Photo of Adam by: Matthew Takes.

This week’s guest is Adam Hanson. Northwoods aka Adam Hanson is a drummer, guitar player, songwriter and producer from Massachusetts. Adam graduated from Berklee College of Music and has since spent his professional years based out of Los Angeles. Since working in LA he’s spent as much time in the studio as the stage. Some of the artists Adam has worked with include David Ryan Harris of the John Mayer band, Anthony Ramos, JP Saxe, Julia Michaels, Lennon Stella, Will Wells, Sean Mendes, Quinn Sullivan, Amie Miriello, Kevin Garrett, Badsnacks among others.

Adam has built his career off being a musician, however also ready for a challenge no matter what the call might be. He’s been everything from a drummer, tour manager, stage tech, multipurpose engineer, producer, songwriter, guitarist, pianist, singer, production assistant, assistant engineer, and now artist. He’s been able tour nationally and internationally along with appearing on acclaimed shows such as Ellen, The Juno Awards, Dick Clark’s New Years Rockin’ Eve and many more.

As much as Adam loves playing and working with other people on multiple projects, he now has something of his own. Northwoods, is a project started in the wake of the pandemic. Debut album “This Never Happened”, to be released May 6th, 2022!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Clayton Cameron! Los Angeles, California native Clayton Cameron began showing an interest in drumming at the young age of seven. According to Clayton, his parents were always supportive of his pursuits and they bought him a drum kit and had him taking lessons by the time he was twelve. After High School, Clayton went on to earn a degree in Music from California State University. While in school he played around the Los Angeles area with some of his mentors and early influences such as Ernie Andrews, Teddy Edwards, Larry Gails and Gerald Wilson. After graduating from college, Clayton settled in Las Vegas where he played regularly with a small Jazz trio known as The Kirk Stuart Trio and continued to develop his skills as a brush player. Clayton quickly found that the small jazz club settings and trio groups called for mostly low volume playing, and as a result, Clayton developed a distinct and potent style of brush playing. Today, Clayton is widely known as a brush master.

During his time in Las Vegas, Sammy Davis Jr..'s musical Director George Rhodes hired Clayton to be his drummer. Clayton cites Sammy Davis' tap dancing as an influence on his brush playing. Clayton also played drums for Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra during this time. In 1988/89, Clayton toured with the three members of the "Rat Pack" an experience he will always treasure.

In 1990, Clayton completed and released his instructional video entitled "The Living Art of Brushes". This was the first drum instructional video dedicated to brush playing. At this time Clayton also toured with Jazz legends Joe Pass, Joe Williams and George Shearing.

In 1993, Clayton became the drummer for music legend Tony Bennett. He has recorded six Grammy nominated albums and played on many world tours with Tony. In 1994, Clayton shared in the honor of Tony Bennett's Grammy award for his "Tony Bennett Unplugged" album. This was the first Grammy awarded for a live recording.

Clayton has also released the book Brushworks, a comprehensive text on the subject. Aside from being the definitive reference book on the art of brushes, Brushworks will for the first time allow novice brush players insight into the mechanics of the art form. Clayton continues to tour and record, and work on his many drumming education projects.

Happy Birthday to Sarah Hagan. The Percussion Marketing Council (PMC) executive committee has appointed Sarah Hagan to its advisory board. She is also the First Vice President of the Percussive Arts Society and owns the company Sarah Hagan Media & Consulting, where she is a Marketing and Artist Relations Consultant for the Music Industry. You can listen to her on her new Podcast, “Backstage” on the Drumclick Network.

Gig Alerts

God’s Love, We Deliver is hosting their 5 annual fundraiser in the Love Rocks Concert on March 10th.

Damon will be giving a virtual percussion masterclass on March 24th at 7pm, sponsored by the CT, NY, NJ, and MA chapters of the Percussive Arts Society.

Educational Spotlight

APPLICATIONS OPEN 3/1/22: Invest in yourself and your drum and percussion studies by applying for a Percussive Arts Society Competition or Scholarship this year.

