Peter Wildoer

 

Keep up with Peter here:

www.peterwildoer.com

 

 

Peter was born in September 1974. At age seven Peter got his first drum kit by his grand mother. When he was nine he had to play the recorder (flute) at “Kommunala musikskolan” (the municipal music school) to learn how to read notes and after a year started taking drum lessons instead. In 1986 he joined a brass band, which played big band jazz, musicals and “rock”. He would remain a member for eight years. That same year his grandmother gave him a new set of drums. When Peter was 14 he formed his first hard rock band (Dammer later called Zaninez). In 1989 Christofer Malmström (Darkane) joined Zaninez. They quickly became best friends, and since then, have continued to play together. At that time Peter also bought his first twin bass drum pedal. You can hear what it sounded like after one week here (very funny and great listening for beginners, ha ha ha):
http://www.christofermalmstrom.se/afraidtodie.mp3. Talk about not being able to play his double pedal at the end of the song!  😉

A big experience for Peter was hearing Dave Weckl’s first solo CD “Master Plan” in 1990. Sein Reinert’s playing on the Death album “Human” also made a huge impact on Peter. A bigger interest for jazz/fusion started taking form during the early nineties. In 1993 Peter heard Trilok Gurtu playing with the John McLaughlin trio and was amazed by the mixing of drums and percussion. Mr. Gurtu is still one of his biggest influences. Later that year Peter joined a percussion ensemble where he started playing other types of percussion including congas, djembe, and darbouka. He also took tabla lessons during the first five months of 1996. During this time Peter also attended afro/jazz/fusion school for a year where he learned how to improvise.

In 1997 he went into the studio to record “Crossing the Rubicon” with Armageddon featuring Christopher Amott from Arch Enemy. Later that year Peter was asked to join Arch Enemy on a small European tour and for the first time travel to Japan to play three gigs! He also played on their sophomore album “Stigmata”. In 1998 Peter formed Darkane together with guitarist/friend Christofer Malmström, and since then, they have released four highly acclaimed albums.

During 2001 Peter recorded on the cartoon/fusion/jazz/metal project Electrocution-250. The drumming with Electrocution-250 is some of the most demanding drumming Peter has recorded to date. It fuses intense metal drumming and manic fusion soloing together with “cartoon” music in the style of old Tom & Jerry cartoons. You could sum it up in one word: CRAZY!

In 2000 Peter started working at a school as a drum and math teacher and are still teaching there. Peter is also frequently performing clinics in Sweden. He has been doing that since 1997. The clinics are always well received by the audience and they range from metal to jazz to fusion. He’s always performing with music on backing tracks so you get the concept in a musical environment. In 2007 Peter and fellow Darkane guitarist Klas Ideberg decided to open the doors to Darkane’s own studio ‘Not Quite Studio’ for other bands to record there as well. Soilwork is the first band to record and mix their new CD there.

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More video links at bottom of page…

 

Peter Wildoer Interview:

 

SD.com: What do you do to prepare for tour? Please talk of personal and drum kit prep…

Peter: I like to be in control of things and try to finish all the projects and tasks I have at home before leaving for the tour. Very often it’s a lot of rehearsals and other things happening before a tour, logistics etc, and that results in that I always leave without having spent much time with my family right before the departure. This is something I don’t like, but it’s all necessary. When it comes to drum kit preparations it depends on where you will tour. If you go to Japan you just need to send what you would like to play and they get you exactly what you ask for, amazing! I’ve been touring Japan four times and every time I’ve been treated like a king. If I tour Europe I prefer to bring my own kit if possible. If I can’t do that I either have to play a rental kit that the tour management rented, hopefully this is something close to what I normally play, or Tama will provide me a kit which also is great. On most tours I bring my own cymbals and if something breaks Meinl send me new ones, that’s the great thing with being endorsed and I’m very thankful for that! When we toured the USA with Darkane in 2005 Tama and Meinl provided me with exactly what I ordered. Dirk Verbeuren of Soilwork (who we toured with) used the same kit and cymbals. Strapping Young Lad played between us (Darkane and Soilwork) and during that time we re-built the kit from my setup to Dirk’s. On the beginning of that tour my drums hadn’t been delivered yet and I had to play Gene Hoglan’s (Strapping Young Lad) drum kit. This was of course a huge honour to play his kit, but man are we different sized, ha ha ha. He’s a huge guy and I’m a short guy and I played almost his set-up with 24” bass drums and ultra deep toms. I was fighting during that first week playing his kit but that’s also great to make you push yourself having to play someone else’s kit. After I got my own kit Gene said, “Hey drum bro I guess it’s nice to drive this little fast European sports car instead of my huge American truck”. And man he was right about that, ha ha ha!

