ARTIST FEATURE AUGUST 28, 2019
Marco Minnemann
– live the musician’s dream
– live the musician’s dream
For many people the practiced profession or a job, factually spoken, is a gainful employment. That’s it. A means to an end. Working in order to earn money.
Marco Minnemann has quite another attitude towards his “gainful employment”. He belongs to the people who found their profession in their job and this made him a worldwide know drummer.
However, he first made his way via other instruments which you wouldn’t compare with drumming at first sight – organ and guitar. And yet: the organ gave him a first feeling for playing with hands and feet, the guitar shaped his dexterity. When he started with drumming, he was driven by the idea to play an instrument where he could use hands and feet equally. Thus, he challenged himself by playing those notes by hands which were meant for the feet and vice versa. As a basis for practicing he took, among other things, textbooks and orchestrated for example George Lawrence Stone’s book “Stick Control” that originally serves as a workbook for the snare. But quickly he reached the limits of his possibilities with his drum set. Therefore, he started expanding his standard setup little by little, first with a second hihat, then a kickdrum, another gong-tom. Thus, he developed an extraordinary way of playing. Rather unique at that time of his career, but the beginning of his until today excellently played 6-way-independence-style.
Marco Minnemann feels comfortable with many styles, whether rock, metal, funk, jazz or pop. Above all he is far more than “only” a drummer. He is a multi-instrumentalist, writes his own songs in his studio, both for his solo albums and his band “The Aristocats” and works together with a lot of well-known bands and musicians as a producer. When he writes he always thinks of the musician and imagines his respective interpretation. Thus taylor-made compositions are created. And he still has lots of fun playing all instruments by himself for his pieces.
But also, live business is anything but a necessary evil for him. On tours he loves the direct bond between him and the audience and can hardly wait for the show to finally start.
In a nutshell: Marco really fancies his “jobs”. We could experience this close when we accompanied him at the Loreley (Amphitheatre, Germany) some time ago and when he visited us in our studio afterwards.
A fantastic musician who says with conviction and experience: “If music is your profession, then it will find you, I’m sure.” That motivates, doesn’t it?!