Interview by Ian at DrumRadar on March 22, 2019. Anika is a German drummer, songwriter, and producer who gained immense popularity from her high-quality and original compositions on YouTube. She started drumming at the age of 6, and went on to study music at the University of Popular Music and Music Business in Mannheim, in addition to studying with some well-known teachers like Claus Hessler. Anika has released various singles, as well as her debut album, "Pikalar", which climbed it's way toward the top of the charts all across the world. She won the award of "Best Up and Coming Artist" through Modern Drummer Magazine Readers Poll, and "#1 Rising Star" in DRUM! Magazine in 2015 and 2016. Twice she made it to the #2 spot for "Best Fusion Drummer" by Modern Drummer, and lately she won #1 for best Clinician / Educator by Music Radar.

When you were young you had a chance to study with Claus Hessler, a student of Jim Chapin who many drummers call his successor. How was your time with him, and what are some important things you learned during that time? I’ve studied with Claus for more than 8 or 9 years, starting around the age of 19. It wasn’t a weekly thing - it was more like once or twice a month. Claus is an awesome teacher! He has more knowledge about music and drumming than anybody I’ve ever met. Claus studied a lot outside of drumming - more about music in general, music history, about different musicians, and also the history of musical instruments. He has a ton of knowledge, and all of this makes its way into his lessons. I’ve learned stuff like this from him, and also of course how to understand music, because he is a very musical player. A lot of my technique comes from Claus Hessler. Claus and I are still in touch today because we come from the same area in Germany. We lived really close - about a 20 minute drive from each other. We are more like friends and do educational stuff together. Lately, we put together a bunch of lessons and call it the Drumming Kinship, and we offered this as a 2-3 day Masterclass package. Today, you can get us both together as your teachers if you’d like too! [laughs]

When you left your career in social education to pursue drumming full time, you began practicing multiple hours a day. What kind of things would you practice, and what would you study from? (Books? Online lessons?) Did you have a plan all laid out, or was your learning path more spontaneous? I left social education and started studying at the Pop Academy in Germany - it’s a famous university for pop music. I got lessons there, and of course in the beginning I was focused on the material we got from the teachers. I also started to work more with books and more with the stuff from Claus. It got pretty intense because I had more time to practice, but I didn’t have a plan at that time. While practicing along with all the material from the teachers, I realized at some point that it needs more structure and I couldn’t get any more progression, so I figured out a lot of different options for how to practice - things like how to split, how to organize practice time, etc… In the end it took me more than 2 years to really figure out how I learn best, and how I study best. You have to make your own experiences because everyone has a different personality, different character, and everybody differs in how they learn new things. Has your degree in music business come in handy at all during your drumming career? While studying at the Pop Academy, my studies weren’t focused on drums only. A big part of the curriculum was on the music business side of things. Things like how to promote yourself, how to handle all the office work, taxes for professional musicians, self-employment stuff, social media work, and all that stuff. All of this was really helpful in my career. Playing-wise, I don’t think you need a degree. As long as you are practicing, working on developing your skills all the time, and moving forward, then all is good! Of course you need a lot of experience playing with musicians - in bands, on stage, and in the studio - and all of that stuff helps you to grow as a musician and on your instrument. I would say all the lesson stuff was helpful, but when I started with Claus it would have been the same in the end because it’s on YOU how much time you spend practicing, and how much time you spend to develop your skills. It’s not the material you get, or the teachers you are studying with. It’s more about yourself.

