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In episode 10 of Inside the Noise, Guitar Center CEO Gabe Dalporto interviews Chris Lombardi about how his dad and DW cofounder John Good transformed the company from an exclusively educational enterprise to a premier drum kit and drum hardware manufacturer.
“In the 1970s, my dad had a teaching studio in Santa Monica, and he was learning from his students and friends in the Los Angeles area that certain things about drum sets could use some improvement,” says Lombardi. “He started tinkering around with drum products, because teaching is all about billable hours and he was LO looking for additional revenue by getting into manufacturing. He studied what was working for drummers and what was not working, and, as a result, Drum Workshop got this reputation as people who knew how to make drum sets sound really good.”
During this early phase of DW’s growth, a seemingly less than wonderful business situation became an advantage.
“Back then, there wasn’t always enough money coming in to keep everybody employed,” says Lombardi. “So, John would get gigs as a drum tech and go on tour with all of these famous bands. This was a huge gift for the company, because he would get
hands-on experience supporting these famous drummers. Then, he would come back and say, ‘This worked great, this needs improvement and this is horrible.’ We’d take what he learned out on the road, come up with ways to solve real problems for drummers, and send those products back out into the world. This feedback loop was really important to our early career.”
DW’s first product indeed solved a common problem for drummers, and it was innovative, but it also started out as a bit of a joke.
“There was a combination trap case and drum throne on the market,” explains Lombardi. “It was a cylinder with a lid on top, and you could put hardware and stuff inside. But there was no way to adjust anything—it was kind of a “one size fits all.” Well, that obviously wasn’t going to work with different-sized drummers. So, we developed a way to have an adjustable sleeve inside, and that was the first product we ever made. We put an ad in Modern Drummer magazine, and my dad thought he had the catchiest name in the world for it. He called it the “Royal Throne”—not realizing the name also described a toilet. We got a lot of grief for that, but it established DW as being able to refine products that had been on the market for a while and making them better for drummers.”
NOTE: This episode was filmed while Chris Lombardi was serving as CEO of DW. We hope you enjoy the episode, and we want to congratulate Chris on a remarkable, decades-long career at the legendary drum maker.
Catch the full conversation and other episodes of Inside the Noise with Gabe Dalporto on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any of your favorite major platforms. When you subscribe, you’ll get new episodes every Tuesday at 3 p.m. PT.