You’re never too jaded as a drummer to learn new skills or find fresh inspiration.
In the same way that INXS manager Chris Murphy read music books by military strategists to work out how to break the band overseas, drummers can learn from music books on how great rock beatmen developed their styles, built their careers, and survived (or didn’t) the minefields.
STICK IT! MY LIFE OF SEX, DRUMS, AND ROCK’N’ROLL
By Carmine Appice With Ian Gitting (Chicago Review Press)
One of rock’s greatest drummers and wild men, Carmine Appice, was in the early ‘60s in a horn-led soul band in New York.
After a gig with Jimmy James & The Blue Flames, they went to a new friend’s room to smoke pot.
Between puffs, Jimmy James said he was going to “make it” one day. Carmine’s response was, “I just want to make a living out of this.” This and other stories are featured in this, the first on our list of music books.
Pro-Metal
A few years later, his band Vanilla Fudge were in London after a proto-metal rendition of The Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hanging On” was a hit, and he ran into Jimmy James in a restaurant.
Jimmy was now Jimi Hendrix, the hottest thing in England. They loved each others’ music, and they became besties.
Read up on all the latest features and columns here.
Unknown Zeppelin
In December 1968, the Fudge and Spirit embarked on a US tour, with an unknown Led Zeppelin opening.
Appice writes in Stick It! that at the first show, Robert Plant just stood there before 8,000 people, and he advised him, “Move around a bit!”
Bromance
It was an instant bromance with John Bonham, whose style they shared.
Bonham wanted a massive kit like Carmine’s to be heard over monitors. Appice got him the kit and a Ludwig endorsement.
Of Bonham: “The nicest, kindest, gentlest guy to be around — until the demon drink passed his lips.”
Mud Shark
Appice confirms that the Zep story about a groupie, a movie camera and a two-foot mud shark is true.
It happened in his hotel room at Seattle’s Edgewater Inn where guests could fish from out their window. He recounts the incident in excruciating detail.
Readable
Stick It!, with its entertaining and readable style, confirms that Carmine Appice had an interesting life.
Born in the rough New York suburb of Brooklyn, he moved with Italian gangs, and “a lot of my friends went on to be Mafia leaders and are now spending their lifetime in jail for murder.”
After Vanilla Fudge he went on to Cactus, Beck Bogert and Appice, Ted Nugent and King Kobra.
Slept With 4,500
He got married five times and slept with 4,500 women.
He got sacked from Ozzy Osbourne’s band because his special effects kit kept overshadowing the star.
His long tenure with Stewart – during which he co-wrote “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” and “Young Turks” – when the singer felt rumours (untrue) that Zeppelin were lining Appice up to join them, were distracting.
WOMEN DRUMMERS: A HISTORY FROM ROCK AND JAZZ TO BLUES AND COUNTRY
By Angela Smith
Writer and drummer Angela Smith dives deep into the history of women pushing the boundaries of drumming, from jazz drummer Viola Smith through the drummers of the modern day.
Precisions chops aside, Smith explores the drummers who’ve also had to battle cliche, stereotyping and misrepresentation in an all too male-dominated industry. While practicing and taking the time to practice their drums, the 50 drummers featured in this book have had to prove themselves moreover than their male counterparts.
WOMEN DRUMMERS explores the history of drumming in pre-biblical times, right through to the modern day masters of the kit.
BEAST: JOHN BONHAM AND THE RISE OF LED ZEPPELIN
By C. M. Kushins (Hachette Australia)
It’s difficult to feature a list of music books without mentioning the man himself. When Bonzo Bonham was at school in Birmingham, England, his headmaster wrote that he would “either end up a dustman or a millionaire.”
By the time he died in September 1980, he was worth $10 million (or $38.2 million today).
Smash’n’Grab
Bonzo was one of rock’s best smash’n’grabbers, renowned for a fast single-footed kick style.
His self-taught approach stemmed from listening to swing, Latin and Big Band records, learning how to swing, and how to heighten the power of big drums.
On their way to selling 300 million albums, Zep worked at a feverish pitch. But being away from his family for so long had an adverse effect.
Destructive
His behaviour became destructive as he extended the viciousness with which he hit his kit to much repeated tales of debauchery, aided by his entourage.
A musician himself, Kushins goes into detail on John Henry’s style, technique and impact.
Pulling A Gun
But Beast recounts bad behaviour like pulling a gun on Mick Jagger over a dispute over seating in limos, hospitalising people with beatings, and drunkenly trying to hide a bag of 1,500 mandrax tablets inside a drums without realising it was a see-through.
