Highwood Drums

So Gareth give us a bit of background to Highwood Drums.
Highwood drums was launched in July 2004.  I''d been building, repairing, servicing & modifying my own and local guys’ drums for several years.  I’d been interested in custom drums since the 90’s when I first heard and saw Tim “Herb” Alexander’s Pork Pie kit used on the “sailing the seas of cheese” album/tour, both live and on the album the drum sound blew me away. Back then I had no understanding of the industry or the basics of manufacturing drums.

I have always designed and built things even from a young age, I set myself projects & throw myself into them, my farther was a draughtsman and engineer so every aspect of manufacturing and design has been of interest to me, through collage & university I trained as a designer, but didn’t really stick to one field, I went through courses in everything from: Graphic/Art - through Product Design and back into Multimedia Technologies & Web Design.

As a drummer I like many had often thought about how drums are made & what makes a good drum, just took along time to understand how to go about it, my first real attempts of drum building was around 1998, but I did not get very far, basically I had very little knowledge of what materials & tooling were available, even though I knew exactly how I wanted to do it.

Things took a big leap forward a few years back, I had been unable to work for sometime, needed a career change & along with the frustration of knowing what I wanted & having not got far with my original drum project, I turned back to building, this gave me plenty of time to fill in many of the blanks that had stopped me before.  At the same time I was noticing a rise in demand for the “custom” kits from the overseas, I sat on this for a while just made and experimented with ideas.

In 2003 I put together the plan for a custom drum business & at the same time realised that there may also be demand for component parts for DIY builders and restorers, I had ordered hoops from shops before and didn''t like the several months wait times.

Since then Highwood has come on in leap’s and bounds, after opening in July 04 we slowly went from mainly offering parts & imported Keller shells to finally completing enough drum moulds to offer a full range of hand made drum shells.
By September of that year I started to get busy with shell orders for both public and trade clients, I quickly realised I could not carry on as a one man operation, I just could not make the shells & deal with the parts orders a quick as I would like, and if we were to be a bespoke drum makers as well then we needed to change things.

In May 2005 Highwood moved to a new workshop, unlike our previous workspace we now have a professional workshop with a vast arsenal of machinery that has not only allowed us to speed up manufacturing of shells but also allowed us to expand our product line up. My friend Simon Eland who had been helping me on a part time basis since Sept. 04, joined me as a business partner, & has been helping improve, speed up & expand our offerings, Simon is an experienced woodworker in both musical instruments and bespoke joinery, so its great to have someone like that throw himself into it, especially as Simon is quite new to the drum world, he is now in charge of daily shell production & has improved our product & the way we make it to no end, we work well together

Gareth and Simon

What’s your “philosophy” when it comes to creating your drums?
We just try to make best drums & shells that we can, however both Simon and myself are firm believers that Custom Drums don''t have to cost the earth, we try to offer as wide a range as possible that allows our work to be in the reach of many different levels of players & budgets. Most people think a bespoke kit has to be your “Ultimate Kit” or the “last kit you will ever buy”. We don''t agree, a bespoke kit is something that is built to suit your needs at that time, it does not have to be contracted to your lifetime & that old attitude has been gradually changing over the last few years.
The way we see it we have to offer as many options as possible, if a client knows what sound & look they want but are restricted on the budget we can look at perhaps tweaking things to bring into reach.

Unlike some we don''t see this as necessarily sacrificing quality, for example using a Generic cast Lug/nut box may be cheaper in cost to Solid Machined Brass fitting, the Solid might, but as long as both do their job and don''t fail then its just down to cosmetic value. It all depends on what the customer is looking for and what they are willing to spend. We can usually make a box that fits every clients needs.

Tell us a bit more about your range, your personal favorites, etc.
When we started offering bespoke drums we originally only offered Finish Birch, this has remained our main line of drum shells, they are known as the VGB “Vertical Grain Birch” this is our std Pro end drum kit, the upgrade on this is the Exotic ply line which features an outer & inner layer of exotic wood.

The next line we introduced were the Any Wood exotic & hardwood snares, these are currently our premium offering, this is where we get into the anything goes territory, we give the option of using almost any wood or combinations of, the more common and popular woods that we are all ways making are, Oak, Walnut, Cherry, Ash etc. however if we can get it we will make ply shells out of it so its an almost endless list of options, we now offering these in a kit format which is our most bespoke offering.

Giving people a near endless list of options is truly great but many people struggle to make choices from they cant see & hear, I have been trying to nail down a full product range to cover to most popular requests, this has led to our two latest drum lines, the first is the Modern Vintage, these shells have been through various prototypes before I hit the nail on the head in what I wanted, the drums as you can guess have that vintage vibe about them, but they are in every way modern, they feature a 7ply African mahogany & maple shell, the shocker is these shells are only 3.5mm thick, we have supported the shells with a 10 ply maple reinforcing ring at each end, they give a very open, warm, woody sound.

