Dyscordia - Official Website

Name: Wouter Debonnet

E-mail: wouter@dyscordia.com

Work: I work as the IT Manager of a company that produces high quality woven or knitted mattress tickings. I’m very fortunate to have found a job that combines two of my most treasured hobbies: computers, and lying down.

Hobbies: Music in general has always been my passion, with the emphasis on everything about drums, of course. I also enjoy joking around with computers, trying to make them do strange things they were never intended to do, and doing a bit of graphical and webdesign on the side.
When I’m not behind the drumset, I mostly like to relax - by which I mean I like to sit on my lazy ass watching obscure movies that nobody but me seem to find funny, while stuffing my face with an assortment of the fattest foods that have ever seen the face of this earth (consider me an expert).
It can also mean I’m hanging out with my friends, drinking stuff that’s even more unhealthy than the aforementioned food (Mad X-Piriens anyone?) and joking around - or filling in questionnaires for websites of bands I'm playing in, apparently.

Musical background: When I was in 4th grade, my parents made me take music lessons. I found it pretty boring - two hours of theory every week, and the second year I also had to take one hour of flute lessons a week. I quit after that second year because I was more interested in modern (hard-) rock music, not in that theoretical classic bullshit. Four years later, I was 14 at the time, my father bought me a drumset, because my whole family was playing instruments (yeah yeah, wooptie-doo) and he thought I should play something too.
This was a complete eye-opener for me: I had never found anything in my life that I loved so much as playing the drums. I found a great teacher, Gino Kesteloot, who taught me for 7 years. Everything I know about drums and all the passion I have for the instrument, I owe to him. After 4 or 5 years of lessons, I started to discover other drummers, like Mike Portnoy, who is one of my greatest influences as a drummer and as a musician (Mike, if you read this, stop wasting your time reading stupid biographies), and after that, guys like Thomas Lang and Marco Minnemann who taught me a lot through their dvd’s. I even got the chance to attend a 3-day master class with Thomas Lang (who's an incredible guy) in London!
Over the years, I've been playing in a lot of bands, always trying to do as much live gigs as possible: Ignominy, Sagaris, Rhymes of Destruction, Gyllnor, Wrathchild, Ogress, Skeptical Mood, Double Diamond, Gwyllion, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. I've also done some session work (both live & in the studio), and I'm always trying to expand my horizons as much as possible.
Nowadays, I am a teacher in the same drum school I took my first lessons from, and I’m continuing my studies with another great drummer: Guy Vernelen from Oceans of Sadness, who is teaching me the principles of Jazz and rudimental drumming, among other great stuff.

Equipment: My main set consists of Sonor Delite Maple drums, Sabian Hand Hammered, Vault, AAX & Signature Cymbals, Pearl Rack Systems, Tama Iron Cobra pedals, Roland electronics and Vater drumsticks. This is not a mere drumset. This is the reason life was created on earth and it has to be worshipped.

Favorite...
Food: Lots of red meat. Belgian ’Frietkoteetn’. Pita. Pizza. Most other kinds of unhealthy food. No vegetables. Ever. I mean it.
Drink: Hoegaarden Grand Cru and Mad X-Piriens.
Movie: The Big Lebowski, The Prestige, Spinal Tap, The Butterfly Effect, Sin City, The Dark Knight,... Lots of movies in lots of different genres!
Music: All kinds of music, but especially melodic / symphonic metal.
Director: Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen brothers.
TV-program: Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, Dexter, The Sopranos, Family Guy, South Park, Futurama, The Simpsons, House M.D., Castle,...
Actor/Actress: Johnny Depp / Catherine Zeta Jones (drool - at her, not him... The only dude I'd like to make babies with is Thomas Lang).
Book: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. This really is the greatest book ever written.
Author: Terry Pratchett. Terry Goodkind (though he's really fucking up with his latest work), George R.R. Martin, Raymond Feist, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman and Robert Ludlum are not far behind. Oh, and Anthony Horowitz and Marc de Bel, of course!
Band: In Flames, early Children of Bodom, 80's Metallica, Manowar as long as it's Kings of Metal and as long as they are not playing it live, Dismal Euphony, Oceans of Sadness (RIP), Thurisaz, Megadeth in not-too-large doses, Pain of Salvation, Dream Theater, Opeth, Diablo Swing Orchestra, Dimmu Borgir (yeah really), early Cradle of Filth (and I'm sufficiently ashamed of that but hey, de gustibus et coloribus are the mother's porcelain store or something like that), Therion, Ayreon, early Nightwish, Moonsorrow, Adrenaline Mob, etc...
Album: Best Of.
Song: There are so many... For the moment maybe ’Where Dead Angels Lie’ by Dissection... Or ’Undertow’ by Pain of Salvation.
Season: Fall.

Your best gig: Blikfest IV, Beveren.

Best gig you have seen: Children of Bodom, Dark Tranquility and In Flames (Biebob ’99)

Worst nightmare: Losing a limb or something and having to quit drumming. Also, most vegetables.

Place you’d like to go: Paul's. I’m hungry.

Life philosophy: Don’t take life too seriously. No one gets out alive, anyways.