During a Ten Years After show, he thought it a wheeze to throw orange juice over guitarist Alvin Lee and his guitar, covering them with sticky stuff.
After the show Lee screamed at the drummer, “You’re an asshole, Bonham, a real asshole.”
Alcoholic
By the time he died at 32, the man that Rolling Stone declared in 2016 as the greatest drummer of all time, was alcoholic, taking medicine for anxiety and depression, and apparently just beat heroin.
On September 24, 1980, during rehearsals for a world tour set to see Zeppelin return to Australia, he drank 40 shots of vodka and that night choked on his vomit.
JIMI HENDRIX: INSIDE THE EXPERIENCE
By Mitch Mitchell and John A Platt (Hamlyn)
Dave Grohl and Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason once huffed on TV that Jimi Hendrix was in fact Mitch Mitchell’s guitarist, and not the other way around. This addition to our list of music books explore this story further.
Utter nonsense, of course, but Mitch’s technique and jazz influences did let Jimi take risks with his axe. Mitch inspired Grohl, Mason, Queen’s Roger Taylor and The Cult’s Matt Sorum.
Short Time
Inside The Experience looks at how the whole Experience explosion took place in such a short time.
In September 1966 Hendrix arrived in London from the US, and set about putting a power trio together.
Mitchell, a one time child actor and R&B drummer, auditioned on October 6 and pipped Aynsley Dunbar in a coin toss. Noel Redding, a guitarist was brought in as bassist.
Headlining
Within a year via landmark albums Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland, The JHE were headlining festivals as Woodstock.
Inside The Experience has outrageous stories, froot-loop characters, unpublished photos, setlists and rare memorabilia.
It seems the drummer didn’t realise the extent of the ‘60s social changes that the JHE played a role in.
Changes
But he did acknowledge the changes drummers were going through in that era, as he switched from Premier, to Ludwig, to a double-bass Gretsch in 1970.
By 1969 Redding left mid-tour Mitchell marvelled at how his own playing escalated playing with “a real bassplayer” in replacement Billy Cox.
Ravaged
By September 1970, Hendrix was dead, and Mitchell would follow in November 2008, ravaged by an immune system disorder and cancer.
He suffered extreme fatigue but insisted on joining the star-studded 2008 Experience Hendrix Tour.
He was only capable of playing two or three songs, and died in his sleep in a Portland hotel room.
WILLIE’S BAR & GRILL
By Rob Hirst (Macmillan Publishing)
Midnight Oil’s drummer and songwriter Rob Hirst keeps diaries. This came in handy when the band did an American tour after the September 11 attacks, and they could see the impact on its people – which this book is based on.
“Willie” in the title was Willie MacInnes, who was their tour manager.
He lifted their spirits when they became cranky, and Fed-Ex’d hot chowder from Boston as a treat if they played a bad show.
Sharp Eye
Hirst had a sharp eye for detail doused with dry Australian humour. He also read a lot of P.J. O’Rourke and Bill Bryson’s travel writings for inspiration.
Approaching the book as an extended song (written over five months), the book skips and kicks along, giving an uncanny insight to the Oils on tour, strangers in a country in turmoil.
TONY ALLEN: AN AUTOBIOGRAPH OF THE MASTER DRUMMER OF AFROBEAT
By Tony Allen With Michael Veal (Duke University Press)
With Afrobeat in the mainstream, it is fascinating to read its journey through the eyes of Afrobeat’s father,
This addition to our list of music books was written with Prof. Michael Veal of Yale University, who gives the music a deep dive without being stodgy.
Wishes
Born in Nigeria in 1940, Tony Allen ignored the wishes of his middle class family for a 9—5 job.
He learned in the clubs of Lagos (“one of the great musical cities of the world,” Veal reminds us), soaking the percussive interplay of bands, doing DJ work, learning to tango, and starting to play guitar tenor sax and upright fiddle.
Playing At 16
At 16 he was playing in bands. Instead of handheld drums, he opted for a conventional kit (rare in Africa at that time) and refused to wear the costumes that African musicians were expected to wear.
Allen came to global attention in his 15 years with magic man bandleader Fela Kuti, from 1964 to 1979.
Bummer
There were bummer moments including the fact Fela seldom paid his musicians.
Fela’s fierce political ambitions saw the infamous 1977 military police raid on his “Kalakuta Republic” compound beating and raping those inside, and setting the place on fire.
