Entertainment For Lively Minds
Two drummers! Are you mad?
Recent threads on drum solos and the mighty Adam & The Ants got me thinking... how many groups have there been with two drummers? I mean two proper drummers. Playing at the same time. Not a drummer and a percussionist.
And why? As anyone who's been in a band will tell you, a drum kit is a pain in the arse to set up and fit everything around even on an average sized stage. Two must be a nightmare. And then you get two drummers - twice the terrifying beer consumption and wind-breaking. In the name of god, why?
The first two of my examples seem to be about VOLUME, just creating something dead loud, because in both cases the drummers are playing the same thing. We might as well start here:
Several line-ups of the Mothers featured a second drummer, notably the 200 Motels band which had Ainsley Dunbar alongside the long-suffering Jimmy Carl Black. Here is an earlier twin-tubsman incarnation:
Most interesting is the "Tenement Year" line up of Pere Ubu which had original Ubu drummer Scott Kraus augmented by the legendary Chris Cutler. Kraus does the straight stuff with Cutler adding jagged, often arhythmic asides and the effect is fantastic.
This isn't the best track on the album but it gives you an idea.
Note: none of these line-ups lasted very long.
Any other examples of the glorious folly of stereo sticksmen?
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The Allman Brothers
still have their two original skinsmen in the shape of Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson.
In 1969/70, Ginger Baker's Airforce had Phil Seamen alongside Ginger on full drum kits, plus Remi Kabaka on assorted percussion.
Joe Bonamassa used two drummers, Bogie Bowles and Anton Fig, on his Albert Hall concert.
Then we have those major tribute/benefit concerts such as The Concert For Bangla Desh and The Concert For George, both of which had up to 3 drummers playing at once.
"Skinsmen"
Superb.
Just for you, Mr. Mooche
Oh yes!
This is clearly where young master Ant got th'idea from...
so ta.
What about The Doobie Brothers?
I saw a live DVD with them at Wolf Trap Park, 2004. Amazing! And also, didn't Steve Gadd do this with... (I need help here!!?)
With this guy on bass..
2 drummers required.
it must be a glam rock thing
On a point of order m'lud
Romeo Shakespeare - more of a percussions it albeit a mighty one
Also - Showaddywaddy were a bit after Glamrock and wouldn't really be seen as Glam - though those bands did do a bit of 50's kitsch. Hard to imagine now but Teds did walk the streets in the 70's - it was only longer than a decade since rock and roll peaked. Nowadays thats a standard album/tour interval for amajor band...
Further point of order
Wasnt he called Romeo Challenger?
I defer to m'learned friend's superior knowledge
Further enquiries revel me to have indulged in terminological inexactitude in relation to the crepe soled troubadors. No further questions.
Doobie-doobie-doo
The Doobie Bros are still touring, and still use 2 kit drummers. I have no idea why
These foolish fellows
This isn't an endorsement, it's just that The Doobie Brothers had two drummers.
Didn't do much for me.
Two more from them later
Its the Mighty Fall.
Note the podium dancers gamely attempting to cut a rug in am 80s Wine Bar stylee..and another fella breakdancing.
Ace clip
breakdancing to the Fall is the coolest thing I've ever seen. And they sound pretty damned good don't they?
...that'll be the two drummers.
Whither Karl Burns?
Not found in the 'where are they now?' fall book 'The Fallen' but according to wikipedia he is 'married and working.'
Easily my favourite Fall line up
With fans favourites Craig Scanlon on guitar and Steve Hanley on bass.
Was this The Tube appearance where Mark and Brix were also interviewed very badly by Muriel Gray?
Five Drummers?
one of them couldn't fit on the stage so he's in the audience:
I hate to say it but...
...one of the later versions of King Crimson was a 'double trio' of 2 gtrs, 2 drs, bs + [Aaaaaaarghhhh!] chapman-bloody-stick.
And yes, the clips on youtube.
But who cares how many drummers there are when all you're wanting is for the guy with the Chapman stick to wise up and start chopping it into firewood.
Incidentally, Showaddy had two of everything too: basically a 'double quartet' being in fact two 4 piece bands from Leicester who joined forces to become Showaddywaddy. Which most of the time meant there were several spare-part guys prancing about doing dance moves and backing vocals onstage, plus two lead singers. Only occasionally were the two drummers deployed - but there's still several bona fide 2-drum-kits clips on youtube (the early live clip for 'Hey Rock'n'Roll' on some Euro TV channel is a good example.)
