Keep up with Lloyd here:
I was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela on May 7th 1979 and started to play drums when I was 7; my first kit was an old 10-piece Rogers set that my dad brought home one day. He used to have a collection of about 3500 vinyl records and somewhere in that collection I found 3 albums that their covers caught my eye: (1976) Kiss – Rock and Roll Over, Van Halen – 1984 and (1981) AC/DC – For those About to Rock, We Salute You. I used to play along Kiss’ Rock and Roll Over all day long until a friend of mine Played Sepultura’s Arise CD and I was just blown away since the fastest song I heard until that day was Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher.” That’s when I decided that I wanted to play even faster than Igor Cavalera.
My first band was a grunge band called M.A.D (when the genre exploded back then) and we only played one show; the songs were mostly covers and we sucked really badly, so we just stopped jamming and everybody went their separate ways.
After a while, a guy in my high school was starting a death metal band called Ritual that was heavily influenced by Death, specially the Individual Thought Patterns CD, and I decided to give it a shot (since death metal was the music I wanted to play) and we clicked right away. We had a small following for around two years, but the lack of instruments (since they were extremely expensive back then), forced us to stop practicing and we just let it go and I stopped playing drums for 4 years.
I came to the U.S. of A. in the summer of 1999 and lived in Dallas, TX for three years, and didn’t play drums at all until I moved to Memphis, TN in 2003. After I moved here, I started to feel the need to start playing again and that’s when I started sending e-mails and posting on boards looking for a band.
Lloyd Estevanott Interview:
SD.com: How old were you when you started playing?
Lloyd: I was 7 years old, and I started with a 10-piece black Rogers kit with no resonant heads and it had a Paiste Hi-Hat a 16” Paiste crash and a 20’ Paiste Ride.
SD.com: Did you play in a school band or any drum corps?
Lloyd: Most of the schools in Venezuela don’t have a band, and I’m pretty sure that not a single one has a drum corp. I wouldn’t join the school band anyways ‘cause they don’t play death metal!!! LOL.
SD.com: Who are your top 5 influences?
Lloyd: Derek Roddy, George Kollias, John Longstreth, Gene Hoglan, Flo Mounier.
SD.com: Assuming that influences doesn’t mean favorites, who are your favorites?
Lloyd: Tony Laureano, Nick Barker, Tim Yeung, Alex Van Halen to name a few.
SD.com: Let us know 5 CD’s that are in your current rotation
Lloyd: Between the Buried and Me – Colors, Origin – Informis, Infinitas, Inhumanitas, Behemoth – The Apostasy, Cryptopsy – And then You’ll Beg, UneXpect – In a Flesh Aquarium.
SD.com: What do you do to warm up before a show?
Lloyd: If I have the time, I just like to sit down with my pair of Vic Firth’s SRH Corpmaster sticks and a pad, given to me by Julian McCarthy from In Tomorrows Shadow, and just do single strokes just to warm up. I don’t do paraddidles or flams or anything like that ‘cause I don’t know, I never had a lesson in my life and all I know I learned it by watching my favorite drummers and listening to music.
SD.com: You just hit about 15 cities touring, what is the hardest part for you?
Lloyd: To me there’s nothing THAT hard about touring, but I would say not being able to shower right after you play a show where you just sweat your ass off is quite uncomfortable. But that’s part of the life on the road, and I love every minute of it…even though I’m asleep half of the time, I love it. You meet new people, you see new places and get to hang out with the other members of the band, and it’s priceless!
SD.com: Do you have a favorite brand of drums or cymbals?
Lloyd: I love Pearl drums and Sabian Cymbals. My kit is a Pearl Export ELX with 22×18 bass drum 10×8, 12×9 and 13×10 rack toms with a 16×16 floor tom and a pearl 14×6 metal snare. My cymbals are 14” Sabian B8 PRO hi-hats, 12” Wuhan china, 10’ Paiste Alpha Splash 18.5” Sabian Chad Smith Explosion Crash, 2 18” Sabian XS Crashes, 13” Sabian Pro Sonix hi-hats a 22’ Sabian Prototype ride and a 18” Wuhan china.
SD.com: If you could give one piece of advice to younger drummers, it would be…
Lloyd: Practice as much as you can, believe in yourself and never stop blasting!
SD.com: Who gave the best live performance you’ve ever seen?
Lloyd: Derek Roddy with Hate Eternal, he’s just brilliant!
SD.com: If you had to stop drumming, what would you want to do with your life?
Lloyd: I don’t think I’ll ever stop drumming, that’s something that runs through my veins and that’s what I was born to do, but if push comes to shove and I can’t drum anymore I’ll open my own 5 star drum shop!!
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