Fusion Of Beats
But during this time, Allen developed a new way of playing the kit, “a fusion of beats and patterns.”
It fused African dance highlife, rumba, mambo, waltz-time, the folk songs of Nigeria and Ghana where his parents came from, jazz and R&B.
Moving
He continued inventing after moving to Paris in the 1980s, popularising World Beat and Afrobeat.
Like other African musicians, his recordings showed heavy use of electro and dub, which saw musicians from around the world wanting to collaborate.
Conversation
Veal wrote: “Like the great jazz drummers, (Allen) keeps a steady conversation with the other instruments, particularly the soloists…
“Like a great boxer, he knows when to jab with his bass drum in order to punctuate a soloist’s line, when to momentarily scatter and reconsolidate the flow with a hi-hat flourish, when to stoke the tension by laying deeply into the groove, and when to break and restart that tension by interjecting a crackling snare accent on the downbeat.”
CHARLIE’S GOOD TONIGHT: THE AUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY OF CHARLIE WATTS
By Paul Sexton (Harper Collins)
Charlie Watts was never part of the outrageous and flamboyant frontline of The Rolling Stones, except for a brief flirtation with heroin in the ‘80s.
He sat at the back, playing with a slack-jawed look that suggested he wished he was somewhere else.
Spark
But as Keith Richards made it clear, if Watts didn’t spark on a night, neither did The Stones.
The guitarist revealed that every morning, when he came out of his bedroom and went down the stairs, he’d throw a salute to the drummer’s photo.
Colour
A lover of jazz, the inventive way Watts used his drums as colour freed up Richards and Mick Jagger to take risks in their songwriting,
Paul Sexton provides a better look at the media-shy Watts, who died aged 80 in August 2021.
Arts
With an encyclopedic knowledge of soccer (he played as a kid), cricket and antiques, he loved art.
He was working in a graphic arts office when The Stones coaxed him over, contributed to the designs of their merchandise and huge stages, and would draw every hotel room he stayed in on tour.
Resign
He’d been trying to resign from the band since 1969 but they always refused to accept it.
He used the fortune he made on Arabian horse farms in England and France, expensive suits from Savile Row, £4,000 (AU$8,054) and hand made shoes.
He also bought artefacts as Napoleon’s sword, Prince Edward VIII’s suits and drum kits owned by his jazz idols.
DOUBLE BASS DRUM FREEDOM
By Virgil Donati (Alfred Publishing)
Melbourne-born Virgil Donati got his first drum kit at two, started to play in his father’s showband a year later, and signed his first record deal at 15, going on to write multiple music books.
In the 1990s, he moved to the US to be dubbed as “at the avant-garde of double bass drumming.”
Innovative Ideas
“His innovative ideas have been the focus of much attention for many years, and he continues to forge ahead, breaking down barriers, challenging conventions.”
In Double Bass Drum Freedom, he opens up on how he integrate the pedals with the drum kit, developed strong foundational skills, weaved a strong creativity around the single stroke, and how to generate innovative rhythmic ideas.
Starting Point
A good starting point for solid double bass chops is exercises designed to help build left-foot technique to mirror the right.
Advancing quickly into complex patterns for both feet, Donati combines straight and triplet feels within patterns to help develop maximum single-stroke time/feel control.
Final Frontier
According to the book, “The final frontier for footboard freedom involves multilayered patterns, double strokes, paradiddles, flams, and “false” (illusory) grooves.”
The book comes with a CD with 94 performance tracks, mixed by Simon Phillips, “sonically inspiring and technically challenging.”
Control
In terms of control, he says that while much has been said about playing with fingers, wrist control is important.
“Because essentially on a drum kit, rather than just a snare drum or a pad, we’re dealing with different surfaces and tensions and different potential for rebound,” he has said.
Rates Of Speed
“The rates of speed that we require to move around the kit, I feel that we really need to rely more on wrists than fingers.”
Without developing that control, you sacrifice power for speed.
He told another interviewer, “To stop your fingers from influencing the stroke, you just lightly hold the stick against the palm of your hand with your fingers.
“Don’t allow your fingers to come away from the stick, and that way you’ll be using your wrist for every stroke.”
CAN I SAY: LIVING LARGE, CHEATING DEATH, AND DRUMS, DRUMS, DRUMS
By Travis Barker with Gavin Edwards (Clarence Worley, Inc)
Blink-182’s return to Australia last year to celebrate their 30th anniversary was a sell-out. They were exhilarating and the audience was exhilarated.