Oh, and here are 77 Drummers drumming:
Caribou
Live they do the two drummers thing..couple of minutes in they get it going..seem them live..sounds pretty huge.
Look out people
I think I have a new obsession. Seriously, is there anything more exciting than that Ants noise? Especially when you're 15 and suddenly this man / super hero is making this noise on your radio and TV? Just how early can someone make you question your sexuality?
11 years old !
Very confusing
I was seven
oo-er!
Rialto
Had two drummers for a while, while there was still money about. Gig at Edinburgh Venue where the sound of two drummers doing nothing but playing absolutely in synch was a stormer; the noise pinned you to the back of the room.
A year or two later they'd lost one of the drummers and most of my interest.
D x
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
have been known to do the 2 drummers thing live.
Saw them at Latitude 2010
Barnstorming. And Mad Warren doing the running, while lying on your side thing.
Two come to mind straight away
There's having two drummers, and then again there's having one of them being Phil Collins and the other Bill Bruford, which just seems a bit, you know, greedy.
More recently
and don't try arguing that Johnny Kalsi is playing percussion rather than drums. They're called dhol drums and he's got a whole band of them over here
Suddenly just two drummers makes you feel short changed.
Back to the Glam
The mighty Wizzard had two fellows thumping the skins
The Dead
I feel it's my duty to mention Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, twin drumming colossi of the Grateful goddamned Dead.
You beat me to it :-)
I never knew
Desmond Lynam was in The Grateful Dead
King Crimson
When they played live in the early 80s, Adrian Belew played drums alongside Bill Bruford. "Sartori in Tangier" was one track that they did that on.
More recently, the "double trio" iteration of the band had Bill Bruford and Pat Mastellotto on drums. Two bass / Stick players, too. Tony Levin and Trey Gunn.
Didn't the "big band" Talking heads have two drummers and two bass players, too?
I don't know about two drummers - I think t'other was congas etc
But they definitely had two bassists. T'other was Busta Jones. Him and Tina mostly played the same thing.
See The Name of This Band is Talking Heads.
Bruford/Belew did a wonderful showcase in 81
where they stood either side of a flat matrix of 16 (??) heaxagonal Simmons pads and played a complex interconnecting pattern whilst avoiding each others sticks. Very impressive.
10cc touring incarnation
10cc had two drummers - Paul Burgess and Stuart Tosh - in the touring incarnation in the late 70s/80s. Never been entirely sure why.
This was my point in the OP
it's a mad thing to do that often seems to serve no purpose.
I think, on reflection, that with Adam & The Ants the intention was mainly visual: how two drum kits - which were the same, by the way - would look on the stage.
I think in some cases it's like the double-tracking of Ian Brown's voice - if one of them's a bit rubbish, the other can pick up the slack. Most bands get wise to the fact that if their drummer flakes out there's always one in the audience/roadcrew/street who can dep for the night. Always.
I don't think the Ants reason was solely visual...
Looking at some past interviews with Goddard and Pirroni, I formed the impression it was all to do with getting the sound Goddard heard in his head down on record and in a live format. Easier to do in the studio - even in 1980 you could easily double track the drums to get the same sound but impossible live without another drummer in complete sync. The Burundi beat underpinned everything around Kings of the Wild Frontier and on Stand and Deliver but definitely wasn't heard on the Prince Charming era stuff. That's when the dual drummers were kept for visual impact rather than being integral to the sound.
This is at their peak. Looking and sounding absolutely fantastic...
Ants not just visual
I agree. There is no doubt that many of the songs on 'kings' couldn't be replicated live without two drummers (particularly Don't be Square Be There, Antmusic and The Human Beings. Indeed, even Kings of the Wild Frontier itself is more than two drummers playing the same thing- see original post. Listen carefully and you can hear the different accenting of the two players)
Always wondered about the recording though. Were 2 players playing at the same or was there merely overdubbing? I've always figured that most of the playing was Terry Lee Miall as perhaps Chris Hughes was too busy producing the records...
