The Ides of February: Drumming Influences Day 1

For the Ides of February I will discuss the top five bands that impacted the way I play drums. For me, this wasn't a very difficult list to compile, because it's just something that's been with me the entire time I've played drums. So today I will start with the bottom of my list of influences:

#5: Motley Crue

I got started on the drums around 1984. My brother had gotten his guitar, my friend Jon had a bass, if I had drums we would be a band. So I went out and scored a five piece set of Ludwigs and started to learn. I've learned over the years that if you want to be good at anything, a good way to do it is find a goal and go after it. Back then I sorted through the bands I liked and chose an easy goal: I must play drums better than Tommy Lee. After listening to great bands from the 70s and the way rock was shaping up at the time, this was the logical first step. Looking back, Tommy was better than I gave him credit for, though he would never be Neil Peart. But in the early days I spent a lot of time working on keeping simple time and Motley was perfect for learning simple stuff. I could've chosen the Ramones, but that was no challenge at all. I think that if not for that early standard, I would not have worked to get my playing better and better to the point that I would refuse to play simple drum lines. Now I think I'm more mature and not everything has to be profoundly difficult to be fun to play. Certainly, my first influence and standard in drumming.