“Don’t be afraid to steal things. Amateurs plagiarize, professional steal.”
Of course I don’t mean steal. These quotes are great but you have to translate them. By steal I mean emulate, copy and utilize. And after grabbing everything you can including set up ideas, drum sizes, drum makes, cymbal types, licks, fills …stop and work on being you.
Don’t tiptoe around the masters’ kits like a thief in a museum—raid ’em. Swipe that jazz cat’s whisper-triplet off the hi-hat, poach the metal marauder’s double-bass barrage, lift a fusion fool’s kit sprawl like it’s your birthright. Amateurs Xerox the flash and fumble the feel; pros? We go for the soul—the why behind the whack, the sway in the setup, the ghost in the groove. Nab cymbal stacks that sing like sirens, tom tunings that thump like thunder, fills that filch from the greats without a trace. But here’s the hinge, the hard stop: when you’ve crammed your bag with every encountered pearl, drop it. Torch the templates. The band’s not booking a tribute act; they’re craving the quirk only your calluses know—the off-kilter paradiddle born from a botched parade, the rimshot rasp from years of basement brawls. Being you? That’s the alchemy: where adopted licks transmute into your language, setups settle into your skin. No more echoes; just the original ring. Borrow to start, persist to finish. The throne’s waiting for your throne alone.