Story by Bob Campbell with Katelynn Corll, Jeff Woods, and Dave Abbruzzese
Photos courtesy of Jeff Woods, Katelynn’s photo by Jeffery Mullins
Since the dawn of recorded time, human beings have sought to leave their mark on the world, often through their precious belongings. Humans have used carvings, engravings, and painting to personalize treasured items. These distinctive markings have evolved into highly valued symbols of craftsmanship and artistic expression, sought after by collectors and art enthusiasts alike.
Musical instruments, including drums, are no exception to this ancient practice. Some of the most coveted examples include the engraved Slingerland Black Beauty, Ludwig DeLuxe (Black Beauty), and Leedy Black Elite. These drums are admired not only for their remarkable acoustic qualities but also for the artistry that elevates them beyond mere instruments to works of visual art.
In this spirit, I have dedicated myself to chronicling the creative pursuits of modern artists and drum craftsmen who together continue to push the boundaries of engraved drum artistry. The synthesis of their efforts has produced the most amazing sonic and visual art. I have also had the privilege of collaborating with some of these talented craftsmen, creating unique and personalized drums that hold a special place in my own collection.
“The Drum Engravers” series is intended to capture the creative process behind these collaborations and share the experience. Previously, I focused on the engraving of metal drums by experts such as John Aldridge and Mike Martin. In the 4th installment of the Drum Engravers series, I wish to introduce you to an extremely talented musician and wood-burning (pyrographic) artist, Katelynn Corll. When I first saw her engraving at the 2023 Music City Drum Show, I was completely blown away by her creativity and skill. Katelynn was kind enough to sit down with me for an interview and share her experience in the pyrographic engraving of four very special Woods Custom drums. Please note that these Woods Custom snare drums are all fabulous sounding and well constructed. The combination of the Woods Custom drum sound and Katelynn’s engraving is the ultimate in musical and artistic expression.
Bob Campbell (BC): Before we get into your wood-burning a.k.a., pyrography, I’d like to know more about your background as a musician. Could you tell me a little about your musical upbringing?
(Katelynn Corll) KC: “My biggest goal in life is just to be constantly learning more and more. Learning new things in general is what gets me most excited. I got invested in music really young and was fortunate to start playing shows when I was just 11. I really dove headfirst into music.
I had older brothers who were taking piano lessons. Even though I was around 3-5 years old, I began begging for piano lessons too. My parents were incredibly supportive from the jump and got me into lessons as early as my brothers’ piano teacher would have me! I took lessons for piano (2004-2013), then drums (2010-2018), and classical vocal (2014-2018), and was in the School of Rock program as a performance student from 2012-2015. It was during that time that my parents would purchase a “punch card” for lessons on guitar and bass from School of Rock. This is where I'd buy four lessons and then schedule one-off lessons with different instructors of my choice. So, I learned a couple things, including music theory through my lessons, but for the most part, bass and guitar have been self-taught. I’ve had great mentorships with some amazing musicians. This has allowed me to perform and jam with them over the years, and as well, continuing to learn from the other musicians around me.
I formed my first band when I was 10. It was an all-girl alt rock group, where I was behind the kit as well as the lead vocalist! That band was active until 2015, so I had a really solid 5 years with them.
I had to get through some growing pains and evolutions when learning the industry but was fortunate to have guidance from my dad. He was my manager as I was underage for most places. It was nice to have an adult to have those talks with venues and promoters.
I'm trying to learn bagpipes right now, self-teaching, and it's not going very well. I've never played a dual reed instrument and let alone try to cycle breathing and all that kind of stuff. It's a lot to learn!
My current tours/gigs are:
- The Accidentals (drums/backing vocals)
- UK tour with Nashville HOF Songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman (bass/percussion/lead guitar/backing vocals)
- Hannah Wicklund (drums)
- Filling in for Native Howl on the front end of their fall tour with Struggle Jennings (banjo/backing vocals)”
BC: What do you consider is your primary instrument? Do you have one? You also have a beautiful voice!
KC: “Drums - that’s definitely the main one. But I've always resonated strongest with rhythm instruments, so bass is a close second at this point.
Thank you for the kind words. I believe you might be thinking of the band that I'm out with currently, The Accidentals; they're a trio. For a lot of the artists that I get hired by, I tend to sing harmonies or backing vocals. And they (The Accidentals) are such an amazing group of individuals because they're so collaborative, and they have an incredible fan base. When I joined them about a year and a half ago, they immediately suggested I write my own songs. It was something like, ‘Let's put one of your songs in the set, tell our people about what you do, and feel free to bring your wood burning art to sell as merch at the shows. We want to celebrate you as well.’
