In the excellent Oscar-nominated film The Big Short, Christian Bale plays real-life person Dr. Michael Burry, a hedge fund manager who loves metal. He blows off steam playing drums. Ergo: Christian Bale needed to learn how to play drums. Enter Scott Wittenburg, drum teacher at the Musician’s Institute, member of Zen Robbi, and all-around impressive human who can play a solo while eating a burrito. We figured that must have been a weird couple of drum lessons, so we called up Wittenberg to ask how he taught Bale how to pound the skins like a pro.
Pitchfork: My big question for you is, how the hell did this happen? How did you end up teaching Christian Bale how to play drums to Pantera for a movie about finance? It's such a bizarre thing.
Scott Wittenberg: Well, I've been teaching the heavy metal class at the Musician's Institute in Hollywood, California for about 10 years. And Paramount Pictures called the school, asking if my boss had any guys he could refer. He gave a few names out, and I guess based off my metal background and teaching the metal class I was the guy.
Pitchfork: Is teaching someone how to act like they're playing the drums different then teaching someone to actually play the drums?
SW: That's a good question. I started by giving him the basics. Like, really basic: This is a ride cymbal, a crash cymbal, a snare drum, a bass drum, toms, etc. We did six or seven lessons, each one between a hour and a half and three hours. And from there, after a few listens of basic how-to-hold-the-sticks kind of stuff, we just turned the song on. Basically it turned into a copycat game, the repeat-after-me thing, where I would play and he would try to mimic my motions as best as he could. We would talk about trying to get some height on the sticks and trying to get his hands high, looking like he's having fun. This wasn't, you know, Whiplash 2. He just had to look like a guy who was a metalhead who was blowing off some steam.
Pitchfork: Even in just your teaching of normal metal drums, how much is actually about looking the part?
SW: Well, I do think it's very important. Metal music, probably more than most styles, is more a showmanship thing. When I go see a metal band, I like to see the drummer rocking out, his hair down and the cymbals swinging. I think it's also important to tap into inner animal, to get the point across the right way.
Pitchfork: Michael Burry, the character Christian Bale is playing, is a dork. Definitely not cool. How much did you consider what that character was like, how he might play drums?
SW: I didn't really have too much to do with that. Christian came in and explained the character to me, but when we first started the lessons he hadn't even met Michael yet. Maybe halfway through the lessons he went up to San Jose and hung out with him for a weekend. Christian seemed to have a pretty good grasp on how he wanted to do the whole thing. He's what they call a method actor, so he makes sure he's immersed in the role. And I have to say this for him: Of all the students I've taught, he was certainly not the best drummer, but one of my best students. I gave him "homework" and he would come back doing it like he had been doing it for a long time. It was obvious he had put his hours in.
Pitchfork: As a teacher that must be encouraging—Christian Bale or otherwise.
SW: Yeah. It was great. And we were both having fun with the whole thing. It wasn't like I was teaching him to speak with an accent. We were just doing metal drums and he was definitely into it.
Pitchfork: It's clear he may not have been the best drummer but he was a great student, and you can see that passion on the screen.
SW: He's a pretty intense guy. He wasn't there to mess around. He came in ready to rock for sure. He pulled up in the parking lot with the windows down blaring—I think it was Earth, Wind & Fire, old funk bands from the '70s, which I thought was awesome. He's into music. He listens to a lot of music, but maybe not the metal thing, but he listens to the loud stuff. Maybe he listens to metal now, I don't know. I kind of had to hip him to the whole Dimebag Darrell thing. He seemed pretty into it as he went.
Pitchfork: You've seen the movie now, I assume?
SW: I have. It was cool. I enjoyed it a lot. I'd see it again.
Pitchfork: Was it funny to watch him play? Could you see your own handiwork? Did it feel like, "That looks like me, someone mimicking me?"
SW: Kind of! What he looked like in the movie is exactly what he looked like in real life. He has a little bit of a stiff-arm thing; he doesn't look like he's been practicing his paradiddles for 20 years. He doesn't have this fluid motion going on. I have a few drummer friends of mine who would wisecrack at me and say he needs to work on the whip. But he did good.
There was one funny moment where I told him the right way to hit a cymbal. There is a right and a wrong way to hit a cymbal, and the analogy he made is it's like pulling a punch. It's pretty cool, I'm teaching how to hit a cymbal and Batman is telling me how to pull a punch.
Pitchfork: Have you talked to your students about it?
SW: I wasn't really supposed to talk about it for a long time, but people found out. All I had to do was tell my mom and the world knows. She's a big Christian Bale fan so she was pretty pumped on the whole thing.