Making a living playing the drums is a goal that many of us dream about. However, realizing that goal not only involves playing drums, but a whole lot more, you have to deal with many different aspects of the drum business- and the music business in general.
Read this interesting article by MEINL artist Joe Morris about what it takes to be a working drummer:
THE WORKING DRUMMER (What Does That Really Mean?)
MONDAY
In the last 4 days I have been in New York, Ohio, Oregon and Florida. I have been told what I usually hear every time I am on live national television: I don't smile enough, I look like a serial killer, and my head shines too much. All in a day's work!! It's 1 a.m. in the morning in Tampa, Florida and I just finished playing seven live TV appearances with Esteban on the HSN network. Lobby call is at 4 a.m. to catch a flight to Phoenix, Arizona where I have a studio session that starts at 10:30.
~ Joe Morris
I arrive in Phoenix at 10:15 a.m., jump in my car and head for the studio. The session I am doing today will be for singer Paul Cotton from the band Poco. I have been hired to work on Paul's new solo CD. When I left for the road, arrangements were made to have my drums delivered to the studio so when I arrive my kit is already there. I say hello to everyone and set up my gear. After getting some drum sounds together, Paul starts to go over the first tune with me, I get a feel for what he wants and play him a few variations. We decide on a groove and go over the arrangement while working with the producer. Now we will work through the song a few times and record it. I use my musical instincts and keep my ears open for dynamics and other parts that will be best for the song. Of course, the producer has his ideas of what drum sounds he wants. On any given session I take from 7 to 10 snare drums and let's just say this guy tried them all!!! The session ends and we have most of the tunes recorded. I will return on another day to finish the drums and yet another day to add the percussion parts. I should be done with this record by the end of the month. It's 7:45 p.m. and time for me to load out my gear and head home. I haven't seen my kids for 7 days. I arrive home and hang out with the family for a while and put my 9-year-old son to bed, hang out with my 13 and 15 year old daughters and tell them goodnight. Now it's off to my office because I have to learn 7 songs for a session I have in the morning with producer Glen O'Hara for an up and coming artist. Plus I have to take care of all my paper work from my last tour (file receipts, taxes etc.) and get invoices ready for the session I have in the morning. I get to bed around 2 a.m.
TUESDAY
I arrive at Porcupine studios at 10:30 a.m. and load my drums in. The whole time I have my cd player going with headphones on going over the day's tunes. They're not your run of the mill songs, and most of them are in odd time with a ton of breaks and rhythm changes. I will really have to be on my game today because my schedule has not permitted me to sit behind a kit and work on this music before the session. The session turns out to be just killer!! Total pro session with click tracks set up for every tune, a great engineer and a great producer. They loved what I did with the songs and over all I had a fantastic day playing wise. Today I recorded 8 songs for the new CD and will return on another day this month to cut two more tunes. I leave this session with a big grin on my face. I arrive home at 8 p.m. just in time to play playstation2 with my son. I put him to bed and hang out with the rest of the family. Then it's off to my office again to get my paperwork ready for the next day and file my paperwork from today. I hit the hay around 1 a.m.
WEDNESDAY
I get up at 9 a.m., grab a bowl of fruit loops and head for the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences where I am the music director and house session drummer. I arrive at the Conservatory at 10:30 a.m. I do various types of clinics here each week such as band clinics, digital clinics, surround sound clinics, percussion clinics, live clinics and drum clinics. Today I am doing an Advanced Drum Clinic so basically that means I will be throwing down drum solos for 6 hours while the student's "a-b" microphones and check out different sounds. It's a great day to get a work out in. I have been doing this gig for 10 years and just love it. I do sessions at the school 3 to 4 times each week with some great musicians or by myself. This day ends at 7 p.m. I leave the school and head home arriving at 7:45 p.m. I jump in the shower, kiss the kids, grab another bowl of fruit loops and head for a gig I have that starts at 9 p.m. When I am not on tour with Esteban I usually get calls to play with different bands at local clubs. I load my gear in and get ready to play. Tonight I am working with a female singer that I have never worked with before. I meet the guys in the band and the female vocalist. I start asking them what kind of material they do as I am setting up and she says, "it's easy, I will count the tunes off and we play mostly jazz." So the night starts out and we have played about 3 songs, which by the way were R&B and soul tunes. Everything seems to be cool and the band is grooving. She counts off the next tune and I start playing and listening to see what exactly is up and she is looking at me like she wants to kill me. Well long story short, she never told me the tune was a half time song so the groove is not happening and I don't know why. The bass player leans over and says "half time," and I think, "oh shit!!" and switch over to half time. Well instead of her singing the song, this vocalist starts yelling at me over the microphone. "What the hell kind of beat was that," she says over the mic, "now I don't know where the hell I am". This singer literally just reamed me over the mic all night long anytime she felt like it. She insisted on counting off the songs and 10% of the time she was wrong. So all -night I am fishing for the pocket and she is just insulting me like a drunken sailor over the entire PA system. For the first two sets I thought it was funny because she was getting drunker every set and being more belligerent to me. I won't lie, I wanted to freaking kill her by the last set. Its 2 a.m. and one of the longest gigs of my life is over. While I'm packing up my gear she comes over and pays me, then proceeds to tell me I did a great job and asks if I could come back next week. I can't even write down anything I said to her because I was pretty pissed by then but let's just say I won't be going back next week. On the way home I listen to a practice CD for my session tomorrow and crack up laughing about what a day it has been. I am in bed at 3:30 a.m. for a whole two hours of sleep. I have to at the airport in the morning by 6 a.m. to catch a flight to Los Angeles.