Their communication with their tribe was pretty unique, probably incomprehensible to outsiders.
Rads
“Rad” is the best way to describe this 400-page reader in our collection of music books – too many “rads” and “awesome” used, but a blunt and often gripping memoir by Travis Barker.
Nothing’s off the table: a marriage that was celebrated on MTV screens and crumbled, a drug addiction, a deep love for family, veganism, and sex encounters.
His penchant for tatts, skateboard brand tees and ripped gear saw him get hassled by cops, asked to leave his kid’s school and looked down by snobs even though he had more money than they.
Plane Crash
In a life of ups and downs, Barker cites the horrifying plane crash in September 2008 that left him so mentally scarred he refused to fly for ten years.
The private Learjet was flying from South Carolina to Los Angeles. His then-wife, toddler and father separately told him they had bad feelings and warned him not to fly.
Fireball
The plane exploded into a fireball, killing his PA, bodyguard and both pilots, his best friend DJ AM OD’d a year later, and the drummer almost lost a leg.
The book details the resulting guilt and emotional rollercoaster, and the poignant way he turned to music as salvation.
STICK FIGURES
By David Hicks (Tara Hall Productions)
Over 132 pages, Melbourne educator and percussionist David Hicks celebrated the Australian drumming and session scene through the eyes and experiences of seven top drummers, in a special one amongst our listicle of music books.
They were Stewart Speer (Max Merritt & The Meteors), Mark Kennedy (Spectrum, Ayers Rock), Darryn Farrugia (Eurogliders, Cat Empire), Andrew Gander (James Morrison), Graham Morgan (“most recorded drummer in Oz history”), Gordon Rytmeister (Australian Idol) and John Watson (Australian Crawl).
Own Chapter
Stick Figures (first published in 2002) gave them their own chapter, allowing them to talk at length about how they improved their techniques, coped with pressures and stress livc and in the recording studio, experimenting with their gear set-up and other tips from the best.
DEAR BOY: THE LIFE OF KEITH MOON
By Tony Fletcher (Omnibus)
Music books can cover technique, history and biography, this one is the latter. It was to Keith Moon’s credit that all his madcap antics did not detract one iota from his legendary drumming style with The Who.
It was also significant that his death in in 1978 at just 32 is not the final chapter of this, a welcome addition to our music books.
Mad Moon
At 600+ pages, Who devotee Tony Fletcher gives a detailed account of Mr. Mad Moon Rising, talking to virtually everyone he worked, lived and partied with.
As a drummer he seldom used hi-hat cymbals onstage, complaining they were too soft.
16 Piece
By 1966, his Premier kit was a nine-piece with a double-bass set up, growing by 1973 to 13 incorporating two gongs, tympani and a double row of tom toms, and 16 by the end of his life.
Moon was more than just a wealthy attention-getting madman rock star whose hotel trashing and cherry bombs were only tolerated because of fame.
Schizophrenia
It is now accepted he had Borderline Personality Disorder and schizophrenia, a fear of abandonment and need for attention, worsened by copious intake of alcohol and drugs.
His wife, who left because he was mean, said he would dress up as Hitler one day, a pirate the next and Noel Coward a third…not only dress up but BE those people all day.
Get Rise
He was not a racist. But he’d dress in Nazi regalia and wander down to the local pub just to get a rise out of the drinkers there.
With severe mood swings and anxiety attacks, Moon was never happy, never felt loved, and never had true friends outside The Who.
Fletcher’s investigation found many antics didn’t really happen but spread by The Who’s publicist.
Rolls In Swimming Pool
Even the best known – the Rolls Royce in the swimming pool of a hotel chain in party in Flint, Michigan – is thought to have been exaggerated by Moon when he recounted it a year later to an American journalist.
Close friends told Fletcher that by the end, when he was looking bloated and twice his age, he tried to stop drinking but would go into withdrawal seizures.
A doctor gave him Heminevrin for this. It should only have been administered in a hospital. But the doctor was a Who fan and gave it to him.
Premiere
After attending the premiere of a Buddy Holly movie with his girlfriend, they returned to his rented London flat and went to sleep.
He and his girlfriend had a row because she wouldn’t wake up and fry him some chops. “Fuck you!” was the last thing he uttered.
He kept waking up through the night and taking the tablets. 32 were found in his system, ending the story of the last on our list of music books.
