Modern Drummer (September 1996)

No Doubt’s Adrian Young

What do you do if you’re called on to play rock, punk, reggae, and ska with only a year and a half of drumming experience to draw on? If you’re Adrian Young, you simply “go with the vibe.”

Seven years after his whimsical audition, Young says his approach to drumming hasn’t changed all that much, as evidenced by his performance on Tragic Kingdom, the quirky, infectious disc from rising modern rockers No Doubt.

“I was really into ska and punk before I joined the band, so that helped a lot,” says Young, who didn’t start playing drums until he was eighteen. “But it was probably good that I wasn’t set in any one particular style when I joined, because our music just goes all over the place. My drums parts groove a lot better if I just go with the moment and don’t think about things too much.”

No Doubt, which broke out of the club scene in Anaheim, California, uses a two-piece horn sections and a keyboardist, along with a bass-guitar-drums rhythm core, to spice up the pretty-cum-punk persona of Gwen Stefani. No Doubt made its first national splash in late 1995 with the catchy single “Just A Girl” and has been a modern rock staple ever since.

To keep up with the band’s growth, Young learned how to read music this past year through a basic drumming class at Fullerton Junior College. “My drumming development has come a long way since I joined, and that’s probably because our music is such a vast spread. It’s challenging music, but it’s always fun to play,” he says. “Radio has just figured out what to do with us, but our fan base has always been diverse, and we like it that way. The one common thing in all our songs is the energy, and hopefully our next record will have as much energy as our live shows.”