I thought that was so beautiful, because as a hired musician, you just don't expect that kind of a dynamic. It really speaks volumes as to who they are as people. They've always been really rooting and cheerleading for everybody with a very family-like dynamic. That's unusual in my experience for a hired gun, so to speak.”
BC: Moving on to one of your other considerable talents - could you tell me how you got into pyrography, or the art of wood burning?
KC: “I started a project with a friend, Ryan Meadows, back in 2015 or 2016. And he was like, ‘What if we did this Delta Blues project and have you playing washboard and stuff like that?’ I thought that'd be cool. My parents had gotten me this pretty cheap washboard off of Amazon. Once we had a band name, I put the typography for the logo on the front and the back of the baseboard using wood burning. So, it was something I just wanted to get crafty with and ended up really enjoying. It was definitely a trial-and-error kind of situation. The washboard really was my first trial and error. I figured that it was like 20 bucks, so the worst thing that could happen is that it didn’t look good.
The (pyrography) kit that I got at the time, which I still use to this day, had a flat-like, quarter-size tip option that you could put on to the pen, and it would be used like a soft heat transfer. If I printed any designs off of a printer, then I could transfer that design onto the wood with something like a soft stencil. It’s kind of a similar step by step process as you would do for a tattoo. I make sure everything's in place even though I design everything digitally, just to make sure it's as accurate as I see in my head. I try to be incredibly meticulous with the measurements, to make sure everything's centered, everything's straight, and exactly where it needs to be. A lot of the process is actually the prep because I've been burning for so long that my technique has, thank goodness, gotten a little bit more refined. I can burn a little bit faster than when I first started.”
BC: Can you tell me about the special wood burning tools you use?
KC: “There's a lot available now. The pen that I use is from a company based in Canada. I told Jeff (Woods) about this too, and we are talking but they have more of those precise Exacto knife style pens that kind of cut as you burn that I use, as well as some others like stippling tips and things like that. I’d love to do some stipple shading as like part of a wood burning project. I just haven't done it yet. But I've always loved being able to see the movement. I think it's really cool.”
BC: For your engraving, then you would need an unfinished, sanded shell?
KC: “When Jeff Woods and I began working together, neither of us that the realized the shells needed to be sanded down further before burning, as this was both our first trial with pyrography on drums! So, yes, it’s best to start with unfinished, sanded wood (helps with template transfer and avoids contact with flammable oils/stains/lacquers). Either that, or if you have a drum that you're already planning on stripping and customizing, then definitely do that process first. I tell everybody that I am a wood burner, not a woodworker. So anytime anyone asks me to burn something on a guitar, bass, drum, or whatever, I tell them you have to have it sanded down and stripped and ready to go before it gets to me, because I do not want to accidentally mess up any electronics as far as a bass goes or anything like that.”
BC: How did you go from wood burning your own stuff to doing it for others?
KC: “It was actually Dave Abbruzzese (of Pearl Jam fame) that kind of kicked this all off with drum engraving. He's one of my idols and I’m a huge Pearl Jam fan, so that was kind of a surreal connection that was made during kind of the latter half of 2021, during COVID. We met because he spotted my bass video karaoke on Tik Tok. Dave saw it and reached out to me. I had started promoting custom burned home decor around the same time Dave and I connected online, and that’s how he knew I was diving more seriously into pyrography. He was one of the people that actually checked in on me every once in a while, as I was dealing with some long COVID health complications that kept me from touring for close to a year. He was always checking in, just saying, ‘Hey, like, how are you doing? How are things going?... Oh, I saw you did a show. That's great. I'm so happy to see you smiling.’ Dave was incredibly supportive, which meant the world to me in that moment.
One day, he sent me a message on Facebook and said, ‘I'm kind of thinking that it would be cool to have you wood-burn a drum for me. What do you think about that?’ I was like, ‘Whoa, that would be amazing!’ I had never done that before. So, my head was spinning, but I felt like this would be such an amazing opportunity.
Dave then reached out to Jeff Woods (Woods Custom Drums) and put us all in a group chat, in order to bounce ideas off of each other. In the end, Jeff was going to supply the drum shells, and I would engrave (wood-burn) one of his snare drums as a prototype for a Dave Abbruzzese signature snare drum and another as a Waylon Jennings tribute snare for the 2023 Music City Drum Show in Nashville. The shells (multiple projects) arrived in early 2022.”
BC: Can you tell me more about the Dave Abbruzzese signature snare (Drum #1)?
