Adam Silverman : Nashville Session and Touring Drummer

Why Risen Drums?
In the past few months I’ve heard the question “who are Risen drums” from all of the backline companies that have been receiving them for my television appearances with Lauren Alaina. Without fail I’ll walk in, sit down behind the kit, play for a few minutes, the next thing all the sound guys are checking out the kits, it’s pretty awesome. So I figured I’d take the time to tell you all a little bit about my drums and why I use them for everything I do.

About Risen
Risen is a custom drum shop based out of Minneapolis, MN. They are a 100% custom drum shop in that you pick everything from the shells, sizes, hardware, colors, finishes, bearing edges, composition, pretty much anything to do with the drums, you have the option of choosing them. This has enabled me to get different configurations of different shells. As a studio player I like having options that sound unique and you can definitely get that from these drums. I have several Maple kits now and am working on Mahogany kits for tours next year.

Aside from being amazing craftsmen these guys stand by the belief of Christ Risen, and they work hard to have a company that honors God with their work, and that really makes it something special to me.

How I Found Them
I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Keith Anderson – the owner – but we’ve become good friends through many phone conversations about drums in the past few years. Back when I was drumming on the road with 33Miles I had the opportunity to play a Risen kit in Houston, TX. The church that we were playing in had a custom maple kit from them. I remember it was a tan satin finish with wood hoops. About 10 minutes into playing the kit I literally wrote down on my charts at the time that I wanted to get an endorsement and play those drums for the rest of my career. So here we are a few years later, and the dream came true.

The Long Story
A few years ago my buddy JP who plays for Echoing Angels put me in touch with Keith over at Risen, a few conversations and a few months later I had my first kit. I’m being honest here, I’ve played a million drums being on the road for the last several years, very few kits have ever sounded as sweet as my Risen Kits do naturally. The drums really manage to speak on their own, they have their own voices, and require very little external processing to make them sound massive. Also they always look amazing, from the basic satin finishes all the way to the crazy sparkle stuff and their wicked wraps, every kit always has that certain look about it that screams, “hey you, of course I look amazing, but just wait until you hear me…” haha.

If you’re looking for drums for studio work, tour, church, or pretty much anything I’d highly recommend that you talk to Keith. If you are on a budget, even their used kits stand out in the market and they hold up super well, I’ve had my kit on the road for 4 years now and it’s in perfect shape, and it sounds better than ever.

Just wanted to take the time to tell you how much I love these guys. Hope you all will check them out and get a chance to enjoy them too. Though I’m a self-admitted gear head, I’ve learned over the years that your drums are your voice, and they allow you to express yourself. These drums have always pushed me to be more expressive and they provide such a powerful voice for the work that I do musically.

http://www.risendrums.com

Today we celebrate one of my best friend Emmett’s 32nd birthday and I have a mixed emotion of both sadness and joy. Sadness because I miss him so terribly bad. Joy because I have so many incredible memories of being his friend. I’m sitting in a hotel room up in Massachusetts preparing for a show tonight in a country bar with Lauren and band and I just keep remembering funny stories about times we had hanging out. I miss those times so badly.

I carry Emmett’s snare drum case with me everywhere, and you’ll rarely see me on the road without a Team Emmett bracelet on. In fact, Emmett’s case appeared with me holding up my computer on The Ellen Show. I loved that you could see Stallings in bright white up there,  and the wristband can be seen on my hand on all of the shows we’ve done, live and recorded. I know they are small simple things, but they remind me of how fortunate I was to know him, and I know he would be so proud of me if he was here, and that helps keep me going when I’m worn out and tired, just knowing that he’s smiling about all of it. I can’t wait to see him and talk again and tell him about all this, he’s going to love to hear it.

Today as I play and work and live life I just can’t help but thank God again for the gift that Emmett was and still is in my life. I love you buddy, Happy Birthday!

