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Drummer nightmares
- Thread starter Micha84
- Start date
Played a singer/guitarist/songwriter concert at a college about 10 years ago. This cat was on point with lots of performance experience. He had great songs and great support from the audience. Most of the time, he is a solo performer, but he is the kind of guy who can walk into a room and own it in about ten seconds. A born entertainer.
He and I spearheaded this project, with me acting essentially in the capacity of music director. I charted the tunes and brought in my friend to play saxophone. The three of us worked out arrangements for each song with intros, endings, and spaces for solos. I also handled the booking and logistics. Since it was a local gig, this was not a particularly heavy lift.
When it came time to talk about a drummer, he told me "Don't worry about it, i've got a guy. He's the guy that played on my recordings, so he knows all the material. I use him for everything that needs drums."
Okay. I was going to call one of the ace session drummers that I know to cover this, but the recordings were very well done. So I thought, what is the worst that could happen?
But as it turns out, this guy does not want to rehearse. He is just going to show up on the day of the concert and play the gig. Not great, but if this is what makes guitarist/singer/songwriter comfortable, so be it.
The day arrives. We set up for sound check and no drummer. We get a frantic text that he is running late. About fourty minutes late, he comes rolling in clearly flustered. He begins setting up his kit. Somewhere in this chaos, I find out that he doesn't read. Great.
Predictably, all of the arrangements that we had worked on over the last few weeks went right out the window. The guy was clearly agitated that we had done all this groundwork and that he couldn't get with it. So there was nothing to do, but do it his way which basically was to wing it. I was not a happy camper.
We made it through the performance with minimal bumps and bruises, but I was furious at the end and vowed never to call this guy for anything ever.
Epilogue
About two years later, after this incident, I was hired by a local symphony to play a performance at an art gallery with a different artist. Guess who the drummer was?
As this was an unrehearsed performance, we showed up on the day of and were presented with the charts, the arrangements of which the drummer already knew. The guy knocked it out of the park.
Lesson learned. When you ask people to do things that are not in their wheelhouse, you get what you get.
He and I spearheaded this project, with me acting essentially in the capacity of music director. I charted the tunes and brought in my friend to play saxophone. The three of us worked out arrangements for each song with intros, endings, and spaces for solos. I also handled the booking and logistics. Since it was a local gig, this was not a particularly heavy lift.
When it came time to talk about a drummer, he told me "Don't worry about it, i've got a guy. He's the guy that played on my recordings, so he knows all the material. I use him for everything that needs drums."
Okay. I was going to call one of the ace session drummers that I know to cover this, but the recordings were very well done. So I thought, what is the worst that could happen?
But as it turns out, this guy does not want to rehearse. He is just going to show up on the day of the concert and play the gig. Not great, but if this is what makes guitarist/singer/songwriter comfortable, so be it.
The day arrives. We set up for sound check and no drummer. We get a frantic text that he is running late. About fourty minutes late, he comes rolling in clearly flustered. He begins setting up his kit. Somewhere in this chaos, I find out that he doesn't read. Great.
Predictably, all of the arrangements that we had worked on over the last few weeks went right out the window. The guy was clearly agitated that we had done all this groundwork and that he couldn't get with it. So there was nothing to do, but do it his way which basically was to wing it. I was not a happy camper.
We made it through the performance with minimal bumps and bruises, but I was furious at the end and vowed never to call this guy for anything ever.
Epilogue
About two years later, after this incident, I was hired by a local symphony to play a performance at an art gallery with a different artist. Guess who the drummer was?
As this was an unrehearsed performance, we showed up on the day of and were presented with the charts, the arrangements of which the drummer already knew. The guy knocked it out of the park.
Lesson learned. When you ask people to do things that are not in their wheelhouse, you get what you get.
I do love my Beat Buddy. So solid, doesn’t need a ride, a small loan, a place to stay…..changes on the one, fills that fit, reasonable, adjustable volume, and all of it works with just a toe tap.
I never feel like I need to stick my foot way up his butt.
I never feel like I need to stick my foot way up his butt.
Takes more than on time and on the beat to be good.
For me, I want to know if they can play a song consistently.
context depending, of course. A clearly labeled improv section is one thing.
But I don't want play find the kick on a "basic rock song"
One drummer I worked with for many years started out as the best I had ever played with. He actually graduated from college with a music degree and his dad is a locally famous band director, so the dude had/has chops. He was as solid a drummer as any bass player could reasonably ask for. The first year was great.... and then he saw a local cover band that specialized in flamboyant hair metal sorta stuff. Within a few weeks our beloved drummer spent more time spinning (and dropping) sticks than he did playing the drums. Seriously, he would do anything possible to draw more attention to himself. One club we played at was previously a strip club and there were mirrors mounted all over the walls. We ended up having to find sheets to cover the mirrors because our drummer was so infatuated with watching himself play drums in the mirrors that he was dropping beats left and right. That went on for years because this drummer also owned the P.A. we played through. Thankfully all that is in the past now.