KC: “The design, a symbol, came from a tattoo of Dave’s. He said it’s a petroglyph of the sun, moon, and morning star. We went back and forth a couple times to decide on the final design. We discussed potentially some decoration around the hardware at one point as part of the design. However, I told him, ‘This is going to be your signature drum. We need to be sure there's an element that is very personal to you.’ Then he sent me a picture of his tattoo. I digitally rendered it and shared it with him. He said, ‘That's it. Let's just put that on there.’ So, I would say most of the design came from him. I just helped him render it.“
BC: The Woods Waylon Jennings tribute drum (Drum #2) that you engraved not only had text but essentially an image. I'm curious how you went about that.
KC: “The Woods/Dave Abbruzzese prototype signature snare was my first commissioned wood-burned drum. That experience kind of eased my nerves to do the Waylon Jennings tribute snare. For the Waylon drum, Jeff first shared his overall vision for the project and then allowed me a lot of creative control. He said that there were a couple of passages of lyrics from Waylon songs that mentioned Nashville that he would love to put on the drum (since this was intended to be shown at the Music City Drum Show in Nashville). I was like, ‘Oh, great. Those lyrics could be engraved on two panels of the shell.’ And then, obviously the silhouette of Waylon came about. If you're going to do a piece that screams Waylon Jennings, you have to include his image. It was a silhouette more than a true shaded portrait.
Technically, the work on this drum was a little bit different. I usually do all my designs first with my tablet because it's really easily transferable. But for something like that drum, because it was more of a tribute, it was kind of a mix of digital and analog, using a photo of Waylon as a reference. One challenge was that the shell wasn't fully sanded when it came to me. When that transfer went onto the unsanded shell, only 40% of that design laid on the wood itself. So, there were a lot of details missing when I did do that transfer of the picture of Waylon. It was actually the most stressful part of that entire drum because I wound up free-handing a lot of the details, like the toothpick in his mouth and things like that. Since then, there's been a lot more communication, with anyone I work with, to make sure what exactly I'll need before I actually start this process, like a sanded shell so that transfers go well.”
BC: (Drum #3) I saw you for the first time at the Music City Drum Show standing next to those two engraved Woods drums, which were truly amazing. I knew then that I wanted to work with you to commission a custom Woods drum for my collection. In our discussions, I left the design fairly open to your imagination but wanted both the shell and hoops engraved. Can you walk me through your design process?
KC: “Your drum ended up becoming quite a full circle design for me, in a way you probably don't know. There were many details in the ornate framework of the panels on the shell that were tied to the very first design idea I had sent to Dave (Abbruzzese) for his drum. Now, it wasn’t the same design at all, but the general concept of putting some really nice, fine detailing to decorate the hardware. I'm all about frames, boxes, and lines. That geometric cleanliness is very appealing to me. So, when I started designing your shell, the first thing that came to mind was, ‘I would really love to do something that's very geometrically pleasing to the eye.’ I'm also a huge fan of tattoo artwork and line work, specifically Neo-traditional style and Gothic Victorian filigree. I always kind of thought, ‘Man, that would be something really cool to burn!’ I was thinking that could be something really special to put on a drum, especially considering I know you're a huge collector of vintage drums. I thought something a little bit more mid-century could be really special. So, that's kind of where those ideas came from.
BC: They looked like ornate Victorian picture frames in each panel with a Gothic-like flower in the center – I loved it! With respect to the hoops, you darkened in the entire center half and then applied a simple line with a loop pattern. How did you come up with that design?
KC: “Originally, you had given me a reference of a John Aldridge engraved drum for that piece. I knew if I was going to tip my hat in a way, to the style of John on that shell, but also add movement to the hoops, you know, I knew that it would need to be something from a forward-facing standpoint. If you're looking at just one segment, it's not symmetrical, but as you go through the whole perimeter and the whole circumference of that hoop, it does meet back to zero. They do all go together. And that was the movement that I really wanted to create there. As you're moving the drum, there's always something new to look at. It looks a little different as you go around. I always try and envision these things almost like a psychologist saying, ‘What do you see?’
I'm always looking to see what kind of contrast I can bring to a piece. When I realized that there were a lot of open panels, I began thinking that there was a lot more exposure of the natural wood coming through the wood hoops. A dark center band could be very striking, in addition connecting everything into one full outline. That was where that idea came from, and it works very well. Because there was so much bare wood, it provided a nice contrast. That definitely took quite a bit of time to engrave, for sure.
BC: Your most recent drum engraving (Drum #4) was again a collaboration with Jeff Woods, The Highwaymen Tribute snare drum. Can you tell me more about that design?
KC: “Jeff’s idea of the Highwaymen snare came up right after the Waylon drum was completed. Jeff had said something like, ‘What if we did one of these drums for each of the band members?’ But in the end, it was decided to have them all on one drum, to have all those greats showcased together. Then he came to me with a layout where he wanted each member to be represented on the shell. So on that drum, I was really rolling with his vision and executing it in the way that I know that he wanted to have it done.”
