drum interview

While barely a new shaver at the age of 21, Mike Cox is a hardened veteran of hard rock stages nonetheless. For this distinction, he can thank his band mates in Coal Chamber, as well as an indie record company energized beyond capacity by the success of the band's self titled freshman release, and, of course, his good old lucky stars.

A couple years ago Coal Chamber was skulking along with little momentum until Sharon Osbourne-proactive wife of the notoriously successful Ozzie-took the little shock rock band under her management wing. Fortune's reversal was immediate and dramatic for Cox, who at age 19 had previously only played in neighborhood garages and high school talent shows, when he suddenly found himself facing an audience of 4,000 headbangers on the second stage at the San Bernardino pit stop of the 1997 Ozz Fest.

It happened to be his very first gig with the band. "I was so scared," he says, "I watched all the bands on the main stage. It was surreal, because I went from being basically a fan of these bands like Slayer and Ozzie to playing a show with them. It totally freaked me out. I couldn't even talk. But after the first song I got comfortable and realized that [it] was definitely my thing."

Now Cox feels more at home on a tour bus than he does at home. "I'm going crazy," he admits, "I went straight from high school to being on tour on a bus for two years." Cox will soon be back in his element, though, now that Coal Chamber has released its second album Chamber Music. A new dramatic departure, Chamber Music introduces a new emphasis on melody, and a thicker production with layers of guitars and keyboards, much of which Cox will trigger from Roland pads on the upcoming tour.

This is his first exposure to electronic percussion. "It opened my mind," he says. "Now I realize I can do samples, and with sampler you can sample anything in the world." As far as his acoustic kit? Well ... "I don't even know how to set up my own drum set or tune them anymore. My tech does everything for me."



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