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Drummers SUCK!!

#22
Nothing worse than a drummer who does not take it seriously.

OUr last dfrummer seemed to just not care anymore.

He STOPPED playing in the middle of songs in order to communicate with the girlfriend.

Stopped playing if a hottie was on the dance floor - shattered his concentration.

Dragged songs, slower & slower, & s l o w e r....

Kept forgetting shots, stops, breaks etc.

I got tired of turning around and yelling "ROLLLLL"!

Finally after many chances & warnings we are now replacing him with a pro who "gets it".:hyper:
 
#23
My old drummer was flakey as hell. We had this benefit show lined up for 2 of my friends that passed away and he didn't even show up for the show. He said his girlfriend couldn't go so he wasn't allowed to go. Another time we were paying for merchandise and he came up with every excuse in the book to keep from paying. Finally, he kept going to each band member saying this person said that about you and started a whole bunch of problems within the band. Then when the next flavor of the week came out he ditched us and went to play with them. Now he's ditched them for somebody else.
 
#24
I have jammed with some not-so-great drummers, and it can be quite a train wreck. My style relies on a great drummer to lock into the groove, you know? I have been blessed with amazing drummers from the bands I have been a part of. Not only great musicians, but great guys as well.
 
#25
i've played with 5 drummers since i've been playing music...the problems were as follows:

drummer #1: madly in love with slipknot, LOG...played everything entirely too complicated, sacrificed the beat for complexity ALL the time, never could keep a steady rhythm.

drummer#2: CANNOT play without double bass, sacrificed rhythm for "awesome" double bass and tom fills

drummers #3 and 4: refused to practice at all

drummer#5: our current drummer...he's good, but he doesnt understand how to 'use' the drums, IE. open hi-hat vs. closed hi-hat, volume dynamics, and if a song goes long enough, no matter what it is, he will eventually fall into a straight 4:4 beat w/ closed hi-hat in the heaviest part of the song...:scowl::rollno:
 
#27
I think a drummer has more power over the rest of the band's overall sound than any other musician, but I've certainly met my share who just can't deal with the responsibility or even want to.

Our drummer used to be our band's biggest liability... the one guy who you're not sure will perform well or even remember his parts on any given night. He has improved quite a bit lately, but talent and skill aren't his only issues. He just, I don't know, has all these weird agendas and belief systems that he constantly wants to see validated, and they get in his own way. For example, he's always saying, "Cymbals are just a drummer's version of guitar effects." He gets bored tremendously easily for someone who hasn't exactly mastered the basics to the point where they're beneath him.

He also has a tendency to count tempos very weirdly. We were going to cover that song Cherub Rock by Smashing Pumpkins for example... he swears that that song is 190 bpm. I laughed aloud imagining Billy Corgan introducing the song to his band: "Hey guys, check out this riff I wrote. Lemme count it off..." (counts off 190 bpm). It's like he ignores the pulse of the song's melodies or something.
 
#28
if you can't find one craft one. me and my friend have just plain disided that there are no such things as drummers and they are mythical creatures that can not be found, so we took a kid that was three years younger than us that hangs out with us and pretty much forced him to learn. the results are yet to come in.
 
#29
Ok..I'm in...
I did a private party last week for a guy that I know, not friends , just know each other. So he books the gig , has fired his drummer and bass player. Found out later that they quit because of the front mans alcohol abuse.

So anyways... we get to the house, meet the fill in drummer , seems nice enough....has great gear .. Pearls and Ziljians...

We small talk, I'm the bass player etc ...who are your influences ect... He had all the right names and what not so I wasn't worried...

Down beat time.... he's all over the place ...totally didn't know ANY songs !!

I asked him after the tragic first set...I asked him exactly what/ where/with whom he has been playing.... solid questions after his erratic performance I thought.

Dig this ... he said he has been playing along with recordings at his house, hasn't gigged ...EVER... and this takes the effing cake...

HE SAID HE HAD BEEN PRACTICING TO WHALE SONGS .....

Good thing the beer was free or I think I might not have made thru the night ..
*********+


"When my time is past, is it too much to ask....for a little bit of sympathy...?"
 
#31
namraj said:
our drummer has the second best ears in my whole band, the pianist taking 1st place, but he has perfect pitch and a diploma in piano as well as a grade 8 in some sort of horn based instrument. Admittedly our drummer also plays piano to grade 8 but all my band members have a second instrument that they play to a high level (the singers 1st instrument is infact bass guitar). so i think our drummer has better ears than the average musician infact his ear probably kick the majority of this forums ears.
Click to expand...

