“I’m in Djibouti Africa and I’m recording studio quality songs with no synthetic instruments,” says DrumTracks.com user Glen Poland. “I travel a lot, so carrying a drum kit around is out of the question, even an electronic one.” Poland, who is a drummer himself, only has his guitars with him where he works in East Africa. But he wanted to record some of his music as a hobby. “There aren’t many people to play with [where I am] so I decided to start writing,” he explains. “Just record as much music as I can and create a library of tunes.”
In order to start writing, Poland needed a great-sounding drum track to build from; and being a drummer, he couldn’t settle for anything less than the real thing. “I can hear the kick drum pedal squeaking in Led Zeppelin’s ‘Since I’ve Been Lovin’ You,’” he says. “Not many people can hear that and know what it is. These are real drums, and I can tell.”
Poland found DrumTracks.com while searching the Internet for drum backing tracks and was quickly sold on the concept. “After listening to a few, I was hooked. These tracks were real. I downloaded one and wrote an arrangement around it… It was great.”
Growing up in Plymouth, MA, Poland was exposed to the drums and rock music from a very young age. As a teenager, he started playing electric guitar. “A high school friend brought me to his house and did the Back to the Future thing with me: he slung a guitar on me, placed my fingers on the fretboard, cranked the amp, and told me to hit it,” he remembers. “It was a loud, electrifying A power chord and I fell in love.” Poland soon started playing in a band and listening to hard rock and heavy metal music, one of his biggest influences being Dokken.
Now in his new home of Africa, Poland found motivation to record his own music through his sister, who recently went on a world tour as a background singer for the Scissor Sisters. And his musical inspiration always starts with the drum track. “As a former drummer, I am inspired by the beat,” he says. “It will instantly give me a mental picture. Then I use chords and phrases to try to describe that picture with music.”
After his experiences with DrumTracks.com, Poland has many reasons to keep coming back to the site. “They are real drum tracks that I can buy and own, and it is thousands of dollars cheaper and takes less time than hiring a studio drummer. I get the studio quality tracks and, if I need to, they will make a special track any way I want. That’s priceless.”
He also has big plans for his new recordings: “My ambition is to see them sold for TV or movie production work. I had no idea some of these would sound as good as they do. The tracks are phenomenal when you play along with them.”
And what does Poland do when he’s not rocking out in his East African home? “I scuba dive and drink Jack Daniels. In that order.”
You can listen to Poland’s music here: http://drumtracks.com/glenpoland
Tags: Drum tracks, glen poland, heavy metal, tracks for guitarists