Ginger Baker, subject of the new documentary Beware of Mr. Baker.
Among musicians, drummers are widely considered a base species distinct from non-percussionists. A vast corpus of drummer jokes makes them out to be only marginally civilized, barely capable of complying with the extremely loose standards of decency within the musical world, borderline mentally handicapped, and rhythmically deficient to boot. (What's the difference between a drummer and a savings bond? The savings bond will eventually mature and make money. How do you know it's a drummer at your door? The knocking speeds up.)
Most drummers dispute all of that, of course. But drummers themselves have over the years provided plenty of evidence to the contrary, in the form of outrageous antics that have formed the basis for pretty much every cliché in pop culture about rock-star misconduct. All of that is on fine display in Beware of Mr. Baker, the new documentary about Cream drummer Ginger Baker, which is being released nationally today by SnagFilms. Below, a brief history of Baker and the other famously whacked-out drummers who have shaped our image of them.
Ginger Baker
As part of Cream, arguably the most powerful power trio of the Psychedelic Age, Ginger Baker radically upped the ante for rock drumming and outrageous behavior. Beware of Mr. Baker, directed by Jay Bulger, recounts a lifetime of antics and misadventure that puts every other rocker bio to shame. A jazz drummer who wandered into rock 'n' roll at a moment of stylistic upheaval, Baker introduced a level of complexity and fearless experimentation to the form that he more than matched offstage. Now a septuagenarian retired to an estate in South Africa — the film's title was lifted from a sign at the property's entrance — Baker's life has consisted of peripatetic wanderings across the globe, addictions, divorces, and bankruptcies in between stints behind the kit with Cream, Blind Faith, iconoclastic Nigerian Afrobeat hero Fela Kuti, and postpunk provocateurs Public Image Ltd. He once decided to kick a heroin habit by driving across the Sahara. The only addiction he's had that's cost more than drugs is raising polo ponies. He's the most interesting — and possibly craziest — drummer in the world.
Keith Moon
There's no evidence that Keith Moon of The Who provided the inspiration for the Muppet drummer Animal's notable incivility, but it makes enough sense that the rumor's been going around for decades and doesn't show any sign of going away. His drumming talents were immense, and his capabilities for wreaking havoc were even greater. He one-upped Pete Townshend's guitar-smashing by periodically rigging his kit with explosives and detonating them at unexpected moments. He was the first person in recorded history to throw a television out of a hotel-room window. He once accidentally drove over and killed his chauffeur, which is sad and terrible, and yet also about the most perfect embodiment of the collision of vast wealth and an unchecked id that Moon embodied, and which generations of rock stars have tried to achieve.
John Bonham
Any conversation about lunatic rock-'n'-roll drummers would be hugely incomplete without mentioning John Bonham. Led Zeppelin was by most metrics the most massive band in rock history, and Bonham the most massive drummer. How good was he? In concerts he regularly played thirty-minute drum solos and people didn't seem to mind. His playing — astounding, ambitious, and still capable of stunning a listener who's heard every Zep song a million times — was matched only by his ability to hold his liquor. On the last day of his life, Bonham drank an estimated forty servings of vodka before, during, and after rehearsal for a planned American tour. The lack of a suitable replacement kept Led Zeppelin from playing again for three decades, when they reformed for a one-off batch of shows with Bonzo's son, Jason Bonham, behind the kit.
Topper Headon
During punk's early years, back when it was actually kind of threatening, the idea of getting kicked out of a punk band for bad behavior probably seemed like a conceptual contradiction. But Clash drummer Topper Headon managed to achieve the seeming impossibility when the rest of the group gave him the boot in 1982. Despite the fact that he had written and recorded "Rock the Casbah," the Clash's most successful single ever, which was still on the charts at the time, Headon's drug use had ballooned to the point where he had a roadie ready with a mirror full of cocaine to snort between songs when the stage lights went down. And when he wasn't doing blow, he was doing heroin. After Headon was fired, the "Casbah" royalty checks started rolling in, and Headon spent it all on drugs — within a couple of years he was making his living as a busker in London Underground stations.