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This past week on the road with Lauren Alaina has been a whirlwind of radio promotion events, rehearsals, TV performances, airplanes, hotels, and new experiences for me. It started out heading out to Kansas to do an event with a radio station for 1,000 screaming high school kids. It was an acoustic show with a small band, but it was super tight, and a great performance.

Then we fly up to Baltimore with WPOC to help promote a Breast Cancer fundraiser day at Turf Valley. I laughed the whole time I was staying there because I actually went to my senior prom in the hotel. I could remember my date, dancing, the fear about life, what was I going to do, would I make it as a musician someday? We were literally down the hall from all those memories, except this time, I was living out the dream I’ve had for so many years now. The show was great. They raised about $7,000 for cancer research, I got to see some of my aunts and uncles, and my mom and dad. It was a blessed day for me.

From there, we flew up to NYC for several days. I had a day off and wandered the city with my new friends. The city has always been overwhelming to me, but I could remember being on Broadway and seeing shows with old friends back in high school. I remembered ice skating near central park one Christmas; and again, I found myself living out my dream that I had when I was there as a kid.

The next day we arrived on the set of Good Morning America; the sun was far from being up. My stomach was in knots, I was sweating and nervous. As soon as I got inside, it was an amazing feeling of excitement and nervousness. I got my drums ready to go – sitting behind my Risen Drums, with my Paiste Cymbals, Evans Heads, Vater sticks in my hands, I had immediate peace about the performance. We had a chance to sound check everything, ran through the song a few times, then we headed off to get make-up done. After make-up, I got dressed, put my in-ears on, and started to nervously warm up on my practice pad in the hallway. About 20 minutes passed and we got the call to head down to the set.

As I was watching them interview Lauren, I was overwhelmed with happiness, feeling like all the work, blood, sweat, tears, practice hours, charting, networking… it was finally starting to pay off in a huge way. When they signaled me to start the song, I stopped thinking, I just fell into my drumset, and let my body do the work instead of thinking about it. Zach (The Band Leader) smiled at me about halfway through the song, it was going so well, it was like a dream come true.

When we hit the final beat of the song, I was like, oh my gosh, I did it, I made it through my first real live TV performance, and it was actually pretty awesome. All I could think about was the call from my wife afterwards, how much she supports me, how much my family, friends, and teachers had all played such a huge part in this. Afterwards, I took a million pictures, waved to the crowd outside, talked to fans in the studio there, and then went out for a celebratory turkey club with french fries :) haha. It was the best sandwich ever…

So that was my first real run with Lauren. Pretty awesome stuff going on. Don’t forget to catch us on The Ellen Show this coming Friday Oct. 21st!!

Hey Friends,

I hope this finds you all doing well. I’m actually sitting in the hotel in New York City trying to prepare myself mentally for the next few days of playing for all of these T.V shows, I’m so excited that I can hardly sit still. Of course listening to music always manages to calm me down. A few days ago my good friend Paul Reter released his debut solo album called “Paper Dreams” – I played drums on a good bit of this record – but check it out for the songs more than anything, they are all really cool, different styles, different feels, but overall I love listening to this one, and I would love it even if I didn’t play on it :) So if you’re looking for something new to buy that’s breaking the mold a little bit, check it out!

If you guys are interested please check it out here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/paper-dreams/id470663346 Thanks everybody and I’ll look forward to seeing y’all tomorrow morning on Good Morning America with Lauren Alaina at 7am on ABC, or in New York City if you’re so inclined to stand outside that early in the morning. haha.

Be blessed!

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So I am super excited and proud to announce that I am now officially the drummer for Mercury Nashville/19 Recordings/Interscope artist Lauren Alaina.

There is a really long story that goes along with this, if you want this version, please email me, but let me give you the short version. A few weeks ago, I was contacted by the band leader for Lauren Alaina, asking me if I was interested in playing drums for her. Lauren was the runner-up on this last season’s American Idol, and though I didn’t watch the season, I knew who she was from YouTube, and I jumped at the chance to work with her. She is in the process of releasing her debut country album called “Wildflower.” I was excited right away, so I went into rehearsals really hopeful and ready to rock some country music.