A hangover from the original 10cc line-up
Paul Burgess was part of the live band to allow Kevin Godley to do other things, though KG did drum as well. Once G&C went off to do their gizmo thing, Paul played on Deceptive Bends (the only musician apart from Eric and Graham to play) and became a permanent member of the band. For some reason, they recruited Stuart Tosh as well, and both played on Bloody Tourists. Tosh also sang lead vocals on the glorious Reds In My Bed, which was the follow up single to Dreadlock Holiday and for some reason totally stiffed. PB was drummer on last year's touring version of the band led by GG.
Folk music
The touring "Rise up like the sun" vintage of the Albion band had 2 drummers, Michael Gregory and the great Dave Mattacks, as well as 2 electric guitars, violin, keyboards, bass, melodeon, mediaeval reeds, brass section, up to 3 backing vocalists and a troupe of morris men. And a bloody good racket they made too.
Levon and Ringo...
Elton John?
Has that bonkers bald bloke, and has for years, Ray somebody or other, as well as a "real" drummer.
Gazumped with Rialto (saw them supporting Sleeper a good age ago, very nice noise) Imagined Village and Genesis.
Is it me or can I remember New Model Army having 2 kits a few tours/decades ago. Nelson played the other kit on a couple of songs?
Ray Cooper and Nigel Olsson
RC played percussion most of the time, just switching to trap drums when there was no percussion required.
Interestingly, he just doubled Olsson's drums in an Antmusic stylee rather than playing a separate drum line as (say) Hart/Kreutzmann in the Dead or Mastelotto/Bruford in Crimso.
Q did an article when he was ubiquitous titled
"Who's that up there with Ray" I think the picture had him on stage next to Eric Clapton.
DELTA 5
Anyone remember them?
Only one drummer but two basses!
No.
Mind your own business.
Ah the joy of it
Quoted regularly in my house. Lovely to see it mentioned here.
I remember them
A track called "Journey" is the one I've got.
Neds Atomic Dustbin also had two bass players
Lest we forget Hooky's
aborted side project Freebass, featuring no less than three bass players (Hooky joined on four bass duties by Andy Rourke and Mani)
Yes had two drummers on the Union Tour
but, according to Billy B, that was more for marketing/completion purposes than valid musical reasons.
Ver 'Dan had two drummers on their 74 tour
Jim Hodder & Jeff Porcaro if memory serves.
could never understand that
the two of them thrashing away playing the same thing. Why?
It did sound good on Bodhisattva though
Little Richard
has 2 drummers and, from what I recall, just about doubles up every instrument. Stupendous noise. He, on his own, has triple-strength charisma and presence.
Joe Bonamassa
Doesn't he tour with 2 drummers?
And someone or other reunited for Live Aid...
...with two drummers. It wasn't very good. Nor in any way necessary.
Pink Floyd
needed two drummers post The Wall as Nick Mason was, lets face it, not a very good drummer.
Big Pig
An Australian band. They did the theme tune for a Def 2 show in the 80s (Rough Guide). I thought they had 2 drummers but according to wikipedia they started out with 9.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Pig
A friend brought "Bonk" back from Australia in the 80s
Great album
I brought the cassette
version of Bonk back from Australia in the early 80's (are we friends?) and expounded its greatness to all and sundry. I still play the old cassette occasionally to this day. Splendid stuff.
The lesser-spotted...
...3-drummer Ants line-up: -
I really have
never been so jealous, wonder where he is now? (The boy, not AA)
Don't forget this lot
Ministry
Had the renowned Martin Atkins and Pre-REM Bill Rieflin leading the charge. This remains one of my favourite openers to a gig ever.
Martin Atkins also used two drummers in Pigface
I saw Little Feat live,
with percussionist Sam Clayton playing drums alongside Richie Hayward on "Oh Atlanta".
Sigue Sigue Sputnuk
had two drummers. The Glitter Band still do.
SSS didn't have any drummer.
It was a bloody Casio VL-Tone as far as I remember.
The Band
I was at the CSNY / Joni Mitchell gig at Wembley Stadium. I distinctly remember that at one point both Richard Manuel and Levon Helm played drum kits
When Oz rock legends Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs...
...recorded their live album 'Steaming At The Opera House' (yes, in Sydney) they had THREE drummers playing simultaneously. One was drunk. But they got away with it on the record - Aztecs music doesn't exactly require Bill Brufordesque levels of dexterity.
Radiohead...
...currently have a second drummer (Clive Deamer) when playing live.
My favourite two drummer line up was Bristol's Moonflowers, who had two drummers and a percussionist, and damned handsome they sounded, too.
