Modern Drummer (January 2002)
No Doubt’s Cellar Dweller
It's a given that No Doubt drummer Adrian Young's main passion and livelihood is playing music. The multi-platinum albums and numerous music-industry awards are proof enough. But Young also has a passion for something a little more relaxing than slamming out an hour's worth of rock songs in stadiums: golf.
In fact, Adrian is the former publisher of a hip, cutting-edge golf magazine called Schwing. He holds a membership at an exclusive country club in Los Angeles. And not only is his 1947 home decorated with golf memorabilia, it's also located a chip and a putt away from a golf course, which is the only sight out of his living room's front windows.
Young moved into his current house with his wife, Nina, and his cat, Sam, from tight quarters in the Naples section of Los Angeles. Young's place isn't in a posh, gated community in some snobby neighborhood, but it's certainly the polar opposite of a fixer-upper. "We definitely chose this place for the house, not the location," Adrian insists. And though his backyard is large enough for his and his wife's two hundred fifty wedding guests—and those enticing 18 holes are within spitting distance—the main selling point for Young's 6,100-square-foot property was the wine cellar.
"Once I saw that," Adrian says excitedly, "I thought, Oh my God, I could practice drums whenever! It took the house up another notch." Hidden underneath a couch in the living room, a trap door in the floor reveals a steep, downward staircase. Fifteen steps later, you're in Young's rehearsal room. This "L" shaped cellar accommodates his Orange County Drum And Percussion kit (a company where he's not just an endorser, but also one of the owners), a couple of small practice amps, the original wine racks, and not much room for anything else. It's a snug and intimate spot, but it's one of the primary locations where the No Doubt boys have been hashing out parts for their forthcoming album.
"Most of the work is done at [No Doubt guitarist] Tom Dumont's house," Adrian explains. "But we've had Tom and [bassist] Tony Kanal jam down here a half dozen times. And when we get ready to go out on tour, the three of us will start here. We'll go through all the music, which will take a lot of time, because on the new songs we're incorporating a lot of electronica sounds. So we'll have to figure out how we're going to do that."
In addition to his band work, Young says, "I probably play drums down there three or four days a week, for about an hour, hour and a half at a time."
Adrian also has a small recording setup above the cellar, in what was originally a maid's quarters. "I decided that I might as well make a cool little demo studio out of it," he explains. Now it's home to a triple stack of DA-88 machines, an analog Ramsa console that belongs to Dumont, and Eastern tapestries covering the ceilings and walls.
"Right now it's totally bare-bones," Adrian adds, "but it sounds really good. I've been able to experiment with some sounds, and I found a couple of spots for mics that work real well. I have one microphone that I put in the bar, which is above my drumset. It has awesome natural reverb. And I have another mic that I have in the heating duct of the bathroom next to the control room, because the heating system is next to the drumkit. Right now I don't have any electronic effects—those mics are all my effects!"
Not only does Adrian experiment with mic' technique, he's also been making use of his practice spot to tweak his drum tones. "I recorded a song last night with a 10" snare drum," he explains, "and the song before that was with a Ludwig Black Beauty. But my toms have been really consistent. I've been using the compact toms for about six years, and I think they sound good."
Young leaves us with his philosophy behind keeping his studio setup simple: "I'm just a minimalist, I guess. While everyone else is getting their Pro Tools and fancy setups, I've got my old analog board and DA-88s. I still use one of my old Zildjian hi-hat cymbals that I bought used for $40 before I got endorsed. It still has the original owner's initials on it. But, hey, it all works for me!"