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1 V I TA L SBAND ShinedownAGE 29 HOMETOWN Colorado Springs, CO INFLUENCES Stewart Copeland, John Bonham, John Starks, Clyde Stubblefield, Tony WilliamsCURRENT RELEASE Us And Them

2 A L L G E A R E D U PDRUMS Pearl CYMBALS Meinl HEADS Evans HARDWARE Pearl STICKS Pro-Mark

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According to its website, Lake Doctors isa company that pro-vides a wide range

of beautification services for var-ious bodies of water. Accordingto Barry Kerch, he’s a Southernredneck who plays the drumsand loves to rock out. Believe itor not, in this small world, those

two distinct entities collided.Kerch graduated from the

University of Central Floridawith a degree in Anthropology,and although he did not end updigging up artifacts, fossils, androcks in exotic locations, he didfind his own rock. It wedgedhim neatly next to a hard place.“I was facing college debt and I

have a wife and I was trying tomake ends meet,” says Kerch.“At the same time I was tryingto find a way to play profes-sionally but I had to be realis-tic. Growing up in Florida, it’snot like in L.A. or New Yorkwhere there are gigs all over theplace. It’s much harder to getgigs here.”

Alas, Kerch did find gigs. Af-ter managing a Sam Ash storeand doing odd jobs, he landed anice gig up in Jacksonville,Florida. It wasn’t manning thethrone for a hot rock band, butit was just as sweaty and kept thebills paid. “I was working forLake Doctors. It was cleaning

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lakes and retention ponds andkeeping weeds down and keep-ing the ecosystem going. I didthat about four months.”

While he mucked it up inJacksonville, Kerch heard thatShinedown was looking for anew drummer and jumped atthe chance to audition. Withsticks in hand, he headed over tomeet the band and played twosongs – “Lacerated” and “45” –from their debut album. Al-though the modest Kerchwouldn’t say it outright, he andthe band were a match made inheaven from the get-go. “One ofthe things that I think they en-joyed was that I had experienceplaying live and in the studio,although that was with local actsand not nationally. My timing isgood, I can read drum charts ifneeded, [and] I had taken drumcourses and theory courses so Ihad a good enough musicalbackground where I wouldn’tfreak out if they showed me aclick. Personality also meant alot to these guys,” he adds.“We’re all a bunch of Southernrednecks.”

Armed with a new weapon inKerch, Shinedown retreated tothe studio to record its debut al-bum, Leave A Whisper, whichwas released in May 2003. Onthe strength of the single “FlyFrom The Inside,” the pack ofrednecks headed out on a tourlasting nearly two years. “The

first tour was 23 months. It waspretty much straight, but we hada week off here and there. Weplayed with so many great bands.We started out with Powerman5000, then 3 Doors Down,which also had Seether and OurLady Peace on the tour.”

Nine months into the tour,Kerch lived a childhood dreamas Shinedown joined Van Halenfor a leg. “I had a poster of Alexon my wall when I was a kid,”Kerch gushes. “My brother andI wanted to be the Van Halens,so to be able to play with themwas an honor.”

Nearly two years on the roadwill wear out even seasoned pro-fessionals, but Shinedown hadwork to do and barely rested

when they got home. After ashort two-week break, the bandheaded right back into the stu-dio to record their second al-bum. As exhausting as it mayhave been, their marathon tourwas a breeding ground for newideas, and Kerch found himselfflying through the tracks. “I wasdone with the majority of thedrum tracks in two weeks. We’dget in there at 8:00 in the morn-ing, write a song, figure out theparts, and then I would track it.We just pushed it out. It feltvery spur of the moment. A lotof the fills weren’t planned out.They were off the cuff.”

Having been acclimated tothe band, and with national ex-posure in his back pocket,

Kerch settled into his comfortzone and stretched out duringthe Us And Them sess ions.Though most of us def ine“stretching out” as playing morenotes, he defines the term lessbroadly. “As a rock drummer,you have to play within the re-quirement of the song. Ninetypercent of the time, that re-quirement is 2 and 4 on thesnare and 1 and 3 on the kick,”says Kerch matter-of-factly.“Anything over that, and you’rescrewing up the song. On a fewof the songs, like ‘Atmosphere’and ‘LSD,’ I was able to expanda little bit and show some chopsthat were more my style. I thinkon the first record, I played what

BARRY KERCH

Barry’s throwin’ down! The drums are the highlightof “Lady So Divine,” with soulful grooves, stylizedfills, and very soloistic drumming that runsthroughout the song’s interlude. Pay close attention

to measures 7 and 8, which are subdivided as shownin 7/16 and 9/16. Play all the splashes on the rightand the snares on the left. Also check out measures11 and 12, which extend over two bars.