So we did a few full band rehearsals. The other players are fantastic. I won’t steal their thunder by posting their names, but I was in heaven working with these guys. Then Lauren came in to sing with us; she is an amazingly talented young woman, who has as cool of a personality as she does a voice, and it immediately clicked. She has so much experience already working with bands and working the stage, so it was a pleasure! So after working with everyone, meeting and working with Lauren, and a lot of prayer, I have decided that this is absolutely God’s will for me at this time in my life. So here comes the whirlwind. (Smiles).

Over the next several weeks, I will be making appearances with Lauren on national television shows. I will also be with her on a lot of her radio and promotional dates including a night at the famed Grand Ole Opry here in Nashville. She will be playing her upcoming new single “Georgia Peaches” on Good Morning America (Oct 11), Live! With Regis & Kelly (Oct 13); The Ellen Degeneres Show (Oct 21). For times, please see the Network’s websites and it should have your local listings.

I have also solidified artist endorsements with the following companies over the last several weeks. Some I’ve been with for a while now, but my deals are locked in tight and I am so excited for this. Risen Drums, Paiste Cymbals, Vater Drumsticks, and Evans Drumheads. This opportunity with Lauren is such a blessing and is already opening doors for me.

If you are interested in purchasing her record please check out her website at http://laurenalainaofficial.com

So I want to take this time to thank you all for your prayers, support, and love over the past several years of work that I’ve done to get to where I am at this moment. People think these opportunities happen over night, but they never see the sacrifice and work and prayer that it takes to get there. So I want to thank you all for being a part of this with me, and covering me in prayer as I’ve worked my way through this crazy town called Nashville. I appreciate all of you guys and I’m humbled and thankful for each of your friendships.

Be blessed, hope I see ya’ll out there with Lauren. Hope you’ll buy her record to support her, she deserves every bit of success she has already, and obviously, the more the merrier :) If you want to see our first acoustic show together you can view that here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyREDpI3_WU&feature=related

Be Blessed,

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In the last 2 weeks or so I’ve become completely addicted to Spotify. For those of you who aren’t using this yet, it’s basically a paid system where you can have on-demand music, and the artist gets paid anytime their songs are played. You pay a small monthly fee, and you can literally listen to anything that they have access too, and the best thing is that nobody’s getting ripped off here. Amazing.

Naturally as a drummer I decided it would be wise to figure out how to apply this new technology advance into my playing. So here’s what I’ve figured out, and maybe it’ll help some of you guys as well.

1) You can pull music by genre – much like Pandora – so if you want Hi-Hop, Jazz, Blues, whatever, you can pull anything if you just want to work through a particular style one day a week.

2) I can find music on there so I don’t have to have artists send me CD’s of songs they are looking to play. This is especially awesome in the Worship music circuit, the artists are getting paid for me listening to their stuff to write my charts, we don’t have to justify stealing it anymore :)

3) I have a ton of books that have “musical examples” of grooves, where you might get 40 seconds of the song that they could license for the book. Now with Spotify and pandora I’m able to listen to all these songs all the way through. I spend a great deal of time these days sitting down at night writing charts to every successful song on the radio.

Why waste the time charting these you ask? Well I’m so glad you asked. Charting has been one of the most effective learning tools I’ve had as a musician. If I can write it, I can play it, and if I can learn what’s selling records on the radio, there is a much greater chance that I’ll be able to pull of that feel more perfectly when I’m in a session situation. Plus, let’s face it, it’s more fun to play music, and more effective to learn using music than it is to play exercises all day long.

So take advantage of the technologies that are available to you, and find ways to apply them to your practices and to your life to help you reach your goals. If you don’t have goals, that’s another blog. haha.