Pre-war music is often treated as a curiosity, an antique lens through which we can filter popular music to gain views and clicks and click-throughs, a little tarnished brass, a flapper dress, and a dramatic-looking microphone making for a deliciously viral juxtaposition viewers of all ages can enjoy. For Ramy Antoun, President of A&F Drum Co., pre-war music is a curiosity alright, but the kind he’s spent nearly a decade and a half trying to understand. He sees the juxtaposition of old and new as anything but novelty. In fact, to A&F, it’s entirely elemental.

Such a combination requires arduous research and painstaking work, but it’s A&F’s anything’s-possible attitude that enables Ramy and crew to draw a bold “new world sound” out of the timeless elegance of old world craftsmanship. We asked Ramy to tell us a little bit more about this process, about A&F, and about everything that goes into making history the second time around.

“100 years of soul into a modern instrument.”