Rob Hirons is a drummer, clinician and educator based in Marseille, France. He currently tours with countless musicians performing hundreds of live shows in Europe as well as doing extensive live and recorded work in France. Amongst his performance credits are tours with english pop group St Christopher in Europe and in California as well as playing and recording in England with such groups as The Rob Donnelly Band, Hengist Pod, King Ivory Blues Band and many others. He has played with Marseille based group Watcha Clan on two studio albums and two live albums and played for their “Nomades AKA” tour and the “Le Bastion” tour taking the group throughout France as well as concerts in Spain, La Reunion and Algeria. Rob recorded the drum sessions for the album “Nationalité Vagabonde” in 2009 for Rumanian singer, actress Rona Hartner as well as playing drums on the “Nationalié Vagabonde” tour. He has also teamed up with blues guitarists Vincent and David Hofmann to form the powerful blues rock outfit Hofmann Family Blues Experience and has played on the albums “Blues Heritage” and “When the Guitars Slide the Blues” as well as recording their new album “You’re My Slave” and the accompanying live DVD.

As an active clinician, Rob performs drum clinics and masterclasses for schools and drum events. Each year he presents the Wizdom Drumshow in Marseille encouraging younger players to take to the stage and give their best performance. He has performed two years running at the Tam Tam drum show in Montlucon alongside Carmine Appice, Damien Schmitt, Felix Bohnke, Gérald Manceau, Jean Marc Lajudie, Julien Patoue, Christian Vander, James Kottak and many others, as well as hosting teaching sessions during the two day event. Rob is also a performer at the Breizh Drum Session in Rennes with Julien Goepp, JB Perraudin, Sebastien Rambaud, Damien Schmitt, Piwee Desfray et Dawoud Bounabi and is one of founding members of the Creative Drum Clinic MIC team alongside motivational drum clinician Garry King. Rob also maintains a busy teaching schedule at the WizDom Drumshed in Marseille teaching students in France as well as coaching up and coming players from around the world who travel to the studio for intensive training or take long distance study sessions via the internet.

Rob has studied drum set techniques with Ray Payne, Ronnie Bottomley, Dave Hassell and Tony Faulkner in England as well as with Dom Famularo at the WizDom Drumshed in Long Island, New York. He studied at the City of Leeds College of Music where he gained his Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree in Jazz Studies certified by Leeds University with studies in Composition and Arranging, History and a major in Performance.

Rob endorses Mapex Drums, Sabian Cymbals and Vic Firth Sticks.

Interviews

2011 - EBGraf Web Magazine

Drummer and versatile musician, able to explore music from classic jazz to electronic, to funk, to rock, Rob Hirons is also a teacher active and appreciated in France - his school is based in Marseille - with important international collaborations.

Appointed by the great american teacher Dom Famularo, Rob opened the only "WizDom Drumshed School" in France (and the first in Europe), giving to the public of the Old Continent a chance to learn the techniques improved by Dom Famularo without crossing the ocean.

A short interview will help to understand the motives, plans and ideas of Rob, a musician who is a great resource for European music.



EB: Why the drums?

RH: Well, you know, I tried a few instruments before that. When I was a lot younger I tried the violin! When I was at school, I was fascinated by seeing other drummers play in the drum room at dinnertime. It seemed like some kind of private club - just a little bit outside of respectable standards. We would take turns to play and there was some kind of hierarchy system between us all. It was a respect thing. It would be an exciting day when one of the top guys would be there. Everyone would be hanging on their every note, fascinated, just as you would find when you go to a clinic today. I would spend the whole morning waiting to go up to the drum room at dinner time, then the whole afternoon waiting to go back after studies to stay until the cleaners threw us out at 6:30 - or later if we could get away with it! We used to get told to play stop playing so loud all the time. The teachers used to come from the staff room at the other side of the school to tell us! I'm not a rebel type of guy, but it was kind of fun causing a little bit of a disturbance. I wonder if they'll get to read this… Sorry you guys!

