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MAY - JUNE 2010 | NO. 021$6.99 US | $7.99 CAN | !9.90 EUR

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ROGERS DRUMS DREAM CYMBALS MUSIKMESSE 2010

RIKKI ROCKETT DAN KONOPKA ETHAN JOHNS BILL BATEMANFREE CD INSIDE AUDIO PREVIEWS LESSONS PRACTICE W/ THE PROS

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PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERSInTERvIEW: mOvER STORY: STAn HALL

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RINGO – PART 1Like many baby boomer drummers,

Gregg had his musical awakening courtesy of The Beatles. Though, at first it was the guitar that attracted him, not, as you might expect, the drums. He recalls, “When I was a kid, I was freaked out by The Beatles. I just loved The Beatles and wanted to be a guitar player because I thought John Lennon was so great. But my dad said, ‘Well, we’ve got a drum set in the basement, why don’t you go down there and play some drums?’ I said, ‘Okay, but I really want to play guitar.’ I finally got a guitar and realized it just wasn’t my thing. Dad’s my hero: Dad plays first base on the baseball team–I want to play first base. Dad’s a drummer–I want to be a drummer.

“And then, the next weekend, after I decided I really wanted to play, my dad came home with tickets to see The Beatles. I was only seven, I couldn’t believe it. He had a gig with his band (the Bud Bissonette Band), and he was playing a wedding at the Ambassador Hotel where The Beatles were staying in downtown Detroit. He heard all the screaming in the lobby and said, ‘What’s going on? What are all these girls doing here?’ ‘Bud, The Beatles are staying upstairs, they’re playing tomorrow night at Olympia Hockey Arena.’ ‘The Beatles. My kids love The Beatles, my wife loves The Beatles...’ My dad, being the schmoozy guy he was, ‘Any chance of getting me…’ Not one or two, but...‘Six tickets?’ The guy goes, ‘Bud, you’re out of your mind! It’s The Beatles, man. They’ve been sold out for six

months! But come back after your gig at 1:00 AM, I’ll see what I can do.’

“My dad goes back and the guy says, ‘Bud, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, I got six tickets. The bad news is, it’s gonna be thirty-six bucks total. Six bucks apiece!’ My dad’s thinking, ‘Well, I’m making fifty on the gig, I’ll clear fourteen. I gotta do it!’ And the next night, we went to see The Beatles!”

“When I told Ringo, he said, [Ringo voice] ‘What were you, two?’ ‘No, seven!’ I asked him if he remembered playing in Detroit, and he said, [Ringo voice] ‘I remember that first gig in Detroit because I got hit in the back of the head with a piece of hard rock candy! They had to stop the show. I remember that Detroit audience, ‘We love you!’ Ping!’”

Gregg Bissonette does it all: from big band to rock to jazz to pop to movie scores–and he does it all at the A level. Need proof? Do the names Maynard Ferguson, David Lee Roth, Joe Satriani, Toto or Ringo Starr ring a bell? If not, ponder this: Stewart Copeland, himself the king of the punkazoid reggae splashdown, who knows a thing or two about drumming, calls Gregg Bissonette when he needs a drummer for his film or TV scoring. As if that wasn’t enough, Gregg also finds the time to lend his talents to his children’s school music classes, by composing drum pieces and tutoring the students. Oh, and did we mention Gregg’s a two-time Grammy winner, having played on Santana’s “El Farol,” (2000 Best Pop Instrumental Performance) and Steve Lukather and Larry Carlton’s No Substitutions (2002 Best Pop Instrumental Album). Combine all that with his unflappable optimism, enthusiasm, and never-say-no work ethic and you’ve got the perfect working drummer.

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YOU CAN’T PLAYTOO LOUD

And that’s how it started for Gregg. Shortly after his Beatles experience, his folks took him in their VW van across the Ambassador Bridge to Canada to see Buddy Rich play at a club called The Top Hat in Windsor. Gregg was sitting right next to Buddy and he was “freakin’ out.” On the way home when his dad asked him what he thought of the show, Gregg distilled his first exposure to Buddy down to, “Well, Mom and Dad, you know, I guess you really can’t play too loud.”

His father was aghast, but the faux pas were just starting. Gregg recalls putting on his Sugarloaf 45 “Green Eyed Lady” the very next night and asking his dad if Buddy Rich could play the infamous intro drum fill. Bud, possibly beginning to doubt Gregg’s parentage, replied, “I took you to see Buddy

last night, you said you realized you can’t play too loud, and now tonight you ask, ‘Can he play that?’ Single-stroke rolls around the drums? Of course he can play that!” Hey, everybody’s gotta start somewhere.

