Steven Adler and the Phil Rudd Influence

[mrmeyer]

 

[soon]

"My swing is swinging!" Yes, Mr Adler, yes it is!

From clips Ive seen his current band all play too straight and almost ignores the swing he's lying down. On AFD we always had Izzy opting to syncopate to before or after beat (often alternating within bars) and Slash playing more-less on the beat, up the middle. Actually in the early days of Guns, Slash was frequently just playing a straight version of Izzys riffs (WTTJ verse riff). Slash sometimes did a very crude version of this as well though, such as his syncopating the last chords of the descending main riff of Nightrain. Sometimes Izzy actually syncopated and plenty of the time he simply implied it by murmuring through some notes on the down beat and peacocking around the "eee and a" of the "one eee and a/ two eee and a..." count (Reckless Life riff) The push and pull of the guitars is a huge part of the GNR signature sound. But Adlers swing was what made it all work. It was both the engine and the glue.

Im far less aware of the ins and outs of Rudds style but I know that his signature mid tempo groove is a nice, old school implied-shuffle emphasizing 8ths or 16ths on his high hat on both sides of the beat. And a big part of that pocket being so defined is that he tends to strike cymbals right on metre, which highlights the swagger of the man groove really nicely. Adler is opposite, striking his cymbals within the ongoing swing meter.

[mrmeyer]

Well said.....you know your drumming

[ludurigan]

On 05/06/2018 at 12:51 PM, soon said:

"My swing is swinging!" Yes, Mr Adler, yes it is!

From clips Ive seen his current band all play too straight and almost ignores the swing he's lying down. On AFD we always had Izzy opting to syncopate to before or after beat (often alternating within bars) and Slash playing more-less on the beat, up the middle. Actually in the early days of Guns, Slash was frequently just playing a straight version of Izzys riffs (WTTJ verse riff). Slash sometimes did a very crude version of this as well though, such as his syncopating the last chords of the descending main riff of Nightrain. Sometimes Izzy actually syncopated and plenty of the time he simply implied it by murmuring through some notes on the down beat and peacocking around the "eee and a" of the "one eee and a/ two eee and a..." count (Reckless Life riff) The push and pull of the guitars is a huge part of the GNR signature sound. But Adlers swing was what made it all work. It was both the engine and the glue.

Im far less aware of the ins and outs of Rudds style but I know that his signature mid tempo groove is a nice, old school implied-shuffle emphasizing 8ths or 16ths on his high hat on both sides of the beat. And a big part of that pocket being so defined is that he tends to strike cymbals right on metre, which highlights the swagger of the man groove really nicely. Adler is opposite, striking his cymbals within the ongoing swing meter.

i dont understand half of the musical terms you used but its pretty easy to NOTICE all of the things you said listening to GNR and listening to all the shit leftovers of the band post-1992

once you remove adler (1991 tour) a lot of the groove is gone

once izzy left (end of 1991) it becomes a completely different band -- its OVER, not GNR anymore

same as if you removed axl voice