EB: What convinced you to consider the music your job?

RH: I never really considered anything else. It was just a question of 'how' rather than 'if'. I worked in a lot of different unhopeful jobs just to make money while I was playing music until I realized that that was just not something I was prepared to do any longer. So I did two things : Firstly I started playing and teaching professionally. Rob Donnelly in England employed me as his drummer and this helped me so much to get out and play live. Since then I have never stopped. I was teaching on Saturdays at the Northern Drum Center in Bradford at the same time. The second thing I did was to return to education, and I gained my Honours Degree in Jazz Studies at Leeds College of Music. I did this for my own personal satisfaction. I felt it was an important part of my personal growth to complete the educational side of my career even though I knew I would never need it for my job. It was a question of principle and I owed it to myself and to my parents who had spent years worrying, to have my official education up to scratch. Since then, it has never stopped being a question of 'how'. When music is your job, you need to constantly adapt and make it work whatever it takes. It's a business, and like any business you need to be conscious of developments and adapt to them. Times and trends change and anyone who has ever had any success has known how to adapt to what happens around them in the business. This is the most important part of the job.

EB: You were born in Harrogate (England), and the United Kingdom for decades has been the cradle of pop and rock music - not to mention the United States. How did you open your school in Marseille?

RH: Actually it wasn't a conscious decision to open a school in Marseille. I landed here in the year 2000 for personal reasons as opposed to musical, and have stayed here ever since. But although the the power of rock and pop music is indeed concentrated in England and the USA, I have found that opportunities and encouragement for upcoming artists and projects is excellent in France. Musicians over here won't admit it of course because there is always the impression that the grass is greener on the other side, and I often talk about this with musicians who are convinced that opportunities are greater in the UK or the USA. But from my own experience, I have found that as a musician in England, you can either be struggling at the bottom searching for opportunities for years, or, by chance you get an opportunity and you find success. Here in France, there just seems to be a lot more support for musicians in between those two scenarios wether that be in terms of performance or education. You can find regular and exciting work in that gap between playing at the local pub and playing Madison Square Garden. It has admittedly gone downhill over the 10 years that I've been here with cost cutting and disappearing budgets, but it's still very positive. I don't know how England has developed on that front in the same time period.

EB: What did it mean for you to meet with Dom Famularo and WizDom Drumshed?

RH: Meeting with Dom and taking lessons at the Drumshed in New York is an experience that goes way beyond that of a simple drum lesson or even that of a drum lesson with the world's top teacher. It is really a lesson in how to look at your life and your career another way and make things happen. I have learned so much from him. As far as my playing is concerned, he has been instrumental in changing my whole sound. He has a way of helping you to discover things in your playing and then inspiring you to look further by yourself. That way of teaching also translates over to career management and he has a subtle way of inspiring development by showing the path but letting you take it yourself. Then he will be there to congratulate you. A true life coach!

EB: Reading your biography, the most surprising thing is your musical versatility - demonstrated also by the fact that you either teach jazz, rock and metal: you have chosen to become a complete musician, or just you love all the music beyond gender distinctions?

RH: Very good question! In fact I do indeed like many different styles of music. Also, like many people, what I like to play can sometimes differ from what I like to listen to. Actually, to answer your question a little more precisely, I don't necessarily have any particular musical styles that I prefer, I just like certain compositions. Take Metal for example. There are somethings I really like and some things I don't rather than just being a fan of metal in general. And I definitely don't like a particular composition because it has a good drum part or not, which is something that people often ask me about. As far as teaching and playing is concerned, I really appreciate the idea of being able to go from one style to another with conviction. I've always been naturally interested in drummers who can do this rather than drummers who are associated with a certain style. So naturally my playing has evolved in the same manner. I love the principle of playing a certain style of music with that level of authenticity with one group and then playing with another group and being equally convincing. The success of my playing career has always been based on being able to do this.