I worked with a drummer who had similar tendencies to mix things up constantly. This included fairly drastic changes to feel and small changes in tempo. He was young and super talented. He wanted complete to freedom to express himself...and yet he wanted to tell me how to play bass. He also wanted me to be exclusively responsible for time so he could back phrase around me.
I remember we were working up some sort of Latin jazz piece for a big band tour. He expressed concern that we show respect for the originators of the style by playing it authentically. He showed me one of his percussion method books that included a play along CD and written out bass parts. He suggested I play exactly like the bass part from his method book.
IMHO the bass parts from his method book were overly basic, and not necessarily what a good authentic Brazilian bassist would do. On top of that, the composer of the piece we were working on was an American and the piece was not really true to the original form.
I don't think he really learned anything directly from me. But he did learn some of things I told him. This was done by reading or watching interviews with famous drummers he respected.
It's possible he is a really good drummer now. Despite how frustrating he could be, he seemed to be heading in the right direction.
I remember we were working up some sort of Latin jazz piece for a big band tour. He expressed concern that we show respect for the originators of the style by playing it authentically. He showed me one of his percussion method books that included a play along CD and written out bass parts. He suggested I play exactly like the bass part from his method book.
IMHO the bass parts from his method book were overly basic, and not necessarily what a good authentic Brazilian bassist would do. On top of that, the composer of the piece we were working on was an American and the piece was not really true to the original form.
I don't think he really learned anything directly from me. But he did learn some of things I told him. This was done by reading or watching interviews with famous drummers he respected.
It's possible he is a really good drummer now. Despite how frustrating he could be, he seemed to be heading in the right direction.
If you want to really know how good a drummer is, request that they only come with a snare, bass drum, high hats and a crashable ride or ridable crash cymbal. No more. Invent a reason.
If that is not possible -- then if they do a left-to-right tom fill more than 2 times before the chorus, then do not hire them .
And OP -- someone that cannot keep anything steady for 2 bars technically cannot play. A drummer should be able to play an entire song steady even if is just a simple beat.
If that is not possible -- then if they do a left-to-right tom fill more than 2 times before the chorus, then do not hire them .
And OP -- someone that cannot keep anything steady for 2 bars technically cannot play. A drummer should be able to play an entire song steady even if is just a simple beat.
I heard Maynard Ferguson once described a drummer sounding like “ sneakers in a dryer.”
An ancient blues harpist I once played with commenting on a drummer with less than consistent time..." That guy sounds like two skeletons f**king on a tin roof!"
I know a guy like this. He has his favoured tempo and everything gets there eventually.
His problems were not about drums so much.20 years ago I was in a four piece band that had been together for several years when the drummer left . . . we did a few auditions for a replacement drummer and eventually chose a guy ("Jim"). Over the next few gigs we began to realize that although this drummer had good enough rhythms, he basically had one inherent moderate speed.
When we started off a fast song he was fine for a couple verses but by the middle of the song he would gradually slow down . . . . and when we started off a slow song he'd be OK at first, but at some point he would speed up to his own tempo. His tempo-issue was VERY consistent throughout our set lists and as the bass player, I felt it was especially maddening.
We spoke to him about it - he was a nice guy and seemed to understand but somehow couldn't overcome his natural tendencies to change tempos (old dogs and new tricks). Obviously we couldn't continue this way and we were prepared to let him know just after our next gig on the following night. We played a biker bar a few towns over and "Jim" proceeded to get drunk through the night . . . . by the end of the last set he had brought up some guy that had one arm who was sitting in playing the drums. We were rocking some Chuck Berry number and the one armed guy was beating the sh** out of the snare drum!!! . . . while "Jim" was crouched over next to him yelling " is that all you got ? " over and over and over
A couple choice nightmare drummer tales-
I did a 6 month cruise contract- the music director was the drummer. He actually was a great drummer, but never really interacted with any of us unless he had a problem with something. And he would play so dang loud when something was bothering him. Out of spite. The rest of the band actually really bonded over what a drag this guy was. He took a vacation 4.5 months in so we got to do the rest of the contract with the guitarist as MD and then they sent out a new drummer. We were so stoked for this, but then the guy they sent was one of the worst drummers I've encountered ina professional situation. The company must have been desperate or somebody gave him the audition/sight-reading material beforehand. Super nice guy. Listened to feedback. Just hopelessly under water, and too green to ever catch up and learn that many tunes in 6 weeks. The guy would drop time switching from the hat to the ride on a basic beat. That was a rough 6 months. As I was typing I remembered we went hiking with him and the guy slid off a cliff (it was a pretty dangerous section of the trail to be fair) and me and another guy had to pull him back up and he was huge. Nothing to do with the story just crazy to remember.
