Keep up with Adam here:
The only reason I got started playing drums so early is because of my father Paul. He always had a kit set up in the back in his work shop and I would go back there and tear it up for hours on end. Finally he realized that I was pretty interested in playing so he started teaching me the basics and it all went up hill from there. I started jamming along with cassette tapes, blasting them as loud as possible by the way!!!!!!! Mainly when I first started it was bands like ELP, Aerosmith, Metallica, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and a few others.
Few years had gone buy and I started to get into more metal, bands like Morbid Angel, Slayer, Testament, Cannibal Corpse, Fear Factory, Sepultura, and Pantera to name a few. I actually did not have a double pedal until I graduated 8th grade, so instead I put two of my dad’s single pedals together and put the snare off to the side and fuckin rocked it!!!!! After I got the double pedal I was in love and it was on!! I started jammin with different people and started a band my freshman year. My first studio recording was in Edwardsville, IL. close to where I grew up, with my band Mad Face Invasion. Pretty killer stuff. I actually listened t it the other day and was pretty surprised there are blast beat sections and a lot of weird timing fills and double bass parts. We went on to play quite a few shows in the St. Louis area and a lot of parties, but eventually kicked out the singer and started a new band called All Will Fall around 2001 or so and we still jam to this day!!! All Will Fall is brutal metal and we have been in the studio twice and have played a lot of shows, and destroy every place we play!!!!!!
Now comes the year 2004 which changed my life; there was this new band that I was into at the time called Misery Index and one day I check my e-mail and they are searching for a drummer, so I immediately got on it. All Will Fall actually opened up the Dying Fetus, Misery Index, and Skinless tour, so I already met the guys and they told me at that show that they thought I was a SICK DRUMMER. I sent in a video playing the 3 songs they suggested and actually had to overnight it cause I didn’t find out till late. I got a phone call the next morning and who was it….. Kevin Talley!!! Probably one of the coolest phone calls I have ever received. He said man you are the guy!!! Kevin was back in Misery Index for the time being and was gonna leave after the tour they had coming up with Kataklsm and then I was the man.
In the time frame from that phone call and until I joined the band I was a drumming madman, I would play for 6 hours a day if I could. I made another video playing 6 more songs from them and went to Chicago to hand deliver the tape and Kevin said he was gonna stay with the band now, ya bummer right. Well a few weeks go by and I am at work and my phone starts ringing and it is Kevin he asks me to do a favor for him and that favor was to pretty much join Misery Index and do the European tour coming up, so I left my job started practicing the stuff again and flew out the next week and then to Europe. My first show with the band was in front of about 4,000 people at the Wacken Open Air Festival!!
Now present day; I have probably played well over 300 shows with the band, been to Europe 5 times, went to Japan, Puerto Rico, and 14 different countries in Europe just in the year 2006. Did 188 show’s alone in 2006. We released a CD on Relapse Records called “Discordia”, check it out yo. We’ve toured with bands like Cephalic Carnage, Cryptopsy, Suffocation, Napalm Death, Fear Factory, Behemoth, Cattle Decap, Intronaught, Disfear, Phobia, Neuraxis, Animosity, From a Second Story Window, JFAC, and many more just to name a few!!!! We are getting ready to go back to Europe to tour with Necrophagist and Origin!!! So check out those bands that we have toured with if you haven’t heard of any of them and stay SICK!!
Adam Jarvis Interview:
SD.com: Home from a US tour and preparing for a scheduled 18 city European tour, what would you say is the hardest part of touring? What did you miss the most?
Adam: Yes, Just got back to good old Troy, IL. my home town, to relax for a few day’s!!!! We just completed our 2nd headlining run this year and will be off until early Feb. that’s when we start the tour with the mighty Necrophagist!! Looking forward to it cause we are hitting most of the same cities that we played on the Fear Factory tour earlier this year, so I can’t wait to see how many fan’s we gained on that tour because the average crowd per night was 1000 people, obviously most of them there for the Factory. We played well over 200 show’s this year in 17 different countries, so let me tell ya this has been one of the most exciting and successful year’s of my life!
You ask what is the hardest part of touring. Well considering when I joined Misery Index, I knew that they were already road dog’s but I never thought that we would have done some of the thing’s we have done. There is nothing really hard about touring if you have the right mind set, obviously your gonna miss your family and friend’s and working a normal job (just kidding), but if your into it then you will have a blast. Sitting in the van for hour’s on end, dealing with shitty promoter’s and shitty club’s, and never getting any sleep are some other thing’s that are not the fun list of a tour.
SD.com: Can you tell us your favorite place or best night you had on the US tour?