DEADLINE TO APPLY: April 30, 2022

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Here are the details for the COMPOSITION CONTEST.

Here’s the info for the various SCHOLARSHIPS.

The educational lesson series with CongaChops and Latin Percussion is continued this week with Timbale basics for beginners.

Social Soundbyte

The Stax Museum contacted (friend of the show) Terence F. Clark, and several other incredible Artists and storytellers, to be a part of a new virtual tour installment. Terence was asked to speak on the great Al Jackson Jr.! He was also given the honor and privilege to play one of his legendary Rogers Drum Kits that sits behind glass in Studio A of the Stax Museum!

Iconic Recording

The iconic recording this week is “War” by Edwin Starr.

The original of the song was recorded by the Temptations.

The rhythm section for both versions was The Funk Brothers. Most likely, the tambourine player was the great Jack Ashford.

Music News

On the first Friday of the month since March of 2020, Bandcamp has waived their revenue share to help support the many artists who have seen their livelihoods disrupted by the pandemic. Over the course of 17 days, fans paid artists and labels more than $70 million dollars, helping cover rents, mortgages, groceries, medications, and much more. If you’re among the nearly 800,000 fans who participated, thank you.

It will likely be several months before live performance revenue returns in full. So they’re going to continue doing Bandcamp Fridays in 2022, on March 4th, April 1st, and May 6th. As always, isitbandcampfriday.com has the details.

Want to support the people in Ukraine? Here's how you can help -Article

Adam Hanson Interview

The song leading into the interview is “Dear Diary” by Anthony Ramos with Adam on drums.

Damon first met Adam on a gig with Neal McCarthy.

When Damon met Adam he was playing drums as well as modeling. The watches he was modeling were from IWC Schaffhauesen.

Shout-out to Sean Simmer.

Shout-out to friends of the show Jamie Eckert and Royal Hartigan for bringing Damon in to Umass Dartmouth to do a masterclass which instigated Damon and Adam’s friendship.

Adam is from Mattapoisett, MA and attended Old Rochester Regional High School.

Shout-out to Turk’s Seafood, Oxford Creamery, Marisol’s Cafe, and No Problemo.

Adam’s grandmother (on his mother’s side) introduced him to music, via the piano first. They would play some Beatles together.

Adam’s second instrument is the guitar.

Shout-out to audio engineer John Farrell.

Shout-out to musician and producer, Will Wells.

Adam talks about mental health and taking care of yourself, especially on the road.

Adam has been sober for 6 years and regularly attends AA to stay on track. He also has a morning routine to start each day. Writing and helping/checking in on others were cathartic for Adam. He also started seeing a therapist, meditated and started running each morning.

Shout-out to Rotana.

Adam has been touring with JP Saxe.

Adam got to work on a little bit of the electronics for Hamilton.

That is where he met Anthony Ramos, and ultimately toured with him.

Adam attended both Umass Dartmouth and Berklee College of Music.

Adam did a little work with David Ryan Harris as one of his first Los Angeles jobs.

Through David, Adam met and worked with Amie Miriello.

Adam now leads a band called Northwoods. He has some special guests on the album like Quinn Sullivan and does some production work with Zach Golden.

Adam talks about getting back into writing for his solo project, Northwoods.

Adam and Damon talk about finding “your crew” of people when moving to a new city. They also talk about the east coast vs. west coast vibes.

Damon brings up the photo of Adam and his roomates from around 2009/2010.

Shout-out to Adam’s mom Judith!

Adam currently uses a Premier Artist Maple kit, with a Ludwig Superphonic snare. On his rider is a Yamaha Recording Custom kit with a Ludwig Copperphonic snare. Most of his cymbals are from Zildjian.

Shout-out to John Borges, Wayne Ferrera, Jackie Santos, Jamie Eckert, and everyone that Adam would listen to as a kid.

You can follow Adam on his Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube pages. You can follow his original work on Facebook, and Instagram, or check him out on tour with JP Saxe!