“Lady So Divine”

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SHINEDOWNUS AND THEMAtlantic

It’s difficult to focus on Barry Kerch’s drum-ming throughout Us And Them, partly be-cause we kept getting distracted by howmuch Brent Smith’s singing sounds like thatof the Guess Who’s Burton Cummings. Imean, just try listening to “Trade Yourself In”without thinking of “American Woman.” Forthat matter, Shinedown bases itself on anearly/mid-’70s protometal model, from thebonehead hooks to the flat, thin snarl of theguitar sound. Ditto for the drumming, whichKerch executes inerringly, if somewhat heavi-

ly. Every song seems like a maze of half-timeto double-time backbeats to four beats onthe snare, three-bar thumping crescendos,and other restless changes in the drum part,some of them probably not essential. In fact,on songs like “Lady So Divine,” which calls onKerch to play fills before going into the “psy-chedelic” B section, it might have been betterto either dig deeper into the beat or to hitthose fills with a little more sizzle. In an eradominated by drummers with monstrouschops, Kerch, like his band, captures the feelof a time when it took less to blow listenersaway; the sense that Us And Them creates ofnot being satisfied, as if the meal had endedjust before the main course, reflects on howmuch both players and listeners havechanged since then.

3 I N S I D E T R AC K S By ROBERT L. DOERSCHUK

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4 Q U I C K L I C K S Transcription by ANTHONY GELUSO

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they heard because a lot of thesongs had already been de-moed by their [previous]drummer. This time I was ableto play more like me.”

The new disc epitomizesthe band’s blue-collar way oflife. “We just worked hard.We did the van tour, the RVtour, and we graduated to asmall bus that we call the

‘short bus.’ Then we finallygot a real bus with a trailer.Rock music nowadays isn’t aget-rich-quick scheme. It’s nothip-hop. It is what it is. It’s acareer, and it’s something youhave to work really hard for.Sometimes you have to eatcrow for a while but it’s worthit. Every day you get to playdrums.”

Kerch grew up wanting tobe a rock star, and though hehas reached that goal, he hasnever lost touch with reality.On his way up, he was alwaysaware of the many obstaclesheaded his way and knew theycould ultimately keep himfrom success. “I’ve alwayswanted to play. I’ve been doingit since I was a little kid, but I

also didn’t want to live a pipe dream. Ihad to have a backup plan. I played allthe way through college, and it paid alot of my college. I’ve always been adrummer first, but chances are alwaysone in a million. You got to keep work-ing at it, and I always will but you al-ways have to have something else.”

The future remains unwritten forShinedown, but one constant will re-main – they will give their best atevery gig and leave it all on the stage.The energy will always be high, andKerch will jump off his throne andtwirl his sticks as much as he can.“We just try to put on a show. If yousit there and play the song, youmight as well listen to the CD. Kidspay a lot of money to come to theseshows, so put on a good show. Tom-my Lee is probably one of the bestshowmen out there and there’s a rea-son. He’s good at it and that’s whatyou should do [as a rock drummer].We’re all going crazy trying to killourselves and going balls to the wallevery night.”

Where once stood a wide-eyed boyin awe of his favorite drummers nowstands a successful drummer influ-encing today’s awestruck dreamers.The wide eyes remain, but now hu-mility has replaced the astonishment.“It’s probably the most humblingfeeling, to have a kid come up andsay, ‘I really enjoy what you do, you’rean inspiration.’ There are still a mil-lion drummers I look up to. I canlearn something from everybody. I tryto spend as much time with thosekids and see if there’s anything I cando to help them. I tell them to look atit as a craft. When you first start off,you want to be that rock god but I tryto tell them there are many differentstyles and try to learn them all. Learnyour rudiments and learn to read mu-sic. Treat it like you would any profes-sion. There’s schooling that goes be-hind it.” �

“We justworked hard ...

Rock music isn’t a get-rich-quick

scheme”

BARRY KERCH

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