Tris Imboden Still Plays for the Song

The Chicago and Kenny Loggins drummer talks groove, technology, Yacht Stars, and why the EFNOTE 7 matters.

TCU Mag | Interview by Florentino Buenaventura

There are drummers who chase the spotlight, and then there are drummers who become part of the bloodstream of a song. Tris Imboden belongs to the second tribe.

You do not need to see his name first. You feel him. Kenny Loggins. Michael McDonald. Chicago. Honk. David Foster sessions. Yacht rock before anybody had a name for it. Arena tours. Platinum walls. Pop records with grooves that still get people moving before they even know why.

When Tris joined me for the first episode of TCU Mag, he opened like the kind of musician you hope he is: warm, direct, and genuinely present. "Oh, man, I'm so happy to be here," he said. That set the tone. This was not going to be a victory lap. It was a working musician talking about what still matters.

That distinction matters. Because Imboden is not new to technology. He is not a drummer discovering electronics in 2026 and acting like the wheel just got invented. He was there when electronic percussion first became part of pop music's bloodstream. He lived through the Simmons era. He played the sessions. He carried the hybrid language before hybrid had a marketing department.

So when he talks about the EFNOTE 7, or the EFNOTE family in general, the weight comes from where he has already been.

That is where the story starts. Not with electronics. Not with brands. Not with endorsement. With a kid hearing rhythm and knowing it was his language.

Imboden grew up in a house where the records mattered. Jazz was there early. Miles Davis, Brubeck, big band music, and the radio as a kind of second education. He says those influences do not always show up as obvious exercises or copied parts. They sink in deeper than that.

That idea follows him into Honk, the Southern California band he joined right out of high school. Honk had a record deal, a number one record in Hawaii through the surf film *Five Summer Stories*, and a road life that put them in front of Loggins & Messina, the Beach Boys, and, in a strange piece of foreshadowing, Chicago.

About Honk, Imboden does not talk like a man remembering old press clippings. He talks like a player remembering freedom.

That line could be a mission statement for his whole career. Bass and drums not as wallpaper. Bass and drums as composition. The rhythm section not simply holding up the singer, but shaping the entire emotional frame of the record.

He credits original Honk bassist Don Whaley as brilliant, and says the two of them loved building rhythm tracks that supported the song but could still stand on their own. Later, with Kenny Loggins, bassist George Hawkins sharpened that concept even further. Imboden calls Hawkins the player who taught him more about rhythm section composition than anyone in his career.

With Kenny Loggins, the architecture had to move. Imboden describes Loggins as a "drum freak" in the best possible way, someone who pushed him to come up with something unique, something that made the track lift. The result was a run of records where the drums do not sit politely in the back. They drive, frame, push, and breathe.

At one point, I said the thing every rhythm section player knows in his bones: those tracks move people.

Tris answered plainly, and it landed like a rhythm section commandment.

That is why Imboden's playing has aged so well. It is not trapped in the production tricks of an era, even when it uses them. The parts feel like decisions. They have personality, but they do not elbow the vocal out of the way. They make pop music feel human and rhythmically alive.

Which brings us to technology.

Imboden's relationship with electronic drums goes back to the 70s. "My association with electronic drums went back all the way to the 70s," he said, remembering Synare, Simmons, and the years when those sounds became required vocabulary. He used them to augment his acoustic kit with Loggins. He played Simmons when producers wanted that edge. David Foster called him for that language.

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Those calls led into major sessions, including work with Julio Iglesias and Stevie Wonder, Neil Diamond, Foster's own productions, and Kenny Loggins records. On *Forever*, the big Simmons opening is Imboden with acoustic drums as well. On *Footloose*, he played the acoustic set first, then overdubbed Simmons on the breakdown.

That is why his honesty about later electronic kits matters. He respected what they could do, but the endless options did not always serve the way he wanted to work.

Talking about the V-Drums era, he said, "As great as they were, there were almost too many variables and too many options you could get lost in." Then he listed the rabbit hole: shell construction, shell size, head selection, room size, room distance, microphone distance.

