Dude: John Bonham, Keith Moon, and this guy.
How long have you played drums, and how did you hone your style?
I started when I was about six years old and pretty much what happened, I was always into guys like Keith Moon and Gene Krupa and that sort of player, the visual kind of players. But it didn’t do me any good — even though I could play drums I was totally unable to access any of that. Until I first saw Tommy Lee with Mötley Crüe — he’s a great drummer, don’t get me wrong, but he did spins and twirls that I could do. I couldn’t do them as good as Tommy Lee and I still can’t, but as far as making an attempt at it, it was like, I could do that! So I watched a lot of Tommy Lee and then went out on a gig one day and when I finally worked it up I twirled my drumstick and a bunch of people in the audience pointed at me. So at the age of 12 or 13, whatever it was, I literally just went, “Ah ok, I get it!” And I started doing silly things, things that weren’t necessarily difficult — like if you lift your foot in the air or make a funny face, that’s not technically challenging but it would make people point. So a quote I’ve used for the last 20 or 30 years, “People hear with their eyes.” They really do.
Here’s his website. Somewhere, Chris Farley is smiling.
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