational albums "Destroy the Opposition".  Those recors to me are unmatched even today. I'm also a huge fan of progressive black metal like Opeth and Dimmu Borgier.

 

 

SD.com: Do you practice any specific rudiments or combo's regularly?

MK: I do alot of beat accent exercises such as doing a para diddle  RLRR LRLL but progressively accenting each beat. So first you accent the first beat Rlrr Lrll, then rLrr lRll, and so on.  Its a great way to get comfortable with each beat in a 16th note situation.

I also always do a double bass exercise that is super simple but helps prolonged double bass. I start at around 200bpm and do 8th notes with each foot, then do 16th notes combining both feet. I also make sure to practice the 16th notes with Left foot lead then right foot lead.  It's incredible how much practicing things leading with the limb you don't normally lead with can help the consistency of your 16th note roll when you do start with your regular limb.

I'm now starting to really go back to rudiments and practice all the different single stroke rolls with both ands and feet, on our new record I'm doing a lot of fast 7, 5 and 9 stroke rolls on the kick and i wasn't as tight as i should be and to nail those you need to be very comfortable with how a 7 stroke roll sounds because theres no counting it at 150 bpm; its all feel.

 

 

SD.com: What is your favorite part of your drum kit?

MK: My axis pedals and triggers!! I love triggers, i really don't care what anyone has to say about them. They are the reason i was so attracted to death metal drumming. The double bass just sounded so clear and so awesome when i would see death metal bands live and its all about the triggers.

When you are playing in a dropB or lower tuning, with 2 full stack guitars, and a 8×10 bass cab, all the low frequency makes it really hard to hear fast 16th notes on the low frequency kick. I don't care how hard of a hitter you think u are, if you are doing 16th notes at 200bpm on a natural kick, i think it sounds like shit.  Like when i see slayer live and Dave Lombardo nails the fast 16th note bass drum solo in angel of death, I'm fairly sure he doesn't use triggers BUT he has around 30,000 dollars worth of compression and eq on his kick that it basically accomplishes the same thing as a trigger (plus angel of death is maybe at 190bpm?).  The kick is mostly low frequency and it just gets lost when you play live, so hearing the double bass perfectly is one of those things i just love; be it with expensive outboard compression or a trigger. I just love double bass and when its lost in a mix i think its a waste.

 

 

SD.com: If you could give one piece of advice to younger drummers, it would be…

MK: Take lessons, practice every day!  Thats the only way to get good and to break the boundaries of drumming you have to be able to reach those boundaries.  

Remember that every single rudiment and every groove no matter how simple WILL help your playing. Also with drums there are infinite possibilities with patterns such as a para diddle.  I remember going on tour with Derek Roddy and Hate Eternal and him showing me about 20 different awesome fills that you can do just from RLRR LRLL …its all about different sound sources and moving around the kit.

 

 

SD.com: Who gave the best live performance you've ever seen?

MK: 7 seconds at the Troubador in Santa Monica, CA when i was 14 was th most fun ive ever had at a show, but that was mainly because of the crowd sing-a-longs.  

As far as drummers go, any time ive seen Origin with John Longstreth ive just been blown away beyond comprehension. People talk shit on him and say that he doesn't hit hard or sucks at slow speeds, but he is one of the most incredible/ innovative death metal drummers in the world and hitting hard at 230+ bpm is easy to talk about, but no one who goes insanely fast hits ultra hard, its just the physics of the human body at that point.

 

 

SD.com: What has been your favorite tour up until now and why?

MK: Our Euro tour with Bleeding Through, Caliban, and I killed the prom queen.  Just met incredible people, saw far off places id only dreamed about. I played a shitty show in france on a tug boat and i played a sold out 1,000 person show on a party boat in Hungary. Ill never forget that experience, i felt like we had all really accomplished something.

 

 

SD.com: What is your favorite song to play with All Shall Perish? What's the hardest?

MK: Most fun (when i nail it) is "There is no business to be done on a dead planet"  Even 1 and a half years after recording and releasing the cd that song is still really fucking hard because its a major endurance piece and has some odd accented stuff too, not to mention the gravity blasts hehe.  The hardest song is "Eradication" mainly because of how much sustained fast double bass is involvd, thats really the hardest thing for me.

 

 

SD.com: Aside from drumming, what else do you do with your life?

MK: I try to stay active. I ride my bike, shop alot, stay up on politics. I watch alot of movies and cartoons. Go to shows, listen to alot of music. I just try to have as much fun as i can, lifes short.