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Drummers from Hell..True Stories
- Thread starter Mr. Ray
- Start date
A while back me and my guitarist met someone on Craigslist, when he got to jam with us we put on Everlong by the Foo Fighters (from itunes)although Everlong is very notey on drums, I was shocked when his request was, "Can you go on youtube and pull up the Rock Band Drum Chart?"
Craigs List 0/3 , luckily we got our drummer.
Craigs List 0/3 , luckily we got our drummer.
Runnin up to 50 years alive,been playing electric bass since I was 18,first drummer I worked with (6 long years),was in a nut shell, a drama queen...how he was feeling reflected in his playing...angry..LOUD..bored..SLOPY..hey look at me, I'm hero drummer..back to LOUD..To top it off he had his kit set up wit h the cymbals up high,so with me standing to his right,he'd come off the toms and give that crash cymbal and my left ear death all night...I cant understand why musicians like him cant get it...our purpose is to entertain the audience not treat them with distain...Movin on a few years and bands,now on upright,doin the rocknroll/rockabilly thing...first drummer we took on would,miss bridge fills,put them in where they shouldn't be,stop dead(where there's no stop),compensate by playing too loud,and the worst one...his timing was like a Kenworth with the exhaust brake on,down a hill cuttin down the roadranger to a set of traffic lights..watchin a couple boppin in front of me at a gig,they started out with big grins arms and legs pumpin,then numb nuts on the skins chucked out the anchor,ams dropped,grins turned to frowns and they stopped dancin,headed to the bar to drown their sorrows
Two stories come to mind,
Back in the Top 40 days in the 80's, I had a drummer who could be so drunk he had trouble sitting on the throne, but his meter was still spot on. His tab was always more than his pay for the week. Got rid of him after a club called me to say that he and his girlfriend were beating the crap out of each other in the parking lot after the gig.
Couple years ago a friend from church asked me to play at his wedding. The band would be composed of various friends of his. We met the night before the wedding to rehearse. The drummer brought along a "percussionist" from his church. Between his inability to count a song in the tempo he would actually play and her wailing away on the bongos, it was a near disaster. I laid it down that I would establish the tempo for any song not started by the singer/acoustic player. That worked out fine at rehearsal, but during the service, the singer started a song that was supposed to be in 6/8 in 4/4. No biggie, I adapted. The drummer had a look of panic on his face after coming in wrong, and I spent most of the song trying to help him get on track. The bongos wailed away regardless.
Back in the Top 40 days in the 80's, I had a drummer who could be so drunk he had trouble sitting on the throne, but his meter was still spot on. His tab was always more than his pay for the week. Got rid of him after a club called me to say that he and his girlfriend were beating the crap out of each other in the parking lot after the gig.
Couple years ago a friend from church asked me to play at his wedding. The band would be composed of various friends of his. We met the night before the wedding to rehearse. The drummer brought along a "percussionist" from his church. Between his inability to count a song in the tempo he would actually play and her wailing away on the bongos, it was a near disaster. I laid it down that I would establish the tempo for any song not started by the singer/acoustic player. That worked out fine at rehearsal, but during the service, the singer started a song that was supposed to be in 6/8 in 4/4. No biggie, I adapted. The drummer had a look of panic on his face after coming in wrong, and I spent most of the song trying to help him get on track. The bongos wailed away regardless.
I work with a drummer periodically who is in his 50s and claims to have been in the Glen Miller Band and gone to Berklee in the 60s. 
It never ceases to amaze me how on EVERY SINGLE 1 measure drumbreak he manages to come in on beat 3 1/2 or a full beat late. 
...I'm tempted to ask him if he ever had a stroke.
It never ceases to amaze me how on EVERY SINGLE 1 measure drumbreak he manages to come in on beat 3 1/2 or a full beat late. ...I'm tempted to ask him if he ever had a stroke.
My drummer and I are pretty much best friends.. Although, he can be an a** a lot of the time, and is extremely ignorant, and thinks he's the best musician in the world
I had a drummer, briefly his name too was pete, and he too was a spitter. He did not spit on his hands for grip, He spit ALL OVER the place, all over the stage, all over his drums, all over himself. Then between songs I guess ( I never actually witnessed this part) he would attempt to clean some of the errant spit off of his drums with bottled water and/or beer that I am told he sprayed out of his mouth in a stream. One of the guitards rounded the drum riser slipped and busted his backside not to mention his pride, and that was the end of that drummer.
Fortunately, the drummer in my band now is awesome, however, it hasn't always been that way...
How about the drummer who would do a fast fill and then accelerate the song to nearly twice the tempo after the fill as it was before the fill?
The metal drummer who played EVERYTHING with a lead footed HEAVY kick, even acoustic numbers...
The drummer who didn't show up for the gig and left us "unplugged" - only to tell us the next day he forgot the gig...
The drummer who would get so drunk that the gigs kept getting shorter because he was too inebriated to finish...
The drummer who used his sticks to STAB a hole in each drumhead in a blind rage...
yeah.... good times...
How about the drummer who would do a fast fill and then accelerate the song to nearly twice the tempo after the fill as it was before the fill?
The metal drummer who played EVERYTHING with a lead footed HEAVY kick, even acoustic numbers...
The drummer who didn't show up for the gig and left us "unplugged" - only to tell us the next day he forgot the gig...
The drummer who would get so drunk that the gigs kept getting shorter because he was too inebriated to finish...
The drummer who used his sticks to STAB a hole in each drumhead in a blind rage...
yeah.... good times...
Hahaha! Yeah, but it could have been worse - I know a local guy who would get really wound up during a show and would spit... just at random, whichever way his head was turned. Sometimes he'd hit the guitarist in the back of the head, occasionally the singer.... Just the nicest guy between gigs, but behind the kit he was "Animal" incarnate.
edit: oops, missed the post two above this. Looks like it's not that uncommon....
