Seven or eight people have asked me about the snare drum I used on "Clean Living," one of two new War on Drugs tracks I have the honor of playing on. So here's the story...
It's a Mastro drum, a plastic snare made in the 1960s, which you can still find at a fair price on eBay and Reverb. Not So Modern Drummer has a brief background on the Mastro here.
Though it's made of plastic, I'd hardly call it a toy. It's a pretty well-assembled drum. The shell, lugs and rims are plastic. The head seemed kind of plastic-y. The snare wire and tension rods (which you tune with a flat-head screwdriver) were the only metal parts.
It was one of a half-dozen or so snares they had on hand at Boulevard Recording in Hollywood where we were tracking. Clay Blair, the studio owner, recommended trying to work it into the mix. And once Clay told me Jim Keltner uses a Mastro regularly (and apparently has several in his arsenal, using them sometimes as toms) that was all I needed to hear.
The trick with the Mastro (as per Clay) is to play it with a SUPER light touch. The lighter you hit it, the bigger it sounds on tape/hard drive. That made it a perfect choice for “Clean Living.” I played traditional grip and just kind of let the stick in my left hand drop from between my thumb and index finger so it barely grazed the head. Couple the light touch with Shawn Everett's mic placement (I believe there was a Moongel involved, too) and we got a dense, deep, spooky snare sound that suited the tune perfectly (as did my 22” K Constantinople Medium Thin Low Ride w/sizzles – the quick decay of the eighth notes linger nicely in the wide open spaces of the song, I think).
So that's the story with the Mastro. Adam loved the sound of it so much he bought one for himself. I gotta get around to doing that... but right now I'm too caught up in trying to assemble a Slingerland Rolling Bomber kit. More on that soon...
P.B., 9/1/17