Hosting a Drummer Podcast.

How A Podcast Was Born.

At the time of writing, the podcast I co-host has been going for 12 episodes, about 4 months, and episode 13 will be recorded later today.

The podcast is called Count Us In and in it myself and my drummer co-hosts Harry Surman and Jamie Joiner discuss working as full-time drummers and the things that entails such as practicing, equipment, learning songs, playing in bands, teaching and gear geek stuff.

We don’t have a massive following – (yet! fingers crossed)  but we have been getting some great feedback and have listeners in over 10 countries in Europe, the USA and Australia. ‍

Three Drummers, Talking Drums.

So how did it start? Well, Harry, Jamie and myself met at a drum camp and hit it off (pun intended) so started having the occasional WhatsApp video chats due to us not living particularly close to each other.After a few of these had gone on for over an hour and often went down a rabbit hole of drum geekery I mentioned that maybe these chats would be of interest to other drummers. With that in mind we decided to switch over to Instagram and put out these discussions as ‘live chats’. These went really well but our listeners were limited by not always being available at the time of the broadcast due to, ironically, working as drum teachers or being at a rehearsal etc. Us drummers do a fair amount of our work in the evenings! 

Due to this we thought having our chats recorded and put out as podcast would allow people to listen whenever they could.

How Do You Start A Podcast?

I once heard someone say that if there’s something new you want to get into or do you should imagine that you are already an expert in it and then the do the stuff an expert would do to get the thing done. This was really good advice as having this mindset as well as also giving ourselves a ‘go-live’ target did two things.

1.    It gave me the impetus to prioritise the work required to get things of the ground by tricking myself that this needed to be done by a certain date.

2.    With my newfound imagined expertise, it gave me the confidence to do the research into what platforms would work for us as well as what hardware was required and get it purchased and all set up and tested.

To be clear, this second point was only a mind game I used within myself. I never made out to be something I’m not to people and should not be confused with the phrase ‘fake it till you make it’. I’m not sure I 100% agree with fake it until you make it as it infers that someone should not be open or vulnerable about their level of knowledge or skill in a given thing. I did find it a really useful mental tool though with which to overcome my natural aversion to shy away from stuff I know I’m uncertain of.

So now me, Harry and Jamie had the platforms and kit in place and worked out costs and how we would split these up we set up and gave it a go…. that’s it.

We were recording a podcast… Well, actually we weren’t.

We were testing out stuff to make sure the audio quality was good, we understood how to edit it, mix in our title music and pre-recorded introductions and upload the completed episode. I’m someone who’s likes to get stuff right first time… this is not suitable for this process! I had to embrace the fact that we needed to learn this stuff and take notes and amend things from giving it a go and trying again. And not overthink things too much.

Things I Learnt From Starting A Podcast.‍

• “Start small, just start.”  Don’t compare what others are doing, you’ll get there, it won’t be fully formed straight away. Everyone is on a learning journey and growing as they go. You’re only seeing their current best version not all the tweaks and adjustments along the way. They were once where you are now.

• Embrace the first pancake – we only make pancakes once a year, we don’t practice it all year round so the first one on Shrove Tuesday is always a bit ropey – it’s ok, you need this one to learn from and make the second one better.

• This was learning a new set of skills and knowledge – Just like learning the drums! This helped me empathise with my drum students.

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Want to Listen to The Podcast?

Listen here on Spotify or Apple or search ‘Count Us In' on your podcast provider.

So, drum students remember the following when getting to grips with a new beat or fill.

1.    Embrace the first pancake and accept it. The struggle makes it worthwhile and will be far more satisfying.

2.    What would an expert drummer do? – Practice and have a practise of practice. Schedule your time and define what it is you are going to do in advance.

3.    Be open to recognising what you need to work on and be your own quality controller in terms of what you are playing.

4.    Don’t compare other drummers to you -  yes, use them for inspiration! But don’t compare their perceived skill set with yours, control your controllables and focus on your journey.

5.    Ask for advice and assistance, chat with other drummers or your teacher, don’t have a teacher? – get in touch for an online coaching session or face to face lesson.

Drop me a line here Matt Lacey Drummer.com/contact

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy the podcast and thankyou if you’re already an avid listener. The Count Us In Podcast has a newepisode out every two 2 weeks on a Friday.

Follow us on Instagram - @countusinpodcast

Cheers,

Matt.

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