Bob Beals thinks back over the nearly 40 year history of Evans drumheads to a time in the early 60's. "We were asked to build a drum for the Rose Bowl parade, not just the heads, but the entire drum," he says. "I went and measured the train car they were going to ship it in and it came to seven feet. So we built a seven-foot shell and the heads, and there was this enormous drum in the parade that took four people to play it.
The McDonalds Marching Band liked it, so they bought it and asked me to get it to New York for Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. No one could ship it in time, so I drove from Kansas to New York with the drum in a trailer. That was some trip."
The "Boot Hill Boomer," as the drum was called, became famous. But the company that manufactured it, and also developed some of the drumhead industry's most important technological accomplishments, has remained decidedly low-key. When Evans began manufacturing in 1958, they developed a head that was an immediate success: the All-Weather Drumhead.
At a time when plastic heads were still looked upon with some suspicion, Evans' All-Weather heads proved that heads made of polyester could rival the sound quality of those made of calf skin. And since the plastic heads could be played in any weather conditions, they had an advantage over the older calf skin heads, which were impossible to play when wet.
"We would demonstrate the All-Weather heads to people by pouring water on them, and then playing them and standing on them to show what they could take," says Beals, former President of Evans. "People were amazed. Eventually, we began to lightly sandblast them to better simulate the feel and response of calf skin." Ultimately, a coating process replaced the sandblasting. The coated heads better caught brushes, like the pores of calf skin heads, to create a sound similar to the skin heads.
As the years passed, Evans would quietly become a technological leader in the business. They would introduce
"sparkle heads," which led, in 1968, to the very first clear, or "glass" heads. And in the early 1970's, they invented Hydraulic drumheads.
The Hydraulic heads were unique in the industry: two-plies of drumhead film with a thin layer of oil between the plies. The result was a head that reduced resonance and emphasized a drum's lower overtones. These naturally muffled heads took off instantly. For over fifteen years, Hydraulic heads were half of the company's production, and they remain one of Evans' most popular lines to this day.
In the 1980's, Evans recognized a need for better hoops. "The fiberglass hoops were flexible," Beals says, "and they would conform to the shape of irregularly formed drum shells. But today's drums are made with much more accuracy, and the fiberglass wouldn't work well, if it worked at all."
Beals spent two years in research, and designed a new hoop that fit drum shells with perfection, eliminated the flaws of earlier hoops, and gave the heads a brighter, more resonant sound. They also had another revolutionary aspect: they utilized CAD/CAM (computer aided design/computer aided manufacture) technology. The new hoops were introduced in 1988, and were far superior to any other available hoops.
Then, in 1990, came the biggest advancement of all: the Genera line and the EQ system. It was in that year that Beals was introduced to Bob Gatzen by Evans Performing Artist Peter Erskine. Gatzen, a 25-year veteran of drum research, development, and design, took to the idea of developing drumheads for Evans immediately. His aim was to produce heads that would resonate more, import subtle tone and dampening, increase the dynamic range of the drum, and, perhaps most important, would bring out the character of each drum.
In 1995, Evans was acquired by J. D’Addario & Company, the world’s largest manufacturer of musical instrument strings. Since that time, the company has grown in leaps and bounds. New manufacturing techniques have taken Evans heads to the top in terms of durability, sound, and consistency. Dozens more of the world’s top drummers have signed on with the company, joining the likes of Dennis Chambers, Peter Erskine, Carter Beauford, Giovanni Hidalgo, Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez, Alex Acuña, and hundreds of others.
One thing is certain. With Evans products, there’s never a shortage of innovations.
