Terry Bozzio
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Terry Bozzio |
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Terry John Bozzio (December 27, 1950) is an American drummer best known for his work with the late Frank Zappa and Korn.
Biography
Bozzio was born in California to Italian American parents. He attended Sir Francis Drake High School in San Anselmo, California, [citation needed] where he received a music scholarship in 1969.[citation needed]He made his name recording and touring with Frank Zappa[citation needed] (and appearing in the concert movie Baby Snakes), and then the band UK. After his audition for Zappa, all the drummers behind him in the line left, and he was accepted. He was particularly famous for performing Zappa's "The Black Page", a piece of music designed to be a "musician's nightmare" a page so filled with notes as to be almost black.[citation needed] He currently resides in Austin, Texas with his wife Ev and son Raanen Bozzio.
Bozzio went on to form Missing Persons with his then-wife and lead vocalist Dale Bozzio, ex-Zappa guitarist Warren Cuccurullo, ex-Zappa bassist Patrick O'Hearn and keyboard player Chuck Wild. After disbanding Missing Persons in 1986 after releasing "Color In Your Life", Terry joined up with ex-Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor for his solo band. He can be seen in a couple videos from that period. He participated in the official "founding members" Missing Persons reunion in July 2001 and has recorded a Zappa-influenced, as-yet-unreleased album, Playing in Tongues,[citation needed] [who?] with Warren Cuccurullo.
In summer of 2005 Bozzio filled in for Dave Lombardo in Fantômas for their European tour.[citation needed] Bozzio was inducted into Guitar Center's RockWalk in Hollywood on January 17, 2006[citation needed] along with rock and roll icons Ronnie James Dio and Slash.
Bozzio has recently worked with the band Korn on their 8th studio album after the departure of their drummer David Silveria. He was scheduled to also play on the road with the band during the Family Values Tour, but he left the group and was replaced by Joey Jordison of Slipknot and Ray Luzier.
Musical innovation
Like Hall of Fame drummer Gary Chester, Bozzio is noted for creating the melodic ostinato for the drum set.[citation needed] In most of Bozzio’s works, the ostinato is played using various bass drum and hi-hat permutations while he solos against these rhythms using his hands. Sometimes (often in the same composition) the opposite is true, where he will hold an ostinato pattern with his hands and solo with his feet. Like Chester, Bozzio developed the application for the melodic ostinato for drum set when he noticed how a pianist would solo or play counter rhythms against the ostinato or pedal point. He then applied this concept to the drum set.[citation needed]
Bozzio is also noted for creating orchestral compositions on the drum set by playing polyrhythms and metric modulations[citation needed] while utilizing his large custom kit (sometimes nicknamed "SS Bozzio"), in which the tom toms are tuned to specific notes to create the atmosphere that is Bozzio’s signature sound. Terry Bozzio’s influence has been seen in some of the most prominent drummers of today including Marco Minnemann, Thomas Lang, Mike Mangini and Chris Utter.
Bozzio’s influence is becoming a more prominent force as modern day drummers[who?] are seeking to break the barriers of the traditional grooving drummer to the drummer that takes a more prominent role as the leader of a band,[citation needed] a position that in westernized music has been dominated by the guitar.[citation needed]
His drum clinics are legendary,[citation needed] often selling out to the point of people being turned away.[who?] Often, this is because guitarists,[who?] bass players[who?] and other non-drummers[who?] attend these performances, something not common for drum clinics. It could be legitimately argued, that while most drummer use clinics as a side-project while their musical endeavors are on hold or on break, Bozzio's are full performances and can be considered a musical concert in and of themselves.
Terry Bozzio currently endorses Drum Workshop drums, Sabian cymbals and Vic Firth sticks, all of which have special custom lines designed for him. In fact, his cymbals were designed from the ground up by Bozzio himself, including a completely different kind of lathing method. Terry is known to use various white noise cymbal pairings, where he stacks multiple crashes and/or china cymbals to create atypical sounds. This idea may have arisen from Zappa's abhorrence of loud cymbals, so to satisfy his boss, he cut large chunks out of his cymbals, which created a "swooshy", and more trashy sound. This is seen in the Baby Snakes movie in prominence. The "SS Bozzio" is often just as amazing, to onlookers of his performances, as the drummer himself. His kit has evolved from a fairly standard large drum set, akin to that of Neil Peart, including various sound effects and the standard drum arrangements, to his current setup which includes more than 10 pedals to operate various percussion devices and dozens of drums to achieve his melodic drum parts.
Current drum kit setup
Drums
Vertical Low Timber drums in olive ash burl finish with satin chrome lugs and black powdercoat rims. All heads are Terry Bozzio signature in clear mylar
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Cymbals
All cymbals are Sabian Radia Terry Bozzio signatures.
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Foot operated
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Other
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Selected discography
Solo
- Solo Drum Music I/II & III
- Drawing The Circle
- Chamber Works
- Solos & Duets (with Chad Wackerman)
- Nine Short Films (with Billy Sheehan)
- Chamber Works (2005, with Metropole Orchestra)
Frank Zappa
- Bongo Fury (October 1975), US #66
- Zoot Allures (October 1976), US #71
- Zappa in New York (March 1978), US #57
- Sleep Dirt (January 1979), US #175
- Sheik Yerbouti (March 1979), US #21
- Joe's Garage (September 1979), US #27
- Baby Snakes (March 1983)
- Thing-Fish (November 1984)
- FZ:OZ (August 2002)
Missing Persons
- Missing Persons (EP) (1980) #46 US
- Spring Session M (1982) #17 US
- Rhyme & Reason (1984) #43 US
- Color in Your Life (1986) #88 US
UK
- Danger Money (1979) (Replaced Bill Bruford)
- Night After Night (1979, Live)
Other
- Polytown
- Age of Impact (1998)
- Raising the Mammoth (2002)
- Heavy Metal Be-Bop
- Black Light Syndrome (1997)
- Situation Dangerous (2000)
- Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop – 1989 #49 US
- Sex and Religion
- Two Sides Of If
- Zoom
- "Hide Your Face"