Adam: UH……. well Japan was amazing, British Columbia and Quebec is a beautiful providence, Amsterdam (for obvious reason’s), Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland are a few of the places that kick ass. Oh yea and the U.S. I deff. prefer the west coast states. As far as best night goes on this last tour…..Probably the Auditory Assult Festival in Baltimore on Dec. 2nd, we played third to last aand got up there and tore the place apart, given that is the band’s hometown, but we never got a response like that before, it was one of the funnest show’s I have ever played.
SD.com: The new Conquistadores video is insane!! Can you tell us a little about the video filming process?
Adam: Awsome thank’s man!!!! We shot the video back in Sept. with Rick Carmona in Brooklyn, NY. on a rainy cold ass day. I took place in a storage warehouse, they filled up the place with smoke and we just rocked with the song over a P.A. over and over for about 8 hour’s. I got to smash some of the computer monitors and T.V.’s they had at the end though with a sledge hammer, so that was fuckin badass!!!! We are all really happy the way it turned out and had an awsome time in the process.
SD.com: How old were you when you started playing?
Adam: Well my father is a drummer and he use to have a small set of Slingerland’s in the back work shop where he keep’s all his Taxidermy work. I was around 8 when I started learning the basic beat’s and then just played along with some of my favorite band’s at the time like Led Zepplin, Aerosmith, E.L.P. Metallica, Jimi Hendrix and then eventually found out about band’s like Sepultura, Fear Factory, Slayer, and Morbid Angel from my older sister and her boyfriend. So I was a little punk death metal head by the age of 10 or 11!!!!!
SD.com: Did you play in a school band or any drum corps?
Adam: I did play in middle school band for 3 year’s but never really got into it cause it was so boring and easy and obviously not Morbid Angel, so I quit. I wish I would have stayed with it now or at least went on to Jazz band in High School.
SD.com: Ever take any lessons?
Adam: I took some lesson’s in 3rd grade and got tip’s from my dad but that is about it.
SD.com: Who are your top 5 influences?
Adam: Wow! Well, probably would have to say Lars Ulrich, Dave Lombardo, Igor Cavelara, Raymond Herrera and Dave Culross.
SD.com: Assuming that influences doesn’t mean favorites, who are your favorites?
Adam: Kevin Talley the original Drummer in Dying Fetus and was also the original drummer in Misery Index before I got started, Alex Marquez, Richard Christy Sean Rienhert, Gene Hoglan, Reno Killerich, Derek Roddy, Navene from Animosity, Danny Walker from Intronaght and Phobia, Lee Harrison from Monstrosity, Flo, Bobby Janzarbek, Vitek from Decapitated to name a few.
SD.com: Let us know 5 CD’s that are in your current rotation
Adam: Well, I am listening to Neurosis “The sun that never Sets” fuckin killer CD. Also the new Decapitated, Intronaght, Mastodon “Blood Mountain”, Dream Theatre “Train of Thought” and the new Tragedy.
SD.com: Do you practice any specific rudiments or combo’s regularly?
Adam: I have been going over all the rudiments in the “Stick Control” book, a must have. Then of course different stretches and warmup exercise routines on the road, before we play each night. A Jager Bomb is alway’s good too, before ya play!!
SD.com: What is your favorite part of your drum kit?
Adam: Probably the part that isn’t broke or moving on me!!! My Axis pedal’s are killer and finally got a Sabian Cymbal endorsement this year and have all killer Sabian Cymbals’
SD.com: Do you have any pre-show rituals?
Adam: Ahh, I have already ansewered some of this question!!! Yeah, first I have to wake myself up from never getting any sleep and stretch. maybe do some jumping jack’s to get the blood flowin. warm up on a sweet shirt over my snare to loosen up the wrist’s and maybe slam a Beer or Jeger bomb.
SD.com: If you could give one piece of advice to young drummers, it would be…
Adam: If you have only listened to the newer metal band’s like, go back and listen to some of the early 90’s death metal band’s and listen to the drummer’s and their style, cause alot of the drummer’s you hear on CD now are too busy and don’t have the groove and some sound almost inhuman or fake due to trigger’s and the technology now in the studio. I trigger my kick drum’s live but I didn’t get them until 2005 mainly cause they make the band sound better live and you can hear them!! So if you are just starting to play it is a bad idea to start out immediatly with Trigger’s cause you learn to rely on them and start to hit softer, esspecially triggering the snare. You gatta hit that Shit!!!!!!!!
SD.com: Who gave the best live performance you’ve ever seen?
Adam: The first time I was blown away buy a drummer it was the drummer from Origin at the time James King. He hit’s hard and percise and fast as shit!!! He now is in Unmercyful.
SD.com: If you had to stop drumming, what elsw would you want to do with your life?
Adam: Drum Tech, go back to school eventually or be a porn star!!!
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