For nearly a decade now, Poison drummer Rikki Rockett has been constructing custom drum kits for a wide variety of clients ranging from legends to up and comers. His company, Rockett Drum Works, is dedicated to crafting drums that are 100% American-made.
Not long ago, a television producer friend of Rockett’s, after witnessing life within the drum factory, told him he thought that it would make a terrific reality show.
Today, Rockett and his people are out pitching the pilot for his reality show American Drums. Noisecreep had the pleasure of speaking with the drummer about where he thinks the show fits within the insane world of reality television.
Rikki, what is the status on American Drums?
Well, right now, we have a couple of different, what are called sizzle reels, that we are in the process of pitching. These are like demo versions of the show. We’re working with Triage Entertainment who are an awesome company and totally understand what we’re trying to do.
This all came about when my friend Dan Masek from the E! channel spend some time with us watching us build drums. He told me, ‘People would love to be a fly on the wall for all of this. To experience you, your team of builders in your customers is something people really need to see.’ I told him great, I just didn’t want to do anything that wasn’t real. I didn’t want to stage things. We are what we are and that’s why want the show to be.
What makes the environment and your company so unique?
I think what’s most interesting is that we are a truly custom shop. Our customers run the gamut from guys like Stephen Adler to a doctor in Ohio. It’s all over the map. Designing and building drum sets for somebody is a really important mission because it defines so much of who when what they are on stage. To me, drums of the most important thing up there so we work harder than anybody to make sure our customer gets a custom set that really is tailored to their personality.
