Name: Anne Paceo
Occupation: Drummer, composer, improviser
Nationality: French
Current release: Anne Paceo's new full-length album Atlantis is out August 28th 2025 via Jusqu'à la nuit. Pre-save it here, buy your copy here.
Recommendation for Paris, France: I recommend a walk in the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. It's one of my favorite parks in Paris and a place of refuge whenever I need to get away from it all.

If you enjoyed this Anne Paceo interview and would like to stay up to date with her music and upcoming live dates, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, and Facebook.

For a deeper dive, read our earlier Anne Paceo interview.



It seems as though most aspiring artists are drawn to the drums and percussion for one of two reasons: Creating sound/noise and creating rhythm. What captivated you?

I think what captivated me most of all was the feeling of well-being that this instrument gives me.

When I play the drums, I feel safe and in the right place. I've always loved grooves and dancing, and I like to think that when I play, people want to move their feet and their heads, and that the rhythm makes them feel good, just as it does for me.

Also, as with singing, there's something very direct about this instrument, very primal, that touches the soul and the body in a very obvious way. It's as if it reminds us of our connection with nature, with the world around us.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. Others experience emotions. Everything around drums, on the other hand, is based on touch, vibration, and movement. Does this mean that your own perception as a listener is also more connected to touch, vibration, and movement? What happens in your body when you're listening?

As a listener, I have a great passion for groovy tunes but also for beautiful melodies. So somehow I like this connection between the earth that touches my body (the groove) and the air that touches my soul (the melodies). Then music is vibration, and it seems that certain vibrations heal.

So lately I've been coming back a lot to listening to albums on vinyl, which sound a lot warmer than on streaming platforms. There's something very embodied about this medium, as if the musicians were playing right next to us.

I also have a very sensory relationship with music, whether as a musician or as a listener. Sometimes it sends shivers down my spine, brings tears to my eyes, makes me smile ...

What was your first drum set like and what are you using today? What, to you personally, are factors in terms of build and design that you appreciate in drums and percussion instruments?

My first drum kit was a black “Deep”, much too big for me. I spent hours in the garage at home trying to make it sound right.

Today I play on a Yamaha, and I also have a magnificent Craviotto snare drum. Unlike other commercially available snare drums, this one isn't made from several plies of wood, but from a single piece of wood, which has been bent. It sounds incredible, and I think this is because the wood can fully resonate without being hindered by the glue between the wood plies ...

I love warm, round sounding drums.

Late Rush-drummer Neil Peart said: “The equipment is not an influence. It doesn't affect the way I play. It's an expression of the way I play.” What's your take on that?

I understand what he means, and I agree with him in part, because obviously it's not the drums that make the drummer. On the same drum kit, each drummer will have a different sound because we don't have the same way of holding the sticks or hitting the drums. Also, being tense while playing makes for an aggressive sound, or on the contrary, relaxing can bring roundness.

On the other hand, depending on the instrument I'm playing on, I can be inspired differently. I don't play the same way on a jazz drum kit as I do on a fusion model, for example. I also love adding extra elements to my kit, such as a chain on my bass tom, metal bits on the hi-hat ... It takes me in other directions.

The drums and percussive instruments are an integral part of many cultures, and traditions. Which of these do you draw from in your playing – and why?

My daily life is nourished by multiple traditions, as I have a great passion for non-Western music.

I've listened to and worked with a lot of West African music, particularly from Mali (I spent hours playing on albums by Oumou Sangaré, Salif Keita and Ali Farka Touré). I've also been lucky enough to work with musicians from all over the world, notably Egypt, Syria, Armenia, Myanmar and Brazil.

And each time, to play their music better or simply understand their way of playing better, I have to immerse myself in each culture. I think this has helped me make a lot of progress on my instrument and made me very open-minded.

What were some of the main challenges in your development as a drummer / percussionist? Which practices, exercises, or experiences were most helpful in reaching your goals?

I think my biggest challenge has been to accept who I am and find my own language. When you're young, you want to know everything, see everything, play everything, understand everything. And then, as you get older, you refine your taste.

When I was younger, I was fascinated by drummers who made great technical demonstrations. Today, I like drummers who play with an economy of notes, looking for the right note, in the right place, at the right time. For me, music shouldn't be a place of ego, but rather a place of sharing, of collective research, and always at the service of the piece ... Ego shouldn't take precedence over the collective.

