Another drummer thread

[blipndub]

So last year we fired our drummer. He was an older guy (we are all over 30) and he was having trouble making rehearsal and his playing was really boring, solid but unispired. So we hired this kid who had been helping our guitarist with his luthier business. He loved our music and knew all our songs and had good energy.

It's been a year now, a summer of gigging and we want to record another album, but the drummer can't get his act together and just play the beats. He's all Keith Moon on us and when I listen to recording of practice I'm like, hey where's the two and the four? Basically he plays drums like a guitarist with every little accent, but he drops the groove.

I'm SO frustrated and know that we'll never get into the studio cuz we know we'll waste time waiting for him to get his crap together.

How do I tell him to straighten up? He's like a son to our guitarist so it's not like we can just replace him willy nilly. and i don't know if the guitarist is willing to have "the talk" with him.

I went back and listened to a performance with our other drummer and yes, it was boring but damn it was tight - like a friggin' Alesis.

[Funky Doctor]

Yeah I have the same problem. He wants to get all Tower of Power ALL the time and says that it's funky, but it isn't, and it's just plain arrogant from where I am standing. Tries to match every little thing I do, and I am not a very busy player, but I can be if I want to be. He makes EVERY song his own and I find it hard to have just one little bit to myself every now and again. On the few occassions I ask him to play a little strighter and more down the line where appropriate, he claims that it's boring. The thing is, I get very bored doing some of the stuff we do, but I stick with it. If he gets bored playing stuff that means he DOESN'T get in the way, maybe he shouldn't be playing drums at all. I really haven't enjoyed being the bass player in the last 6 months. I'm considering quitting the band and I don't know what after that. But it really is becoming unpleasant. It's really starting to piss me off that he preaches that we should keep things simple and then a few months down the track gets all "look at me everybody, I'm a good drummer because I play as much as I can and match everything at every oportunity." No texture to songs, no groove, very dominant drums, and no one even pays attention to him due to the fact that he does it for attention. Man it gets to me. It should be fun, but it isn't.

[blipndub]

ew compatition like that totally bites. it's why i quit bands for years. one thing that has had some positive results for us in the past was actually miking up the drum kit and running that back into headphones for the drummer, that way he can be sure that he hears himself and hopefully won't play so loudly, he still feesl like the center of the universe but doesn't annoy everyone else.

it's tough, some of our best rehearsals were with a drum machine!

[fastplant]

Yeah, I switched from bass to drums. There's no need for competition in any band. I get pissed at myself if, by mistake, I do a fill over our bassist's fills. You should definitely talk to him. Or at the next practice when he does it, stop the song and show him what he's doing.

[blipndub]

We actually tried this a couple times and it did seem to help: we recorded each song and then listened to the whole thing when we finished. It was time consuming but the immediacy was pretty helpful.