Ed Wilson opened Drum Base in Ramsey in 2022. As a professional musician and educator, his goal is to bring music education and drumming to as many people as possible; removing obstacles and providing an ‘open door’ to musicians and artists. After leaving school to work as a professional musician he studied Sound Technology at LIPA and later gained his MBA. Ed said: ‘Having moved around a lot throughout my life, it was always music and drumming that gave me an identity, a sense of stability or an escape when times were difficult.’

1) The Beatles - A Hard Day’s Night

I built my first drum kit out of stuff lying around the house and ‘borrowed’ my mum’s records and Dansette record player. This was the first track I played along to. When I got my first drum kit I put a band together four days later and we played badly along to Beatles records.

2) Nirvana - Serve the Servants

Nevermind was a great album but the drum sound and rawness of the tracks on In Utero were eye-opening.

3) Led Zeppelin - Good Times, Bad Times

I spent months trying to play John Bonham’s bass drum pattern to this track. I swear it was the main reason I got any gigs when I was a teenager. Everyone was playing double pedals badly and I was just getting my doubles faster on a single pedal.

4) Billy Cobham - Spectrum

My drum teacher gave me this album when I was 16. I’d never heard jazz fusion before and this track sent me down some dark rabbit holes!

5) Miles Davis - So What

Again, I was about 16 when I got interested in jazz. This track was my gateway into a world I’m still absolutely in love with. I was lucky to have drum teachers and mentors who exposed me to this stuff.

6) Steely Dan - Aja

Steve Gadd’s drumming on this track is otherworldly. The groove and sound is sublime plus he gets TWO solos that I could listen to forever.

7) Tower of Power - Squib Cakes

I have all my students listen to the intro of this track. It’s even more incredible to think that David Garibaldi’s phenomenal drum intro was pretty much improvised.

8) The Police - Can’t Stand Losing You

My dad introduced me to The Police when I was about eight but it wasn’t until 10 years later I really listened to them and started trying to get my head around how Stewart Copeland could seemingly play the drums backwards.

9) The Postal Service - Such Great Heights

This song doesn’t have a drummer. It’s all programmed but the drum and percussion parts are so musical. Listening to how non-drummers hear and write drum parts is always interesting. No one, apart from drummers, really listens to drums but everyone hears them and has an idea of how they should sound.

10) Blink 182 - Violence

In the early 2000s Travis Barker was the poster child for drumming. He never played what anyone else in that genre was playing. He could play as hard and fast as anyone but he was also a complete drum geek who loved world grooves, Steve Gadd and rudimental snare solos.