Last October, I saw a post over on r/Drums where somebody asked about the Chon track “Story” off of their 2015 debut. The poster was asking about what was going on at the end of the tune, around the 3:10 mark. Have a listen yourself.
I tend to be pretty tough on internet drummers since many of them don’t really know what’s going on, especially when we start talking about “theory” (to the extent drumming even has theory behind it). On the r/Drums post, some people chimed in and tried to help, but most of them were overthinking it, going on about time signature changes and the like. All good intentions at least.
Things got worse when I watched the music video OP shared, where I found this train wreck of a comment thread:
Oof. Where do I even start… and why is it always the case that the folks who are the loudest are the most off the mark? I wish you could dislike comments on YouTube, but you can’t do that because it’s a pretty dysfunctional website. I would link to the comment thread so you can read all of it, but I can’t do that because YouTube is a pretty dysfunctional website.
So, what is going on with the end of “Story” that’s got everyone in a tizzy? Well, after giving it a few listens, I was pretty sure I had it figured out: the drummer shifts from straight 16ths to a half-time shuffle, but with some off-beat triplets on the hi-hat to give it a unique lope.
The song’s main riff alternates between 4/4 and 7/8, but for the life of me, I don’t hear any time signature changes during the outro. I even transcribed the parts from the rest of the band, and I’m certain they play the same four-measure vamp until the end:
What seems to be getting everyone’s attention is how the off-beat triplet stuff clashes with the straight 8ths and 16ths from the guitars.
Is it a polyrhythm? Well, I guess you could consider 16th note triplets over straight 16ths to be polyrhythmic, but that sort of misses the point of what polyrhythms are supposed to be — I can’t really say that there’s anything like a strong “3 over 2” drive to this section.
Polymeter? No, absolutely not; everything fits nicely into bars of 4/4. HazedHD, if you’re somehow reading this, I am here to lay down the law. Different rhythms that are split between instruments ≠ polymeter.
Dotted 8ths? Hemiola? A pattern that resolves after two measures of 4/4? Ugh… people, save yourself some trouble and just do a little bit of math.* Look, I could go on all day here, but the long and short of it is that people are really overthinking this.
It’s an ongoing plight in the drumming world — people touting buzzwords to flex their crackpot music theory, only to end up looking a bit silly. To quote Todd Bishop, “If something has a name, you can talk about how awesome it is, and about who’s good at and who sucks, and you can distinguish yourself from those poor clueless outsiders who don’t know about it.”
Oh, by the way, don’t get it twisted, I think it’s a pretty bitchin’ ending; I really love the hi-hat barks he starts throwing in at the very end. Also, the fill that kicks off the ending groove swings hard. I think it’s played on just two toms — I’ve seen the drummer use both three and two toms from time to time on live shows, but I don’t know what was used in the studio. Whatever, it’s still great. Edit: see my update below.
I don’t know much about this drummer Brian Evans; I’m not sure what the dude even looks like (I seem to be running into that problem a lot lately). I thought the drummer on “Story” was full-time Chon drummer Nathan Camarena, the guy who plays it live. Nathan drums on some of the songs on Grow, and of all people, Matt Gartska shows up to play as well (check out the album credits here).
I guess Brian is some sort of drum instructor who was working with Nathan when Chon did this LP. I assume he just hopped on Nathan’s kit in the studio, but who knows? It’s kind of a weird situation; unless I’m working with Steely Dan, I don’t know how I would feel about other drummers randomly jumping in on my drum kit. Whatever works for them.
I was prepared to marvel about Nathan laying this tune down when he was ~17 years old, but unfortunately, that’s not the case on “Story”. I mean, it’s still pretty impressive to cut a prog album when you’re a teenager. Much more impressive than some kid on YouTube learning classic rock tunes note-for-note… erm, did I say that out loud?
Update 8/27/21: Believe it or not, Brian Evans actually reached out to me this past week regarding my post; someone sent it to him, and he messaged me on Instagram to talk about it and provide some more insight. He explained that he doesn’t really kick Nathan off the set in the studio — rather, Brian is a founding member and is the go-to guy for tracking drums on the records.
So it was actually Nathan who would hop on the kit in the studio, working off of demos from Brian. Brian also confirmed that Matt Garstka did join in on the sessions for Grow. They both worked on the same tunes and let the rest of the band pick which takes they wanted. They figured a little competition would bring an edge to their performances.
Brian gave more info about his process: he seems to be well into the studio player kind of mindset, i.e., show up, hear the tune, and play it. He doesn’t enjoy playing on tour all that much, as he’d rather have the recording be the final word on the piece. Hence, two drummers for two different situations.
Brian told me that he tends to eschew planning out his parts well in advance of tracking. Instead, he throws in a healthy amount of improv to keep things fresh. I don’t think I could ever hack it that way, but it certainly works for him.
One last thing: Brian confirmed that the kit used on this album had three toms, and I’ve updated the sheet music accordingly.
So there you have it. Pretty cool to get the inside scoop from a real professional!
* ^ A lot of this stuff is intuitive to me: a dotted eighth rhythm won’t resolve in 2 measures of 4/4. You have eight 8th notes in a bar of 4/4, but the LCM of 4 and 3 is 12, not 16. So that would make it three bars to resolve. But it doesn't even matter because that isn’t even happening in the damn song.