EB: What are your future plans in music and teaching?

RH: I love what I do. So my future plans consist simply of building on what I am already doing and finding the right balance between all aspects of my career. One part of my career I am trying to develop more is clinic performances. I really enjoy the idea of taking the educational aspect and adding the excitement of a larger audience to create an event. I am starting to do this more and more. However, I am coming to this at a time when organizing these events is becoming more and more challenging. Finding the financing for such events is really difficult, and I'm not even talking about getting paid to do them, I'm simply talking about making them happen. Unfortunately, the reality is such that it is becoming more and more difficult to get people to come to these events due to unlimited media access via the internet. There is so much available in terms of videos, lessons, music and information that it has become less necessary to make the effort to travel to a live clinic performance. Why pay to go to a clinic and be stuck in the 7th row when you can sit at home in your own armchair, beer in hand, and check out the same drummer and indeed any drummer you want with close ups of hand and foot techniques, different angles, different performances, as many times as you want, whatever time you want or even wherever you are if you have a smartphone? This is a great challenge to the business. We have to recognize that growing technology has its place in the music media business. I use extensive multimedia applications in my teaching at the Drumshed in Marseille and I am a big fan of applying all the latest developments and concepts like iPad, Facebook, Skype etc. As I mentioned above, we have to adapt to our times and be realistic about trends - especially when your job is to inspire young upcoming players. It's in their culture. Why ignore Facebook or the possibilities of new iPhone applications when the very people you are trying to inspire use this culture as their basis of communication? I don't want today's upcoming players to feel that my teaching has no place for their social network based culture. However, with all this technology, although the magnitude of our interaction and communication with others has vastly gained in breadth, we have gradually become used to a large lack of depth and the associated quality of our interactive activities has suffered. So we need to remind people of what they may have forgotten while using all this technology - the irreplaceable excitement and inspiration of a live events.

EB: Your biggest dream?

RH: My dream is to make a comfortable living out of drum education and to perform the very best that I can and to touch a maximum amount of people through that activity. I think it's really important to dream. Dreams are what inspire people to reach their potential. But I think it is good to transform a dream into a goal. I'm not talking about dreams like owning an personal island in the Caribbean or something like that, I'm talking about something that will inspire you to do the best you can. I don't believe in the concept of not having dreams so as to not be disappointed, neither of setting only 'realistic' goals. I think it's ok for dreams and goals to be at the very limit of the possibility range. You don't have to necessarily reach your dreams, but they need to be strong enough to make the journey exciting. It's not arriving at your dream that counts, it's the getting there that makes people give the best of themselves and make a difference for themselves and others. That's not to say that you shouldn't realize your dream. Simply, if we manage to arrive at our dream, the first thing to do is to find another! Take a guy whose dream it is is to build his own house. What attracts him is the idea of realizing the project and having the satisfaction of living in the house that he built. But it is very likely that once having built the house he will be itching to realize other projects - add a garage, make an extension, create a fantastic garden… This is because the best part about dreams is the road that leads to them. This is where we are at our strongest and have the most potential. Whatever your chosen career or personal path, you will give your best and have the most reward on the way to your goals rather than on arriving at them. The same goes for any situation. How good do you think a drummer would be if he thought he had reached his full playing potential? We enjoy watching the awe inspiring playing of our favorite drummers because those drummers are the ones that ask themselves 'where can I go with this' and 'what can I do next?' rather than being happy with their performance level. A true evolving player will never reach their performance goal, but we witness their fantastic playing because they have chosen to fight to get there.

You also can read:

The interview on EBGraf Music Blog (Italian blog by E.Berardi) >>

2010 - Hudson Music Website

HM: Where are you located, and where do you teach?

RH: I am currently located in Marseille in the south of France where I teach at my purpose built Wizdom Drumshed teaching studio.

HM: How many students do you teach, and what is their range of ability levels?

