Share this Digg Del.icio.us Reddit Furl Yahoo Googlize this E-mail

Thomas Lang was born 05. 08. 1967 in Vienna, Austria and started playing the drums at the age of 5. He grew up in a little town called Stockerau in Lower Austria, about 25 miles outside of Vienna. His parents Kurt and Helga were very supportive of his early ambition to become a drummer and allowed him to attend the local music school for drum and piano lessons.

His first drum teacher was a gentleman named Johann Hengst who was a classical percussionist and played with Viennese orchestras. He taught Lang to play traditional grip and to read music. Although at the time it all seemed very boring and tedious, Lang really benefited from his lessons in many ways.

Lang only had a snare drum for about a year when he started playing, but gradually, he increased the size of his kit over the years by requesting additional parts on every Christmas and birthday wish list.

He got into pop and rock music right away and Ringo Starr was a big influence in his early drumming days. He used to play along to 50’s and 60’s rock n’ roll tapes and early Beatles songs for a few years before he was first introduced to heavy rock by some local musicians he used to jam with.

They played Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Free covers and after about two years started trying to get local gigs. They never succeeded, so his first gig was playing the bongos with the local choir where his mother was a member. Lang was 10 or 11 years old and he got a pair of sticks for his performance…it was great fun and very exciting. After a few more years of jamming and gigging with local bands and studying with various teachers, he began attending the conservatory in Vienna where he studied with Walter Grassmann.

There, he was introduced to jazz and fusion and was trained to play in Big Band style and to read proper charts and lead sheets.

Lang was not able to really get into the style of music that he had to study and play, so he left after about four years. During his time at the conservatory, he met a lot of other young, ambitious musicians and started playing loads of regular club-gigs in and around Vienna.

At that time, Lang spent all his modest income on trips to drum and music schools in America, private lessons and on equipment.

His parents were also still supporting his various trips and endeavors morally and financially. Apart from providing him with a very comfortable rehearsal-space in the cellar of their house until he moved out, they have always been supportive of his pursuit to become a musician. Without them, and their constant constructive criticism, he would not have learned from his many mistakes.

Lang started working with bigger acts and touring around Austria and Germany and one thing led to another. He slowly worked his way through the European pop, rock and jazz scene and was booked to work on increasingly popular productions. During this phase, he worked with up to 15 different bands and artists at the same time, squeezing as much work as possible into his schedule. He always tried to stick to his strict practice plan and religiously followed a constantly evolving daily practice routine. He tries to stick to this method of discovering and developing new ideas to this day.

In addition to practicing, the growing amount of gigging and touring gave Lang a pretty good idea of what to work on and how to apply his experiences creatively.

The recording work he was being hired for, formed a crucial part of his development and he learned a lot by listening to his own inefficient and clumsy playing.

He also came to realize that he needed international exposure, not just to get his name out there but to absorb international musicians’ influence. Having traveled to England throughout his youth, Lang knew that London had more musicians per capita than any other capital city in the world so off to London he went.

When he first moved to the U.K., he taught drums at the Musician’s Institute and the London school of Music from 1995 to 1996.

Now, his schedule does not allow him to pursue teaching anymore, but he still gives private lessons occasionally because he believes there’s a lot to be learned from his colleagues’ and students’ different and interesting approaches. Unfortunately, he hardly finds time to practice these days, so he keeps the teaching to a minimum, but Lang has increased the number of master classes, clinics, seminars he gives and has participated in more and more video productions to share his ideas.

Over the last ten years, he has recorded hundreds of albums and toured extensively with a host of bands and artists worldwide.

Lang tries to always learn and grow as a man and musician and see opportunity and potential in everything he encounters along the way.

In 1995, he recorded his first solo-album entitled “Mediator”, and that same year, he recorded a two-part instructional video series complete with a booklet (“Ultimatives Schlagzeug”). It was the first instructional German language drum video ever produced and after being made available via the Internet for a few years, it is now sold in drum shops across the world!

Thomas Lang is now producing not only his own CDs and videos, but also co-writing for, and co-producing, various artists around Europe.

Visit Thomas' website - sticktrix.com