Later in life I played a weekly downtown at a country bar, with a drummer I had played with on and off for a long time. He is actually one of the best drummers I've ever met from a talent standpoint, and we were really good friends. I was excited to have the gig. We used to both party pretty hard, but by the time this gig came around I was sober and he had kind of veered in the other direction. It was terrible. This guy would drink a million beers and be fine until he would just crash and literally couldn't play the last half hour of a 3 hour set- reliably. He would also just spit on the ground on our stage the entire time he played, and if the singer called a song he didn't want to do he would just talk poopie and tell them he didn't feel like doing it. If he wanted another drink he would get angry if people didn't bring it. Everybody I worked with thought he was the poopie on drums, and to be fair he was a good guy with a problem, so they didn't want to call him on it. I played two or three nights a week with this guy for like 7 months at this club before I had finally had enough and told him I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of people like that anymore. They fired me because he threatened to quit if they didn't. Weirdly enough, I got a call for a weekly church gig that paid the same amount I was making from those gigs every week. Talk about a blessing in disguise- but I was furious at the moment. And still bummed to have a falling out with a good friend
I did a 6 month cruise contract- the music director was the drummer. He actually was a great drummer, but never really interacted with any of us unless he had a problem with something. And he would play so dang loud when something was bothering him. Out of spite. The rest of the band actually really bonded over what a drag this guy was. He took a vacation 4.5 months in so we got to do the rest of the contract with the guitarist as MD and then they sent out a new drummer. We were so stoked for this, but then the guy they sent was one of the worst drummers I've encountered ina professional situation. The company must have been desperate or somebody gave him the audition/sight-reading material beforehand. Super nice guy. Listened to feedback. Just hopelessly under water, and too green to ever catch up and learn that many tunes in 6 weeks. The guy would drop time switching from the hat to the ride on a basic beat. That was a rough 6 months. As I was typing I remembered we went hiking with him and the guy slid off a cliff (it was a pretty dangerous section of the trail to be fair) and me and another guy had to pull him back up and he was huge. Nothing to do with the story just crazy to remember.
Later in life I played a weekly downtown at a country bar, with a drummer I had played with on and off for a long time. He is actually one of the best drummers I've ever met from a talent standpoint, and we were really good friends. I was excited to have the gig. We used to both party pretty hard, but by the time this gig came around I was sober and he had kind of veered in the other direction. It was terrible. This guy would drink a million beers and be fine until he would just crash and literally couldn't play the last half hour of a 3 hour set- reliably. He would also just spit on the ground on our stage the entire time he played, and if the singer called a song he didn't want to do he would just talk poopie and tell them he didn't feel like doing it. If he wanted another drink he would get angry if people didn't bring it. Everybody I worked with thought he was the poopie on drums, and to be fair he was a good guy with a problem, so they didn't want to call him on it. I played two or three nights a week with this guy for like 7 months at this club before I had finally had enough and told him I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of people like that anymore. They fired me because he threatened to quit if they didn't. Weirdly enough, I got a call for a weekly church gig that paid the same amount I was making from those gigs every week. Talk about a blessing in disguise- but I was furious at the moment. And still bummed to have a falling out with a good friend
One time I had a drummer complain that I had way too much mids in my tone and say he "hated mids in bass". This was in the middle of the '90s when everyone seemed to be scooping a Grand Canyon out of their mids. I proceeded to tell him how he had his snare and toms tuned wrong and my mids never came up again.
Allegedly this is what drove Sting mad about Stewart Copeland. He never played the same thing twice and was unpredictable, if brilliant!
OK, I got one more - not quite a disaster but still pretty frustrating at the time . . . .
Some time ago I played in a 10 piece wedding band in which the BL was the drummer. He knew about rhythms and timings, but didn't actually know anything about the melodic/musical part of songs (notes, chords, harmonies, key signatures, etc). Occasionally, one of the vocalists would want to change the key of a song which required a bit of 'working it out' (the horns read charts while the keys and guitars played more by ear). We'd be in the rehearsal room and the BL/drummer would impatiently keep saying "OK here we go . . . 1 - 2 - 3 -..." before the rest of the band was done adjusting for the change. He never seemed to grasp the idea that "musical" changes needed a bit more time.
Some time ago I played in a 10 piece wedding band in which the BL was the drummer. He knew about rhythms and timings, but didn't actually know anything about the melodic/musical part of songs (notes, chords, harmonies, key signatures, etc). Occasionally, one of the vocalists would want to change the key of a song which required a bit of 'working it out' (the horns read charts while the keys and guitars played more by ear). We'd be in the rehearsal room and the BL/drummer would impatiently keep saying "OK here we go . . . 1 - 2 - 3 -..." before the rest of the band was done adjusting for the change. He never seemed to grasp the idea that "musical" changes needed a bit more time.
