Chords for Lion and the Lamb - Drums and Bass Tutorial (In E)

[E] _ _ Our God is a lion, the lion, the [C#m] tutor He's roaring with power and fighting [A] our battle
_ _ [G#] Alright, here we are with drummer Jonathan Truman and Jesse Phillips on bass guitar talking
about the lion and the lamb and we've got to talk about tempo before we move to what
we're actually going to play.
And some of our favourite versions of this song are at 88 beats per minute and that was
working for us.
So Jonathan, you're going to be running that from your iPhone there?
Yep.
[E] And then through to everyone's IEMs, people with those in-ear monitors, they're going
to be able to hear a click that helps our band really be together.
Very helpful thing.
You don't want to let it be a crutch.
You do want to improve your own internal metronome so you know where time is without it.
But it's a very, very handy thing, especially when a church band is trying [Gm] to find their
groove, find their pocket, that click can help a lot.
And then some of my favourite versions of this song, they sound massive, like this big
sort of arena rock pop stuff and they've got very choppy drum kick patterns and sixteenths
on the bass, like [E] really a lot of bass playing using a pick.
So can you guys show us, and this is not what we've arrived at for our version, but give
us a demonstration of the sort of choppy kick pattern and sixteenths on the bass that we've
been hearing on some of those versions of this song. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [B] _ _
[C#] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ [B] _ _ _ [N] Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I really like that and you guys are making it fit together really, really well.
But what I find is a lot of instrumentalists at the volunteer church situation, to play
sixteenths on the bass really solidly is difficult, isn't it?
Definitely, yeah.
So we shouldn't be trying to play sixteenths unless we're going to nail it and not many
bass players can and most of them who can live in New York City, LA or Nashville.
_ But yeah, so be very, very careful of going, oh I want to reproduce this on that recording,
we've got to find something simpler.
And I find that a lot of drummers who try and execute that sort of choppy drum part,
they either feel like they've got it but they've sort of over emphasised it and turned it into
a kind of a Bon Jovi moment.
Down to get the bam, bam, yeah, nailed it.
So it never sort of has that smooth, supportive embrace that we want this song to have for
a congregation who's seeking to sing along with us.
So in the chorus of this song, we've decided to simplify, haven't we?
We've come up with a particular drum beat for the chorus, a simpler bass part and we're
going to even show a simpler version for the verse.
Let's start with the chorus though, what did we arrive at?
_ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
_ [B] _ _ [C#] _ _ _ _ _
[B] _ _ _ [A] [N] Great, that's not the whole chorus obviously but here we've got this very simple kick,
kick, snare, kick, kick, snare with the ts, ts, ts on the hats and what are you doing there Jesse?
I took it from 16th notes to 8th notes.
Really solid and every bass player needs to be able to get those 8th notes, especially
about this tempo, it's a really good solid thing and making sure we're locked together,
drums and bass.
Then we had a slightly simplified version, like we did in verse 1, things were a bit
more simple there.
So let's hear verse 1 which is a little smaller, a similar feel, similar pattern but not quite the same.
Listen to this.
_ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
_ [F#] _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
_ [F#] _ _ _ [N] Yeah, we didn't do the whole verse but you get the idea.
So we're listening to each other and every time there's a kick, the bass guitar is landing
with that kick and that's where the power comes.
You add kick drum with bass guitar together, that's what can really move people.
Keeping it simple and leaving space for each other and space for other things, right?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Good deal, alright.
Okay, so the bridge, we get to the end of that chorus and the bridge gets really small
and then can you show us, what were you thinking to build up the parts?
To get the bridge getting small, bigger, bigger, bigger for our last chorus, what did we do?
Yeah, so the band is singing the bridge section, I'm just keeping time, but then as it gets
closer to the big part of the bridge, I get a little bit louder with the count and then _ _ _ _
_ _ it kind of ramps up into a half-time groove.
Yeah, yeah.
Good deal, I like that.
Look out for that when we play the whole song, this gradual, gradual build of the parts.
And then we decided to do something a little bit, I don't know, spectacular for that last
chorus, didn't we?
We decided to do a big hit, that,
Our God is a lion, the lion of_
And then you did a little fill and hit it for us.
Can we hear that?
It's amazing when we got onto the first chorus, just to hit the one and a big gap for the
vocals to be exposed and the band being brought back in by a lovely little snappy drum fill.
Yep. _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[C#m] _ _ _ _ _ [C] Yeah, yeah, I like that.
And speaking about fills, Jonathan, drum fills, what's your approach in a song like this?
I mean, I always gear towards keep it simple.
You can overcrowd a song really easily with drums and you have four limbs to play with
so it can happen really fast.
It's really out of hand.
So I love playing with Jonathan because he avoids doing drum fills over the vocal and
if he does do a drum fill over the vocal, he supports that really perfectly.
And there's a place in this chorus where there's _ a shorter phrase, we're two bars shorter for
the first half of the chorus than the second half and just doing a little tiny daggast
sort of fill.
Is that the sort of thing you were doing?
Yeah, yeah.
Great.
So watch [B] out on that whole version of the song, but thanks a lot guys for helping us with this.
_ _ _ [E] _ _ Our God is a lion, the lion [C#m] of Judah.
He's roaring with power [B] and fighting [A] a battle.
Heaven, he [B] will bow before [E] him. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [C#m] _ _ _ _ _