You’re originally a drummer who got absorbed by recording, engineering, mixing and producing. How come you ended up on the opposite side of the studio glass and, to you, why is working with sound so amazing?
I grew up with both my parents involved in making records, and the studio was my favorite place to tag along to as a kid. Tape machines and instruments were just ”around” our house and I just loved to play with it all. When bands I played in started recording, I was the one who knew how to make it work, so I just did it. And when DAWs became more and more advanced, I started making my own songs.

You’ve been obsessing over the specific drums you sampled for this EZX for a long time. Tell us the story of how you got started collecting these kits and why!
I got Christopher Cantillo in for a session on the Håkan Hellström record and when I saw the badges on the drums say ”Levin, Göteborg” I was just floored that I’d grown up here as a drummer not even knowing we had drums made in the city. And when we started setting up a sound something clicked – this was the foundation of a sound that I’d been searching for. I’ve always tried to get the sound of classic old funk, soul and jazz records that I love, but there was something missing. And as these drums are metric, not imperial, anyone who has tried to change heads to plastic ones have had to put the original heads back on ‘cause they just don’t fit. So these kits are a bit like backwards time machines. They are almost 100% original, even the calfskin heads.

Like you mentioned, one standout feature on the kits is that they feature their original calfskin heads, first mounted way back in the 1900s when the drums were new. To you, what do these types of heads add to the sound overall?
Plastic heads are reliable, predictable and, after all, are called things like ”Weather King” for a reason. If you exhale on the calfskin head of a tom, that moisture will drop the pitch by a semitone. So if there is a rain storm, the kit becomes completely dead and you have to tune it up a lot. If it’s sunny and warm, it will rise a lot in pitch. So you have to constantly tune, retune and drop the tuning after a session in case the weather becomes warmer before you use it again. This creates a constant bonding with the instrument to keep it in a sweet spot. And, the thickness and tension of the skins vary across the surface, so you get a sound that is more complex and vivid. As a sound engineer, I’d say you can relate plastic vs. calfskin as digital distortion vs. non-linear analog distortion.

Where does your interest in music stem from and how come you ended up behind a drum kit? 
I started playing pots and pans at the age of two and then got my first kit when I was five years old. So you could say that music in general – and drums in particular – were my first love.

Which drummers do you think helped shape your style?
Many, so many. If I had to single out a few, they’d be Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, Clyde Stubblefield, Questlove, James Gadson, Levon Helm and Hal Blaine.

You’re a seasoned session drummer with tons of albums on your discography, countless tours and what not! If you had to pick some highlights, which ones would you single out?
Hmm… I opened for Patrick Watson in Quebec and there were about 15,000 in the audience screaming their lungs out. My ears were sore from just hearing the audience, haha. Roskilde last year with Dina Ögon was epic. Working with dub legend Scientist was mindboggling for sure. And I was also very honored to be a part of Mayer Hawthorne’s last album. Playing with jazz great Palle Danielsson was also very cool.