I think what has helped me the most is meeting great masters, musicians who have inspired and touched me. I've also noticed that the great artists I admire have always kept their notes and gestures to a minimum as their careers have progressed.

Probably a form of humility, but also an understanding that it's simplicity and purity that move people.

How would you describe the physical sensation of playing the drums? [Where do you feel the resonances/pulse/groove, what are emotional  sensations, is there a sense of release or tension etc …]

Playing drums gives me a lot of energy. When I'm on stage, it feels infinite. It's only after the concert that I sometimes feel drained, and it takes me several days to recover.

On a good night, I feel like I've become music, like I'm all sound and vibration. Sometimes, of course, there can be tension if I'm a bit stressed for a particular concert, but I don't like it very much because I feel I'm playing less well in those cases.

What is the relationship between harmony, rhythm and melody? How do non-percussion instruments contribute to the overall rhythmic texture of a piece?

For me, everything is interdependent: the drums can be melody, the saxophone or trumpet rhythm. I like the idea of blurring the lines, so that when you listen to it, you don't know which instrument is playing what.

On my last album, Atlantis, I loved developing rhythmic patterns on brass, keyboards and even vocals, in the manner of samples. Looking back, I realize that in my composing there's always this alternation of strong melodies, textures and rhythmic loops.

Do you feel that honing your compositional / songwriting skills has an effect on your drumming skills?  

Completely. Composing has broadened my palette.

When you think about the architecture of a piece, you play differently. You become at the service of a whole.

I don't think of the drums as just a rhythmic instrument, but as a narrative instrument. Every choice of timbre, every space left, becomes meaningful. Composing has also taught me about silence.

I've long been intrigued by bands or ensembles where the drummer is the leader and/or main composer. In as far as it is possible to generalise, what do you think changes in terms of the music or performance in these situations?

When I compose, I don't think of the drums first and foremost. What's important is the melody, the colors, the textures, the dynamics, the contrasts.

On the other hand, when I'm on stage playing my songs with my band, I feel like a “shepherdess”. I like to give the band freedom, but when I want to, my instrument allows me to “lead the sheep” and give a direction that seems right to me.

The drums really give me a form of control over what's going on.

How are you making use of the timbral and textural potentials/possibilities of your drums and percussion instruments when making music?

It's an ongoing quest. I like to divert objects, to brush against them rather than hit them, to pile up sounds, to look for the happy accident. A cymbal placed on a snare drum, a singing bowl mixed with a bass tom, a squeal on a cymba l... Everything is a pretext for texture.

I approach the drums as a shifting landscape, a field for experimentation. I look for sounds that tell a story, that transport.

How has technology, such as drum machines and sequencers, impacted the way rhythm is created and perceived? Has it been a concrete influence on your own approach?

To compose Atlantis, I listened to a lot of electronic music. I love the way this music brings you into a trance-like state, with its slowly repeating and developing rhythms.

At the same time, I need to hear the humans behind it. That's why I wanted everything on the album to be played. I have a great passion for Senegalese Sabar and Indonesian Kechak. In these kinds of music, there's a kind of repetition and slow evolution with sometimes very sharp transitions.

And the idea for me is always to keep a very warm sound on my records, unlike certain electronic music albums which are incredible but so rhythmically perfect that it sometimes becomes a bit cold.

Physical strain is a particularly serious issue for many drummers. How does it manifest itself, how do you deal with it and in how far does it affect your creativity?

I'd say it's not the playing that tires me, but rather the travel, the trains, the new hotels every evening, the heavy equipment to carry.

To cope, I try to get as much sleep as possible when I get home, I eat healthy, I stretch every evening before going to bed and every morning when I wake up, and I go swimming regularly to keep my back in shape.

Many recording engineers have remarked that the drums can be particularly hard to capture. What makes drums sound great on record and in a live setting?

I think the most important thing is to know how to set up your drums correctly, to know what sound you want and how to get there.

Engineers often repeat the phrase “shit in, shit out”, which makes me laugh a lot, but is so true!

Drums and percussion are remarkably often used for physical therapy / healing. What, from your point of view, makes them particularly suitable tools for this?

Rhythm awakens something primal. It reconnects us with our body, our breath and our presence.

Playing or listening to percussion can help release tension and express buried emotions. It's a way of reconnecting, of getting out of the mind, of getting back to what's essential: the heartbeat, the pulse of life.