Drumming Inspiration: Travis Barker

One of my favourite drummers, and certainly one who inspired me the most throughout my teenage years, is Travis Barker.

I remember my dad buying me the ‘Take Off Your Pants And Jacket’ album while we were away in Germany, aged about 13, and playing it on my portable CD player ON REPEAT driving back to England. Right from the first second of that album, with a blasting entry on the snare, I was hooked on Barker’s drumming.

I’m sure some of you guys will relate to hitting PLAY and trying to catch the entry fill to ‘First Date’ in time or trying to keep up with his 193BPM 16th notes on ‘The Rock Show’ or just trying to figure out that pattern he’s playing in the verses on ‘Every Time I Look For You’. All of that was enough to keep me inspired and pushing forward with my playing throughout my teens and even now when I revisit the albums.

Take Off Your Pants And Jacket

Here is the intro drum fill notated, which is heard several times throughout the song ‘First Date’ by Blink 182.

Then I remember picking up the self-titled Blink 182 album on the shelves in HMV with the bonus DVD, taking it home and watching the videos on repeat and then rushing to my drum kit to practise songs like ‘Always’ and ‘Feeling This’, which features one of my favourite grooves. This album is layered with amazing percussive parts and original grooves and without them the songs would be something else entirely.

Here is the intro drum groove notated for the first 4 bars of ‘Feeling This’ by Blink 182.

From there, I backtracked a little and bought Enema Of The State, since I was only 6 years old when that album was released!

Songs like ‘Mutt’, which had that crazy fast fill as soon as you pressed play making it near impossible to drum along to, had me busy learning for hours! The song is 105BPM but the drums play in double time (210).

This particular intro fill is made up mostly of 8th notes with a couple of 16th notes thrown in. It looks like this for anyone wanting to learn it:

‘Mutt’ - Blink 182 - Intro Drum Fill Notated

Travis has been a huge inspiration for many drummers, earning a slot in Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Drummers Of All Time. He continues his work playing, recording and touring with Blink 182, as well as releasing his own solo project album ‘Give The Drummer Some’, featuring HipHop artists like Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne, Pharrell Williams, Kid Cudi and more. Then throughout 2020 he has worked on more pop-punk tracks with the likes of Machine Gun Kelly, collaborating and playing drums on ‘Bloody Valentine’ and ‘Forget Me Too’.

Barker’s playing is fast, energetic, creative, precise and hard-hitting, which really spoke to me as a teenage drummer and I think for any teenage/adult players looking for some inspiration in their own drumming, definitely check him out if you haven’t already and give the fills and grooves a go!