RECORDING

My first professional studio recording was Skabiosis’s self-titled first album, around 2000, at Estudios Telearte, then the best studio in Venezuela. I had played many shows by then, but the studio was a different world. The producers weren’t sure about me, especially about playing to a click. By the end of the sessions, the click had become something I could lean on rather than something to fear.

Only later did I understand their doubts. On some well-known records of that time, the drums hadn’t been played by the band’s own drummer, but by session players or a drum machine. It was my first real lesson about the music business: not everything you hear is what you think. It disappointed me, and at the same time it made me proud. Every drum part on that album was mine.

Skabiosis’s second album, Desintoxicado, followed at La Montaña Studios; it was released from a rough mix. Around 2005, with Los Javelin, I recorded Surfabilly & Roll, in my opinion one of the most powerful albums of the Venezuelan underground. In 2007, Horacio Blanco of Desorden Público brought me in to record Judy Buendía’s first album, Judy Buendía y los Impostores. Along the way I also recorded as a guest. On SKAterriza by La Big Landin Orquesta, I played on “El Pegao”, “Tenor Madness” and “Viernes en la noche”. For the children’s rock band Kaki, I recorded “Ajedrez”, “Zoo-ilógico” and “Natura” for their album RompeKbezas, songs whose drum parts I had shaped in rehearsals.

Today, the red light is at home. Recording myself for the first time was a revelation: no studio to book, no producer behind the glass, just me, the kit and the click. From there, it was a short step to making music of my own. Musicians began asking me to record for them, from my friend Pepito, a guitarist in Germany, to bands back in Caracas and artists here in Belgium, for whom I’ve recorded demos. In 2020, twenty years after our first album, I even recorded with Skabiosis again, for 20 años después. The biggest of these collaborations was with saxophonist Kevin Alva, who had played baritone sax on Surfabilly & Roll back in 2005. Fifteen years later, between 2020 and 2022, I recorded the drums on two full albums of his, Movement and Rebirth.

From Telearte to my own room, the question has stayed the same: what does this song really need from the drums?