News :: Ronzilla's Attack on Los Angeles

Earlier in the year, Ronzilla made a (music) business trek to the "City of Angels". He began his trip by being invited over to Oxnard, California (near Santa Barbara) to visit and tour the DW Drums world headquarters and manufacturing facility. Here Ron enjoyed getting to catch-up with friend John Good, co-founder of DW Drums and builder of Ron's Custom Monsterus Drumkit. "It was a fun time had by all! When John saw me he got excited and said 'you've got to come here...I've got to show you something brand new.' He then proceeded to lead me to a stack of raw unfinished drum shells and stuck one up in my face and said 'smell it!' I smelled it and he replied 'what's it smell like?' I couldn't help but to reply that it smelled like a hamster cage... obviously not quite exactly the answer he was hoping for. After we finished laughing John who is a total 'woodaholic' began showing me his latest creation of building drums from cedar shells (hence why they smelled to me like a hamster cage...so I really wasn't that far off...my answer just wasn't as romantic as he would have liked)." Ron also got to hang out and catch up with DW's other co-founder Don Lombardi as well as spend some time with DW representative David Leon. Ron was also excited to find out from John that almost virtually upon completion of building his custom Monsterus drumkit that his "Grey Glass" finish was no longer being produced do to environmental issues relating to how this special finished was achieved. What makes this unique is that when Ron selected the finish it was at that time a brand new DW finish option so other than Ron's drumkit there may only be a handful of kits that even exist with this finish...very cool!!!

Continuing on his trip Ron made a stop by Randall May International in Irvine, California. Randall May International is the company who has endorsed Ron since 1995 by putting their patented miking system in each and every one of his Custom DW Drums. There he got to catch up with long time friend and endorser Randy May. "Randy & Lauren (Randy's wife) have been behind me and supported all my efforts from the beginning...in more ways than just a gear endorsement. Randy has understood the vision of what I've been working towards and has done everything in his power and resources to help me accomplish my dream...There are very few people like him in this business. Thanks Randy!!!" Ron enjoyed the opportunity to play some pre-production demos from the new album and take his first tour of Randy's entire operation.

Later on the trip, Ron was an invited guest to the private compound of legendary studio drum technician Ross Garfield - "The Drum Doctor". Their Ron got to voice a lot of questions and get plenty of answers about capturing the right drum tone on the upcoming Monsterus album. "Ross has pretty much supplied, tuned, and hand-picked all the drums used on most every album worth mentioning; Metallica "Load", Rage Against The Machine's "Evil Empire" and he even worked with legendary Christian rockers, Stryper, on most of their albums. You name it, he's done it!" Ron was also in awe as Ross took him through a literal warehouse that is home to hundreds of Ross' drum sets. "The room that led into the warehouse was filled with just snare drums...there had to be like 200 different snares in there and he knows what every single one sounds like!" Ron looks forward to more of Ross' involvement on the next Monsterus album.

While in Los Angeles, Ron got in touch with friend Matt Pinfield former MTV VJ who is currently host of Farmclub.com (now... getmusic.com) on the USA cable network. Matt has been quite impressed with Monsterus and their sound and was excited to meet Ron face-to-face. This inevitable meeting would occur and it would happen at Universal Studios when Ron was invited down for a live taping of Farmclub.com. Ron had a great time meeting and hanging out with Matt and enjoyed filling him in on the new albums development and progression. The evening concluded over at the Hard Rock Cafe in City Walk, in which Zilla was also excited to see one of his drumming inspirations, Tommy Lee's more notable kits. Stay tuned to Farmclub.com... cause there could be a Monsterus appearance down on the farm!

On their last couple days in L.A., Ron and his wife Heather decided to take in the city to the fullest which proved to be quite spontaneous and a bit of an adventure. During the days they checked out some legendary clubs along the famous Sunset Strip: The Whiskey, The Roxy, The Key Club and The Viper Room, and did some shopping along Melrose Avenue for some new threads. In the evenings they'd go back to shop while taking in some of the more famous scenery like Capitol Records and usually end up grabbing a bite to eat at some notorious establishment. They caught dinner one night at the legendary "Rainbow on the Sunset Strip" which also that night actor Sean Penn and Cypress Hill had the same craving but was eating out on the patio. Ron and Heather later moved on to shop at the infamous LORDS Clothing, which is the custom tailor for Robert Plant, Kirk Hammett, Dave Navarro and Dennis Rodman just to name a few. It would be later that night while shopping that Heather would actually physically walk right into Alice Cooper...and even sometime later that Ron would accidentally honk his horn at the car in front of him, only to find out it was Alice again...a crazy world we live in and L.A. will never quite be the same!