Here is something strange. I hear all too often about a drummer who can run circles around all the known and famous drummer and yet, nobody knows him. Imagine someone like Carter Beauford, the drummer for the Dave Matthews band, but without the celebrity.
One of the reason is that technique is really not the most important part of music. Now, don’t make me say something I didn’t say, it is important, yes, but in a very limited way. Bob Dylan is not a technical singer, yet he has been sitting in the pantheon of famous people for the past six decades.
I think the reason is how these people use a concept. Bob Dylan has limited skills in his guitar playing and singing abilities, but his lyrics are what people listen to, as well as how he marries them with the music. He doesn’t need to have Frank Zappa’s skills in harmony but he has to know how to support a melody with some appropriate chords.
Same goes for drummers. Every scene, the New York one, the Paris one, the London one foster fantastic drummers, yet there is only one Steve Gadd, one Manu Katche, one Simon Phillips. I think it is because they have the technique, yes, for sure, but they’re also great musicians who can help an artist in their composition. In the song “Somewhere down the crazy river” by Robbie Robertson, Manu Katche helps the music describe the heaviness of the heat as well as the feeling you get when you haven’t slept in a long time. Steve Gadd spices up the beat in “50 ways to leave your lover” while providing a solid foundation for Paul Simon. And Simon Phillips cut through the track with his incisive drumming on “The year of the knife” by Tear for fears.
What I am traying to say is that knowing an instrument is good, it’s great, but it’s only the beginning. The artist still has to do something else to play music: connect with the crowd, communicate a feeling or an atmosphere. I would even argue that that’s actually the most important part. And it takes a lot of soul searching to do just that. You have to know what your instrument is capable of doing as well as what is in your heart and dare to throw it out there. At that moment every piece of music proposed become a philosophical essay on how you approach a certain subject.
The concept can be very elaborate or very simple, but it has to resonate with you and ultimately the audience. And the artist never knows how it will be received, whether they are Sting, Paul McCartney or Taylor Swift. They can only control what they do, not how people react to it.
I’ll finish with a song which, in my opinion, is one of the best I’ve ever heard on the drums, as far as concepts. I doubt you will know the artist but he’s famous in Europe, his name is Stephan Eicher. In the song “Est it alles”, which I am guessing means “That’s all”, Manu Katche progressively develops a drum pattern that will become unto its own about at halfway point. But what a pattern! Holy Moly! This groove is beyond complex. Yet it’s not felt as impossible because it has been announced in different bits and pieces for the first half of the tune. Here it is: