I think at one time every drummer wanted to play like Krupa or wanted to win a Gene Krupa drum contest. This is the big inspiration for drummers and naturally it has to be the same way for me.
If drummers are 'anti-solo,' that's up to them. They're musicians, and they can play whatever they want. But my inspirations early on were people like Buddy Rich, seeing him on 'The Tonight Show', or Gene Krupa.
Lars Ulrich is not a jazz drummer, but he grew up listening to jazz. Why? Because his father, Torben - an incredible tennis player - loved jazz. Jazz musicians used to stay at their house.
Led Zeppelin was pretty much what made me pick up drum sticks.
I'm not trying to be the next Dave Grohl or Phil Collins.
Lars Ulrich, he was my hero growing up. I wanted to be like him. I played the drums.
Actually, it's great to play with someone who tries to come up with interesting drum beats because it pushes the music in different directions.
I thought of Gene Krupa's drumming, his staccato drumming. I went and put 'Misirlou' to that rhythm.
I'm a street player, and all of my influences come from bands that I was listening to at the time when I was growing up. I was very impressed with guys like Mitch Mitchell. I liked rock and roll drummers, and I loved rhythm and blues guys like Clyde Stubblefield with James Brown. Man, that band blew me away all of the time.
I started out as a drummer, and when I was 9, my drum teacher had an album out. He was the rudiment king! He signed it for me, 'Rudimentally yours, Frank Arsenault.' How cool is that?