THURSDAY
I am up at 5:30 a.m., jump in the shower, have a bowl of fruit loops and head for the airport. I arrive at the airport and as usual it's going to be, "let's search Joe day." Actually, when ever you look like I do on hardly any sleep and you're carrying a stick bag, it's search the drummer day. So after being searched and asked about my drum key and , my cymbals and having my extra high hat clutch taken from me, I get on my flight. Today I am recording at Steve Vai's mother ship studio for a guitarist on his label, "Favored Nations" I will be playing instrumental fusion guitar music today. All right!!! I am pretty stoked about being asked to do the CD and it's great to be at this studio. The engineer is fantastic and in short the day was awesome. The other musicians on the session were killer, the drum sounds were great (I had a kit dropped off for me by my endorsement company) and I finished way ahead of schedule. So I even have time to get some dinner and hang with new friends before flying back to Phoenix later tonight. Plus telling them the story from the gig the night before brought about some great laughs. I fly out of Los Angeles back to Phoenix at 8 p.m. and head for home. Needless to say I am mentally and physically beat and am in need of some sleep, so I quickly do my paper work and head to bed.
FRIDAY
I am up at 9 a.m for another session at the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences. Did I mention I had a bowl of fruit loops? Ha!! Today I am doing a band clinic. It's always up for grabs what we will play at the school. I hire different players on sessions and we mostly play funk, fusion, Latin or jazz instrumental music. In a day we will record anywhere from 2 songs up to 18 songs. Someone might bring in some charts, we might funk up an old tune, I might be working on some ideas for a new CD or we might just play off the seat of our pants. Either way we always have fun. The day is over at 7 p.m. And I head straight back to the airport for a flight to Chicago. I am playing the Paramount Theatre with Esteban on Saturday night. I arrive at the airport and meet the guys at our hanger. Esteban on some occasions will fly the band in a private jet to the gigs. It's awesome!! So we all get on the plane and head for Chicago.
SATURDAY
I wake up Saturday morning really late. It's been great to be able to sleep in and sound check isn't until 4 p.m. I order some room service (fruit loops) for breakfast and just kick it until its time to head for sound check. At sound check I meet the monitor guy (who you always want to be nice to) and the whole crew at the Paramount. My drums have arrived safely and are already set up. I check with my tech and everything is cool as usual. The show is sold out and comes off without a hitch. Just an awesome show and the band was kicking ass tonight. We get done with the show and head back to the hotel. (Well at least that's what my article is going to say!)
SUNDAY
I arrive back in Phoenix around 1 p.m. Guess what?? I have the day off. Well at least I have the day off from the music business. Today its time to be Dad and I have tons of domestic chores to do. I arrive home and get my laundry going for the next week because I have my home clothes and my bag is always packed with my away clothes. I have to cut the grass today, I have to teach my 15 year old daughter how to drive today, my other daughter has a soft ball game at 6 p.m. and my son just wants to go where ever I go because he missed me. Over all though, these are my favorite days. The day will go by and I will wake up on Monday and do it all over again. The week I describe here is an average week for me. Some weeks I travel more, some weeks I travel less, some weeks I just do sessions and stay home and sometimes I am on the road for weeks. I did not write this article for self-promotion purposes but my own career is the only perspective I have. So what can you learn from all this? There are ups and downs being a pro drummer. One night I am flying in a private jet playing in front of 5 thousand people in a nice venue with my drums set up for me. The next night I am lugging my gear through a smoke filled bar putting up with that scene. Most times I don't see my family enough and usually I am just plain old tired. I don't get to practice as much as I would like and traveling these days can really suck. But you know what? I wouldn't change a thing in my career. I wake up every morning thankful for what I do for a living. Playing music for people is a gift in itself. To be able to share your art with the masses and getting paid to do it is just off the hook for me. I love my life and I love playing drums and to me it doesn't get much better than that.
When you're a professional drummer, people tend to place nametags on you. Some of these that we have all heard before would be like: Rock Drummer, Jazz Drummer, Studio Drummer and Touring Drummer. The list goes on and on. Early in my career I was known as a Club Drummer, (I played nothing but small clubs and bars) then my nametag changed to Touring Drummer, (I was touring with national acts playing large venues). Then my label changed to Clinic Drummer or Clinician, (I was doing more drum clinics than usual). Then my label became Studio Drummer, (I was doing a lot of session work). I never put much thought into these labels because I was just happy to be working and making a living for my family and myself. Recently when one of my endorsement representatives said "Joe you are a real Working Drummer" it made me think about some of these labels and what it takes to be a working drummer. My first thought was the easy way out; a working drummer is simply a drummer that is working!! But that's not true. If you're making your living playing drums, first of all you're lucky and second of all that makes you a professional drummer. The short definition of a working drummer would be he is all of the above. He is a touring drummer, club drummer, studio drummer, funk drummer, jazz drummer and everything else in between. It's really not that simple though and the longer version should read something like this. The working drummer is a pro player that finds himself in many different musical situations on a daily basis in the studio and on live gigs usually with very little rehearsal time. The kind of drummer that can adapt his playing style too many different types of grooves and make the music feel good. This type of drummer must also possess people skills, business skills, be very open-minded musically and have a good sense of humor!! My name is Joe Morris and I am a working drummer.
(Article originally posted at http://www.meinlcymbals.com/)
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