RH: At the moment we have a roster of over 70 students at the shed of all levels ranging from the youngest enthusiast of 9 years old, beginners of all ages and walks of life, intermediate players burning with the passion to develop into accomplished musicians and advanced players who seek to solve current challenges in their playing. It is fascinating to see students from so many different backgrounds united by the same passion.

HM: What are your favorite teaching materials?

RH: I use It’s Your Move by Dom Famularo which is an excellent book on drumming mechanics, and I support this with Stick Control (GL Stone), Master Studies (J Morello) and many others for technique development. I also enjoy using Groove Essentials (T Igoe) or Messin’ Wid Da Bull (J Salem) to develop musicality. For beginners I will often use Eighth Note Rock and Beyond (D Famularo / G Ceglia) and I’ve just started using Drumset for Beginners (P Hose / J Farey) which is an excellent book for getting new players into using their own creativity immediately. These are just a few examples, there are so many to choose from.

HM: How are you incorporating new media (DVDs, Mp3s, Internet, etc) into your teaching?

RH: With beginners I will try to get them playing along to a song as soon as possible and film them so they can take home a DVD or USB key and feel good about what they’ve done. Filming and recording students is so important to their development so they can really see for themselves where progress is to be made. With more advanced players we can focus in on the feet or the hands and get a close up on the main flat screen in the studio. It is also great to be able to demonstrate certain techniques using online videos or DVDs that are stocked in the studio. Jojo Mayer’s Secret Weapons for the Modern Drummer is excellent for supporting motion studies and recently I’ve been using exercises from Benny Greb’s Language of Drumming to develop musicality with my students. The Groove Essentials DVD is also fantastic as a support to the play along book by helping students to understand the different feels. With all that is available it is really possible to get the whole educational concept covered from all angles. So many teaching books today come with MP3 and video demonstrations and I have these loaded and ready on iTunes on my laptop linked to the sound system for instant access during lessons. After each lesson I send the student an electronic update by email with comments on their progress, books or DVDs to study and a web link to sites for them to check out for the next session. Not only is this a wonderfully effective way of teaching, but it also reflects to the student that we live in a world of ground breaking technology and that music is very much involved in this technological advancement.

HM: Do you have any funny anecdotes or stories from your teaching?

RH :Even though I am very serious about teaching, my studio is of the highest quality and I care deeply about each students progress, passers by could be occasionally forgiven for imagining otherwise. I tend to have a reputation for having a certain eccentric sense of humor which comes out in lessons. One of my favorite teaching experiences has been witnessing the development of one of my students who has Down’s syndrome. Although I enjoy developing the technical aspects of drumming with my students, with this particular student we really don’t touch on these subjects. My job is more to develop his creativity and musicality. One of my goals with all students is to nurture their own individual voice, something that is a challenge for many due to peer pressure and the younger player’s fear of error which can prevent them from letting themselves go. I have found that this particular student has no preconception about what others expect of his playing and therefore he is open to total creativity. Myself and others have thoroughly enjoyed performances that have featured all manner of creative input to find new sounds at the drum set, using sticks, brushes, hands, the scratching of drumheads, whistling, even the shaking of cymbal stands! Although his approach is of unusual and unconventional dimensions that would not necessarily be found in a teaching program of any sort, he is an inspiration to us all in his uncompromising willingness to share his own personal voice.

HM :What are your general thoughts on drumming, teaching, music….?

RH: Although it can be seen as a cliché, I truly believe that we are all teachers and are all students. What makes the difference is our openness to accept that fact. A student is someone who has chosen to be willing to absorb the knowledge that others have to offer and make it their own. A drummer who has chosen to accept the role of drum teacher is someone who has chosen to maximize their capacity and willingness to share their knowledge with others in an educational manner. All musicians of any level have something to share whether it is shared in an educational setting or in a performance setting. Simply by playing music we are sharing something with others, therefore, in a sense we are teaching and the listener is learning whether or not they are conscious of it.