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The Spoiled Drummer !

rodl2005

rodl2005

Jun 1, 2005
19,567
15,063
Tasmania, Australia
www.facebook.com
#1
In our 4 piece jazz outfit, we play every Sun. eve, 6.30pm-9pm. Been doing it for 3 yrs so far & all going well.
The drummer we statred out with-had a bit of a rep as a hot head, 'psycho', nutcase..... U name it. But in a small town like this U take ppl as they come & leave rumours alone IMO/IME. He's a GREAT drummer & a NIce guy too.
The 1st gig he did w/ us (we'd been gigging w/out a drummer for a few months) we were sharing the night(a Fri) with the band who's gig it regularly was. One set our band/ next set their band etc... share most gear. Easy!!!!
This gig- due to the other bands drummer not wanting our(new) drummer to move his kit TOO much- our new drummer packed up his bat & ball & went home-leaving us to do the gig w/out drums(as we'd been doing this anyway, it didn't phase us too much- was amusing-that someone could be quite that childish at 40 yrs old- & annoying! :rollno:
A year went by w/out another incident like this one, but there were a few comments that were 'uncalled for' &, luckily, unheard, except by us.
We knew now a lot of the "rumours" were most likely true.
But as he was nice & a great drummer(there aint too many of 'em here in this small city) we perservered. But noticed whenever we did a different gig-than our usual Sunday- or an "important" one-where ppl such as booking agents were coming to see us, or a corporate gig- Our drummer usually found a problem & would 'almost' create a scene!:eyebrow:
It was starting to get to us & we were gonna talk to him about things, when we had a corporate gig, & we were getting a free meal as well as a very nice amount of $$$$.
B4 playing the lady who Hired us came to our table & informed us of the menu available to us. Gourmet Pizza's! Good ones too!!!! Damn good!:hyper:
Drummer goes "PIZZA?????" "Well I guess I'll have to have Pizza then"- mockingly. we all looked very embarrassed & ordered ours, as did he.
Then after eating our deliceous Pizzas, the 'hirer' lady, nicely asked us if we were ready to begin in a minute( it was 8.27pm & we were to start at 8.30... & were sitting 10 feet away from the stage). Sure we were, we replied.
THEN.......... after ONE SONG Drummer-says- LOUDLY "anyone know any JOKES????- I DO... PIZZA!!!!!"
The other two members looked stunned, I-being quite friendly with him- say "Mate, whats Up??"
Drummer(D) " U mean to tell me, U don't have a problem with the way we're being treated???"
ME " No!!! We're getting good $$$ & got a nice free meal- whats the problem"
D- "U must have a thicker skin than me then"...Everyone could hear him!! He was going red in the face & was clearly on the verge of either embarrassing EVERYONE & ruining our bands chances of more gigs there, OR walking out altogether- take your pick at whats worse?????
I just tried to placate him & get thru the gig- which we did, but when talking to him about it, & other similar incidents. He says, "I guess I'm spoiled". We said that we couldn't have things like this happening at gigs-nor did we want ANY bad feelings in the band!!!!
He couldn't guarantee this NOT happening again & so QUIT!!! & thus saving us from sacking him:)
Some other times were- Playing at a restaurant & him commenting that the ppl dancing were "being rude, ppl were trying to eat!!"-even tho thats why the place had us there-to get ppl dancing.
Saying how some of our regular followers, that are good swing dancers, were "daggy & boring"-loudly-so they could hear!!!
Complaining to the manager-that the bar staff didn't serve him 1st- as he was the band & needed his drink quickly!
& many more!
There - just thought I'd share that with everyone!
Regards,
Rod.
 
#4
It’s funny, as I read that I thought you were going to say that you found that pizza would calm him down:-)

I have been dealing with much the same thing. The drummer I have been working with is a nice enough fellow but very high maintenance. If you don't tell him 19 times, like I expect his mommy did, how much you like whatever he has done he gets hurt. Hurt, in a grown man, is worse than mad.

Plus this fellow is the slowest fellow I have ever met.

Last week we played a mid-week gig at this little place. We are done at 12am and the owner wants to go home. The guitar player and I have our stuff out the door in 10 minutes.