The second line is now our biggest seller, its the Custom Lite line, going back on our ideals that custom drums do not have to break the bank I designed a line that would be based on a std 3pc shell pack at a similar price to a set of intermediate drums, you know something like a Pacific or Pearl Export. Based on this starting point the client can then chose drum sizes, add extra toms, change finishes & hardware colours & the price changes accordingly, the shell feature 3ply poplar & 3 ply finish birch mix, again the shells are made in house by Simon & despite the current trend of lower costing kits having to feature maple we feel a cheaply made shell made of a premium material will always sound inferior to a well built shell of lower costing material, we launched them at the NDF in October, most people didn''t even check the price, played them & were flawed when I told them the kits start at £500.
As for my favorites, well I''m usually into whatever we are making right now, I don''t own one of our own kits as I cant make my mind up as to what I want, I''m always changing my mind & starting new ones then changing my mind again, to many options, I drive Simon crazy

You make drums to order but do you have limits on just how “custom” you can get?
Well that all depend on the client’s needs & if they are serious about going totally bespoke. We may focus on one type of product, this is namely ply, we can make them from an almost endless list of woods & combinations of, sizes are not an issue.
However we can do allot more, I honestly don''t think there are many limits on what we could offer.... we might not make every component, but then again we focus on what we know, I''m no metal worker so if need be we employ machinists and expert fabricators on a job by job basis, we have a machinist who can fabricate custom lugs & has even machined up bronze shells from solid a single block of raw material, similarly metal & other shells are not a problem, we just don''t focus on them as our bread and butter, its up to the clients imagination as to what they request from us, if I come across a job I cant do, ill admit defeat but think about it for the future.

Have you had any particularly wild requests for custom drums or any particularly difficult drums to build?
We have had some requests for strange shells, like tapered drums going from one diameter to another & someone wanted a 36” deep bass shell. Some of the US companies seem to have made a name for themselves by offering wild coloured shells and hardware, that has rubbed off on quite a few brits, so we have done quite a few drums with pinstripes and stars airbrushed on etc. two fun projects were done as a joint venture for DM drums, it involved making 2 huge 20 x 35” marching bass drums for a advertising company, they shells were not the most fun to make, but the result was great.

How much of your drums are hand made and how much third party components do you use?
We are proud to say we build all our own ply wood shells in-house, we also offer a wider range of woods than most companies, very few people make ply shells out of almost any hardwood, if we can get it we will build shells out of it.
As just about every small drum company does, we don''t make our own hoops, t-rods, mounting brackets and spurs throw -offs etc.
We do have an advantage though in that Highwood has a manufacturer in Taiwan who makes our parts, some of these are the factories std catalogue items, others are Highwood designed, I work with them allot on ideas & new components. I feel having this gives us a big edge on other Uk custom companies.

How do you go about designing a new drum and what influences your designs?
Many things influence what angle I approach things from, I draw allot of inspiration from drum companies who''s kits I wanted to own back when I was buying drums from shops. I don''t copy but I have learned to look at what these drum companies do to make them selves different, & why people want to own them, that’s the angle I take & I guess its my designer side that makes me look at that.

I''m a big fan of Chris Brady’s drums, he started off by doing things differently, didn''t follow the norm, had unique construction methods, it didn''t matter that he did not have or use maple.  Looking at what people like Brady have done has lead me to experiment more & not do what has always worked for others, I have made shells with plys built up of all sorts of combinations looking at what changes the sound.

From a visual point of view, Tama, DW & Pork Pie get me, DW have allot of class about them especially their veneer finishes, Pork Pie’s spray jobs kill me, its not so much the colour schemes as they are often far from my taste, its the fact that they have done everything so well and the finishes look so deep under the gloss. Tama’s drums have always had style in my eyes, I used to pay tama & they have always turned out top drums. The One Company that has had my full attention for along time is Odery from Brazil; they in my mind are doing everything right.

The other factor on my designs is like anyone else I guess, I experiment and try things out, its my favorite part of doing what I do, coming from a designers background I always have ideas ticking over in my head & I''m not always sure where they came from, I''m always turning up at work and annoying Simon with ideas about what we should try next, allot of things don''t work, sometimes the product on a whole might not be useable but we might draw something from it that we take to a later project.

What’s unique about your drums?
The fact that we make our own ply shells makes us different, they don''t sound just like other makers ply shells & as we will make them out of almost any wood if it’s possible that makes an almost endless pallet of sounds.

Another thing that makes us different is the way myself and Simon work together, I''m a designer & drummer, Simon until he started at Highwood was not a drummer, but he is an experienced wood worker & this has made things very interesting, so I''m sure we don''t work like most other shell makers as we have used three or four different methods & forms of bending/molding since Simon came on board, we often change the molding method depending on job requirements. That is quite different in the ply drum worlds as most people have one set of moulds and one method.

We have a massive selection of components from our own Highwood parts, the range of std fittings & the ability to have lugs made for clients, combine all this with the fact that I cant count all the finishes we could do, every commercial wrap available, stains, lacquers, all this plus fades, graphics & custom wraps. That’s what makes us different, its the combination of choice by mixing what has been done, what is available & what is made only by Highwood in our own way that make us unique.

How long does it take to turn a kit around / fulfill an order on average?
This all depends on the order requirements, we try to complete all shell orders in 3-4 weeks, a simple birch snare with an oil finish can take us only 3 weeks, but the same in a lacquer could take 6 - 10, it all depends on the work involved & how much we have going on, I aim to complete custom drum orders in 10 weeks where possible, however this does over run sometimes, especially in kits that are averaging at 12 - 14.

Do you have any plans for exhibits or shows in 2007 where people can go to see some of your work?
Oh yes, we can usually be found at the NDF in Birmingham, we would also like to get to other shows & perhaps Drummer Live in the next Year or so.  I''m also working on getting two drum lines into some selected shops in the near future, hopefully this year.

Finally what can we expect from you in the future?
Were do I start, we have so many projects in the works, to start off we have had to expand again, the workshop is getting bigger, yet we keep filling it with new products & projects.  On the product front, well to start we will have our Solid Steam bent drum line available in a few weeks, maple to start with but exotics after that, again I don''t intend of making these bank breakers, they will be Very well priced compared to most 1 ply drums.

I''m always looking for new components for our parts selection & we are also looking into offering wraps to the UK drum builders. My long-term project right now is Cast Acrylic shells, again done in house, the test runs have been promising but it will be a while before we offer the snare shells & eventually kits.

February 2007