 

 

SD.com: When did you start playing drums?

Peter: I started quite early. I got my first real drum kit at age seven. At that time I just fooled around and didn’t practise at all. I formed my first band in 1989 and we played some kind of heavy metal, at least that’s what we thought it was, ha ha. I don’t think it’s important for how many years you have been playing but how many hours you’ve spent practising. I know drummers that have played for 25 years and they can hardly play at all and then I know drummers that have played a couple of years that are great because they have practised resolutely. Of course, if you start practising at a young age you have more years to develop. Also an important aspect is that you have a bit more hunger to learn stuff when you’re young and you also have more time to practise.

 

 

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

Peter: Not anymore. I played in a school brass band for about eight years and I learned a lot about discipline there, also reading scores. I also played in a drum corps for something like three years. That was great because I learned a lot of great rudiments and snare etudes. I recommend playing in a school band/drum corps at a young age. It helps you to develop discipline, read and understand scores/theory and work as a group member. A big thing to get a band to work is the social “skills” of the band members. Some musicians are great at playing but just hard to work with as persons.

 

 

 

 

SD.com: Have you ever taken any lessons?

Peter: I’ve studied a lot actually. I started taking lessons at the age of 10 at the municipal music school. This is a place where you go once a week to study/take lessons for 30 minutes. At first I was not serious at all but I learned scores/notes quite fast and that has helped me a lot. I continued taking lessons there until I was 19 years old. My first teacher there was Staffan Larsén and the second one I had was Per Knutsson (a great jazz drummer). After that I studied music full time for one year at a music school. It was mostly jazz/afro/fusion and funk there. I had a great teacher named Mans Block and learned a lot there. We played ensemble every day there and that was very important since that’s what music is all about, playing together. For me it’s also been very important to study drums since my goal has been to be able to play most kinds of music. I have played everything from trio jazz to metal. I’ve been a member of a jazz big band for example. I’ve also worked on theatres where it’s important to be versatile. I have also been very interested in percussion and I studied tabla playing for one year and also learned to be able to play congas, djembe, darbouka etc so if someone need a percussionist I can do the job ok. I have to say that there are of course drummers that are far better at playing for example jazz or funk than I am, but I can do the job if I’m asked. This is very important if you want to be able to work as a musician in a small country like Sweden.

Of course I’ve also learned a lot from “interactive lessons” on VHS and DVD. Instructional DVDs are a way to “sit next” to your idol and learn from him/her. I think the first two Weckl instructionals (Back to basics & The next step) are the ones I’ve watched the most. Today there are so many great ones. Yesterday I got Jojo Mayer’s ‘Secret weapons for the modern drummer’ and I think that is the most complete coverage of hand technique I’ve ever seen, he’s just amazing. Also the “new” Weckl DVDs, both Thomas Lang’s, Steve Smiths’s DVDs are awesome too, to name a few… I think it’s a great thing to take some lessons every now and then since then you get someone “outside” to tell you what you need to work on. I’ve also been a drum teacher for more than 10 years now. It’s great to teach since you need to know exactly what you’re doing to be able to show this for someone else. I’m also doing drum clinics in Sweden every now and then, lots of fun!

 

 

SD.com: Who are your top 5 influences?