THIS BUD’S FOR YOUGregg obviously enjoyed a close

relationship with his dad. Although Bud never really played full time (he had a band that played on the weekends), when Gregg attained success as a professional drummer, he paid his dad back for encouraging him to study, to learn to read music, and to go to music school by hiring him as his cartage guy, thus giving Bud a taste of the business at a level he was never able to achieve on his own. Bud’s passing is a strong memory for his son: “He wanted to go peacefully in his condo, with the big screen and the World Series on. He was about to go, and I was

standing there above his bed, his left hand’s got my left hand, and he’s just fading in and out, real peaceful, slowly passing away. He’s almost gone, and I look and I see [The Buddy Rich Big Band] Big Swing Face over on the CD player.

“I put it in, and my dad’s eyes open up–he starts moving. He was almost gone, but he starts singing, and responds, ‘Yeah!’ He’s pointing to the sections, me and him–we’re conducting. I said, ‘Dad, you took me to see Buddy when I was seven. I would’ve never gotten to work with Maynard or play on the same bill with Buddy or the scholarship concerts or have a love for him if it wasn’t for you.’

“He came back; he was so alive in that moment. I said, ‘And Ringo. I got to tour all last summer with Ringo thanks to you taking

“It's not who you know, it's how well you know him!”

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me to see The Beatles!’ He said, ‘I’m ready to be with the Lord, and to be with your mom.’ I said, ‘Dad, very soon. God gave us music, God gave us Buddy Rich and Ringo, and you turned me onto it.’ And he said, ‘It was my pleasure.’ And that was the last thing I ever said to my dad.” My brother, my sister and I have our careers because our folks turned us on to this stuff, and I have no regrets.”

CHICAGO DEUXOnce Gregg caught the fire, he started

a band in middle school with his brother Matt, ambitiously playing “ninety-percent Chicago, with a little Beatles, Zeppelin and Aerosmith.” Gregg remembers especially loving Danny Seraphine’s drum fills. But no matter how good the Bissonette brothers may have sounded, he admits they were not the visually hippest thing in town: “We were

so corny. We bought light blue t-shirts with the iron-on Chicago logo, and then a Roman numeral two, so we were ‘Chicago II!’”

Gregg counts Danny as one of his biggest influences, alongside Buddy and Ringo. Coincidentally enough, Danny now lives only a couple of miles away from Gregg: a fact that Bissonette turned into a mutual advantage a few years ago. When told by Don Lombardi of Drum Workshop that Seraphine was unsure of what to talk about at an upcoming clinic he was scheduled to do, Gregg suggested that he play some classic Chicago tracks. Don then mentioned it might be a good idea to bring Danny over to Gregg’s house so they could play some double drums to get Danny inspired. Gregg took the idea a step further and rounded up two of his musical buddies who also happened to be Chicago fanatics: Bob Birch,

his buddy from Detroit and bass player with Elton John for eighteen years, and Marc Bonilla, guitarist with Keith Emerson.

When Danny showed up, they were ready to rock some Chicago tunes, and it got Seraphine excited enough to jump back into the business again, this time with a new CTA – the California Transit Authority, with Marc Bonilla included.

undeterred in dentonGregg made his first serious impact as

a professional when he joined Maynard Ferguson’s big band, a very brassy affair that was a far cry from the world of rock ‘n’ roll. It’s probably not inaccurate to say that most drummers who picked up a pair of drumsticks because of Ringo play rock and pop, so this seemed an unusual move for someone so besotted with The Beatles.

“I get to go onstage, look to the right and see my favorite drummer.”

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How did Gregg go all jazzy with his bad self? The answer lies in his love of all types of music, which he had from the get-go: “Luckily for me, I love and studied all styles of music. We just jammed in the garage and went through everything from Tower Of Power to Cuban, trading fours and displacing notes, and that’s the same thing that I have always loved. And because of my mom and dad, jazz musicians were respected. In fifth grade, my teacher said, ‘Well, we’ve got a lot of drummers in the band, what if you played something else?’ I replied, ‘I love trumpet,’ because I loved Maynard Ferguson and Herb Alpert. So, my mom signed me up for trumpet.

“My dream was always to be in Maynard’s band because they played “Chameleon” and “Rocky” and all these cool rockin’ songs; as well as “Airegin” and all the great

jazz songs. I remember being at North Texas State and getting the One O’Clock [Lab] Band gig and thinking, ‘I gotta get with Maynard! How am I gonna do this? I keep sending these demo tapes and I know they never get heard.’”

When he found out that Maynard was playing in Denton, Gregg went over to the Denton Holiday Inn where he spotted Maynard’s bus, called the hotel, and when he asked for Maynard Ferguson’s room; they actually connected him. So far, so good. Unfortunately, Gregg’s string of good luck seemed like it was about to play out; instead of Ferguson, Stan Mark, the band’s lead trumpet player, picked up the phone.

