Best of the Blog: In Pictures: Kit Tour with Scott Phillips

Alter Bridge drummer shows us around his DW

Alter Bridge are currently tearing the UK to pieces with an all-conquering, sold-out tour. While they’re over we couldn’t resist getting Scott Phillips to talk us through his DW/Zildjian set up, so that’s exactly what we did.

Alter Bridge drummer shows us around his DW

Scott on his DW Jazz Series set-up: "This has been my set-up for four or five years. I’ve always played a six-piece kit with Alter Bridge, with two rack toms and two floor toms.”

Alter Bridge drummer shows us around his DW

“Over the years I’ve added the bell above the ride and a crash on the end. With the bell I used a lot of accents on the bell of the ride so I wanted an easier target. The same thing with the crash on the end. I was coming out of a fill and ending on the china because it was there but sonically I wanted something different. Initially we had a 20” crash on the end, but it was a little darker than I wanted so I went for an 18”.”

Alter Bridge drummer shows us around his DW

“My hi-hat configuration always stays the same. It’s an A Custom top and a Quick Beat bottom. I’ve done that since the first two years I started playing drums, I found this configuration and stuck with it.”

Alter Bridge drummer shows us around his DW

“For crashes, I play Z Customs. They’re really great sounding cymbals but also durable. I was getting through a lot of cymbals, more than I should a week, so I stepped up to the Z series and I’ve been really happy with them. In the studio, if it’s an aggressive song I’ll stick with those but if it’s something more subdued I’ll put up some A or K Custom crashes.”

Alter Bridge drummer shows us around his DW

“I use Vic Firth Super 5B sticks. They had a model of mine they were making for a few years then we decided to look through their catalogue and just find a production model they make that was really close to the model I play. The same length and width, just a slightly different tip but I found I liked that. Then they just stamped my name on there.”

Alter Bridge drummer shows us around his DW

“My throne is Gibraltar. I use DW hi-hat pedals and snare stand but everything else is Gibraltar. “

Alter Bridge drummer shows us around his DW

“The snare is a Ludwig Black Beauty that I got in 2000 back when I was playing Premier. I was trying some things out and a band opening up for us in the Creed days had a Pearl Steve Ferrone snare, which is basically a copy of a Black Beauty. I loved the way his snare sounded and I couldn’t get mine to sound that way no matter what I tried. So, he recommended trying one and we ordered one, had it out for a few weeks and my tech at the time said it was basically Black Beauty, so why didn’t we just get a Black Beauty?!

"There’s so many great snares out there. I’ve switched to DW and I’m trying some DW snares currently to see if we can throw one in, just because this is the only Black Beauty I’ve got and I don’t want to get it damaged. It has such a massive sound to it.”

Alter Bridge drummer shows us around his DW

"There’s no dampening whatsoever. The kick drum’s probably got some sort of muffle ring on the resonant and batter heads, but not as far as gel or tape and anything like that. Tony my drum tech is a master at tuning and he likes to hear them ring, so we’ve never had any need for dampening.”