Re: Drummers Who Seemed to Dissapear.
Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2018 11:41 pm
Your parents have heard of Tommy Lee?!? 
GoAndPractice wrote:bored at work wrote:GoAndPractice wrote:I often wonder about the big name drummers (who arent actual celebrities) and wonder what paid their bills for this month.
Like who?
Anyone besides Tommy Lee, Travis Barker, Ringo Starr, Dave Grohl etc... Basically everyone on Drummerworld minus the huge name players who have celeb status or are definitely getting large royalty checks in the mail from being in a huge band (Stewart Copeland, Chad Smith)
In my mind I like to put musicians' fame into these tiers to keep perspective:
1) Has grandma heard of them? Ringo Starr
2) Have parents heard of them? Tommy Lee
3) Have normal friends heard of them? Dave Grohl
4) Have musician friends heard of them? Steve Gadd
5) Have drummer friends heard of them? Jonathan Moffett
Sort of how you hear the phrase "world renown" get tossed around in musician bios. "...a world renown trombonist".... yeah right....
I'd really like to see tax returns for all the career drummers out there. I'm sure we'd be surprised at how close we all are with a few outliers. Life as a musician is a roller coaster month-to-month. Keeping this in mind helps me keep my head up when I'm in a trough.... It almost always gets better. And when it's on the up and I'm playing in front of a few thousand people I need to appreciate the moment, because like 99.9999% of drummers out there, in a couple months I'll be playing small local gigs again with my old crew and that's cool too.
I agree, juts because Drummer X may have an ad in Modern Drummer this month, it doesnt mean that paying the bills is any easier than it is for you and me. I have a very well respected drummer friend, he's one of the busisest studio drummers in the UK and he always says that its either feast or famine!