ISSUE 1 JANUARY 2011

THE “REAL DEAL” DRUM MAGAZINE

HIGHLIGHT
OF THE WEEK!

MY FIRST BAND
LARS ULRICH
IS HE A GOOD DRUMMER?

JORDAN GOES BACK INTO

THE STUDIO TO RECORD
CAULFIELD’S FULL-LENGTH

EXCLUSIVE ARTICLE
ON TUAN, DISCUSSING
CONSTRUCTS’ NEW MATERIAL
 Welcome to the first issue of TRUE DRUMMER MAGAZINE.
I am the editor, Tuan Nguyen, and drummer for the local

THE NEWS!................................................PG. 3 Hardcore/Metal band, Constructs. This magazine is basically

about me. It also includes articles on famous and local
drummers, advertisements for drum gear and much more!

LARS ULRICH......................................PG. 5-6
MY FIRST BANDS............................PG. 7-8
What inspired me to make this magazine was my passion
for drumming. I’ve been playing drums for about 6 years
now and I’ve improved dramatically. Now I start to see what
it takes to be a real drummer. I’m not saying that I think I
am, but I’ve noticed how a lot of my earlier influences aren’t
as good as I thought they were. I’m also very into the local
Burlington Hardcore/Metal music scene so I included pictures

WORST ALBUM....................................PG. 9 and information on some of the talented local drummers out
there. I hope you enjoy reading the articles in this magazine,
and checking out the sweet advertisements I created.

Tuan Nguyen

Photography by:

Gray Richter

Samantha Armstrong

Lauren Mazzotta

Taylor Cooke

Kayla Bates

TRUE DRUMMER MAGAZINE


TUAN NGUYEN // CONSTRUCTS
After lead vocalist, Geoff Daniel, left
Constructs in August 2010, they went on
hiatus. Since then, guitarist, Thoai Nguyen,
and drummer, Tuan Nguyen, have been
writing new material and trying to recruit
new members to Constructs. Shortly
after a few jam sessions, they decided
on “the perfect sound”, and added three
new members to the band. They’re very
much excited to show off the new material
because according to them, the old stuff
was crap. Critics said that on Constructs’
Decomposer E.P. Tuan didn’t put enough
effort into writing the drum parts and that
they were too “boring”. Well, when new
Constructs comes out with their demo E.P.
people will be greatly surprised by how
much the writing of the drums and music
have improved. As of right now, the new
line-up stays unknown, but the music is said
to be more heavy and melodic hardcore.
Stream Constructs’ entire E.P. here!
http://www.myspace.com/constructsmusic
3 TRUE
TRUE DRUMMER
DRUMMER MAGAZINE
MAGAZINE
A N C H O R S A W AY C L O T H I N G L I N E P r e s e n t s :
i s t e n to !
ums to l
Alb
-A PLEA FOR PURGING,
THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL
Tuan Nguyen @ 242 Main, Burlington, VT
JORDAN SPEER // CAULFIELD
The “Foot in the Grave” E.P. made a huge
impact on the Burlington hardcore/metal -CONSTRUCTS, DECOMPOSER
music scene. Caulfield were few of the first
local bands to actually go into a professional
studio for high quality recordings. Jordan
Speer brought back the heaviness and
agility of metal drumming in the local scene
when it died out for awhile. He has gone
back into the studio to track Caulfield’s full-
length so stay tuned, and be super stoked!
URIAN HACKNEY // ALIVE & WELL
-THE GHOST INSIDE, RETURNERS
It has been nearly a year now, and Urian’s 2/4 Burlington, VT @ 242 Main 2/13 Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
band, Alive & Well are still in the studio
recording their full-length. People are 2/5 S.Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground 2/15 Boston, MA @ Revolution Rock Bar
wondering why it’s taking them so long.
The answer is, they want to make it perfect 2/6 Manchester, NH @ Rocko’s 2/16 S.Norwalk, CT @ Bar Eleven
and will not settle for good. Clips from the
new un-mastered album are phenominal. 2/8 Manchester, NH @ JFK Coliseum 2/17 New Haven, CT @ Drop Zone
Urian Hackney set the highest standard for
local drummers in Vermont. His style is so 2/9 Suncook, NH @ Ground Zero 2/18 New Haven, CT @ Lounge 215
unique and creative that it absolutely blew
my mind. Alive & Well should be releasing -FOR THE FALLEN DREAMS, RELENTLESS 2/10 Dover, NH @ Dover Brick House 2/20 Bristol, RI @ Gillary’s Tavern
their untitled full-length in April of 2011.
2/12 Worcester, MA @ The Palladium 2/21 Providence, RI @ The Living Room
WORST ALBUMS ON PAGE.9

