Ralph Margo

MISERICORD

Influences: Neil Peart, Per Möeller-Jensen, Igor Cavalera, Mike Bordin, Asgier Mickelson, Deen Castronovo, Dave Lombardo, Adrian Erlandsson, Daniel Erlandsson, Simon Phillips, Nicholas Barker, Mike Portnoy, Joey Jordison, Carter Beauford, Nicke Andersson, Peter Stjärnvind, Gene Hoglan, John Bonham, Henry Ranta and Daniel Svensson, Dirk Verbeuren, Scott Travis, Ed Warby

Career History:
I started playing drums in 1992, when I was 18. My first band was formed the day I bought my first kit. It was a Maxtone 5 piece, and cost R900. I had never played drums before, but I knew it was what I wanted to do. Before that, I played guitar for a few years.
I pretty much taught myself as I went along. For a few years I was friends with Lawrence Bailie, who played for Ragnärok, Odyssey and Urban Assault. I didn't have any formal lessons from him, but I learned a lot just by hanging around with him and watching him play, and his style became a part of mine.
In late 93, I joined Beast of Eden. For 3 months in 94, we lived in Bayonne, New Jersey in the States. While we were there, we were offered a slot on the Manic Depression tour of Romania, Eastern Europe, with Anathema and Schnitt Acht. The first of 3 shows was on my 20th birthday in Bucharest, in an indoor sports arena in front of a few thousand people. We returned to South Africa a month later and recorded a demo and a mini-album over the next 2 years. In mid 96, I left Beast to join Sacrifist. I was with them for a year.


I then played for the obscure rock band, Bizarre Bazaar. We released an album called "A strange place to shop" which was recorded by Peter Pearlson. I also played for the acoustic rock band, Left of Centre.
In early 2001 I formed Tyburn with 2 friends who wanted to form a melodic death metal band. The demo "Until the end of the world" was recorded in late 2001 but was never used due to the poor production. In 2003 I went to Michael Barber for drum lessons. I got to a point where I felt stuck and didn't have much scope further than variations of single stroke rolls. I took a few lessons with Mike. I'm glad I did. Rather late than never. At the time, we earned ourselves national tour support slots for Sweden's The Haunted, and 2 months later, Entombed.
In 2004 we filmed our first music video for the song "Judas". 2004 also saw a change in Tyburn's direction, steering slightly away from constant typical death metal vocals and fast thrash beats, adding cleaner vocals and more groove and depth to the music, without compromising heaviness.
We have played Oppikoppi twice and Woodstock 4 times (3 times in Pretoria, once in P.E,), and various other festivals and mini-fests, including Bosberock, Witchfest and Deaths Day Out, and countless live shows in the club circuit.
We recorded 4 tracks at B# studios with JP, originally planned to be released as an EP. We were advised to add to those tracks and release them all as an album. That didn't see the light of day, as we broke up in September 2005, Woodstock 7 being our last show.

"Since October 2005, I have taken time out from playing in full time bands, and had a lot of casual improvised jams with some friends. It was a nice change from playing structured music, and writing songs. It was fun to just play what came to mind.

In early 2007, I joined the metal band, Lifeblud. I learned a few songs, but other than that, we didn't do much.

In August 2007, I was asked to join Misericord, and it was an offer I couldn't refuse... so I accepted almost immediately...

... to be continued"

Setup Description:
Tama Rockstar DX
- 22" Kick
- 10" Tom
- 12" Tom
- 14" Tom
- Mounted 16" Floor Tom
- 5.5" x 13" Pearl - Joey Jordison signature snare drum

Cymbal Description:
All Meinl Classics series, except hi-hats and ride:
- 14" Sabian AA Metal-X hats
- 18" Medium crash
- 8" Splash
- 8" Medium Bell
- 10" Splash
- 21" Zildjian Rock Ride
- 16" China
- 18" Power Crash

Heads:
Evans

Pedals:
Pearl Eliminator double pedals (with the blue cams)

Drumsticks:
Pro-Mark

Here's a pic and story for your own amusement (if my suffering is amusing... hahaha)

This was at Snuggery in Boksburg last year sometime. We (Tyburn) played with a whole bunch of bands. I play barefoot. So I was setting up and everything after the band before us. I had already taken my shoes and socks off and I didn't happen to notice a broken glass or bottle somewhere around the drum rise. So, as fate would have it, I stood in all that glass 5 minutes before we were meant to start playing. But fuck, this is metal. I couldn't cancel. hahaha So I did the show. It was my left foot which wasn't so bad. But it made the double bass stuff a bit challenging

There were a few pieces still stuck in my foot when we played. I got 2 big pieces out but one little one was still in, and the side of my toe was open. I wasn't actually in pain. I just couldn't stop the bleeding so my foot was bleeding on my pedal through most of the show. The problem was that it started congealing and was VERY sticky and I couldn't play properly. So as soon as the first song ended, I used my water bottle to try wash some blood off my foot and off the pedals. Big mistake, cos the water (mixed with the half dry blood) made the pedals so slippery, it was even harder to play.

The went down ok. Well, it was interesting for me, but I pulled it off. hahaha What a laugh. When I got home, I used my Swiss Army Knife to perform home surgery on myself and got the last piece out.