Eric Singer Talks Drum Kit History And Design With 'Crash' Author David Frangioni

When producer, engineer and music technologist David Frangioni sat down to compile his newest book, Crash: The World's Greatest Drum Kits From Appice to Peart to Van Halen, he knew he needed to include two people: iconic drummer Carl Palmer of Emerson, Lake & Palmer and KISS drummer Eric Singer. Luckily, he managed to get them to write the book's introduction and conclusion, respectively.

Crash, the 207-page illustrative book, features an up close look at the most famed drum kits in the history of rock’n’roll. The detailed images and text highlight the design behind the drums of bands such as The Beatles, Aerosmith, Iron Maiden, Rush, Metallica, Journey, Black Sabbath and more. It's like a high school textbook filled with a timeline of rock percussion.

For fans of KISS, the book comes fully loaded. Aside from a section dedicated to the band’s founding drummer Peter Criss’ 1976 Destroyer set-up, Crash features a ten-page spread featuring three of Eric Singer’s most legendary drum kits. Singer — who started playing alongside KISS in 1991 — is about to embark on the band’s End Of The Road tour.

Singer and Frangioni grew a friendship through both music and charity. In fact, many of Singer’s drum kits reside in Miami at the Drum Experience Center, a museum-like facility where kids in need learn to play. The center is a division of the Frangioni Foundation, which is directly receiving a portion of the sales from Crash.

Below, David Frangioni and Eric Singer discuss the drums that revolutionized music, a drummer’s expression and KISS kits past, present and future.

What was your approach to compiling this book?

Frangioni: It’s a celebration of drums, drumming, the drummer and the eras that these kits were a significant part of. Drums are one of the rare instruments where you can see a kit and it has an impact on you before you even hear it.

I really wanted it to be picture driven, so that people could enjoy the kits as if they were walking around a museum. For people who are more of a drum geek, they could dive in a little deeper.

Why do drums deserve such attention to detail?

Singer: The great thing about drums, they’re a very personalized instrument. Not that you can't custom paint a guitar or have a body of a guitar cut to a certain shape. But the thing about a piano or guitar, they generally have they the same amount of keyboards, keys, frets or strings.

Drummers can set up a kit to physically suit their needs, based on the fact that we're anatomically built differently from each other. I'm 5'6", so I'm gonna set up the drums to suit my physical stature.

Some people want to express themselves on just three or four drums. Others want 10 or 15. That individualism is expressed throughout the book.

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