LARS ULRICH
GOOD OR BAD DRUMMER?
By: Tuan Nguyen
etallica is one of the biggest names in the
Thrash Metal music scene, but it seems
as though people do not acknowledge the
fact that their drummer lacks a bit too much
compared to the rest of the band. Most people consider
Lars Ulrich to be one of the greatest metal drummers
ever. Do you want to know my opinion on Lars? I think
he gets way too much credit for his drumming, and his
drumming isn’t good. I can honestly say that he’s a pretty
bad drummer, especially since he has been playing pretty
much all of his life.
I’m going to start off by saying that he lacks
the most in timing and creativity. If you listen to every
Metallica record, you’ll notice that he is slightly off time
in almost every song, and some of the drum beats don’t
mash well with the guitars. He’ll do this thing where
he’ll make a drum beat a little off time to try making it
sound more interesting and “tricky”, but it just ends up
sounding really bad because Metallica isn’t the type
of band to be technical metal, or write technical
parts. They’re clearly a thrash metal band, so
it’s all about speed and intensity. Lars sure
does have the right drum beats for some
of the songs, but he overuses them too
much. I can’t think of one song where
5 TRUE DRUMMER MAGAZINE
into their band as soon as they did. People listened to What really gets
them for the heaviness of their music, and how their music to me is the fact that
stood out from the other music that was around at their Lars has so many really
time. What people didn’t realize, or cared to realize was good endorsements. I
how Lars was obviously bad at what he did. I mean, I guess mean, people consider
it’s easy to look past that when the guitarists, bassist, and him like an icon to the
vocalist were good, but that’s how lame it is. Normally, metal music industry,
the band depends on their drummer. In Metallica, they but he’s so bad that it
depended on the guitarists. The thing is, their guitarists doesn’t even make sense to me. I’m glad that nowadays
aren’t that great where you could tune out the drums if you
wanted to. The whole band together did not have the same
it’s harder to get endorsements unless you’re truly
good at what you do. Now getting back to Lars, he got
level of abilities, which made his drums stand out, but in a endorsements pretty much when Metallica wrote their
bad way. They got to where they are now because first record. He had, and still has TAMA Drums, Zildjian
back then not many people cared a whole lot Cymbals, AHEAD Drumsticks, TAMA Iron Cobra Hardware,
about abilities, and it was the fans who got them and Remo Drumheads endorsements. Those are all
famous, not a big label. extremely hard to get endorsed by, unless you’re really
good at drums and have a purpose for endorsements,
or if you’re in a famous band. In his case, he got super
he uses a completely different
famous.
drum beat. To be a real
In an interview with Lars done by Hatebreed’s
drummer, you have to excel
lead vocalist, Jamey Jasta, Lars quoted,
in creativity, otherwise
you’re just a person who “The ‘not-giving-a-[bleep]’ meter is as
can hit things. far into the red-zone as ever before.”
Lars is a really lucky
Sometimes it’s almost as if he knows he’s not a
guy. He’s lucky that thrash
good drummer, but he enjoys doing it for the fun and
metal wasn’t popular until
excitement, especially since his band got extrememly big
Metallica started. He’s
in the metal music industry.
lucky that they
It’s pretty obvious to tell my opinion on Lars’
recruited him
drumming. Though I could honestly admit that I used
to think he was one of the greatest drummers and I
considered him to be one of my favorites. But when
I started to play drums more and got better at it,
I realized how bad he was. Looking up to him
was probably the biggest joke ever and it
only helped me to become a bad drummer
and have bad drumming habits, so
that wasn’t much “help”. The bottom
line is, Lars Ulrich, of Metallica, is
quite possibly one of the worst
“famous” drummers of all time.
TRUE DRUMMER MAGAZINE 6

