Just some thoughts on what makes a drummer interesting and good-

Sound - It's not just about the playing, it’s also about the sound, as you know. The drumkit and the way the drums sound is the premise. For example if you don’t have a pair of timbales, you couldn’t hit a couple of cymbals in a way of pretending that they are timbales. Because they respond with a totally different sound. The sound of each thing on the drum set needs its own approach. And that’s the interesting part, the choice of drums, and how they are treated in playing them.

Technical drummers can be boring – most solos I see on youtube for example , the typical technical solo involves things you have seen before. There’s a lot of clichés, and most boring of all is doing fills involving double bass pedal or double bass drums. It’s just a ‘bag of tricks’, as Steve Gadd would say. Technique is nothing without musicality or creativity. Often you can be impressed by a drummer, but after a while when you start hearing the same things you can realize a creative limitation in the playing.

Studio session drummers can be incredibly boring because of a “safe”, routine way of playing, just backing up, playing the way you are “supposed” to play, not adding anything personal. I’m especially thinking of a sort of swedish studio musicicans which are incredibly boring. Playing in a basic way, just simple grooves, doesn’t have to be boring if it has a creative, individual, inspired approach and not just going on autopilot.

Here are the favourites. I don’t have time to describe every drummer, it would take too long..    

Steve Negus                      (Saga) A big favourite of mine.

Simon Phillips                  The drummer that probably have influenced me the most. Apart from all his greatness, I'm not always excited by his sound though - the snare, the bass drum and the cymbals...

Budgie (Peter Clark) (Siouxsie & the Banshees)               

Jeff Porcaro  

Christian Vander

Audun Kleive                 Norweigan. Jazzy , swingy, very dynamic playing and creative sense of hitting the drums in many different ways to get a specific sound. Ive heard him play with Jan Gunnar Hoff primarily. The solo stuff Ive heard hasnt interested me though.. 

Tony Williams

Some more:

John JR Robinson         Studio session musician. I remember a clinic in -98 or so -  that clinic grew on me years afterwards. I really like his playing, he hits the drums with a lot of feeling, and cares a lot about the sound. His drums and cymbal sound great. He plays pretty hard to get out the full resonance from the drums. His sticks aremnt just long and thick, but also have a high density, so they are really massive. I havent heard that much though , but like to investigate more of the stuff he’s played on. He played on Michael jacksons Thriller, ”Baby Be Mine” has a peculiar and cool intro fill.

Here’s a clip I saw recently. From a clinic, pretty mediocre song, but he adds a lot of feeling to it I think.

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