Who's Big Today

Today's rock scene is much like the seventies in that there is a lot of black and white in musical stylings and taste. Fans aren't as open minded as they used to be in the nineties. But there are several good drummers today that talk influence from the greats of the 70's and 80's. Joey Jordison of Slipknot is without question the best heavy metal drummer of our time. He's fast, he's brutal, and his skills stand out more than anyone in that genre of rock. Danny Carey of the band Tool is the best progressive drummer of the modern era. Tool has been performing and recording since the mi 1990's but they are still as popular as ever and Dany carey is a drummer that defines any boundaries of conventional drum performance. Mike Portnoy of Dream Theatre is also a fantastic progressive drummer who has the biggest drum kit I think in the history of music. But it's well deserved for he truly is an incredible musician. As for the legacy of the legends, Jason Bonham, John Bonham's son has become a fantastic drummer himslef performing with a wide range of famous rock bands. He actually filled in for his late father at the very first Led Zeppelin concert in the past 20 years. Bill Ward and Sabbath continue to rock and frighten crowds with their old school brand of heavy metal. Neil Peart continues to astound and mezmerize crowds with his mind-blowign drum solos and still hits the road with his original band Rush, while recording with other artistas as well. In short, before I yammer on any longer, I hope that you see now that all the great music you have loved over the years, Rock and otherwise, has been so great and diverse because of the one band member we call the drummer. And without him, well, music just wouldn't be music without him.

90's Rock, The Most Diversified Yet

In the 1990's, glitter and glam was out and thrash just seemed old and repeatative. The world needed something new, something fresh, something diversified. And so came the Grunge Movement. Grunge is the wailing, depressing, angst-ridden sound of the 90's Seattle rock scene. The bands that are most popular from this movement are Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and probably the most well known, Nirvana. Nirvana's drummer Dave Grohl was and still is talented in the sense that he diverse in playing punk rock, classic rock, metal, and helped develop the sound of grunge. But Grohl's beats and fills are fairly standard and are considered identical to that of John Bonham or Bill Ward. Matt Cameron of Soundgarden was able to add different time signatures into the songs he played on, which means we was able to be off beat but still make it sound good with the rest of his band. 90's Rock was of course not just grunge, a new wave of bands came out that were able to take the rock and roll sound and mix it in with funk, hip-hop, and reggae. Red Hot Chili Peppers were able to add all of these genres into their rock sound, and drummer Chad Smith was able to compensate them perfectly, by playing funk and hip-hop beats and still make it sound like a rock song. Red Hot Chili Peppers continue to be influential to bands that don't want to limit themsleves to just one specific type of sound. Rap and Metal soon got to bu united as a completely different kind of genre when Rage Against The Machine hit the rock scene. Soon, every rock or metal drummer was playing hip-hop and funk beats by thrashing them out and playing them as hard and as fast as possible. 90's rock is the most unique decade of rock there is, because rock fans got a taste of different kinds of music that are out there and broke down conventional barriers between genres of music.

Rock in the 80's (all gone wrong)

During the 1980's, we lost two of rock's finest drummers, Keith Moon and John Bonham. The rock scene in the 80's was that of selling out and unoriginality. Most popular 80's groups came from L.A.'s very own sunset strip, called the American Glam Movement. Motley Crue, Poison, and Ratt led the way in this glitter fest shamelessly called Rock Music, but the reason this blog sub title is "all gone wrong" is because the bands I just listed were the most popular at this time. That's not to say that there weren't any good drummers in the 1980's. In fact, one of the greatest in the world, Neil Peart, became popular with his band Rush in the early 80's. During the late 1970's Rush was an under the radar Progressive Rock band who couldn't get a break because of their unique, complex sound. Thanks to their one breakthrough album, Moving Pictures, Rush was finally able to break into the Rock mainstream, thanks to the gymnastic drumming of Neil Peart. Peart to this day is still considered to be the ultimate drum soloist, with solos that can last well over 15 minutes. He has influenced drummers in almost every genre of music and still continues to break boundaries with his work. As far as non-mainstream music goes in the 80's it was all up to the Metal crowd. In reaction to the glitter and glam of mainstream 80's Rock, underground Metal bands known as "thrash" bands took the intensity of John Bonham and Bill Ward to the next level. Lars Ulrich of Metallica made his impact by being one of the most diversified drummers in the genre. But when it comes to speed, Dave Lombardo of Thrash Metal masters Slayer has the fastest feet alive. Even though Slayer continues to not have have any mainstream success to this day, Lombardo has influenced a slew of young headbangers to pick up the drum sticks, grab two bass drums for their set, and play 1,000 miles an hour.

