A 1974 Premier kit whom I married when I was 13 and more recently hooked up with a Roland Td3 and DW classic series to form a manage a trois.
I play Paiste cymbals...their product offers consistency and great sound colours.
Vic Firth do the rest..great grip,without blistering.
Influences
Charly Antolini...Who?...A great musician!
Ian Paice a man who can rock.
Billy Cobham...enough said!!Mike Mangini,Jon Hiseman...a drummer not mentioned enough!Keith Moon...attitude.Bernard Purdie..effortless rhythm.
Peter Erskine...smooth
Chopin,Mozart..Yes! Cool dudes.
Joni Mitchell,Joe Zawinul,Chick Corea,The Who,Van Halen,Iron Maiden,Mahavishnu Orchestra,Lenny White,Tavares,Earth,Wind and Fire,DWats,Stevie Wonder,Rush,Fantasy,Billy Joel,Led Zep..early days,Buddy Rich,
Rory Gallagher,Chaka Khan,Steve White,Red Carter..my 1st drum tutor.
Earl Howarth,John Harper,Ace...great drum battles in Germany!!
Bon Jovi.
Sounds Like
A tight cool rock steady groove,a WOW,then back to the groove...as simple as that!
Began playing an orange sparkle acrylic snare at age 5 and rapidly went through a ruck of chopsticks!
I received my first drum kit at age 9 to do a school gig and played along to the Kinks,Deep Purple and The Who.It was the cool groove of the Kinks and the sheer mad freedom of Moon,along with Paice's rock that inspired me.
Joined my first band at 17.I had a choice..."Do you want to fix cars?"and become a mechanic or "We're off to Europe for 9 months,are you coming?" It was a no brainer!
Gigging every night for 5 hours solid really honed just about everything,The band Fantasy was where I became a professional.We supported The Drifters,(A great bunch of guys)The Chi Lites and it was simply amazing to support Suzi Quatro.(She's really tiny,but she handles that Bass really well)There was no going back!
After getting back to the UK, I teamed up with a 7 piece soul band, Superstride and gigged virtually every nook and cranny of the UK. Somewhere in between gigging and recording with Fantasy I did a Diploma in Music and the theory really did help and I'm still using it today.It was around that time too that another great musician,Billy Cobham influenced my playing.
Things were not like they are today, where anything can be found on the internet,or tracks slowed down to enable you to hear the chops.No,it was stick your finger on the turntable and play it time and time again and even then,it was near on impossible sometimes to figure out what was going on... oh how times have changed!
My most recent excursion was to provide the solid groove for The Hexmen (great Blues band by the way!)and playing blues was a really diciplined art of less is more.It would be great to do something different....maybe Rock? Or do some studio work...but I'm open to offers!!!
I'm a great believer in passing on skills and I'm now passing on some drumming knowledge to the kids in Liverpool via The Liverpool Music Service.
Im also a great believer in continuous self development and there is always room for improvement and with the help of Roy Martin (a cool groove drummer,a great guy too!)and Steve White(simply amazing technical skill and musicality!)
watch this space!!!!
Drumming is the "centre" of everything.We may get put at the back, but believe me,everthing revolves around us.
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