Peter: This is one hell of a hard question! I’ve been thinking quite hard on this question and it’s very hard to pick just 5 drummers. Sine I listen mostly to metal and jazz/fusion I would like to do two lists. One metal-influences and one  jazz/fusion-list. Hope this is ok?!  😉

Metal (Whenever I’m working on drums for a new CD these are the drummers I mostly listen to to get inspiration):

Sean Reinert – He’s just my biggest influence (as many other drummers that I read about here at sickdrummer.com). He’s got the perfect balance between musicality, technique and personality. Cynic’s ‘Focus’ CD is one of my all time favourite CDs of all kind. I saw a video from this past summer (2007) with Cynic performing live in Norway, amazing. I do hope they release it on DVD!

Gene Hoglan – Also a very important influence to me with his own style. He’s an icon in metal drumming. I’ve been fortunate to be on tour together with him and get to know him. He’s got one hell of a groove whatever he’s playing and that’s hard when you speed things up. He’s a hard hitter too and that I like a lot!

Tomas Haake – I saw Meshuggah live in 1995 for the first time. At that point I had already heard ‘Contradictions collapse’, ‘None’ and the classic (and my favourite) ‘Destroy erase improve’ but I was blown away by seeing Tomas live. He’s for sure one of the hardest hitters I’ve seen and he’s also one of the grooviest metal drummers I’ve heard. I guess I’ve seen him something like 20 times live and he always deliver. He’s one hell of a cool guy to!

Rick Colaluca – This is perhaps one of the most underrated drummers I know of. I think he’s got one of the most unique drumming styles that I know of. His playing on Watchtower’s ‘Control and resistance’ is incredible. I turn to this CD often to get inspiration and I hope one day Watchtower will do that 3rd CD they’ve been talking about for about 143 years now!  😉

Dirk Verbeuren – Dirk is a good friend of mine now. I have to say that he’s the newest addition to my influences. I started listening to him some years ago and really got into his playing a year ago when I was filling in for him in Soilwork. I had to learn his stuff and was (still am) amazed by his technique, ideas, speed but most of all, his groove. Dirk has a great groove and I got to “study” this even more some months ago when he recorded the drums for Soilwork’s “Sworn to a great divide” in our studio ‘Not Quite Studio ‘. I have recorded and mixed that new Soilwork CD. He need to do an interview for sickdrummer.com as well!  😉

 

 

Jazz/fusion/contemporary:

Dave Weckl – I think Dave has probably influenced me the most. I can’t say that I am anywhere near his playing but I simply love whatever he does. He’s got perfect time, super cool chops and a great groove. I saw him live for the first time in 1990 and was simply blown away and has been a fan ever since!

Trilok Gurtu – One of the most unique drummer/percussionists out there. Trilok is totally musical and as he says himself “If you don’t have anything to say, shut up!”. I can’t say that I always live up to that though, ha ha ha. People who don’t know of Trilok check him out, he’s sitting on his right leg and got this custom built weird drum kit. He’s also one of my biggest tabla influences together with Zakir Hussein.

Vinnie Colaiuta – Whatever he plays it’s always perfect. He’s extremely versatile and there is something to his playing that he’s always “in the pocket”. A true wizard!

Steve Gadd – To be franc, it took me some time to understand Steve’s greatness. There are drummers with greater technique and chops, but Mr. Gadd is groove personalised. Every time I hear or see him I’m amazed by his extremely groovy approach. He is a living legend and check out his discography, way more than 1000 records!!!

Virgil Donati – I guess he could be under metal drummers as well but… When I saw the VHS from Modern Drummer Festival in 1997 I thought what the f***k is this guy doing?!?! Virgil has pushed the boundaries of contemporary drumming miles into the future. He’s still improving and that’s incredible!

Besides the ones I mentioned above I have to mention Tommy Lee. He’s the one that made me want to become a drummer. In a way I think he’s the John Bonham of the 80’s. He looks cool when he’s playing and sounds huge!  😉  He’s still one of my biggest influences and favourites. The drum sound on the 1994 ‘Motley Crue’ CD is my all time favourite heavy drum sound, HUGE!

