I got my first instrument at Christmas when I was three or four. My dad and mom got me a mandolin. It was the only instrument that fit me because I was so small. I went straight from that into drums when I was six and then started playing guitar when I was seven or eight.

Like my best friend, I asked for drums for Christmas, and got them. But when he moved on to guitar, I realized two things: (1) guitar is a much more expressive instrument, (2) way more girls pay attention to guitar players than to drummers.

I got my first instrument for Christmas when I was three or four years old. My parents got me a mandolin because it was the only instrument that would fit me because I was so small. I went straight from that into the drums when I was six, and then I started playing guitar when I was seven or eight.

The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth.

That's how we grew up - kinda like Pops would put his drums, his percussion and instruments into the car and we would just go to a facility in the Bay Area and he would say to us, 'You think we have it bad? There are people worse off than we are. Let's go give back to the kids.' And that's how we grew up.

The bass player's function, along with the drums, is to be the engine that drives the car... everything else is merely colours.

What better to get all the anger and stuff out for what I do in Slipknot than to play the drums? You're punching everything, really fast, concentrated.

A lot of these guys come up and say, 'Man, you were my influence, the way you thrashed the drums.' They don't seem to understand I was thrashing in order to hear what I was playing. It was anger, not enjoyment - and painful.

But for me, dinner at a fine restaurant was the ultimate luxury. It was the very height of civilization. For what was civilization but the intellect's ascendancy out of the doldrums of necessity (shelter, sustenance and survival) into the ether of the finely superfluous (poetry, handbags and haute cuisine)? So removed from daily life was the whole experience that when all was rotten to the core, a fine dinner could revive the spirits. If and when I had twenty dollars left to my name, I was going to invest it right here in an elegant hour that couldn't be hocked.

I've always kind of had an interest in the drums but nothing else. The drums are the only thing I feel I would be good at because I'm a very physical person. I've always played sports and stuff. Drums would give me something to do.

Drums just always sounded like the most fun part of that good music for me.

When I listen to music these days and I hear Pro Tools and drums that sound like a machine - it kinda sucks the life out of music.

I think the drummer should sit back there and play some drums and never mind about the tunes. Just get up there and wail behind whoever is sitting up there playing the solo. And this is what is lacking definitely lacking in music today.

First and foremost I am a drummer. After that I'm other things... But I didn't play drums to make money.

My mom had to beg the guys to let me play. I couldn't even play the drums right - Brian had to show me.

My mom passed away a day before high school started and her dream was for me to be a full rock and roll guy and play drums in a band.

I suppose I am a frustrated musician so I annoy my family by playing guitar in the house. I used to be into acoustic stuff but my son Joseph is learning drums so now I have an electric guitar and we play Metallica. We have an amp and a PA in the garage with his drum kit.

I was a kid and I wasn't even sure if I wanted to play the drums you know? All I wanted to do was skateboard but I was still learning and taking it in so it was good.

It's a miracle was the last track recorded for the album we based it on the rhythm from the middle of 'Late Home Tonight where there's Graham Broad playing lots and lots of drums with me shouting in the background pretending to be a mad Arab leader.

Playing drums feels like coming home for me. Even during the White Stripes I thought: 'I'll do this for now but I'm really a drummer.' That's what I'll put on my passport application.

A few years ago kids from poor areas in France were asked to draw items of food. For a chicken they drew a drumstick. For a fish they drew a fish stick. Those are extremes but there is a lot that needs to be done to help children discover good food.

Unless you're living on the street and surviving on a diet of discarded turkey drumsticks there's no point in being gloomy. We've spent too long trying to cheer ourselves up by spending money on brightly coloured things we don't really need. We've stopped using our imaginations.

Cool things happen. Ace's guitar flies through space goes through a hole and blows up. I throw drumsticks and they come flying at you.

I always thought it would be really cool to be playing the drums in the show and then have your astral body or whatever travel all through the audience and dig whatever it's like out there.