With my musical direction more unclear, the early ’90s brought new inspiration, new gear and set the foundations for new mistakes. This was the decade I thought I would make my mark as drummer – but the search for identity brought more diversions than solid pathways.
Reinvention #4 (Growing Pains)
By the end of 1991, I had left the world of holiday-park/cruise-ship bands and returned to the less lucrative circuit of local bars, clubs and wedding gigs. During the early 90s, it was still possible for musicians to gig six nights per week without travelling ridiculous distances. For me, this meant the gig circuit in Northwest England and the luxury of getting into bed before 3am.
Despite the drop in income, being at home gave me the freedom to explore the creative opportunities denied when away on seasonal work. My desire to play original music was back, and our generation were peaking in their relevance, thanks to Nirvana showing us the way with ‘Nevermind’.
My temporary musical saviours, Extreme, were about to drop into semi-obscurity as grunge and its alt-rock tidal wave washed away the last of the 1980s hair-metal leftovers. Nonetheless, Nuno & Co made a fantastic bridge to cross into the next reinvention of rock.
New flowers bloomed during 1992 when I finally woke up to the genius of Living Colour. Here was a group who refused to be stereotyped by the colour of their skin or the musical styles they were expected to play. For this pioneering band, there was no stone hiding a musical genre to be left unturned. After my previous depressing year dominated by a lonely six months in Great Yarmouth, their music was the much-needed magnet to reset my spinning compass.
Being such an obscenely talented quartet, their drummer Will Calhoun became an instant hero for my clinically obsessive drummer-worship. Of note was his clever and subtle use of double-bass drum licks debuted on his band’s second album, ‘Time’s Up’.
For the first time since I started playing, I could envisage myself as a double-bass drum player. Could this be the magic ingredient to set me apart from my local contemporaries?
If I needed further confirmation, a visit to Buckley’s Tivoli in North Wales, on 23 December 1992, gave me both reassurance and inspiration. On that evening, my audio senses were thoroughly rinsed by the music of Dr Phibes and the House of Wax Equations and the sheer excellence of their Cheshire-bred drummer, Keith York.
Sitting behind his sleek black DW kit, Keith gave any drummers in the audience a masterclass in combining groove, taste, originality and technical skill. This included slipping in some meaningful double-bass phrases that lay unselfishly within the framework of the music. At no point did he play anything which invaded the space of his two bandmates. The lesson was there for all to see, yet I went home afterwards still planning my own future glory.
In comparison to the other bands inhabiting the Liverpool scene of the early 1990s, Dr Phibes had been one of the few choosing not to jump onto the musical legacy left by The La’s and their plunder of jangly 60s guitar-pop. Maybe it was because Dr Phibes were outsiders who had chosen to make the city their base, giving them their comparative uniqueness. Whatever it was, I wanted a piece of that action, but the native Liverpool songsmiths weren’t exactly hungry for drummers like me wanting to get experimental on the kit.
As things stood at that time, all the local bands getting signed had drummers adept at playing authentic 1960s styles on minimal single bass drum setups. Some of these drummers would have certainly tried the first double-pedals to appear in the late 1980s, but most had decided it was a skill too difficult to crack. Jimmy Hughes, who played with Black (the late Colin Vernacombe), was playing double-pedal and teaching it, but he was an exception.
This was also the eve of Britpop’s campaign to gradually expunge the grunge invaders with a simpler, quirkier style of music unique to the British psyche. Everyone was looking to jump onto the next big thing and adapt their style of playing to comply. But not me. My new pathway (I believed) was going to set me apart from the provincial players, using the ideas of Will Calhoun as my guide. As far as I was concerned, I was ready to go into my next decade as a drummer hungry for recognition.
New Drums, New Pedal, New Mistakes
With money set aside from the summer season, it was time for me to invest in some new gear. I’d set my heart on the horrifically expensive – but exquisitely beautiful – Sonorlite drums by Sonor.
My first exposure to the premium German brand was at Liverpool’s Crash rehearsal studios in the late 1980s. A band called Empire were block-booked into one of the studio’s rooms, no doubt funded by what was rumoured to be an obscenely large advance from EMI. We are talking about the kind of sums which can buy an unknown artist a support slot onto the tour of the hottest band in town. In this case, it was the UK tour of irritating boy-band superstars, BROS. Money was clearly no object.
Taking an envious peek into their room, I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of a unique wood grain pattern on the shells of a classy-looking drum set. Scandinavian birch had come into my life and I was smitten. I knew one day, somehow, no matter the cost, we would be together.
1992 was the year of big changes; the tired Premier Projector kit with its fading black wrap had to go, along with the outdated 252 pedal. It was time to reinvent myself, yet again.
During the final weeks of the year, I made the trip to Drumland in Dartford to collect the Sonorlite Scandinavian birch shells and my first chain-drive double-bass pedal – with matching Sonor footboards. The Premier drums and pedal became part-exchange history and I looked optimistically towards the dawn of 1993.
[End of Part 2] If you’ve made it this far and want to read about full-on musician OCD, then part 3 of this life experience journey will deliver a fine example of the tortuous behaviour-patterns which defined my affliction!
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