On June 27, 2015, Meinl celebrated the 10th Anniversary of their Meinl Drum Festival on the company's premises in Gutenstetten, Germany. The spectacular line-up delivered exactly what everybody came for: a day with a diverse range of artists, all giving incredible performances. Once again the organization of the festival was flawless. Drummerszone covered all the artists and asked if they could answer 10 questions in 10 minutes. This resulted in a few awesome and interesting interviews. First is UK drummer Richard Spaven, answering the 10 questions below in three videos.
Richard Spaven performed third on the festival day, after Adam Marko and Thomas Lang. Luke Holland was supposed to open the Meinl Drum Festival together with Thomas Lang, but he broke his leg a few weeks prior to the festival. Still cool though, Luke flew to Germany anyway, just to support the other artists.
'Whole Other*' In 2014, Richard Spaven released his second solo album 'Whole Other*'. A genius adventure in the style he feels most comfortable in when writing and producing his own music. A style that blends jazz, electronica and soundtracks. Just recently a Mala Remix came available of the track SideIISide from 'Spaven's 5ive'.
Richard Spaven is well known for his work with hip-hop and jazz vocalist Jose James, whom he travels the world with. As a recording artist he has many and just as divers references. For instance, you can hear his music on the Grand Theft Auto V soundtrack, on a track called 1759 (Outro) from his debut album 'Spaven's 5ive'. Other big names on his resume are producer Flying Lotus, The Cinematic Orchestra, Guru's Jazzmatazz and Los Angeles based jazz singer Nailah Porter.
A few weeks after the release of 'Whole Other*' we recorded a video with Richard in the Flowriders Music Studio in Weesp, The Netherlands. In this video he talks about his Meinl setup that he hand picked at the Meinl factory. Unpublished until now, and a nice add-on to the other videos and his perfomance at the Meinl Drum Festival.
And that performance was one of a kind in the 10 years the annual drum show is running now. His stylistic and detailed way of playing is truly unique - and very welcome to be featured on the Meinl drummer party that lasted for ten hours. His cymbal technique is his very own, and, as you will see in the Meinl videos soon, he has his own way of playing and 'touching' them.
The 'Ten One-minute Questions' In three videos Richard gives the best answers you can think of to these straight forward questions. The first video starts with the question we asked all artists: why they choose to play Meinl Cymbals exclusively.
The ten questions in the videos are:
Can you describe what playing Meinl means to you?
What is your favourite Meinl cymbal?
What made you start playing drums, what was the trigger?
What do you still practice regularly?
The biggest mistake you ever made while performing?
Which artist playing this festival do you envy the most?
What is your message during a clinic like today?
Which three albums should everybody listen to?
What do you still aspire in music?
What is your main advice to the drummers out there?
