Welcome back to Drummers I Like. Today we have the honor of talking with one of our favorite drummers out right now. Troy Wright who’s now playing with Plini!
For those who have been keeping up with Troy, you know that he has played the very first Plini live show in the beginning of June. Drummers I like is big fans of Plini and Troy. When we heard that Troy was playing his live performances we were over the moon! We couldn’t think of a better guy to get the gig and know how much he brings to the stage from our time watching his amazing videos from here in the states. Here is our interview from our time with Troy Wright!
D.I.L: What brought you together with Plini and do you guys have plans for more performances?
Troy: We had come across each others work online and chatted here and there on Facebook. Plini then asked me at the beginning of the year if I would be potentially interested in doing shows with him if he took his music to the stage. I was a fan of his work so I said yes obviously. We have just announced a small Australian tour in August and then we have few shows in Japan in September supporting Cynic.
D.I.L: How did you approach learning the Plini material? Did you transcribe the parts or learn by ear?
T.W.: I transcribed the most difficult parts on the computer and learned the rest by ear. Seeing those more technical drum parts on paper also helps me commit them to memory quicker.
D.I.L: How is it playing with someone as talented as Plini? Is he an easy musician to work with from a drummers perspective?
T.W.: It is a lot of fun for me as he writes interesting music that appeals to my tastes. He is a very easy going guy and (so far) as been a pleasure to work with haha.
D.I.L.: Whats your favorite plini song to play live and why?
T.W.: My favorite song is Away. This is the most challenging piece to play and has nice contrasting sections on the drums. We have also added a drum vamp section over accents which interestingly enough actually allows the drums to get some space as the song is fairly busy from start to finish.
D.I.L.: Do you have anything in the works to tour in the U.S. with Plini or any other projects?
T.W.: Right now there is nothing in stone for Plini after Japan. Other projects I’m involved with aren’t touring at the moment.
D.I.L.: We’ve seen your drum setup change with your time on youtube. Are you doing anything different with your setup for the plini gig?
T.W.: I used to change my set up regularly for songs I played through on YouTube to suit each song. This mainly consisted of me adding or taking away cymbals to adapt the particular sounds. Lately however I have found a relatively small setup that allows me to do many different things and play quite freely over a number of different genres so moving onto the Plini material I have kept my setup the same (4 piece setup, crash, hats, ride, splash, stack, and china).
D.I.L.: What can we expect to see from you in the future?
Troy: Outside these performance commitments with Plini this year I’m looking forward to getting a lot more educational material online through YouTube and my website on my down time. I will initially be focusing on video lessons with accompanied transcribed exercises etc!