Keep up with Taylor here:
My name is Taylor Steinberg. I am currently 17 years old and play drums for the Houston, Texas melodic death metal band, As Eden Burns. I began playing drums at age 12 and joined my first band at age 14. Since then I have also recorded with several different bands. I have been taking lessons for almost 5 years with Tim Hamilton. When I began drumming, I practiced to a lot of punk and alternative music, later moving on to metal. As of lately, I’ve been working on latin rhythms as well as just taking double bass drumming to the next level. If you enjoy fast melodic metal, check out As Eden Burns.
I have a wide variety of drumming influences, ranging from JoJo Mayer to Derek Roddy. I enjoy listening to bands such as Smashing Pumpkins,
Radiohead, Necrophagist, and Pantera. I currently play a pacific kit with a spaun snare and sabien cymbals. I hope you enjoy my drumming and if not, hopefully you can still appreciate it.
Taylor Steinberg Interview:
SD.com: How old were you when you started playing?
Taylor: I had a couple of drum lessons when I was twelve but I didn’t really get serious until I was thirteen. I started playing with my first
band when I was fourteen, although I do remember covering a Nirvana song at a middle school dance (which was pretty funny) before that.
SD.com: Do you play in a school band or any drum corps?
Taylor: No. I never really had any interest in joining the school band. It takes up too much time to do that and have a band outside of school.
SD.com: Ever take any lessons?
Taylor: I have been taking lessons almost every week for the past four and a half years from the same drum teacher. My teacher, Tim Hamilton, has been amazing. We’ve done a little bit of everything but recently I’ve started working on a lot of latin drumming. That’s been the biggest help as far as getting better independence with the hands and legs.
SD.com: Who are your top 5 influences?
Taylor:
1. Josh Freese
2. George Kollias
3. Derek Roddy
4. Chris Pennie
5. Stewart Copeland
SD.com: Assuming that influences doesn’t mean favorites, who are your favorites?
Taylor:
The influences are some of my favorites but here’s some more.
1. JoJo Mayer (best drummer out there now)
2. Steve Gadd
3. Tim Yeung
4. Daniel Erlandsson
5. Jimmy Chamberlin
SD.com: Let us know 5 CD’s that are in your current rotation
Taylor:
1. Necrophagist: Epitaph
2. Mogwai : Happy Music For Happy People
3: Arch Enemy: Wages of Sin
4: Pantera: The Great Southern Trendkill
5. Smashing Punmpkins: Adore
SD.com: Do you practice any specific rudiments regularly?
Taylor: I don’t do anything special, just a lot of paradiddles and paradiddle variations with a few swiss army triplets here and there.There’s a drum book I practice with called “Future Sounds”, by David Garibaldi, that has a couple of pages of beats made from paradiddle variations that are pretty awesome. I just like to practice them when I warm up before shows.
SD.com: What is your favorite part of your drum kit?
Taylor: I’m really happy with my pacific bass drum. I have my bass drum tuned to where it sounds triggered. I’m sticking with that until I can
afford some triggers. As far as cymbals go, I picked up a sabien prototype cymbal at one of their product showcases a couple of months ago and it’s the best sounding crash that I’ve ever heard.
SD.com: If you could give one piece of advice to younger drummers than you, it would be…
Taylor: Take lessons! There are so many things that I’ve learned with lessons that I would never have learned on my own. They’re going to come in handy when you’re 50 and don’t feel like playing death metal anymore.
SD.com: Who gave the best live performance you’ve ever seen?
Taylor: Necrophagist was pretty amazing on their tour with Cattle Decapiatation back in May. Tim Yeung amazed on the Vital Remains tour. He
was probably the fastest and cleanest drummer that I’ve ever seen live.
SD.com: If you ever stop drumming, what else do you want to do with your life?
Taylor: Hopefully I’ll find something in college that I enjoy as much as drumming. If that doesn’t work out, maybe I can start my own religion.
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