Most important thing on this site:
DL: How important is it to play, and how important is it to practice on your own?
SM: It’s more important to play. I’ve always felt that playing is the most important thing. You learn something every time you play. It’s the experience of playing that, over the years, makes you a good player. Under any conditions, whether it’s Lawrence Welk, a wedding, or a bar-mitzvah, you learn something that can be used someplace down the line.
– Shelly Manne, Modern Drummer interview by Dave Levine, 1981
Shelly is the Manne!
There are a number of interviews and articles in Modern Drummer Magazine from the early 1980s that I consider the pinnacle of drum journalism.
The interview with Jim Keltner and Chip Stern's essay about/with Jo Jones are also among them, and a few others like the ones with Blackwell and Dunlop.
Jonathan Mover does similarly good interviews for his Drumhead Magazine now, but unfortunately I often care for the drummers he picks.
*don’t care*
(I can't seem to edit my post)
I'd look through old Percussive Notes, too. Probably some good stuff in there. We're pretty lucky to have it as a resource, nobody else was talking to those guys and writing about what they have to say about playing music. I need to give Shelly's interviews another look– I haven't read them in years.