---
title: "Go-To Patterns with TOMMASO"

description: "You’d be surprised by how many great producers are also great drummers. TOMMASO is the perfect guy to discuss why. The thing he landed on? Drummers don’t just control the rhythm. They dictate the energy."

status: complete

date: 2026-08-25

kind: guest

guestSlugs:
  - tommaso

listenUrl: "https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lovemusicmore/episodes/Go-To-Patterns-with-TOMMASO-e3npeil"
spotifyUrl: "https://open.spotify.com/episode/7ytHBtw48umQybRRkZoGgE"
appleUrl: "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/go-to-patterns-with-tommaso/id1567355195?i=1000785697775&uo=4"

topicsDiscussed:
  - "Drums"
  - "Music production"
  - "Mixing"
  - "Collaboration"
  - "Friendship"
  - "Songwriting"
  - "Hip-hop"
  - "DAWs"
  - "The pandemic"
  - "Plugins"
  - "Touring"
  - "Chicago"

hostNote: |
  **TOMMASO** (Tommaso Veronesi) is a Chicago songwriter, producer, and drummer. Scoobert collab on **While Away**. Same orbit: he produced **Chan Fuze** singles **This Is Not Cool** and **Methadone Nights** (2023); Walton mixed both. We have mixed together and hung out in the city. The episode title is his session habit: **go-to fills and patterns**. We start where his production ear comes from. He barely had theory; he had drums, and he thought in **energy** (how the song moves forward) long before he had other instruments.

  We talk **Ringo-y** fills that stay simple on purpose, muscle memory as teaching ("a hundred times is really like nothing"), and a hot take that puts **Meg White** next to Ringo: the drummer who is the song without winning a rudiment contest. After years of weekend gigs he moved back to Chicago and started producing again; the solo project exists as a no-compromise lane. Identity lagged the work: singer, drummer, songwriter, producer. Now he can just say producer and musician.

  The closer is the Love Music Why question. He does not know who he is without music. He lives it until the job title is almost beside the point.

selectedMoments:
  - label: "Chicago friends, mixing, hanging out"
    startSec: 109
    note: "We start as Chicago friends who already mix and collaborate, not a cold first meeting."
  - label: "Energy first, theory later"
    startSec: 176
    note: "TOMMASO describes coming into production from drums with almost no theory: asking how the song is moving, not what the chord is called."
  - label: "The simplest fill, the Ringo-y one"
    startSec: 445
    note: "He hunts for the best fill in the moment and usually lands on something simple and Ringo-like rather than flashy."
  - label: "Teaching drums as muscle memory"
    startSec: 992
    note: "He has taught drums for a long time: send a kid home to play it a hundred times, because a hundred times is still nothing."
  - label: "Go-to fills and patterns"
    startSec: 1204
    note: "The episode title shows up in the room: in sessions he reaches for go-to fills and patterns that already work."
  - label: "Meg White / Ringo hot take"
    startSec: 1284
    note: "He contrasts the savant kit player with Meg White and Ringo: barely a double-stroke roll, still the song."
  - label: "Back to Chicago, producing again"
    startSec: 1611
    note: "After years of weekend gigs, moving back to Chicago is when he started producing again in earnest."
  - label: "Singer, drummer, songwriter, producer"
    startSec: 2244
    note: "He used to freeze when other musicians asked who he was; now he can say producer and musician without negotiating it."
  - label: "I am music"
    startSec: 3388
    note: "On why he loves music: he does not know who he is without it. He lives and breathes it until the question almost dissolves."

excerptQuotes:
  - text: "I didn't get a say into like what the music was, you know? Like I got a say in like the energy."
    startSec: 156
    reviewed: true
  - text: "It's all muscle memory. It's like your brain is like a hundred times smarter than your body."
    startSec: 1033
    reviewed: true
  - text: "It's so funny because I have like these like go-to drum beats."
    startSec: 1351
    reviewed: true
  - text: "Even like a few years ago, I'm like, who am I? Am I like a singer? Am I a drummer? Am I a songwriter? Am I like a producer?"
    startSec: 2237
    reviewed: true
  - text: "Now I'm just like I'm a producer and a musician and I feel like happy with that."
    startSec: 2251
    reviewed: true

faq:
  - question: "What does TOMMASO mean by go-to patterns?"
    answer: "In sessions he reaches for fills and drum beats he already trusts (tasteful, often simple, often Ringo-like) instead of inventing a new trick every bar. The patterns are how a drummer-turned-producer keeps energy moving without overplaying."
  - question: "Why does TOMMASO think drummers make good producers?"
    answer: "He came in from the kit with almost no theory. What he had was a say in the energy: how the song moves forward, how the kick and snare sit, how a fill should be the simplest thing that still feels like the best fill. Groove and dynamics were the production ear before other instruments arrived."
  - question: "How is TOMMASO connected to Scoobert Doobert?"
    answer: "They are Chicago friends who have mixed and collaborated, including While Away (TOMMASO × Scoobert Doobert), and two 2023 Chan Fuze singles Veronesi produced and Walton mixed (This Is Not Cool, Methadone Nights). The interview is that relationship on tape, not a first meeting. The week before, the solo episode To Be like Water, Take a Nap pointed at this conversation from the drummer's chair."

transcriptPublished: false

draft: false
---