I look at the stage and drummer dude is just kinda wandering around. Soooo, I thought I'd help by grabbing drums. Bad Idea.

He gets mad and says I'm not being careful enough with his drums. Then to emphasize his point he throws his floor tom out the door!

Then, he said to us “there is one thing I won't be that is rushed" I thought I was going to fall over. Like I said he is a nice enough fellow but he is the slowest human on the planet. This cat actually took 20 minutes, after pulling up to the pump, to put gas in his car.

Funny stuff. The sad part is, in my other band which is a church youth group thing, I work with a drummer that is 12 years old. I never have to put up with stuff like that from him or the other 12 year old that’s in the band (they both do a great job and are getting better by the day)!

We are all funny creatures us humans but what is that makes drummers so strange? I worked with one that, during breaks, would eat onions like they were apples! Just stand there and munch on a whole onion. Well it was the 80's so I would set up about 50k of lighting. About the middle of the set once this guy got sweaty the entire stage would smell of his onion sweat.

Well I better stop. I could go for hours.
 
#5
@Rodl2005; try to write your next post in proper English: You instead of U, before instead of b4, stop using capitals where there shouldn't be any capitals and vice versa, try to build alineas etc.

That way more people will reply because they will read your post, instead of being scared off.

:)
 
#6
Fire him. That's what I do when the going gets rough.

Fired:
m_f443822aa4dcea81a456e81278f90c48.png


Next to being Fired:
m_075d541a2480b7f58b746877b865f238.png
 
#7
Chris- I hear ya!!!!! 12 y.o. huh- thats great!!! This drummer's 40 or 41 y.o. & unlike your one- is NOT slow-Though our keyboardist -in my other band is. He'll take 2 x as long to drive to a gig than everyone else. At the gig we're doing tonite, we have to park opposite the hotel, & after, to load gear into vehicles, we have to move our cars etc to outside the pub. Now this street is a fairly main street, but at 2 am- it's pretty sparse traffic wise. So all the band members hang a "U" turn & park outside the pub. NOT the keyboardist........He'll go up to the next set of traffic lights, turn left, go up that street to a roundabout, come back down, sit & wait for the "go" arrow to light up, then 'carefully' park- if there's ANY room left now that we've all done U turns to park & have all half finished loading out by the time he's 'turned his car around'. This is just ONE of the many "quirks" our beloved keyboardist has!!
There- almost correct english- sorry inglish! ;-)

Chaos MK- we did fire him- well he did himself really, as he couldn't guarantee us that he wouldn't be a 'pratt' again, so he quit! :-)
 
#11
Vorago said:
Just trying to make this thread more readable, not every sp34k5 teh l33t. And I sure as hell aint gonna spend time correcting posts like that.
Click to expand...

And I for one thank you for doing so. I actually read the post, and it just made me grateful for my new drummer, who is as humble, quick, and low maintenance as they come, and glad to be rid of my old drummer, who had all sorts of things in common with 'slow guy' and 'hot headed primadonna'.
 
#13
HAHAHHA reminds me of my last drummer... he was 6 years younger to me and anyways there was this rock competition we had gone to participate... we were selected into the final 5 and because we were so tired not having slept that whole night because of the preliminaries, we decided not to do a slow song ( our original composition) as our vocalists was feeling uneasy... anyways in the middle of our set just before we started a song our drummer suddenly got angry and stood up and was walking off teh stage... luckily our guitarist spotted him and the drummer came back... after the concert he comes up to me (as im the eldest in the band) and confronts me by saying why didnt we do the song, i was astonished and seeing him so agitated i tried to calm him down (also because im a nonviolent person) ... in return he is shouting back at me, well not even the founding members of our band (both 3 yours younger to me) speak to me like that so i gave him a warning not to raise his voice at me but he didnt take my warning seriously and BAM he was lying on the floor... now the worst part was there was a camera crew backstage (which i didnt know) and the whole crowd and judges were watching us on the projection screens and they had been shooting us since we finished our set and went backstage... the judges called us out and demoted us from what was suppose to be the grand prize to 2nd runners up (bummer)... well needless to say i never talked or saw our drummer again... but recently our bands email was hacked all our mails and contacts deleted... now who should i suspect hmmm???
 

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