 

 

SD.com: Assuming that influences don’t mean favourites, who are your favourites?

Peter: The most important thing to me is that drummers have a personality. I love when you put on a song and you can immediately hear who the drummer is. If you can tell that, the drummer has a personality of his own and that is hard! Once again it’s extremely hard to mention my favourites. I guess I have about a couple of hundred drummers that I simply adore. Of course the drummers I mentioned above are also my favourites. Besides my influences above I would like to mention:
Dennis Chambers, Steve Smith, Morgan Agren, Marvin “Smitty” Smith, Gary Husband, Terry Bozzio, David Garibaldi, Jojo Mayer, Bill Stewart, Bobby Jarzombek, Gene Lake, Vinnie Paul, Chris Pennie and of course Animal in the Muppet Show (evil) among many others…

 

 

SD.com: Let us know 3 CD’s that are in your current rotation

Peter: Strapping Young Lad – The new black, Sheryl Crow – C’mon c’mon and System of a down – Mezmerize among tons of other CDs.

 

 

 

 

SD.com: Do you practice any specific rudiments or combos regularly?

Peter: Actually I have very little time to practice nowadays. Mostly I practice before recordings or tours and I have a hard time to find the time for other practicing. The rudiments I practice are mostly singles, doubles and paradiddles. I often take the classic book ‘Stick control’ and just pick some rudiments out of that one. I do have one exercise that I use for warm up and for bringing my feet and hands back to shape. I do this to a metronome with a defined tempo. I start with eighth notes, then moves to eighth note triplets, sixteenth notes, sixteenth notes triplets and lastly thirty-second notes. This way you start slowly and speed up gradually but to a defined tempo. It is important for me to start slowly since I had very bad problems with my wrists for one and a half year between 2003 and 2004.

The warm up exercise goes like this. I play simultaneous with my hands and feet but mirrored. If I play with my right hand my left foot play at the same time and vice versa. It’s great to play simultaneous with hands and feet to get things tight. The sticking goes like this if I explain it in sixteenth notes (these are the hands sticking):

Singles
1. RLRL RLRL RLRL RLRL    (mirrored with your feet: LRLR LRLR LRLR LRLR)
2. LRLR LRLR LRLR LRLR
3. RLRL RLRL RLRL RLRL    (same as 1.)
4. LRLR LRLR LRLR LRLR    (same as 2.)

Paradiddles (if you play the paradiddles in the order below you don’t need to hit three strokes in a row when changing paradiddle sticking)
5. RLRL LRLR RLRL LRLR
6. RLRR LRLL RLRR LRLL
7. RLLR LRRL RLLR LRRL
8. RRLR LLRL RRLR LLRL

Doubles
9. RRLL RRLL RRLL RRLL
10. RLLR RLLR RLLR RLLR
11. LLRR LLRR LLRR LLRR
12. LRRL LRRL LRRL LRRL

Play each sticking for eight bars and then move to the other. The sticking becomes a little more “difficult” when playing triplets since the sticking won’t change on each beat so to speak. It’s also very good if you count out load “One, two, three, four” when you do this exercise! I’ll write down the sticking for eighth note triplets also below:

Singles
1. RLR LRL RLR LRL
2. LRL RLR LRL RLR
3. RLR LRL RLR LRL    (same as 1.)
4. LRL RLR LRL RLR    (same as 2.)

Paradiddles (two bars written out so the paradiddle comes out even)
5. RLR LLR LRR LRL LRL RRL RLL RLR    (the bold letters are the “start” of each paradiddle, note
6. RLR RLR LLR LRR LRL LRL RRL RLL    how the paradiddle “moves” around the beat.
7. RLL RLR RLR LLR LRR LRL LRL RRL    Polyrhythmic three against four.)
8. RRL RLL RLR RLR LLR LRR LRL LRL

Doubles
9. RRL LRR LLR RLL
10. RLL RRL LRR LLR
11. LLR RLL RRL LRR
12. LRR LLR RLL RRL

Try to experiment with accents too. For example accent the start of every figure i.e. the bold letters. Hope I managed to explain this ok. There will be scores of this warm-up coming up on www.peterwildoer.com in a not to distant future I hope.

