Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions -
Break your brain. You know you want to.
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Monday, 8 September 2025
quote [ A lot of major rock bands lost their percussionists this summer. Why? ]
Drummer, drummer, do your thing, woo
Reveal Finding and keeping a good drummer has historically been an almost impossible task for rock bands. Anthony DeCurtis, a music critic and author, observed this phenomenon when he began writing for Rolling Stone in the 1980s. “There always have been issues with drummers. Whenever you talk to musicians and the subject of drummers comes up, everybody always shakes their head. They feel like they’re very, very lucky when they have a good one,” he tells me. “Good ones are always in demand. They can move around at will and could also disappear at will. Drummers work harder than anybody. It’s not an easy job.” DeCurtis’s prophecy was spectacularly fulfilled this spring and summer with a drummer upheaval, which began in earnest back in April when Zak Starkey, son of Ringo Starr and the Who’s drummer for nearly 30 years, was fired, rehired, and fired again for reasons both sides would dispute a bit differently. (We never want to hear about incriminating sound levels and in-ear monitors ever again.) Foo Fighters followed suit in May, severing ties with their kit man, Josh Freese, to pursue a different creative direction following the death of their longtime drummer, Taylor Hawkins, in 2022. “In my 40 years of drumming professionally, I’ve never been let go from a band,” Freese wrote at the time, later adding more pointedly, “It wasn’t music that I really resonated with.” Curiously, these very specific drummer vacancies for legacy bands kept popping up again and again. Pearl Jam’s drummer of nearly three decades, Matt Cameron, jumped the oyster in July, stressing it was his decision. Freese ultimately ended up going to Nine Inch Nails, while the NIN’s drummer, Ilan Rubin, got drafted by the Foos. The Who, meanwhile, picked up a free agent who previously played in Roger Daltrey’s solo band. And don’t think we forgot about Guns N’ Roses firing their guy in March. The connective tissue of all of these trade-deadline swaps — stadium-rock drummers of a certain age who are now in greater demand than ever — lends itself to overanalyzing how bizarre the timing is and overlapping factors for dismissal. Is there actually a drummer crisis going on, and if so, are we facing the possibility of a mass extinction event? Industry professionals are hesitant to define this as indicative of a larger trend. A common refrain is that priorities begin to change by physical necessity once you hit your 50s. “It’s our age group,” says the 59-year-old Dave Krusen, another former Pearl Jam drummer. “People are reassessing the way they’ve done things in the past versus how they want to move forward, individually and as bands as well. Most of the rock drummers from my generation really hit hard, which takes even more of a toll. I can relate. I’ve had a couple of surgeries on my arm that are drumming related. In the ’60s and ’70s, drummers weren’t playing as hard, so they were able to last longer.” (Krusen says he “would love” to take Cameron’s place in the band if the offer presented itself.) Chad Wackerman, a drummer and teacher, believes this change in technique — favoring the biceps over the wrist to create a louder sound — is to blame for an inefficient playing style. On a baseline level, not only is it more difficult to play, but it spurs more significantly adverse effects on the body than most instruments are capable of. “There’s one style of music today, which is much more athletic. This style looks cool,” he admits. “But it’s coming from the forearm rather than the wrists, hands, or fingers. You’re going to beat yourself up, and you’re not going to have longevity. I talked to one drummer around my age the other day, and he said he had to ice his hands after a two-hour set. That’s crazy. Something’s wrong there.” But he doesn’t think Cameron or Freese were affected by running out of steam with their sticks. “Whatever happened with them,” Wackerman says, “isn’t to do with ability, because they’re at an extremely high level of musicianship and could do many, many gigs.” He points to Bruce Springsteen’s septuagenarian drummer, Max Weinberg, as a gold standard who does preventive rituals after every concert. “He gets a massage. That’s how numb his hands are. There’s only so much longer that you can do that. He’s doing it, but it’s not an easy trick to pull off.” Even if you’re able to employ a loyal member behind the kit, an additional psychological layer can emerge: Drummers have the most control over everything in a live setting, from the sound to the tempo to the spontaneity. Try to think of them as conductors. They dictate the mood and energy level of the music while banging their batons, and when they initiate a change, the whole band follows by necessity. Certain front men may not want to cede power to someone else. “A lot of big-name people don’t want their drummer to overtake the show,” says drummer and educator Steve Lyman. “So if you have an incredible drummer, sometimes people can get intimidated with that.” Another phenomenon Wackerman refers to as “the bus factor,” or the ability to be an amiable addition to a touring family unit, has swayed hiring decisions. While a good thought barometer for any potential new hire, it seems to come up more with drummers. “I know people who are wonderful musicians, but they can’t get along with people, so they don’t work or are asked to leave. They’re just too difficult,” he notes. “I got that term from James Taylor, who asks about ‘the bus factor’ every time he’s looking for someone new.” One insider with knowledge of the Starkey debacle hinted how this related to his departure, perhaps a long time coming: “Suffice to say that being the offspring of a Beatle is the ultimate nepo-baby ‘get out of jail free’ card.” There was a unilateral rebuff toward the idea that the industry is experiencing a drummer shortage in general. (Over 6,000 people auditioned to become Primus’s new drummer earlier this year, so …) It becomes trickier, however, when one takes into consideration who’s capable of performing at the highest possible level of rock music — in terms of both professional merit and personal popularity. Matt Sorum (best known for Guns N’ Roses), Jimmy Chamberlin (the Smashing Pumpkins), Joey Waronker (R.E.M.), Thomas Pridgen (the Mars Volta), Abe Laboriel Jr. (Paul McCartney), and Vinnie Colaiuta (Frank Zappa) were singled out as being part of this small and elite group, in addition to the previously swapped kit men. “There’s truth that being a drummer is really hard, money’s probably not what it was before, and it’s harder to be a musician now,” Lyman says. “There’s not a lot of big gigs, and there’s a huge pressure to have these gigs that are going in shorter and shorter supply. There’s 20 people on the A-list call.” That exclusive Rolodex, in fact, extends all the way back to the studio. In Los Angeles, Lyman estimates that there’s a “tight-knit group” of only about 10 to 15 veterans who do all of the recording work, and they’re benefitting from a deeper issue currently plaguing the music culture and drummers coming up in this new normal. “It’s related to Spotify and how we listen to music now. Record labels are harder to work with because less people are listening to music,” Lyman explains. “The big thing is people are being forced to make music differently, which has made everybody individualistic.” Someone’s calling card is now more intertwined with whom they connect with on social media than, say, the collaborative studio-player carousel system of previous decades. And their skill set, Lyman suggests, just isn’t at the level required for these bands, which created an ouroboros where everyone keeps employing the same people. If the network continues to remain this insular with the median drummer age increasing, we could very much be witnessing a mass dropout event. “There has been a regression into everybody working in their own bubbles,” Lyman adds. “Because of that, the number of people who are able to handle A-level touring is dwindling, and these people are also getting older.” DeCurtis, though, remains cautiously optimistic for the instrument’s future. “If you’re a good band and looking for a drummer, you can find one,” he says. “Whether you can find one that fits into your band is another story. That’s the trick. My sense is that’s a little bit about what’s going on here. But there are drummers out there.”
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Comments
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stv179 said @ 10:01am GMT on 9th Sep
.. unfortunately paywalled here.
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