Dick Dale
His "comeback" albums in the mid 90s had two drummers - Scott Matthews and Prairie Prince. Saw him at the Festival Hall supporting the Fall about then and he was superb.Hell of a sound
Two drummers drumming
Slightly off-thread, but hopefully allowed:
While researching the Muppets this week, I found what must be the finest "drum battle" between two drummers I have ever seen. That one of them is a puppet does not detract from its tub-thumping power. (Apparently, Jack Parnell, the bandleader and drummer who was the musical director on The Muppet Show, which was of course made by Lew Grade's ATV at Elstree, told Jim Henson he should get Buddy Rich on the show. Henson had never heard of him, but took it on faith from Parnell's recommendation. Anyway, this was the immortal result.)
I really was "researching the Muppets."
A possibly interesting footnote to the tale Andrew...
...is that Jack Parnell was the father of Rik Parnell, a drumming prodigy who got his first big break in Atomic Rooster in 1971 and.... er, sadly his next big break was as 'the exploding drummer' in 'This Is Spinal Tap'. But the Jack/Rik thing was a big enough eye-opener at the time for MM or NME to run an interview with both on the subject of 'modern music' et al.
Nobody in Atomic Rooster ended up having much luck, though... (although the guy on guitar in this clip, with Rik on drums, went on to tour with the expanded reunion version of The Who as lead guitarist in 1989).
Simon Collins - The Big Bang
Originally between Simon and his rather more famous dad, but with another chap taking the second stool here:
Van Morrison
In 1982 he was still looking cool and sounding fantastic - Pee Wee Ellis, two drummers, gospel singers, dangling fag & overly tight white trousers. Gives the Caledonia Soul Orchestra a run for its money.
I saw BB King in the mid-90s
with , you guessed it, 2 drummers. I'm still not entirely sure why.
Hawkwind
had Paul Powell dep for Simon House, then kept him on when House came back. Lemmy famously calls that period 'the tyranny of the drummers".
Can't quite tell if they're both playing on this clip, but there are one or two snaps of the two drum line up.
Two drummer rationale
It was usually for visual effect, and rarely to enhance the beat. Let's face it, you get a whole lotta flamming if the two drummers are about as tight as a pair of clown's trousers.
Sometimes, it’s for pragmatic reasons, if for example the first drummer has aspirations to sing/ front the group, e.g. Phil Collins, Don Henley, but quite often it’s because the first drummer is incompetent but unsackable. Then, a second, more competent drummer is drafted in to shore up the rhythm section. When I was in the Kursaal Flyers, our manager Paul Conroy would often whisper in my ear: 'two drummers Willy?'
A whole lotta flamming
and, I'll wager, a surfeit of paradiddling.
Hopefully Moose, that would
Hopefully Moose, that would be too awful.
Loved
your minimalist style exhibited on TOTP '76 when performing the magnificent 'Little does she know.'
Thank you iness. It may have
Thank you iness. It may have looked a little tongue in cheek, but I swear it was the drum part Mike Batt instructed me to play when we cut it. There's no hi-hat or cymbals (from me) on the record. Jonathan King was an anti-cymbal man too, but that's another story.
Very Dennis Wilson-like!
Seriously, loved that Flyers single and didn't you also write 'Hearts in her Eyes' for The Searchers when Sire signed them. That was powerpop at its best.
And why were you only wearing shorts Willy?
Was it very warm in the TOTP studio?
No, purely for visual effact
No, purely for visual effact as we couldn't afford two drummers.
And why were you only wearing shorts Willy?
Was it very warm in the TOTP studio?
ROVO
The Japanese band ROVO also has two drummers:
Kate's got 3 here
and it's a lip-sync!
Bloody wish she'd do something like this at this year's BRITS:
Saw a 1 drummer Adam & Ants tribute
You can guess how bad they were...
Saw Mr Ant recently - fantastic double drumming.
Has anyone mentioned Indie never were's Basti?
Kenny Clarke / Francy Boland Big Band
When you're one of the founding fathers of bebop, you can afford to kick back and let another drummer share the load. Better still, get someone with a very similar name (Kenny Clare)
3 Drummers!
The excellent Shrug from Middlesbrough
At work, so can't post any video
but didn't Aztec Camera - bizarrely IMO - have two drummers for live work in the late 80s while I definitely recall seeing Robert Palmer around the time the Pride album came out with two cats clanging the biscuit tins..