KAISERION - Ghost - drum cover

Here is KAISERION by the Swedish band GHOST and my take on this one.

Ghost is a fairly new discovery for me and their latest album Imperia I really much enjoy.
When I heard this track Kaiserion, I just dug the guitar intro and the vibe.

Kaiserion is a "tour-de-force" track from a drummer´s stand point. It is pretty fast and as a drummer, one has to be really tight and still catch all those accents throughout, and there are also some fast fills transitioning from the verse to the pre-chorus. And in the guitar solo the groove suddenly changes to a rocking shuffle and then to half-time. Quite a lot to be aware of. And to top it off, they snuck in one (!) just odd bar in there too, just to make it interesting, I guess. :-)
When I heard the original song, I kinda envisioned a different drum sound than what´s on the record, so that is also why I thought it would be fun to do this one and to see how the track would sound with the drum sound I had in mind. I also wanted to see if I could make such a fast and dense track sound good with my drums without the use of any sampling in the mix. I am no mixer, but I love to try myself and I learn so much from it which I normally wouldn´t. For instance how important it is to keep those snare hits consistent. Not hit the cymbals to hard. Choosing the right cymbals and drums for the track etc etc. So many things to be aware of.

Regarding sound I dug out my old 22" Zildjian Oriental Classic China, which I haven´t used in decades, and also my new find the Zildjian 22" K Custom Ride (which is an old late 80´s ride I just gotten hold of).
Snare drum is my Tama Gladiator Simon Phillips 5,5" snare. I tried my Ludwig 6.5" Supraphonic first, but that didn´t sound right. It needed something tighter and snappier.
Also, the track is really dense, lots of heavy guitars, background vocals etc and it can get really muddy real fast, and I wanted to get it sounding articulate and clear, yet punchy and meaty. Usually for this kinda music one quite often tend to use samples and gate the sounds quite a bit to get the drums pop through the mix, and quite rightfully so! No wrong in doing that. But just for fun, I wanted to try to see how far I could get without that.
First of, I tuned up my tom-toms REALLY high (to get those fast fills cut through). I also consentrated really hard on making each snare hit be consistent (and for this drum it was really important to hit right in the middle of the drum with absolutely no rimshots - especially since it was wide open without any muffling). One of the hardest thing when playing a track like this is to keep it consistent. Among other things, that means hitting the snare with the same velocity and especially in the chorus where I change the hands to be able to play the pattern.
Since I didn´t use any samples or gates in the mixing process (well, a part from a gated snare reverb), I had to use quite a bit of automation to control the 16 microphones all picking up my wide open ringing drum kit.

Anyway, this is the first time I have done a cover of a track where I still don´t know who the original drummer is. Anyone know?
I dig what he did on the track, and I kept it in the same ball park, yet as always, I do things my own way.
Very fun to dive into the Ghost world of things.

Thanks for listening!

#ghost #kaiserion

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