Can you explain how you came up with the title for your newest album, Pikalar? Pikalar, for me, is like a synonym for something colorful, something complex, and something beautiful. I don’t know how that came up - it was something in the studio I think. You know, you have this studio flow at some point, and we say “Ugh, everything is a little Pikalar today”, and [laughs] “I feel Pikalar.”, and “Let’s Pikalar it up!” You have your own language at some point when it gets crazy after weeks in the studio. I don’t know - I came up with that and I think it’s a synonym for all that is included in the album - something colorful, colorful tones, colorful notes, colorful songs, and a lot of complex rhythms of course. So yea, we end up with Pikalar! I love how your incorporate odd time signatures and displaced rhythms into your playing. What advice can you give to people looking to start doing the same thing? Are there any good exercises for that kind of thing? I’m really interested in that kind of stuff, like playing odd meters, playing permutations, and all of those things. A good way to start is probably to keep things really basic. Don’t start with polyrhythms if you don’t understand odd-time, for example. I would say that having a little bit of structure and an overview of the topics really helps to create a plan, and that’s a really important thing in the beginning when you start practicing. I have experience with a lot of students, and they will practice this a little bit, that a little bit, and then they switch to a completely different topic. After doing that for 2 days, they don’t see the connections between all those topics. For them, everything is a separate thing so nothing flows together. Everything is a little bit chaotic. When it comes to this more complex stuff like odd meters, permutations, or polyrhythms, then it’s really important to understand it and have a structure. My way of thinking with odd-meters is to add a note or leave a note out. You can take your regular rhythms you are familiar with in 4/4 and just try to add a note or 2 notes and try to capture the feel of the new groove you create. It’s hard to explain in 2 minutes, especially making people understand such a complex concept easily, but I think that’s good advice when it comes to adding a note or leaving one out. I actually did a lesson like this on YouTube where I had a little more time to explain it:

I’m writing a book right now which is based more on the pad, but I really break down all the polyrhythm and odd-meter stuff in a really basic way - how to practice it and how to bring it to the drum set later on. Do you think YouTube is the same now as when you uploaded your first song 6 years ago? How has it or the online community changed since then? I don’t think YouTube has changed. It’s more that the quality and people probably changed [laughs], and the next generation is already online. Yea, you are right - it’s been probably 6 or 7 years since I uploaded my first video. When I started producing drum videos it wasn’t really planned, rather, it was a really lucky accident (my career). When I uploaded my first video it was one of the rare drum-related videos in good quality, and that made it a little more outstanding when compared to a lot of stuff on YouTube in this category. In the meantime, everyone else was starting to produce really good quality drum videos. The industry like Meinl cymbals, Vic Firth, and all the guys who produce musical instruments - they recognized YouTube as their next new promotion tool. They started to promote the cymbals, sticks, and drums in high quality videos, and of course they used their endorsers too. I have to make sure that my videos are the same quality as them, and it’s getting more and more expensive I feel. When the industry starts with a lot of money to produce good videos, then as a self-employed small artist you have to check all your options and see what you can do. This has been pretty challenging for me. So, I don’t think YouTube changed. I think time has changed and everything gets faster. People don’t spend 5 minutes anymore on a video - it has to be quick! Everything you have to say has to be said within 10 seconds, or better in 5. [laughs] It’s really challenging to put the most important information in a good production within 10 seconds. Time has changed. Society has changed. Besides just playing drums, you compose your own songs. Do you have a specific process you go through when you compose a song, or is it different every time? I have mainly 2 options for how I start. I have kind of a routine when it comes to composing. Sometimes I start with the drums - I have rhythms, ideas, and grooves, and I just record that stuff and build a song on my drumming ideas. But it’s also the other way around where I have ideas, harmonies, and melodies, and I just start with recording those and go over it with my drums after. More or less when I start composing it’s similar to when a band is composing a song together. I start with an instrument, then I do the next one, I put it down for a few days while listening to it, and then I restart the process. I get new ideas and let the song grow. I would say I don’t finish a song within a day, because I don’t have to. [laughs] I can take the time to listen to it a couple times, bring in new ideas, and figure out different options for how to play a verse or chorus. Let the song grow! You know, I travel a lot, and I get inspired by landscapes and people. By traveling I have all of these different cultures around me, and when I’m back home I’m full of ideas when it comes to composing. Sometimes I sit down and do a quick layout - just one potential part of a song - and take it into a full song later on.