70's Rock

The 1970's was a land mark decade in Rock and Roll because it introduced some of the most loved (and loathed) sub genres in rock music. During the mid 1970's we got introduced to the Punk Rock scene. Punk Rock had the same musical technique as 60's British bands except most punk bands sounded like the Rolling Stones cranked up to 10 with lyrics about how much society sucks. The famous punk bands like the Sex Pistols and the Clash were influential, but not in the sense of how to play the drums. The best and most influential drummer to come out of the 70's rock movement was without question John Bonham of Led Zeppelin. Bonham revolutionized drum beats and fills on how they are played in Rock music. Bonham was the first rock drum soloist to be compared to that of classic drumming greats like Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa. Bonham's highly diverse style was heavy as well, making him one of the earliest purveors of "Heavy Metal" which is the hardest form of Rock and Roll there is. Led Zeppelin had a range of music that ventured into the stylings of different genres while keeping a solid rock feel, but many can regard them as the first "Hard" band. The first "Heavy" band was unquestionably the mighty Black Sabbath. Backed by influential drummer Bill Ward, Black Sabbath made a sound that was technical and musically original like Led Zeppelin, but had a much more slower, darker, and much sinister tone. Black Sabbath is considered the first Heavy Metal band, despite having very poppy influences from the British Invasion. Bill Ward's drum fills and beats were slow but they laid down the platform for an entirely different form of rock drumming. John Bonham and Bill Ward together made a sound that would revolutionize rock drumming in the decades to come.

The Development of "Hard" Rock

After The Beatles and the Brtish Invasion more and more groups started coming to America. One of these groups you may or may not have heard was called The Rolling Stones. The Rolling Stones were the first band who truly and actually rocked like it was there business. Drummer Charlie Watts was able to take all of the pop rock beats of the British Invasion and played them much faster and harder than everyone else at that time. That more aggressive style of drumming helped make the Rolling Stones the first "true" rock band. Around the same time as the Rolling Stones, The Who came to America with the very first Rock and Roll drum extravagant, the one and only Keith Moon. Keith is, to put in brief, a Rock God. His stage antics, both on and off, are the stuff that music legends are made of. Moon is regarded for being the craziest drum soloist that ever lived and had a knack for making an ass of himself, for lack of a better word. One of the best stories in Rock history is the story of how Keith Monn took an overdose of horse tranquilizers before going on stage for a performance and then passing out ten seconds in. They couldn't revive Moon from his drug induced coma so a lucky Who fan was chosen from the audience to fill in on Moon's kit for the rest of the show. Keith Moon's outrageous lifestyle finally caught up with him when he dies from an overdose in the early 1980's. Despite his issues, his legend remains and his style and antics continue to influence aspiring percussionists to this day.

The British Invasion

The Vritish Invasion took over the American Music scene in the mid to late 1960's. That is, Rock and Roll bands from England came to America and were able to cash in on any success they could get in the American record business. With the Britsih Invasion came the most influential pop/rock band in the history of music, The Beatles. The drummer of course for the Beatles was Ringo Starr. Ringo may have not been the best drummer in the world, but he was good enough to be with the biggest Rock band of all time and Beatlemania just wouldn't have been the same without him. Along with The Beatles came a number of other influential groups who are less recognized as being important to that era. The Dave Clark Five was a very important group in the history of Rock drumming because Dave Clark, the groups leader, was in fact the drummer as well. Only Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich had actually led their ensembles and were the drummers at the same time, and they were both Big Band/Swing. Dave Clark was the first rocker to lead and be the drummer, and that was a first for mainstream music. Other groups like The Kinks and the Animals helped solidify the British Invasion as a true high point in the history of Rock and Roll as well as all music. They inspired young people everywhere to pick up an instrument and start rockin, including taking up the drums. But the drums wren't brought into the limelight of rock until Charlie Watts and Keith Moon hit the scene, as the first wild English drummers.

Rock at the beginning

The beginning of Rock and Roll dates back all the way to the 1950's with the music of the king himself, Elvis Presley. Elvis wouldn't have been able to make the impact on music that he did without the help of his very first drummer, DJ Fontana. Fontana was able to take the jazzy blues beats of the 1940's and put a swing into it that helped fuel Elvis' rockin new sound he introduced to America. Along with Elvis, other American performers helped shape the Rock and Roll sound and forever influenced later acts. Chuck Berry was the very first African American Rock and Roll musician, which is highly unusual for the 1950's. The drum beat on his classic song "Johnny B. Goode" is considerd one of the essential Rock and Roll drum beats that helped define the entire genre. Other early 50's American acts included Bill Haley & The Comets, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard all conriubted to the early Rock sound and had drummers who made the beats that made Rock music and all its sub-genres what they are today.Any aspiring drummer can play the drum beats of the songs of the artists i just listed. They're all just mainly a simple beat on the hi-hit with a two/four cooridination on the snare and bass drums (if you know what those are). But as early American Rock music started it off, it didn't become the biggest music in the world until the British Invasion and The Beatles.