Atlantic Indoor Association

Bill Bachman is a widely regarded, internationally recognized tenor drummer, drumset innovator and clinician. In a lengthy interview exclusively with this writer, Bill explores and explains his journey in marching percussion from the original Q to the excitement of playing professionally in Nashville. 

In this episode, Bill tells us about his rebound after being forced out of the activity by severe tinnitus. It is as a thoughtful player that he felt the need to introduce a book on tenor drumming where there was none. He designed a groundbreaking set of practice pads. And for drumset, he has just released patent pending hi-hat stand! 

MK: So it’s around 2003 that you had to get out of doing summers because of the tinnitus. Is this when an interest took hold in putting out products, or is this a long-standing interest and then you had an opportunity to do it? Or is this when it started to happen a little bit--the pads, the books, these things? 

BB:  It all started in ’96, and right out of North Texas. I realized, there’s no quad book out there. And I’d been to a couple high profile lines and I felt pretty qualified to do it. So I wrote Quad Logic. And it was the first quad instructional book that was legit, and that came out in ’97. And the demand for that grew. Then I realized, there’s no snare drum book that actually teaches you how to play. There’s a bunch of books full of beats, but there’s nothing to explain things like what wrist to finger ratio to use at different speeds, specific techniques and actually how to pull stuff off. So that’s when I got into Rudimental Logic which came out in 2000. They both got picked up by Row-Loff soon after. Then came the videos. First was Reefed Beats which is all about quad drumming. I filmed and released that in 2004. Part of why I wanted to do it was to immortalize some of my quad drumming before I got too old and decrepit. Most of my best playing is on that DVD—not free on youtube! A few years later came the Rudimental Beats DVD which is for everyone who plays with sticks. The books are the products that started the whole thing. 

Everything I do is based on the FANAFI principle: Find A Need and Fill It. So I figure out where nothing exists and where I know how to fix a problem, and that’s when I create something. And so, I had no major ambitions as far as just writing tons of stuff and going nuts with products. After the books, the drumpad thing happened. 

A company was talking to me about doing a quad pad, the signature item, but I didn’t like the limitations that were put on me. So I said “no thanks” and set out to do this myself. And so my roommate, Chris Romanowski, was really into it too. We were both pretty poor, but he had a little bit of capital so we could start this humble little company. The result was the Heavy Hitter Pads! 

At the time, the only pads available were six-sided or eight-sided with the basic thick quarter inch thick rubber. Nobody had given a crap and everybody was just comfortable with no innovation. And there was no quad pad that was to-scale & functional. So I designed the quad pad, full scale matching the actual quads, big and small, with the one and two-spock option. The Slim Pad, the Stock Pad  all the Mylar laminates – all this revolutionary pad stuff came out of the garage at our place in Chino, California. 

And they’re still the best pads out there even while virtually everybody has done their best to copy us. Some are trying to get fancy, like pad out there with a rim. I really don’t get it because it doesn’t feel nearly as good to me. And why do you want a rim that when you hit it, it’s five times louder than what you’re drumming? It’s not to scale sonically, and who’s ever had much difficulty hitting a rimshot? Anyway, that’s how all the Heavy Hitter Pad stuff started. The advantage of these pads and demand was so huge that within two years it was in Vic Firth’s product line. And it’s a signature product so Romo and I get a little cut of each one. 

The Billy Club Tenor Stick just came out in 2010. Before this stick, half the time I was playing with mallets and half the time with sticks. And I liked the short length, maneuverability and volume of mallets, but I liked the rim shot aspect of sticks, and I like the way sticks feel on tighter, smaller drum heads. (And I didn’t like that rimshots were impossible and/or sounded bad with mallets and that sticks left you with a thin weaker sound.) So now the Billy Club comes in and gets the best of both worlds. It’s as loud and dark as a quad mallet, and because the material is so heavy, it’s shorter so you can maneuver around the quads really easily—and you can hit legit rim shots on any drum. It’s absolutely the best of both worlds. And I can’t imagine going back to any other stick or mallet after that’s come out. So I’m quite excited about those guys, they go boom and give the quads their (you know what) back. 

MK: Tell me about the Remote Speedy Hat. I guess that was based on a need as a drumset player and, you know, it looks totally solid and rocking to me. Please describe it and tell us how you came to it on the kit. 

BB: First of all, the Remote Speedy Hat actually works like a hi-hat stand should unlike every single other attempt at a remote hat. All the cable hats are no good, basically. The speedy hat works with two opposing pulleys and everything is fully adjustable. It’s really simple, bulletproof, and durable. And the whole idea is: you get to move the hi-hat cymbals over a little bit, or all the way to the center. As soon as you don’t have to cross your sticks to play the hats, it completely changes the game. So everything you play now is instantly easier and there are a thousand new possibilities that have opened up musically just by not having to cross. It’s actually faster than a straight hi hat stand since the rod is half as long (an object at rest stays at rest remember?). 

And if you go open-handed to avoid the crossing, you still have problems with crossing for certain patterns. It’s the same thing with a remote hi-hat on the right. So, it’s a total game changer and by far the most important piece of hardware that I have on my kit. It’s doing really well. It’s gotten fantastic reviews in Modern Drummer and Drum! Everybody that tries it loves it. And we’re actually back-ordered. So it’s picking up for sure. 

I’m just focused on drumming in general these days, especially drumset. When I wake up in the morning, that’s what I’m most inspired to do. It’s funny. People think (based on some stuff I read on the internet) that I lie awake at night trying to figure out if I’m better than Tim Jackson and practice quads for 3 hours every morning. But really, I just do my thing and I play quads occasionally. I work up stuff when I have clinics coming up and whatnot. Most of my time is spent behind my stupid computer slaving away and all this work that I create for myself—I actually need to discipline myself to go drum sometimes! I work my butt off and it’s not easy. Like drumming though, the high points when it all comes together make all the grunt work worthwhile.

Do you have suggestions or submissions? War stories from the floor, questions or other interests? Email Michael Kirby at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .