Mad, Bad and Dangerous - The Book of Drummers' Tales. Spike Webb
people at Victoria Park, I had roadies, I had hotels, I had limos, I had money… and I wrote ‘Rock the Casbah’!”’
It’s now early autumn 2007, and I’m talking to Topper on a park bench near his home in Dover, where he grew up. He is now completely clean and sober, having completed an 18-month course of chemo-drugs to cure the hepatitis B he had contracted during the drug days. This time he really has kicked it. He still plays drums, when he wants to, not when he feels he has to. And he enjoys it more than ever.
As our chat comes to a close, I touch upon the reputation drummers have for being mad. He feels that, at the end of the day, there has to be some truth in it: ‘Think about it. Other would-be musicians opt for something that can produce a melody, something that can give you reasonably pleasant results in a relatively short time as you learn. As a drummer, it takes about a year before you stop sounding dreadful and upsetting people. You really have to persevere at it to become even bearable to listen to. It’s aggressive and it’s anti-social. Considering the barbaric nature of the instrument, you’ve got to be a bit different from other people to want to do it for any serious length of time. You’ve got to be a certain type of person to play the drums.
‘You have got to be a bit mad, in fact.’
World-class drummer Steve White, however, takes another viewpoint.
‘Mad? No way,” says Paul Weller’s long-standing stick wielder. “Drumming is the most spiritual, soulful instrument a person can play. Rhythm is part of the very basis of human life. It relates to our heartbeat and our sense of equilibrium.’
Our sanity, in fact?
But there is one drummer who has gone down in history as the definitive madman – someone who spent much of his spare time shocking the media and those around him with outrageous stunts and practical jokes.
NICE GESTURE (PART ONE)
Most people would agree that a book of drummers’ stories would not be complete without an inclusion or two from Keith Moon. Mooney was drummer with The Who until his tragic death in 1978, and the most notorious rock ’n’ roll prankster of all.
I spoke to one of his peers who knew him personally, Bob Henrit – best known for his work with Argent. We met in The Sun And 13 Cantons pub on the corner of Great Pulteney Street in London’s Soho, just around the corner from where Bob’s drum shop used to be more than 30 years ago.
I’m sitting in the back of a plane from Rotterdam to Heathrow. My co-travellers among the general public include The Kinks and The Who. We’ve all been on tour together across the Netherlands.
Tired and relieved to be going home, I recline my seat and look forward to chill out during the flight. But as soon as I shut my eyes, an airhostess arrives at my side with a large brandy: ‘Excuse me sir, compliments of Mr Moon.’
I accept and ask the hostess to convey my thanks to Mr Moon, who is seated at the front of the plane, near the portable mini-bar. I look around to see that all the other passengers are similarly enjoying Keith’s generosity.
This occurs with increasing frequency during the flight. But no one is complaining. After all, it’s a great way to kill time at my fellow drummer’s expense.
Time passes a lot more quickly than anticipated and in what seems like no time at all we have landed at Heathrow. I get up, somewhat unsteadily, and stretch my legs as everyone begins to disembark. I am right at the back and last off.
As I reach the door to the steps at the front of the plane, the airhostess greets me: ‘Goodbye sir, I hope you enjoyed your flight. Thank you for travelling with British Airways.’
Then a stifled giggle: ‘Oh, I nearly forgot – Mr Moon asked me to give you these.’ I am now left with no choice but to step down from the plane in full view of everyone, holding a lady’s basque, red and black corset and suspenders.
Keith Moon’s pranks are legend, as are rock ’n’ roll pranks in general. But the difference with Mooney was that he would pay the utmost attention to detail. If a television were to be thrown out of a window, he would go to special lengths to obtain the necessary equipment to ensure that the TV was actually on and broadcasting during its descent.
But televisions, Rolls Royces and swimming pools aside, Moon had a genuine eccentricity which was a fundamental part of his everyday life…
NICE GESTURE (PART TWO)
Bob Henrit recalls another incident involving the celebrated Mr Moon.
It’s mid-day Friday. I’m sitting at the bar in my drum store, Henrit’s, on Wardour Street in Soho, reflecting on the past week. It’s been a long one. Hard work, but business is good. So good I’ll have to order some new stock. Bang on cue, I hear the sound of The Who blaring out of the windows of an approaching car. Soon a Rolls-Royce pulls up outside the shop. I go to the door and a voice pipes up from the back of the Roller: ‘Dear boy! How about a snifter?’
Soon I’m sitting in the back of the car sipping a large brandy. My host and companion is Keith Moon. It’s his weekly visit to the store. When he’s not working with The Who, he’s here to share a brandy or seven, 12 o’clock sharp. We discuss music, gossip, this and that. Then Keith says: ‘Dear boy, I have something to show you…’
We get out and go round to the back of the car, where his chauffeur opens the huge boot: ‘I don’t need these any more…’
There must be at least 40 snare drums, laid side by side. I can see at a glance that it’s a collection of top names in drums, including Keith’s favourite, the Gretsch DRB Special. ‘Are they any use to you?’
The problem is, I’m not sure if these are intended as a gift or whether Keith is selling them. But what strikes me as bizarre is how, as a drummer, 40 unused snare drums can no longer be of any use to him. Is he about to retire? Or is his current snare drum supply of such gargantuan proportions that these are simply surplus to requirements? In any case, I’m not entirely comfortable with the situation so I think it best to politely decline, for the time being at least.
Bob never found out where the snare drums came from, or where they ended up. But he did discover that they didn’t actually belong to Keith Moon. Nor did the Rolls Royce. In fact, pretty well everything Keith had belonged to The Who. Of course, the band wouldn’t have had a problem with Keith riding around in a Rolls Royce and behaving erratically. It was good for publicity. Even when Mooney was not being particularly outrageous, his gestures were always grandiose to the extreme: some people might turn up with four snare drums, but not 40.
But when you think about it, Moon’s behaviour captures the more eccentric slant on a drummer’s distinctly different outlook on life. It’s about not doing things by halves.
Drummers Beware…
Putting this book together allowed a number of themes to emerge which shed light on what it actually means to be a drummer. In a broader sense, it’s not just about the popular suspicion that drummers might be a bit mad. It becomes consistently clearer that mad things happen to drummers. It’s as though we are more likely to find ourselves in bizarre or dangerous situations than anyone else…
PAYMENT IN KIND
In his earlier days, before opening his bar/shop, Bob Henrit was the drummer on Unit 4+2’s hit ‘Concrete and Clay’, and played with The Roulettes and Argent before joining The Kinks following Mick Avory’s departure in the mid-’80s. He has also played