Three Piece Drum Kits (2024)

I never really went through a live music phase.

I think I was on the verge of a live music phase when the world shut down in 2020. In December 2019 my wife and I saw Crooked Still at The Sinclair in Cambridge1, which capped off a couple years of incredible live bluegrass and folk shows that happened kind of by accident: Punch Brothers twice, Avett Brothers, and a live taping of Live From Here2 which featured the most unbelievable live performance by I’m With Her.

In the early days of the pandemic I started watch a lot of live music on YouTube. And soon I started getting more and more recommendations from the algorithm for Vulfpeck. I knew about their Christmas song and I knew Back Pocket, but I wasn’t prepared for this funk band to become my new obsession. I combed through their archives and memorized every song—even the instrumentals. I watched their concert at Madison Square Garden over and over and over3.

For the uninitiated, Vulfpeck is the brainchild of Jack Stratton, who writes most of the music and lyrics, plays guitar and drums and keyboards, and produces and manages the group. The rest of the band is comprised of drummer/guitarist/vocalist Theo Katzman, keyboardist Woody Goss, guitarist Cory Wong, pianist/saxophonist/vocalist Joey Dosik, vocalist Antwaun Stanley, and bass virtuoso Joe Dart. With the exception of Joe and Cory, the band is constantly reshuffling position on stage during their shows and swapping instruments with one another. Sometimes Jack and Woody play the on the same piano. Sometimes Theo drums and sings at the same time. Sometimes Theo will drum while Antwaun sings, then hop off the drums and sing a countermelody before sprinting back to the drums when the beat kicks back in. There’s one song where Jack and Theo play drums at the same time. Not two different kits, mind you: Jack is sitting at the drums playing the beat while Theo stands over his shoulder and plays a complimentary groove on the hi-hat.

I played drums in middle and high school, and most of those years I believed that the best drum kits had the most drums. I remember talking with great reverence about drummers like Neil Peart and his 900 piece kit4. I didn’t understand the point of being a drummer unless you could maximize the number of things you could hit with a drum stick. The ultimate goal, of course, was to perform an elaborate drum solo as the drums rise slowly above the stage and do a full barrel roll as I’m strapped in with a harness5.

I wish Vulfpeck (and YouTube) had been around when I was drumming. I don’t know if I would have had a different, less maximalist attitude toward drums and drumming if they had been, but I do know that these days I am way more impressed by someone making three drums, a hi-hat, and two symbols sound cool than someone with a kit so big you need to tunnel in from underneath it to actually play anything on it.

Vulfpeck has embraced the aesthetic of their low production values. A lot of their videos are filmed in a band member’s basem*nt or backyard. Their MSG concert was filmed from the stage by a friend of the band using an iPhone 7 in one continuous take6. The phrase “so funky and low volume,” taken from some stage banter on one of their songs, has become a mission statement of sorts: keep the instrumentation simple to highlight the catchy melodies and the brilliance of each person on stage. This culminates with an insane drum solo by guest musician Nate Smith. Seriously, check it out.

And despite their success, the band continues to perform with a three piece kit. The flash and style comes from the playing, not from the equipment. And that’s exactly how it should be.

Some Vulf specific recommendations:

1. Dean Town by Vulfpeck (Also on Spotify)

2. The Beautiful Game by Vulfpeck

3. Modern Johnny Sings by Theo Katzman

A Song, An Album, and A Playlist (Part 2):

Some other music that captures the same feeling:

1. Eyesore by Townland

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2. The Phosphorescent Blues by Punch Brothers

3. Low Volume (A few of my favorites from the 70s/80s that avoid the whole wall of sound thing.)