BH: What's your drumming story? How did you get into drumming and why?
BK: Russ and I have been best friends since HS, and it centered around music. We work well together, we can attack a project without having to speak, really.
I didn’t really get into drumming until I was around fifteen or so. My father played a little, and I got into messing with his drums. Close to graduation, my brother got into guitar and I hopped on kit.
I’ve also been into making and building things with my hands, for a long time.
BH: What's the story of Ingrained Instruments?
BK: You always want something you can’t seem to find out there already. Russ and I talked about this for a long time. A neighbor from down the street has been a woodworker for a long time had has a workshop in his garage. I asked him for guidance and eventually he wound up just turning a pair of sticks — he’s not a musician but they were really good right off the bat.RB: Then it became of question of “How do WE do this?” and we just got more and more into it.
Eventually we got into this thing where we each got into some aspect of the process and got good at it.
RB: But it’s a very home grown, grass-roots kind of thing, where we learned as we went along.
BK: We’ve gotten into mixing old school woodworking with some automation, and each time we make an improvement it’s been huge — because the process has been and continues to be very organic.
BH: How do you select what woods you will make sticks from?
BK: I began with woods that were less common because I was really curious about them. I had a martial arts fighting staff made from purple heart and wondered what it would be like to make sticks from it. I ask, “Will it be playable? Will it be workable on a lathe? How will it cure?" We use the Janka Hardness scale, which tells us what woods’ hardnesses are from softer to harder. The hard part with wood is that it can be so changeable, and so you have to figure out whether the actual wood you find may or may not be the best in that species.
RB: sometimes the wood you get will have burls or knots that can be hard to work with and still have the sticks come out straight.
BK: I want it all to be functional when it’s done.
BH: How does sustainability/scarcity factor into your choices?
RB: We’re trying to grow relationships with local companies that source domestic wood so we can have a more hands-on way of selecting woods. The more local, sustainably grown wood, the better.
BK: There’s a few regular places online and one place locally which also import woods like cocobolo, ebony, and other woods not grown here. Those woods are getting harder to locate and far more expensive. Choosing those woods will get harder and harder and that will affect our choices and also our process of manufacture as we try to keep sourcing woods that will make great sticks. If we can get something whose source we trust (to be sustainable and/or imported legally) we’ll go with it.
There’s dozen different species of hickory and the fact that there are more domestic woods becoming available is encouraging for us.
BK: We don’t use enough wood yet for anyone to really ask us about that, but things are changing all the time and we know that those questions are coming. We are looking at materials that will help us stay sustainable in new and interesting ways.
RB: Brian is very artistic and creative, and so when we started getting “off” strips of random pieces, which we can then layer and laminate — and utilize to make beautiful sticks. So we’re looking into doing more of that as well. We’re looking at both synthetic and natural non-wood sources like carbon fiber, bamboo and even hemp. We’re open to all kinds of experimenting to find our way to good playable sticks from materials that aren’t endangered and that’s exciting.
RB: Combining certain materials as we do also makes the stick "pop" visually.
BH: When making sticks one at a time, are there things that make it easier or harder to match weight and pitch? (My brother-in-law is also a woodworker, who specializes in repairing and restoring antique spinning wheels and making drop [hand] spindles, so I'd guess there's some overlap; but he doesn't have to worry quite as much about weight-matching as you do.) How much do pitch and weight matter in the sticks you sell?
BK: I’ve found that kit players tend to worry about pitch less than marching and concert players. A big part of it is starting off with wood that’s as clean as possible.
RB: If we weigh the planks before we start to work them, then it’s a little easier to match pairs up. but with wood there’s never an ironclad guarantee…
BH: But there’s still a high-wire excitement to this, isn’t there?
BK: If we get an unusual piece of wood that’s a one-of-a-kind, there’s no way to predict, except to try and minimize the margin of error at the start.
BK: This whole thing actually began around practice pads, but sticks took over quickly. We’ll probably get back to developing pads soon. We’ve also made guitar picks — Russ plays guitar — I’m experimenting right now with a tabletop music stand with a stick holder underneath.
RB: We’re both creative and musicians, so the thought process is going on all the time.
BH: Anything else you’d like to add?
RB: It’s been so interesting making a drumstick. I play guitar, and had never thought about sticks but I’ve learned a lot about this — from Brian, and also from Eric Harris and the folks at the Boutique Sticks group on Facebook — it’s been quite an education.
BK: The last three years of my life and building this into a business, has been some of the most rewarding time of my life. It’s been incredible to meet and learn from so many people around the world. It gives me hope.
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