Cooper B. Handy and Salvadore McNamara of Massachusetts-based duo Taxidermists talk drumstick and guitar strap love...
Salvadore McNamara: I think it would be very difficult if not impossible to be in Taxidermists without drumsticks. My favorite pair of drumsticks is always evolving and I like to lean into chance. Right now, it’s a pair of Vic Firth Forward 747’s. Cooper needed an amp picked up at Guitar Center and they were in a bucket of used sticks. I don’t find myself breaking sticks very often so these have lasted a while. One pair of sticks I truly miss is a pair of signature Doobie Brothers sticks I found after stage handing one of their shows. These were later smashed and lost by a rowdy friend but I swear I had them for like all of 2016 and 2017. Throughout some years I’d buy a bundle of cheap sticks, probably a 5A and just burn through them but now I think it’s important to use something that has some sort of quality control to it so it doesn’t break immediately.
Cooper B. Handy: Having a solid guitar strap has probably been my most crucial gear over the years. I’ve had a few here and there but mostly come back to using one that was my mom's in the '70s. It has kind of a psychedelic threaded pattern on it. It’s important for the strap to be secured on both sides of the guitar's body. Also it feels so good when you adjust a strap to the appropriate height for the type of playing you’re doing. It helps the whole experience.
Photo credit: Harry Wohl
Taxidermists' Does the Wind Know album is out now.
