The Birthday Massacre’s Philip Elliott - GEAR MASTERS Ep. 625

Every sound guy is always like, I want a Dorsen, I want a Dorsen. I've actually had this skin on for almost a year and a half. Recorded an album with it and toured it. It just takes a licking and keeps on kicking. 35 shows and I broke one stick. Hey there, it's Phil from The Birthday Massacre. We're out on the Dark Winter Tour. Co-headlining with Lord of the Lost from Germany and support from Wednesday 13. We're currently playing Chicago tonight. I think it's show 9. We've got about 5 or 6 more. Then we're headlining our way back up to Canada. The tour's been great so far. It's winter so you're going to get some bad weather along the way. Let's say we've had to move a couple of shows and stuff but everything's been good other than that and we're happy to be out here. This is a dark transparent black D-Drum kit. Dominion series, Birch. I've got a sponsorship with D-Drum the last couple of years. We've recorded our last two records on this kit. Both Fascinations and Pathways which is the album we're currently out touring right now. 12 inch, 13 inch Rat Toms, 16 inch Floor Tom and we have a 22 inch kick drum. For the snare I've actually used this for about a decade now. It's the Joey Jordison Signature Pearl Snare. Had that for a lot of years. Brought a bunch of different snares on tour and every sound guy is always like, I want the Jordison, I want the Jordison. So that's kind of been the one staple we've used for that. So the Joey Jordison snare is 13 inch which is a little bit different than most snares which are typically 14. For the heads we have Evans G2 Coated. I have a couple Moon Gels on there. And for the kick drum we have E-Mad which is a phenomenal, phenomenal skin. I've actually had this skin on for almost a year and a half. I've recorded an album with it and toured it. It just takes a licking and keeps on kicking. I'm not super particular about what brands and stuff like that but Evans has been kind of cool the last couple tours. I did use Remo for a while but I find I think with the Birthday Masker sound when we record there's not only acoustic drums but it's blended in with electronic drums so I find these skins are a little bit thuttier and they kind of meet more of what's happening on the record. And then on the snare drum we have a Janera Dry skin and that's kind of a... This one I just put on yesterday because I snapped one in soundcheck. We were only going to do one song in soundcheck and I was like, no, let's do another one. Thankfully we did because about five seconds in that other one broke. So this one's been in my case for a while. I don't really change my skins a ton. You know, they start sounding terrible. I'm going to do a shout out to Mike who is a phenomenal drummer in Wednesday 13. And yesterday we had a tight stage in... Where were we, Mike? Detroit? So we had to do a kit share and so Mike played on my kit. There just wasn't room for three kits as we see here. So I go to Mike, I'm like, tune him up and he did a phenomenal job. So I will admit that's never been my strength you know, the last 30 years is tuning, you know. Anyway, so that's it on there. So I've been playing Sabian exclusively for about 28 years. It's a Canadian company and just, I don't know, it's the sound I love. I'm basically doing mainly all AAX. I have 14-inch AAX stage hats. We have a 12... Sorry, 11-inch AAX Explosion Splash. 16-inch Medium Crash AAX. We have an 18-inch AAX Explosion Crash. I've had this symbol for probably 20 years. This is an AAX Metal Ride. 20 inches. And I don't even have to make that anymore. I've had that forever. This is kind of just a dirty stack. This is an old, I think, 18-inch Holy China by Sabian that got cracked. And under it I have an 18-inch Explosion Crash and it's just kind of a little bit more percussive sounding. And then this one was a new one I got for the last series. Yes, Stratus 18-inch. So that's pretty much it for the cymbals. Oh, one more I forgot. So this is kind of a random one. This is a 7-inch Radia by Terry Bozzio. Phenomenal drummer. He's got a whole line of those. I don't think they make them anymore, but I've had this for probably 20, 25 years too. So it's just kicking around in the cymbal bag. It sticks and using. I have an endorsement from an amazing Canadian company called Los Cabos out in eastern Canada. New Brunswick. I was lucky to visit the facilities this year on tour. Number one, being Canadian, I like supporting Canada. It's a home run business. We talk hockey. Me and Phil, the main guy there. I love the sticks, number one. The durability with these red hickories are unbelievable. I did a European tour a couple years ago, 35 shows, and I broke one stick. So it's pretty durable. Sometimes I use 7A's depending on the venue. I bring both on tour. I find some of the smaller stages so I'm not getting a lot of cymbal bleed in Chibi's ears, or in-ears. I use the 7A's. Usually I'll do the 5A's which are a little bit heavier, and both are usually the red hickory which are a bit of a heavier wood too. In terms of the hardware, it's kind of a mixed bag. Before I got my E-Drum endorsement, I had Tama Star Classics for 25 years. So these boom arms are from Tama. I think mainly all my cymbal stands are Yamaha which I find they just, you know, fold up nicely and fit in the hardware bags and they're fairly durable for the price point. I'm using a Pearl Hi-Hat stand. And then, you know, the most important thing I would say on the kit would be the double pedal. This one is a very, very old one. I've had probably about 12 years. Speed Cobra. And if you notice the one thing about it, the beaters are different. I had a session in Toronto and the engineer was saying to get a bit more attack on the beaters. So I've switched. I've just used these Power Shifter beaters by Pearl for the last, you know, 10 years or so. So, in terms of the throne, we have a lovely Mapex throne. And I actually just got this mixer by Art recently, a couple tours ago. And in terms of my in-ears, I'm using just pretty standard SE-215s. Nothing too crazy. Yeah, that's it for that side of things. But yeah, I'll be running all through Pro Tools ourselves. So one side is my tracks, one side is my click, and yeah. Once again, thanks for hanging out. Phil from The Birthday Massacre. We're out on the Dark Winter Tour playing in Chicago tonight. Co-headlining with Lord of the Lost and support from The Amazing Wednesday 13. We have about another 6 or 7 shows and then we're headlining our way back to Canada. And we're supporting our newest record which came out last year, Pathways. If you want to check it out, it's on all streaming platforms and if you want to check out more on the band, thebirthdaymassacre.com and of course we're on Instagram and Facebook and yeah. Thanks for watching. Cheers.