Sam’s Town

02/04/2010 by Amy H. Johnson 1 Comment

I recently got a copy of Rhythm: The UK’s Best-Selling Drum Magazine from the Awesome Jill. This issue from December features cover boy Larry Mullen, Jr. who gives an interview to the magazine. This is always exciting because Larry doesn’t do a ton of press, and any he does is with the rest of the band. But he occassionally speaks exclusively to drummer magazines being a big supporter of his vocation.

The most exciting thing however, wasn’t even the rare Larry interview but one with My Hero Sam O’Sullivan, Larry’s long term drum tech! As I have detailed before, Sam has a tough job attending to Larry and being in charge of U2’s crew, but he must be good because he’s been with them for over 20 years.

This “Gear Chat” is really charming. Sam clearly is devoted to his job and to his boss as he uses “we” a lot as in …we don’t use any gates on the drums and …we wanted big heavy shells (whatever any of that means!) He’s also very protective of Larry challenging any notions that he endorses specific brands, he never has been, you can check any music magazines for the last 25 years. And this is my favorite – his pride in how few drumsticks Larry goes through in a show: Very rarely do they break, only if there is a hairline split in them which is very, very rare. He doesn’t break sticks.

And how cute is this? He refers to U2 as the four boys!??

Here’s a cool view of Larry’s kit. I totally want Sam to run a “Drum Tech Camp” so I can attend and then go get My Imaginary Job with Ronnie Vannucci.