Beating the Competition

To the casual music fan, drums are Ringo Starr.

They’re the province of the lead singer’s unglamorous opposite, equipment cluttering the rear of the stage, pounded on by figures deep in the shadows.

As both drummer and businessman, Remo Belli sees something different.

“It ain’t all rock ‘n’ roll,” cracked Belli, founder and CEO of Remo Inc., the world’s leading seller of drumheads--the skin that drummers hit.

Belli, inventor of the synthetic drumhead, envisions a whole new market--therapy drummers.

“I really think soon there will be drum centers, where people will go, pay a monthly fee and play for hours, to relieve stress,” said the gray-ponytailed Belli, 70. “Percussion definitely has a deeper impact on people’s lives than they think.”

One longtime jazz drummer and composer who uses Remo drumheads, Dave Black of the San Fernando Valley, agrees: “Drums have a special fascination with people because I can take anyone off the street and sit them down and teach them to play something that sounds like something you hear on the radio.

“With brass or woodwind instruments, you have to [be trained to blow an educated] tone before you can do anything.”

Well aware of that accessibility, Remo officials are trying to boost the company’s presence in the emerging education, therapy and world percussion markets, as more and more companies explore what Belli called the “deeper impact” of percussion.

Hot products are large kettle-style drums that Alzheimer’s patients use for therapeutic “drum circles” or tiny round drums banged by children still in diapers. Large corporations are even getting into the act, hiring drum consultants to teach employees to loosen up and release aggression through percussion.

All these trends have helped push sales higher, with percussion sales roughly doubling between 1991 and 1996 to almost $250 million, according to the Carlsbad-based National Assn. of Music Manufacturers.

“The thing I’m most intrigued with is the position music is taking socially,” Belli said. “Considering all of the areas of technology and everything, we deal most with the emotion. We’re in the well-being business.”

About a year and a half ago, Belli’s company marked its 40th anniversary and moved from a cluster of buildings in North Hollywood to a new 200,000-square-foot headquarters carved out of Hasley Canyon just outside the northern border of Santa Clarita.

Remo’s 330 jobs are the most under one roof in the Santa Clarita Valley, according to city officials. Four years after the 1994 Northridge earthquake crippled production, Remo’s annual revenues are at about $40 million and climbing, executives of the privately held company say.

A jazz and swing drummer from rural Indiana, Belli stayed in Los Angeles after serving in the Navy in World War II. In 1957, he came up with the all-American concept that drumheads made of polyester would last longer and provide a more consistent tone than the traditional animal skins.

Decades later, Remo devised Acousticon R, a synthetic drum shell that replaces wood or fiberglass in the drum’s body.

The new materials help lower the cost of drums that often keeps newcomers from learning to play. A new set of beginner’s rock-style drums can cost from $800 to more than $2,000. The company can offer drum sets of synthetic materials for $5,000 that compete with $10,000 sets from rival manufacturers, Remo executives say.

Belli conceded there is an inherent challenge in creating a centuries--old product from synthetic material. “There’s no discussion,” he said. “Some people are going to think it’s odd. I don’t argue with them.”

There was a time when musicians refused to accept a drumhead that wasn’t made of cowhide, Belli noted.

Doug Sink, Remo’s chief financial officer, agreed: “When we first came out with Acousticon, we made crap. But it’s come a long way.”

Among musicians, Remo now stands with Fender amplifiers or Gibson guitars as a brand name, selling hundreds of varieties of drums and drum sets.

Remo has a solid lead in the drumhead business, with more than 80% of the market, company executives say. But the company is fourth or fifth in selling full drum kits, they said. The company’s sales figures are not made public, nor are those of many other companies in their field, they said.

Remo does about half its business overseas, so many of the Acousticon drums bear African and Asian designs and colors and come in shapes of traditional drums from those continents, such as the djembe and asonga, and Belli travels several times a year to explore world markets.

But for all the company’s prominent status in the market, Remo workers maintain a level of secrecy reflecting the industry’s fierce competition.

In Remo’s starkly modern headquarters, research and development teams conduct intensive tests in soundproof rooms. If a product passes muster, it is taken to a special area of the factory that floor employees wryly call “Area 51,” in reference to the secret military test site in Nevada. That’s where the company keeps instruments destined for its celebrity drummer clients.

Drummers paid to endorse Remo include jazz greats Louis Bellson and Billy Higgins, U2’s Larry Mullen Jr., and Mickey Hart, who played for the Grateful Dead.

Drums of all shapes and sizes are visible through clear slits in the blue tarp surrounding the rectangular area, but company officials will not allow visitors inside to view or photograph them.

Other companies have been known to send spies, said Chris Whittington, an 18-year R & D veteran.

“They’ve tried, but that’s why we do it this way, to keep them from getting any insight,” he said, taking a break from rapping on an hourglass-shaped Thai drum called a klong-yaw. Sink, the financial officer, said that such secrecy exists in any competitive industry, but that it thrives in music, which is largely controlled by private companies founded by families before the pop and rock music boom.

During a tour of the new building, marketing director Gary Marcus acknowledged that Remo keeps plenty under wraps, but insisted that that philosophy does not lead to a siege mentality.

“This place has more romance than business,” he said.

As he spoke, a quality control specialist unwittingly emphasized his point, breaking into a frenetic solo to test a conga drum.