Jordan Speer @ Higher Ground, S. Burlington, VT
In the beginning of 2008, Jordan Speer and
Geoff Daniel formed a band called, Forever
They Said. They were one of Burlington’s
first metalcore band that actually sounded
“legit”. They were a tight band, even though
a few of the members were still beginners.
In the summer of 2008, they kicked out both
of their guitarists and went on a search you
new band mates. Vocalist, Geoff Daniel, got
on guitar and they recruited Dylan Hughes on
vocals and Thoai Nguyen on second guitar.
From there on, they became one of the
biggest names in the Burlington hardcore/
metal music scene. they used to practice
in Thoai’s basement about 4 times a week.
Constructs’ drummer, Tuan Nguyen, who is
also Thoai’s brother and band mate now,
learned a lot of his technique from Jordan.
He used to hang out at their practices and
watch them write new songs and what not. If
7 TRUE DRUMMER MAGAZINE
By: Mark Callaway
it weren’t for Forever They Said, Constructs
and Caulfield probably wouldn’t be bands
right now. Jordan’s sense of style on
drums attracted large crowds every time
they played. All of the upcoming metal
drummers wanted to be as good as him.
Soon after FTS ruled the music scene,
they broke up because guitarist, Geoff
Daniel and bassist, Kyle Dattilio, were
unreliable. They had to find new members,
so they recruited Ethan Burke on second
guitar and Chris Ward on bass. They then
formed, The Things He Carried. THC were
a more melodic and heavy version of FTS.
They dominated the scene with their great
live performances. They were just full of
energy and really got the crowd going.
Jordan improved dramatically when THC
started up to add a longer lasting affect
on people who came out to their shows.
Urian Hackney joined Black Night Vengeance in 2007, after
their drummer and close friend, Sam Cohn, passed away.
Urian joined in memory of Sam, and to keep that musis going.
BNV was pretty much the start of Forever They Said. They
played tons of locals shows, and even played with Our Last
Night (NH metalcore band), who are now very well known and
signed to Epitaph Records.Urian was one of the first drummers
in Burlington to be able to do “blast beats” on the drums very
well. In a lot of peoples eyes, he pinoneered the intense
death-core style drumming in Burlington’s scene. When BNV
broke up, Urian decided to try guitar out. He started playing
with Young Denver, a pop-punk band. Eventually, he missed
playing drums too much that he joined, The New Tony Bennet,
after their drummer was kicked out. In that band, he got to use
his death-core/death metal drum style to incorporate into their
music. After TNTB broke up in 2009, he formed Alive & Well.
Urian Hackney @ 242 Main, Burlington, VT
At the age of thirteen, Rafe Bouchard joined a death metal band
called Compassion Forsworn. He had been playing drums since
he was eight years old, but Compassion was his first “real” band.
Before he was their drummer, his brother, Keenan Bouchard,
played drums for them. When he left, they thought it’d be a great
idea for Rafe to take the spot. This was a great opportunity for
him. They played tons of shows with popular bands like Emmure
and The Jonah Veil, and toured around New England for a week.
It was almost a teenger’s dream come true until they had to let
him go. Their music was going into a different direction and they
didn’t feel that Rafe could move along with them. After he was
kicked out from the band, he started a pop-punk band called
Young Denver, with Nick Giordani and David Lagerstedt. He felt
like his passion for music and drumming leaned more towards
pop-punk than any other genre so it kind of worked out for the
best in the long run. Now Young Denver is touring around the U.S.
Rafe Bouchard @ Boys & Girls Club, Burlington, VT
TRUEDRUMMER
TRUE DRUMMERMAGAZINE
MAGAZINE 8
 CONT.

“BROKEN FRAMES” - EYES SET TO KILL

9 TRUE DRUMMER MAGAZINE

...The future of electronic drums