BC: Where would you like to take your pyrographic engraving in the future?
KC: “I want to do like John Aldridge and engrave on the road. My setup is like, as long as I have a table and an extension cord for power, I'm good. That's all I need. I've got my setup, and it’s super portable. A couple bands have asked me to engrave merch for them so other work is starting to trickle in. I would love to continue to do engraving in the musical field. That'd be my happy place. For me with woodburning, I’m always trying to do something new at that next level. “
BC: Any closing comments?
KC: “I really appreciate you including me in your Drum Engravers series, especially so early in my experience with all of this. Between you, Jeff, and Ronn (Dunnett), I feel like I'm surrounded by the most supportive and collaborative people in this industry. Obviously, Dave Abbruzzese is also such a huge person to thank for that because he got me to wood-burn his prototype drum, and connected me to Jeff, and Jeff connected me to you and Ronn.”
Katelynn Corll Engraved Snare Drum Specs (all Woods Custom Drums):
· Dave Abbruzzese Signature snare prototype: 7 x 12” 6-ply maple/poplar/maple with 6-ply reinforcing rings (natural oil/wax finish), bearing edge – outer round over/inner 45 degrees, chrome over brass tube lugs, Dunnett R-5 throw-off and butt plate, “Woods” polished script badge plus special David Abbruzzese chrome-plated, embossed, round badge/vent, and Katelynn Corll pyrographically-engraved tattoo image from Dave, and triple flange hoops.
· Waylon Jennings Tribute snare: 7 x 14” 6-ply maple/mahogany/maple, 6-ply reinforcing rings (maple with walnut outer ply), chrome over brass tube lugs with claws, hybrid wood/metal hoops, Dunnett R-5 throw-off and butt plate, “Woods” polished script badge plus Katelynn Corll pyrographic engraving on hoops and shell.
· Custom Woods Mahogany snare drum for Bob Campbell: 5 x 14” 6-ply mahogany with 6-ply walnut reinforcing rings, oil/wax finish, bearing edge – outer round over/45 degree inside; chrome over brass tube lugs with claws, Dunnett R-5 throw-off and butt plate, Dunnett hybrid wood/metal hoops with mahogany oil stain; Katelynn Corll custom pyrographic engraving on hoops and shell.
· The Highwaymen Tribute snare: 7 x 14” 8-ply birch/poplar, no re-rings, oil stain and satin clear coat, bearing edge – outer round over/45 degree inside; chrome over brass tube lugs with claws, Dunnett R-5 throw-off and butt plate, Dunnett hybrid wood/metal hoop; Katelynn Corll custom pyrographic engraving of the 4 Highwaymen (Kristofferson, Cash, Jennings, and Nelson) on the shell.
Testimonials:
Jeff Woods – “Katelynn is amazing, super talented. She’s just got that real fine line aesthetic. She did a really awesome job with all the drums, especially on the Waylon and Highwaymen portraits. I feel like every time now that I do the Music City Drum Show now, I’ll have figure out how to raise the bar even more!”
Dave Abbruzzese – “The internet introduced me to Katelynn as a very talented player, and Katelynn introduced me to Katelynn as a very talented person. We had already been interacting and even connected for a bass and drums version of ‘Show Me How To Live’ by Audioslave. Jeff Woods and I had been working on the idea of what would become my prototype signature snare model when I discovered via a post that Katelynn was also a very talented wood burning artist. The idea of having her involved with the snare project and introducing her to Jeff was an effort to have my drum be even cooler and to elevate her as a player, an inspired person, and to thank her for inspiring to me. She is fantastic and dedicated and our drumming community is richer because she is a part of it!”
Bob Campbell – “I first noticed the incredible wood-burning that had been done on two of the Woods Custom snare drums at the Music City Drum Show. The level of detail and artistry was truly impressive. She subsequently engraved a (Woods) snare drum and hoops for me and an additional set of hoops for another drum. I gave her just a little bit of input and let her run with it. She truly hit it out of the park. So talented and such a pleasure to work with.”
Post-script: Following this series of interviews, Katelynn embarked on another drum-engraving project with Ronn Dunnett, inspired by an old vintage drum in Ronn’s collection with engraved hoops. A gorgeous Dunnett black titanium Turbillion snare drum with stunning Katelynn Corll wood-burned hoops resulted from this creative collaboration…but that is a story for another day. Stay tuned!
References:
“The Drum Engravers, Part 1: John Aldridge”
“The Drum Engravers, Part 2: John Aldridge Custom Works”
“The Drum Engravers, Part 3: Mike Morgan”