I've played with a handful of superb drummers in my lifetime, they were a bass player's dream come true. It is truly magic when we find one of those.
However, I once auditioned a dude who claimed he had done studio sessions, played in multiple bands, yada yada yada. He shows up and 3 seconds into the 1st song, we realize this guy was full of crap. He could not keep time, did not know how to 'work' a hi-hat, just terrible. The band got so aggravated that he literally ran for his life after 3 songs.
The next nightmare was a guy that was a miserable person, temper tantrums, had chops, a huge drum kit, but had to freakin' count off the tempo to himself at the start of every song, making it impossible to go smoothly from one song into the next at gigs. We had to stop and wait for this joker to meditate his way into the friggin' song!
However, I once auditioned a dude who claimed he had done studio sessions, played in multiple bands, yada yada yada. He shows up and 3 seconds into the 1st song, we realize this guy was full of crap. He could not keep time, did not know how to 'work' a hi-hat, just terrible. The band got so aggravated that he literally ran for his life after 3 songs.
The next nightmare was a guy that was a miserable person, temper tantrums, had chops, a huge drum kit, but had to freakin' count off the tempo to himself at the start of every song, making it impossible to go smoothly from one song into the next at gigs. We had to stop and wait for this joker to meditate his way into the friggin' song!
i played with a drummer for the past year that made everything into jazz.
EVERYTHING.
It's sometimes cool, however the same stuff got boring to play with and i told him.
"Why don't you play something else?"
"Uhhhh....ok."
and he started playing the same thing with a couple ghost notes.
i gave him a rush cd and he's never played that stupid beat again.
EVERYTHING.
It's sometimes cool, however the same stuff got boring to play with and i told him.
"Why don't you play something else?"
"Uhhhh....ok."
and he started playing the same thing with a couple ghost notes.
i gave him a rush cd and he's never played that stupid beat again.
Lots of negatives here. Let me mention some positives about drummers. I am a drummer. Started playing when I was ten and gigging when I was fourteen. I'll be sixty next week. In my experience drummers are either 'beaters' or 'players'. Once a beater, always a beater. Maybe 1 in 5 are players. This might be a liberal estimate. Players can be charactorized by the three T's that I once read describing Duck Dunn: Taste, Tone and Touch. A player plays for the music, holds the tempo steady and the rhythm together. He/she blends into the mix but hits the accents. The audience should not notice him/her unless they are musicians. This is my story and I am sticking to it.
I once played for over a year with a drummer when we discovered he could play in 4/4 and in 6/8 but wasn't able to play 3/4 at all. Unfortunately we discovered this when we started writing a number of 3/4 riffs.
So we gave him 2 or 3 weeks to just practice on 3/4 and told him we would fire him if it was less than half-baked.
He usually started ok for a few bars but then ended up doing stuff like playing 3/4 in a 4/4 cadance or playing 4/4 in triplets over a 3/4 riff.
It was like he wasn't physical or mentally capable of coping with 3/4 or anything other than 4/4 or 6/8. We fired him that night which resulted directly in the band splitting.
So we gave him 2 or 3 weeks to just practice on 3/4 and told him we would fire him if it was less than half-baked.
He usually started ok for a few bars but then ended up doing stuff like playing 3/4 in a 4/4 cadance or playing 4/4 in triplets over a 3/4 riff.
It was like he wasn't physical or mentally capable of coping with 3/4 or anything other than 4/4 or 6/8. We fired him that night which resulted directly in the band splitting.
RedLeg
Supporting Member
What is it with drummers who just cannot get their head around the fact that Phil Rudd hs been doing what he does since 1973 for a reason!!!!
Sorry, no stories....just a massive disdain for overplaying and no sense of taste and/or dynamics.
Sorry, no stories....just a massive disdain for overplaying and no sense of taste and/or dynamics.
This doesn't make any sense. How can he play 6/8 but he can't ease up and play a 3/4? That's like being able to play a minor scale, but not being able to play a pentatonic.
I played with this guy once who must of had 20 cymbals, 10 drums, and had to crawl into the set. Funny thing was the never knew when he would hit the bass drum. It was very confusing to play with him. Really nice guy, tp bad our guitard was a complete mental case.
These stories are hilarious! Thanks for sharing everybody. The last drummer I played with was actually fantastic, very reliable, not flashy, good sense of time, not a drunk, not demanding, trimmed down drum set and everything.
The worst I can remember was the band I played in back in high school. The drummer was actually pretty skilled but no sense of taste or musicality. Every song we ever played was 3.5 minutes of drum fill. Slow songs, fast songs, loud songs, quiet songs. All just one big freakin' drum fill/solo from start to finish.
Me - Hey dude, after this part we'll bring it down and get really quiet ok? Try to work some dynamics in this song.
Drummer - Um, no. I think I'll just rip a mad fill for this entire song. And then I'll stand up on my drum stool triumphantly and throw my sticks into the crowd, who by that time will be blown away by my greatness.
The worst I can remember was the band I played in back in high school. The drummer was actually pretty skilled but no sense of taste or musicality. Every song we ever played was 3.5 minutes of drum fill. Slow songs, fast songs, loud songs, quiet songs. All just one big freakin' drum fill/solo from start to finish.
Me - Hey dude, after this part we'll bring it down and get really quiet ok? Try to work some dynamics in this song.
Drummer - Um, no. I think I'll just rip a mad fill for this entire song. And then I'll stand up on my drum stool triumphantly and throw my sticks into the crowd, who by that time will be blown away by my greatness.
