Drummer John Tempesta walked through the drum part for Rob Zombie’s “Dragula” in a new video from Drumeo, a Canadian drum education company. Tempesta played on the original recording.
“Dragula” appears on Rob Zombie’s 1998 album Hellbilly Deluxe, his first solo record. In the video, Tempesta sits behind a kit in the studio, plays the part, and talks about how the groove came together during the album sessions.
Tempesta describes how the beat builds as the song moves along. It starts with a snare pattern and a hi-hat groove. Then the bass drum, the gong drum, and the floor toms join in, and the sound gets much bigger.
He also explains how his playing shifts between the verse and the chorus. “As far as live goes, on the chorus, I played on the crash cymbal. It’s the same groove as the verse itself but as I said I I hit it a bit harder. Give some more groove to it,” John Tempesta said in the video.
Tempesta tied the song’s success to a change in heavy music in the late 1990s. Many bands got softer and more rock-focused, he said, while Rob Zombie went heavier and more metallic. The song helped launch Rob Zombie’s solo career after White Zombie split in 1998.
“It’s just a song people dig and will always remember, especially from that era in the nineties,” John Tempesta said of “Dragula.” It landed on The Matrix soundtrack, Gran Turismo 2, Twisted Metal, and other projects.
Tempesta spent nearly a decade in Rob Zombie’s solo band, after first playing with him in White Zombie. His start was humble: he worked as a drum tech for Charlie Benante of Anthrax. He then joined Exodus for the band’s last two Capitol Records albums, Impact Is Imminent and Force Of Habit. Later, he played with Testament, White Zombie, Rob Zombie, and Helmet.