Tommy Lee
If you've ever read Mötley Crüe's group autobiography The Dirt, you'll get the picture that a complete account of Tommy Lee's most outrageous behavior would fill several thick books of their own. (If you haven't read it yet, do yourself a favor and buy a copy today.) During the period in the 1980s when Crüe was one of the biggest rock bands in the world, the group's globetrotting tours were fueled by a steady diet of vodka, cocaine, and something Lee calls "zombie dust" — a blend of cocaine and the sedative Halcion that he says "keeps body awake but shuts brain off" — and boasted a flying drum kit that allowed him to perform drum solos while suspended above the heads of the audience. (It was later upgraded to spin upside down.) At home, Lee was a contender for the world record for number of supermodels a rock star's been involved with, and with his wife and costar Pamela Anderson he accidentally invented the celebrity sex tape.
Lars Ulrich
As the man behind the kit for one of the most beloved bands in heavy-metal history, there was a good long time during which, as far as metal-heads were concerned, Lars Ulrich could do no wrong. At some point all of that unconditional adoration went to his head, and at the turn of the millennium, when he began a public feud with Napster, he had apparently zero qualms about attacking overzealous fans using the service to trade unreleased Metallica material along with the programmers facilitating the digital black market. His rampant egomania may have reached its peak a couple of years later when the recording of St. Anger — caught on film for the documentary Some Kind of Monster — devolved into a contest with James Hetfield to see who could be more of a ridiculously demanding asshole.
Josh Freese
Compared to the other drummers on this list, Josh Freese's personal brand of insanity looks rather wholesome and downright healthy: He's among the most hardcore workaholics in pop-music history. Among his lengthy list of credits are stints in Nine Inch Nails, A Perfect Circle, Guns N' Roses, Devo, and Sting's backing band, and in his role as one of the most in-demand hired guns in the music industry, he's recorded with a bewilderingly broad range of musicians including Weezer, Glen Campbell, Danny Elfman, Michael Buble, and several American Idol champions. On top of that, he's managed to find the time to sustain a long-running solo recording career. In 2009, he launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a solo record in which the perks for donors included a chicken-and-waffle dinner with Marilyn Manson bassist Twiggy Ramirez and a trip with Freese down to Tijuana.
Bill Ward
Anyone who could put up with Ozzy Osbourne off and on for over four decades has to be fairly nuts, but Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward has repeatedly proven that he's possessed by a special kind of crazy. One fan-favorite story is how during a chemical-fueled recording session Sabbath guitarist Tommy Iommi mischievously asked Ward if he could set him on fire. Ward demurred, saying that he wanted to keep his mind on work. But at the end of the day, after he'd wrapped things up, Ward told Iommi (in Iommi's words), "I'm going home now, so if you want, you can set fire to me." The guitarist took him up on the offer, and after being doused in alcohol and set afire, Ward ended up in the hospital with third-degree burns.
Terry Bozzio
Best known to music fans as one of the best drummers to back up Frank Zappa and, later, as a member of the New Wave outfit Missing Persons, Terry Bozzio's become a legend among musicians for assembling one of the most outrageously elaborate drum sets of all time. Dubbed the S.S. Bozzio, the kit consists of some three dozen drums and two dozen cymbals, as well as an assortment of gongs, tambourines, and other assorted percussion instruments. When it's fully assembled, the S.S. Bozzio displaces approximately the same volume of space as a compact SUV, and is a monument to the philosophy that too much is always better than not enough.
Vinnie Paul
Absolute insanity seems to have been a prerequisite for joining Pantera, and brothers Vinnie Paul and Dimebag Darrell were a matched set of lunatics. The ascent of the self-proclaimed "cowboys from hell" from cult act to crossover success didn't do much to rein them in. Luckily the group's members were fastidious documentarians of their on-the-road antics, and the couple of official tour videos they released resemble a season of Jackass set in the backstage areas of many large American music venues, marked by an abundance of explosives and booze, and a complete disregard for property and personal safety. Paul and company are probably the only multiplatinum band to ever include a post-show Taco Bell feast on their tour rider.
Illustrations by Jeremy Wheeler
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Miles Raymer is a music writer based in New York City who has contributed to the Chicago Reader, Vice, Pitchfork, and others.
Miles Raymer is a music writer based in New York City who has contributed to the Chicago Reader, Vice, Pitchfork, and others.
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