Mikey Erg
SPB: Walk our readers through your kit and offer insight as to how you arrived at your sizes (shells and cymbals)?
Mikey: My current kit is a Ludwig Blue Vistalite kit with a 26" kick drum and 14" and 18" toms. My snare is a Pork Pie "Pig lite" 13x7 snare that I just LOVE the sound of. No matter what room you end up in it cuts through everything. Cymbalwise, currently I'm using 14" Zildjian Mastersound Hats a 20" Zildjian A custom crash and a 23" Zildjian Sweet Ride. I also enjoy Paiste Giant Beats very much.
Essentially, I like everything big and loud. I became a Led Zeppelin fan at a very young age and ever since have admired the Ludwig "Bonham" kit. I was also very obsessed with Nirvana and Dave Grohl and loved seeing live footage of Dave just dwarfed by these gigantic drums. I started off playing an entry level TAMA Rockstar kit, which suited me fine since that was the name on the front of Grohl and Stewart Copeland's kits. I used that until midway into my time in The Ergs when I walked into a Guitar Center and saw a Ludwig Black Diamond kit collecting dust in the corner. Not quite the "Ringo" Oyster kit (another dream kit of mine) but close enough! They offered to sell it for $400 since the floor tom was a different year than the rest of the kit. Sold. It's in desperate need of some TLC at this point so I hope to get that done soon. A few years ago, thanks to a gig in the house band of a basic cable television show, I finally had some extra funds to get my dream kit, a blue Ludwig Vistalite in ridiculous dimensions. It plays like a dream and sounds like cannons!
