Last night at the Democratic National Convention, Alicia Keys performed “Girl On Fire” to introduce Hillary Clinton.
Our Dylan Wissing recorded the drums for that song back in 2012. This song ended up becoming the lead single for Alicia’s Grammy Winning, Platinum Selling, #1 record “Girl On Fire”. Here’s a video on how that performance and sound were achieved.
Alicia Keys has just won the Grammy for Best R&B Album with “Girl on Fire”! Indie Studio Drummer’s Dylan Wissing played drums on the title track. This makes the second Grammy win for Wissing, with four career nominations to date. Of course, this makes the zillionth Grammy win for Alicia Keys – congratulations, Alicia and crew!
Nick Ruffini of Drummer’s Resource leads this nice in-depth interview with Indie Studio Drummer’s Dylan Wissing. Over the course of an hour Nick and Dylan discuss drums, music, starting out, the state of the music industry, and a whole bunch of other things.
Very pleased to announce that our resident studio drummer Dylan Wissing has contributed drum tracks to two albums that got Grammy nominations in 2014 – Kanye West’s Yeezus (Best Rap Album) and Girl on Fire by Alicia Keys (Best R&B Album). This makes a career total of four Grammy nominations and one win (Drake, Take Care, Best Rap Album 2013) for Wissing. Fingers are crossed for the awards show January 26th…
DRUM! Magazine’s July 2013 issue features session drummer Dylan Wissing of Indie Studio Drummer in the “Single Strokes” column. Wissing discusses the challenges of building a studio that was hit by two hurricanes in a row, as well as his work with Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Drake and others. The full article is available here:
We’re huge fans of the recording/engineering blog SonicScoop, so it’s a real honor to be featured on their site. “Is this innovative studio the new king of NYC drum rooms? Our latest ‘Sweet Spot’ is a strong contender,” says SonicScoop. Take a peek at our massive wall of drums, too (and that’s only a fraction of the collection)!
www.sonicscoop.com/2013/03/10/recording-sweet-spot-triple-colossal-studios-hoboken-nj
Session drummer Dylan Wissing in his Triple Colossal Studios of Hoboken, NJ. Providing Grammy-winning, Platinum selling, #1 Charting drum tracks to everyone!
– Photo by Kristie Andreula for Frontkick Productions, www.frontkickproductions.com 
The wall of drums in Triple Colossal Studios – sets and snares from GMS, Drum Workshop, Ludwig, Slingerland Radio Kings, Leedy Black Elites (engraved brass and one ply mahogany), Gretsch and Tama. www.indiestudiodrummer.com/triplecolossalstudios
– Photo by Kristie Andreula for Frontkick Productions, www.frontkickproductions.com
The Triple Colossal microphone preamplifier rack: API 3124, A Designs Pacifica, Universal Audio 4-7110d, Seventh Circle Audio lunchbox with N72, A12 and T15 pres, and a vintage stereo Magnacordette tube pre.
In a distant land long ago, our resident session drummer Dylan Wissing graduated with a degree in French from Indiana University. Old worlds are now colliding with new: it’s Dylan’s first appearance in Batterie Magazine from France! The translation, helpfully provided by the article’s author Patrick Buchmann:
Alicia Keys’s newest album has an impressive number of producers, arrangers and programmers. Only Dylan Wissing plays live drums on « Girl On Fire » which seemed programmed though. It’s just the other way around here for ‘When it’s all over’ : sounds pretty much like the real drums were played but they were programmed with ‘maestria!’
Dig the transcription to Alicia Keys’ song “When It’s All Over” – a completely programmed part, but it sounds amazing (and fooled Patrick and I into thinking it was tracked live by some badass jazz drummer). Vive la France!
What a way to close out the year: playing drums on the lead single from Alicia Keys’ Billboard Top 200 #1 charting Girl on Fire, and receiving a Grammy nod for Drake’s Take Care (Best Rap Album)! We’re tracking like mad around here.
It’s been hard to keep up with website updates, with all the stuff that’s been going on around here. We’ve been tracking drums like mad fiends (even had the Rolling Stones’ horn section in recently for a session), finished building the new studio after the damage from last year’s hurricane, and spent a couple weeks dodging Hurricane Sandy. Here are some of the highlights:
Our resident session drummer Dylan Wissing is playing on the title track and lead single of Alicia Keys‘ latest release “Girl on Fire” with Nicki Minaj.The recording took place in June at Alicia’s personal Manhattan studio (and that’s a pretty sweet place…). The great Ken Lewis was engineering, with Indie Studio Drummer’s Matt Teitelman assisting on the drum teching. As of this writing the album is #1 on iTunes, and the single is on radio charts all around the world. Check out the video:
Another recent session was for Fabolous and his track “SoNY,” adding old school funk fills. More work with Ken Lewis (Matt T. assisting), for Hip Hop producer extraordinaire Just Blaze. Fairly high-pressure session, as I was on the road with Blues/Soul singer Kirsten Thien when the call came in. It was a mad dash to get back to the studio from the final show in Maine, and a sprint to get the kit miced, the parts learned, and the tracks sent to Ken. Fabolou’s song was on the radio about three days after our parts were sent. Check out the video, with some powerful footage from Hurricane Sandy:
On a completely different side, recently tracked the song “Wouldn’t Be a Merry Christmas” with Grammy-winning producer Steve Addabbo (Shawn Colvin, Suzanne Vega) for artist Elizabeth Chan. Elizabeth is featured on Morgan Spurlock’s show Failure Club. Her debut EP “Naughty & Nice” hit #4 on iTunes Holiday Music chart, with the single in iTunes Top 25.
Indie studio Drummer’s Dylan Wissing has been on tour for several weeks this year with Blues/Soul sensation Kirsten Thien. In May, Kirsten and the band (an amazing group of musicians and people, with David Patterson on guitar, and Erik Boyd and Johnny Pisano sharing the bass chair) travelled across the US to Washington State. The band travelled to Europe in October for an amazing sixteen days of shows. Here’s live footage from a date opening for the great Dickey Betts.
After Hurricane Irene destroyed our former studio last year, we’ve spent a good part of the year building our fabulous new Triple Colossal Studios in Hoboken, New Jersey. Happy to report that, once the water receded and power came back on, our families, homes, studio and vehicles were all completely unscathed by this year’s Hurricane Sandy! Sad to say that the same can’t be said of a good deal of our beautiful little town – thousands here (and all over the region) lost everything. Please help support Rebuild Hoboken to bring this town back to life.
It’s been a great year so far (with a couple weeks of hurricane madness) at Indie Studio Drummer, with more amazing and inspiring projects coming up.