 

 

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

Peter: My ride and bell cymbals when I play metal. These are an important ingredient for my style when I play with Darkane. I heard this kind of ride/bell playing for the first time in 1991 when I saw the video to Death’s ‘Lack of comprehension’ where Sean Reinert plays this cool part on the bell of the ride and the bell of the hihat. Ever since that day I’ve been a sucker for that sound. Later on Gene Hoglan also started using that a lot and kind of sophisticated that kind of playing. Today a lot of drummers use this a lot.

When I don’t play metal I have to say that my kick drum, snare drum and hihat are my favourite drums. These are the fundamental part of the kit and you can actually do a gig with just those three drums.

 

 

 

 

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

Peter: Be open minded! Listen to all sorts of music and drummers. “Steal” and learn from other great drummers, one day all these influences will form your own style and sound. As I said before, personality is very important and that’s what makes you stand out.

Also curiosity is very important. Take a simple exercise and turn it around and “attack” from all kind of angles, “What happens if I plav accents here or there, etc…”, try all variations you can think of.

Oh, and practise. After you’re done doing that, practise some more. Finally you practise some more just for the fun of it…

 

 

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

Peter: Actually it was a female Swedish blues/rock singer named Louise Hoffsten. The whole concert was totally amazing and I was mesmerized for the whole time. The drummer, Nicci Wallin, pounded the drums so hard with a perfect groove. I can’t say what exactly was so perfect, but I was just standing with my jaws dropped for an hour and a half. When it comes to metal concerts I guess seeing Death, with Gene Hoglan on drums, on the ‘Individual thought patterns’ tour in 1993 made a huge impact on me. I had to that day never seen a metal drummer that good.

 

 

SD.com: Who are some of your favorite young drummers of today?

Peter: Hmmm, young drummers?! I guess I’m kind of old school and listen mostly to stuff that I heard years ago. I have to say though that I recently discovered some drummers, actually through sickdrummer.com, that I didn’t listen to earlier. I’ve never been much into speed and blast/grind beats but Dirk Verbeuren got me into this some time ago. I have to say that George Kollias (not so very young though, I guess) has an amazing stamina and speed, sick! Of course Derek Roddy is amazing too, mostly because he’s got a huge variety in his playing abilities. Some week ago I heard Necrophagist for the first time. The album is called ‘Epitaph’ and Hannes Grossmann is playing drums on it, he’s a young and very talented drummer, actually the whole band is extremely talented. I read Hannes interview at sickdrummer.com and he seems to have a good sense of humour too, and that’s very important!

 

 

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

Peter: Try to spend time with my son (2 recently turned two years) and girlfriend. My son likes to play the drum kit here at home and who knows, perhaps one day he will become a drummer too (I guess this is my dream though, ha ha ha). I teach math at a school for students at the age of 16-19. I used to teach drums there too but I’m having time of from that right now to be able to work in Darkane’s studio ‘Not Quite Studio’. We recently recorded Soilwork’s new CD ‘Sworn to a great divide’ there. I’m very interested in sound engineering, mixing and producing other bands. Right now we’re working with Swedish metal heads Construcdead in the studio.

Thanks for letting me do this interview and hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I liked doing it!
Stay Metal…
Peter

 

More video from Peter Wildoer:

Drum clinic – Experiment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF2AAUqdchU&mode=related&search=
Drum clinic – Organic canvas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40vnWTfNot4&mode=related&search=
Drum clinic – Decisions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c93Yk_9qKDs&mode=related&search=
Drum clinic – Opening solo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EdQ0oiK6m8&mode=related&search=
Darkane – Secondary effects (promo video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoBBlYUVg2g
Darkane – Innocence gone (promo video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL2ECbrJ78s&mode=related&search=
Darkane – Chaos vs order (promo video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDcisiskDpc&mode=related&search=
Darkane – A wisdoms breed (live 1998):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq2ZmTP4om0&mode=related&search=