Chad Smith Quotes

It's interesting. I've known quite a few good athletes that can't begin to play a beat on the drum set. Most team sport is about the smooth fluidity of hand-eye coordination and physical grace, where drumming is much more about splitting all those things up.

It's been years and years and years I've been playing the drums, and they're still a challenge. I still enjoy using drumsticks and a snare drum.

Drumming is so hard.

I consider every drummer that ever played before me an influence, in every way.

The golden rule of drums is hands clapping and feet tapping, and when you are in and out of consciousness, you can't do that to best of your ability.

How can you not love a man banging on the drums? He knows how to keep a rhythm.

The heart of a music is its rhythm. The heart of rhythm section music is the rhythm.

Playing drums, for me, is like breathing. It's like thinking. It's like eating. It's like walking.

Obviously, I like the drums to be heard. I think they're important.

My playing is always just a little on top of the beat. I can't lay down the kind of groove that Brad Wilk can. I'd really have to lay back to do that; it just doesn't feel natural to me.

When I watch drummers, I always want to see energy. It's not about the proficiency of the musicianship; I'm just into the vibe and excitement of it. With drums, it's such a primeval thing.

Perhaps of all the most basic elements of music, rhythm most directly affects our central nervous system.

To me, drum soloing is like doing a marathon and solving equations at the same time.

I have exactly as much rhythm as you think I have.

The bass should be the note of the bass drum, and then you've got the engine of the band that everything else builds on. Everything else, the guitar, the keyboards, is a colour.

My body doesn't have any rhythm, you know. I've got quite good rhythm when I'm singing but my feet are very much two left feet.

Music deals with time and timing. It's so magical, but when you get into it, every little sound and every little space between the sounds, it's critical, so critical. And if it's not there, it not only feels wrong, but it ruins things.

Drums just always sounded like the most fun part of that good music for me.

I play more rhythmically than I do a lot of notes.

But I've gravitated more towards the drum set.

In hindsight, if I could go back in time and relay a message to my younger self, I would tell him to work on his time keeping, and that the job of a drummer is not to be the one that gets noticed the most on stage, or to be the fastest, or the loudest. Above all, it is to be the timekeeper.

I like rhythmic things that butt up against each other in a cool kind of way.

The drums tell me everything. Everything else registers a millisecond later.

Rhythm is born in all of us. To be a desirable dancing partner, you don't have to do all the intricate fancy steps that happen to be in vogue. All you have to do is be a good average dancer, and anybody who spends the time and effort can accomplish this.

Being a drummer, I'm always like, 'Oh, that's got a funky beat. That's cool,' and I like to dance.