Whoa, a band made up entirely of real musicians?!?! I'd love to hear something, after the way you described your band.
bpg
 
#32
I'm not hating on drummers here, but I will say that finding a great drummer is like sifting through a tar pit of complacency to find a shiny diamond.

One of the worst drummers I met was in Cardiff. I was in a band who gigged Newport, Cardiff and south Wales in general and we needed a new drummer. One of the first guys we found turned up with an OK kit (I don't know much about drums, but it looked and sounded good enough to suffice). He seemed a bit out of it and absolutely stank of weed. Anyway, the guitarist asked him "so you've learned the songs off the myspace page?" "Yeah yeah, they're AWESOME man."

So we start off the first song and this drummer is flying all over the kit, trying to be very technical, but the ending result was that it sounded like a chimpanzee having an epileptic fit lying on the kit. The guy then explained that he listens to some "groundbreaking stuff" where the percussion often takes the role of the lead instrument. At this point, everyone in the band was starting to lose faith in him. We explain that a simple 4/4 beat is all that's needed. Next song we play, he plays a straight rhythm, but he CANNOT KEEP IN TIME FOR JACK. After trying a few songs, we ended up giving up when he started smoking a JOINT in the rehearsal studio we had paid for. When he left, he said he was sorry that he couldn't do the job and that our music isn't advanced enough to meet his standards. What a pri**
 
#35
What's worse than a bad drummer mucking up the sound is a really awesome drummer who plays any song original or cover and makes it sound recording quality the first time he plays it, BUT, he causes so many problems you can't stand to play with him. Here's what this guy did to me....

1. His girl has to come to every practice, if she can't come he won't come.

2. 1, leads to two, which his girlfriend sitting at practice scowling at him because of some earlier argument and usually after practice a big shouting match between the two. Mind you this is even more f'd up because we knew her first and she was basically our biggest fan.

3. Drinks beer after beer at practice. Didn't effect his playing a bit, but it caused him to have to stay after practice as to not get a dui until the wee hours of the night. Practice was at my house and I have to get up in the morning for work.

4. ON the odd chance the girlfriend didn't come to practice, she would end up calling during practice to make sure he was there and makes up some imagined reason to talk to him. Then he wouldn't come home after, these are the days he would leave right after practice, then the girlfriend would call at 2,3,4 am to see if he was still there and tottally ignore my bitching at her and do the same next time.

5. All of this and the only gigs he would play would be opening for his buddies creed tribute band. Where we would get paid a whopping $60 bucks for the whole band and play at places that didn't even have stages.

6. The straw that broke the camels back was when I asked him straight out if I should set up shows with a promoter I know and that they would not pay more than about $100 for an hour show. He enthusiatically tells me yes. So, the first show I get is $100 plus the door, we have 2 months to promote it. So, I know we'll come out with about 200 -300 dollars. After getting the gig and signing contracts he says "I can't be bothered to move my drumset for $100." Which I could understand if he was jobber just playing with bands for money. But, he wasn't. We were an original act that had yet to really play out. Yet, he was always acting like we were about to make it even though he didn't want to play out small gigs and try to build up some sort of following

Great player, but it seemed like everything he did outside his playing put a monkey wrench in anything the band tried to do.
 
#36
Mike Shevlin said:
I grew up with a drummer/best friend & we played throughout high school & college - we could read each others minds. After moving to different parts of the country I find myself in a permenant state of drummer wierdness. I can't tell you how many drummers here in Vegas think that I'm going to hang out around the hi hat & narrate the set for them (picture the voice of Morgan Freeman "Now, young man, we are moving from the verse to the chorus, so prepare yourself because people are counting on you"- It was so much easier when I only had to worry about lead singer wierdness.
Click to expand...

I had to laugh out loud at that one . . . my drummer has many of the mannerisms of Morgan Freeman, though I'd never say it to him. He's old enough to be my dad, also, but he and I have played together about 8 years now. He's a solid player, who I every once in awhile have to cue into the right part. But I'd take him over one or two of the more "chops" oriented players I've had who had drinking problems or couldn't ever bother showing up on time. Dude is always there when he says he will be, prepared, and ready to do the job. And I can only hope I'll be in as good a shape as he is when I'm 58.
 
#40
My drummer is awesome.
He is the talent of the band and works so well with us. He keeps time, knows what to do and when and can cover mistakes easily (on the more than few occasions his sent his drumstick flying into the crowd). He even writes decent riffs for the guitar and listens to how I play when deciding on beats for original riffs.

That said, I have played with a drummer that had no musical talent. To my horror, he moved to bass...:rollno:
 

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