Ferret (David Arnold)
At the age of 14, Ferret began drumming on classroom desks and floors to the sound of heavy metal in concealed headphones under his hair. Starting out under the instruction of Chris Ortega (Gypsy Tribe, Atlantis) he picked up the passion to play drums obsessively, and the desire to make a living of it. At the recommendation of Chris, he developed an interest in marching and concert band percussion, and jazz fusion from classes offered in school. In his time outside of school bands, he immersed himself in a myriad of rather eclectic all original projects. These ranged from progressive, fusion, tech-death, djent, and avant garde styles, where he learned to find his place in the context of each band.
While hailing all of the usual drum legends as influences, (Danny Carey, Gavin Harrison, Jon Theodore, Mike Portnoy, Derek Roddy, Buddy Rich, Elvin Jones etc) Ferret also takes influence from the stylistic approaches of singer Mike Patton, skateboarder Rodney Mullen, and reckless ball of young insanity Beavis. In 2010, Ferret resumed lessons with Chris after a 5 year break, and also took on the instruction of jazz-electro drummer Wally Schnalle (Independent). In this year, he auditioned and was accepted as the drummer for the hard rock/heavy metal act Archer, and recorded their record “Who’s Gonna Save You Now” 2 months later. (Produced and recorded by Gilby Clarke, and mastered by Maor Applebaum) Now at age 22, he is set to release his first full length album with Archer and take to the road.