00:00My name's Graeme Russell.
00:02So tell me a little bit about the kits that you've got on display here at the minute.
00:06So the Nick and McBride British Drum Company kit has been loaned to us by the Royal Marines.
00:12One of their drummers is a customer of ours and he came in and mentioned the fact that they had the kit in HMS Collingwood,
00:19which is literally next door to where we're based here at Fairham.
00:22And he said, wouldn't it be great to get it on display in the store on the glass floor?
00:27So he made some inquiries with the powers that be at the Marines and they agreed that we could borrow it for a month.
00:35So Dave came in a week ago and set it all up for us.
00:39It was built by British Drum Company, especially for a concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
00:45The Royal Marines played their annual concert at the Royal Albert Hall and Nicko agreed to go and play with the Royal Marines band.
00:52This is on YouTube, we'll put a link back, but you can see Nicko playing that actual kit with the Royal Marines band.
00:59And once they'd done that concert, the kit was auctioned for charity, for the Royal Marines charity.
01:04And it's on for an awful lot of money.
01:07And the gentleman that bought it then gifted the kit back to the Royal Marines, which was fantastic.
01:11So the Royal Marines have ownership of that kit and it ended up in Collingwood, as I mentioned.
01:18So they will use it for concerts and stuff.
01:21I think it will end up in a museum in Portsmouth.
01:24So they've lent the kit to us.
01:26So we've got it on display for a month.
01:27So any Nicko McBrain fans or drum fans, Iron Maiden fans, can come and view the kit.
01:32You can walk all round.
01:33You can see it from behind, from the front.
01:34And we've got it till the end of August, which is a great thrill for us.
01:38It's a unique kit.
01:40All the artwork on every drum is customised.
01:43Every drum is unique.
01:44It relates to a battle and a period of the Marines history.
01:48So it's a great story for all the artwork.
01:51There's a lot online on YouTube about the kit, so you can probably find out more.
01:57But yeah, the artwork is unique.
01:58The drum kit's unique.
01:59It was built for Nicko.
02:00He's played it.
02:01And it's obviously his exact size.
02:04It's an exact replica of what he would tour with Iron Maiden, down to the cymbals.
02:08The cymbals were donated by Posty.
02:11The drums were donated by BDC and custom made.
02:14And it's exactly what he would play with Iron Maiden.
02:17Tell me what the reaction's been like so far from this.
02:20Oh, fantastic.
02:21I mean, people have been asking if they can buy it, which I'd love to sell it.
02:24It's not mine to sell.
02:25Yeah, people love it.
02:26It's obviously an enormous drum kit.
02:28We sell a lot of drum kits here.
02:30We're the biggest drum shock in the UK.
02:32So we sell lots of very expensive drum kits, but we don't get kits like that.
02:36So to have a drum kit of that size and that uniqueness is very special.
02:42So yeah, it's getting a lot of love and a lot of Iron Maiden fans are coming in to see it.
02:47People are literally just coming in and saying, I've come to see the kit.
02:50So we know which kit they mean when they walk in.
02:53So tell us a little bit more about what you do here.
02:56Obviously, you do drums.
02:56We do drums, drums, cymbals, percussion and accessories.
03:00We are the largest drum shop in the UK.
03:03We've been running for nearly 20 years.
03:05We've been in this building for 12 and a half years.
03:09It started with my wife and I.
03:10Hayley and I started it 20 years ago.
03:12It was a hobby of mine and it's a hobby that's got out of hand, I guess, because we've now got a huge warehouse and we do a lot of online sales.
03:23We have drummers traveling from all over the country, literally four, five, six hours to come and visit us because we have, I think we've got about 85 kits on display.
03:32We've got 200 snare drums, 600 cymbals.
03:35So we've got a massive selection of stock.
03:38We've got 10 people working here that are all drummers with the exception of Hayley.
03:42So we've got some very experienced players that work here.
03:45So we can solve most problems and answer most questions that anybody has, whether they're a complete beginner or whether they're a working professional drummer.
03:54We get from all ends of the spectrum.
03:58So, yeah, we're very busy and it's growing year on year.
04:01And like I said, we've taken on this unit, which is unit four.
04:04So we've doubled in size in the last 12 months and it's continuing to grow.
04:09So it's going very well.
04:10And I understand you're involved in local festivals.
04:13We are.
04:14We do drum kit hire even for bands, but we also do festivals.
04:19So today we're delivering two drum kits to Wickham Festival.
04:22So one will be for the main stage and one will be for the second stage.
04:25Last week we did Gospel Waterfront Festival.
04:28A couple of weeks ago we did the Arundel Jazz Festival.
04:31We hire our kids to Turner Sims in Southampton for a lot of jazz concerts.
04:35So, yeah, we can hire kids to private individuals for one-off gigs or for festivals.
04:40We do a lot of that.
04:43We do a lot of that.
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