It was impressive, but it was not how he wanted to spend his time.

That is the heart of the conversation. Some players want every parameter in the universe. Some players need the machine to disappear fast enough that the song can show up.

Then EFNOTE happened.

I had to do a little convincing. Imboden had seen plenty. He had played plenty. He had reasons to be skeptical. But when he sat down at the kit, the reaction was immediate.

Then came the visual side. He noticed the beauty of the kit. The lugs reminded him of Gretsch. The instrument did not look like a compromise hiding in the corner. It looked like a drum set.

And more importantly, it stayed in his head after the first encounter.

That is a different kind of endorsement. Not a spec sheet. Not a scripted talking point. A drummer leaving NAMM with a feeling he cannot shake.

When he later got the chance to sit with the kit by himself, to tweak it and really listen, the impression deepened.

Imboden is especially clear about the cymbals, which is where many electronic drum kits lose credibility with serious players. Anybody can make a pad trigger a tom sample. Cymbals are harder. Cymbals have zones, decay, wash, edge, bell, choke, and all the tiny details that make a drummer believe or not believe.

Tris does not dance around it.

Later, he came back to the cymbals again.

That line is important because it is not about convenience. It is about believability. If the cymbals do not respond, the drummer adjusts his touch downward. If the drummer adjusts downward, the performance gets smaller. The promise of EFNOTE, especially in the EFNOTE 7 world, is that it lets the player keep his identity intact.

Imboden goes even further on the overall feel.

Then came one of the clearest lines of the interview:

That is where the EFNOTE 7 belongs in this story. Not as a gadget. Not as a quiet practice solution only. Not as a digital toy for people who gave up on acoustic drums. It is a working drummer's instrument for a world where the work has changed.

The modern player needs to practice at home, track ideas remotely, teach, make content, rehearse silently, and still feel like the instrument has dignity. For many drummers, that is the gap. The kit may solve the volume problem but create a musical problem. Imboden is saying EFNOTE closes more of that gap than anything he has played.

Still, the story does not work if it becomes fantasy. Tris keeps it real. When I brought up a Michael McDonald project and EFNOTE's possible role in recording, Imboden did not overstate it.

That may be one of the most important moments in the conversation, because it proves the praise is not fluff. He is not claiming the kit replaces every acoustic session. He is not pretending every producer, every room, and every track needs the same answer. He is saying that in his real musical life, EFNOTE has become a go-to instrument because it gives him a feeling he trusts.

At home, though, the change is real.

That is a heavyweight statement from a drummer with his history. It does not mean acoustic drums are dead. That would be ridiculous. It means the practical world of professional drumming has expanded. The EFNOTE 7 gives players a way to stay connected to touch, tone, and dynamics without needing a perfect room, a forgiving neighborhood, or a spouse willing to live inside a snare drum.

When I asked about the standout feature, Imboden did not reach for marketing language. He went to feel, sound, and the musical reality of the kits. He talked about the EFNOTE Pro module and a kit where you can hear the front head resonating on an unported bass drum. Tuned one way, it lives in a bebop space. Tune it down, and suddenly the thing gets big.

Then he lands the point:

Another moment that belongs in this story happened during the pandemic, when we brought Tris together with John Paris from Earth, Wind & Fire for a livestream broadcast. I joked that it was a drum-off, but it was never really a competition. The point was better than that: two serious drummers, both carrying the weight of the Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire touring experience, showing what happens when two players listen hard enough to make one massive groove.

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Tris was honest about why. Two drummers can turn into a train wreck fast if they do not feel the backbeat and the downbeat in the same place. A little difference in time turns into flam, clutter, and noise. But with John Paris, Tris said the connection was there from the first rehearsal.

That livestream mattered because it took the history off the poster and put it back into motion. Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire on the road was a huge musical machine: two bands, horns, movement, arrangements, and nearly 30 people onstage trying not to step on each other. Tris said the whole thing took a month of rehearsal just to make it work. The livestream let people hear a piece of that chemistry again, with the EFNOTE world underneath it, not as a sales demonstration, but as a real musical setting.

That is the part that connects back to EFNOTE in an honest way. The kit was not being asked to impress people in isolation. It was being asked to hold up under players with real history, real touch, and real time. For a drummer like Tris, that is where the truth comes out.

The interview was not only about EFNOTE. It moved into the larger life of a working musician, and that is where the 70s Rolling Stone part of the story starts to breathe. Imboden has been through the business when records were records, when albums sold, when publishing and sessions could sustain players, and when touring became the main economic engine.

That is not bitterness. It is perspective. He knows the business changed. He also knows young musicians are navigating a terrain that does not offer the same ladder his generation climbed.

That is why his current project, Yacht Stars, feels less like nostalgia and more like reclamation. It started with a Ringo Starr moment. Imboden and his wife Mary were heading to see Ringo's All-Starr Band when Greg Bissonette called with a wild possibility: Tris might play double drums that night, on Ringo's drums. On the way to the gig, Mary drove while Tris wore headphones, watched YouTube, and learned the medley.

He got called up. He played Ringo's drums. And on the ride home, Mary planted the seed for a yacht rock concept built around real players connected to the music.

The rule they created is what gives the band its authority.

That is not tribute as costume. That is lineage. Michael Paulo, Carl Hergesel, Bruce Bollinger, Alan Deremo, Jeff Gunn, and the other players in that orbit bring more than chops. They bring paper, scars, miles, and stories.

As Tris put it:

That phrase, "well papered," is perfect. It sounds like a musician saying what a resume cannot. These are not tourists visiting the catalog. These are people who know the roads that led to it.

The conversation also wandered, beautifully, into surfing, Kauai, Las Vegas, Steve Gadd, and confession. Tris called himself "a two-trick pony" when talking about drumming and surfing.

Then he told one of the best musician stories in the interview. Living in Las Vegas, he has had time around Steve Gadd, one of his most important influences. One night, while out seeing Danny Seraphine play, Imboden confessed to Gadd that the intro to *This Is It* borrowed heavily from him.

That is the kind of quote you cannot manufacture. It is funny, honest, and deeply musical. It says influence is not theft when it becomes language, when it gets absorbed and placed in service of a song.

Then came AI, because every modern music conversation eventually does. Imboden does not pretend to be an expert, but he is paying attention.

He talked about AI music that sounded believable, lyrics that worked, performances that felt shockingly complete, and artwork generated from a prompt. Like many musicians from his generation, he is neither blindly thrilled nor theatrically panicked. He is watching it with musician ears.

That pattern connects Simmons to EFNOTE to AI. The tool is never the center. The result is the center. Does it move? Does it breathe? Does it help the player express something real?

And that brought the interview to the advice every young drummer needs to hear, especially in an era where chops can be turned into content and content can be mistaken for musicianship.

Not because less is automatically noble. Not because chops are bad. But because records hear everything.

That is a studio drummer talking. That is a band drummer talking. That is a player who knows the difference between a fill that lifts a chorus and a fill that announces insecurity.

He sees young players with terrifying ability, and he respects it. But he is also clear about the danger of "more is better" and "chops at any cost."

Then he said the line that contains the whole philosophy.

It explains why he grooves the way he does. It explains why he values space. It explains why he respects technology but does not worship it. It explains why the EFNOTE 7 connects with him. Because the right instrument does not ask the song to carry more weight. It gives the drummer a way to play with intention, touch, dynamics, and restraint.

So yes, this is partly a story about EFNOTE. It is also a story about what happens when a serious drummer finds a modern instrument that honors old-school musical values.

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And maybe that is the highest compliment a musician can give a piece of gear. Not that it dazzles. Not that it dominates. Not that it proves the future has arrived.

But that it lets the player sit down, listen, and play what belongs.

Move the song. Move the band. Move the people.

Then leave enough room for the music to breath.

https://trisimbodenyachtstars.com/

https://www.tonecultureunited.com/products/efnote-7-electronic-drum-set