Sensing this was his only opportunity, Gregg worked it hard: “I know who you are Stan. I’m a huge fan of yours and Maynard’s band. I’m the drummer in the One O’Clock Band and I love Maynard.” Stan pushed back, retorting that nobody from Bissonette’s “uppity jazz school” liked Maynard because they considered them to be a rock band. But Gregg was not to be deterred, describing himself as a Maynard fanatic and saying he loved the fact that they played rock. Then he mentioned that he was playing at a club in Dallas with a funk band covering a lot of Stevie Wonder and Earth, Wind & Fire, and invited them to come down and bring their horns and sit in.

Close, but no cigar: Stan still hesitated, explaining that they were an hour from Dallas and could never get down there after the gig. Gregg offered to have three of his friends with station wagons pick them up. Still nothing. Then he played his trump card: “Drinks are on the house.” Gregg laughingly remembers, “As soon as I said that, Stan accepted, ‘We’ll be there!’”

Sure enough, the whole band showed up and had a ball. Afterwards, Stan told Gregg, “I do the hiring and firing. Our drummer Dave Mancini is great and we love him, but when he leaves, you’ve got the gig!”

That was Gregg’s a-ha moment: “That’s how it’s done! It’s not who you know, it’s how well you know him!” When they were looking for a bass player and asked Gregg if he knew anyone, his immediately suggested his brother. It all fell together from there: “He sends a tape, gets the gig, keeps bringing my name up, and then I got the gig. So it all came from figuring out how to work the room.”

LA THE HARD WAYSo that explains Gregg’s sojourn into jazz.

But then he achieved the almost-impossible feat of moving over from jazz into rock, and in a big way–landing the drum spot for David Lee Roth. At first, it seemed almost impossible, even to Gregg himself.

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Getting the Ferguson gig was a double-edged sword in Tinseltown, as Bissonette clearly recalls: “When I moved to LA, I was so freaked out because I was ‘the jazz guy.’ Everyone wants to label you. ‘Oh, you’re Maynard Ferguson’s guy; you’re big band jazz.’ Not even just jazz...’big band jazz!’”

Praying hard on his knees every night, Gregg hoped for what seemed like the impossible; to land “a gig like Journey or Genesis or Van Halen.” Dream on: Phil Collins wasn’t going anywhere, plus Chester Thompson already had the second drummer spot; Steve Smith was in Journey; and Alex and Eddie were brothers. Score: 0 for 3, so Gregg went looking for targets of opportunity and auditioned for Vinnie Vincent from KISS, hoping to get that gig.

Years later, it’s still fresh in his mind. “The audition was, [Vinnie] ‘Play to these tracks I did.’ Well, the speakers were way far away, no click, I’m trying to play with this thing, and he goes, ‘Nope, it’s just not grooving.’ Then he said, ‘I’m gonna hire this guy that came out in a Winnebago from Texas, Bobby Rock. He really locked and he’s got the passion. You’re doing some other stuff, and he can dedicate his life to this right now.’ I said, ‘That’s cool Vinnie, thanks.’

“Then Vinnie says, ‘But you ought to check out Dave Roth’s band. Dave Roth is looking for a drummer.’ I asked, ‘Who’s

Dave Roth?’ He looked at me in disbelief, ‘David Lee Roth! Van Halen?! He put out that EP with “California Girls” and “Gigolo.” He quit Van Halen and he’s starting a new band. I happen to know he hired Billy Sheehan and Steve Vai.’ I said, ‘Steve Vai from Zappa and Alcatraz?’ ‘Yeah, he’s the new guitar player and they’re looking for a drummer. I’ll call Steve and get you an audition.’”

True to his word, Vinnie called Steve and got Gregg an audition, which turned out to be a big cattle call with hundreds of drummers. As Gregg recalls, it wasn’t pretty: “I see the first guy come out, and it’s a friend of mine, Matt Sorum, pre-Guns N’ Roses. ‘Matt, how’d it go?’ He says, ‘Man, they wanted me to play double bass. They had this Olympic-size double-bass kit, and I don’t wanna play double bass!’ Okay, so I make a note to myself. Then I see my old college buddy Russ McKinnon. ‘Russ, how’d it go?’ ‘Oh, I don’t think I got the gig. They said I didn’t hit hard enough.’ Hmm, okay. And then a guy I can’t remember said, ‘Oh man, Vai pulled out all this weird stuff, and I can’t remember all that. They wanted me to retain all of it.’ Immediately I get a Sharpie so I can make notes. Sure enough, they go, ‘Play a solo, do some double bass! Now we’re gonna teach you a song, it’s

this one that we’ve been writing called “Hot Dog And A Shake” and it goes like this.’ I’m writing it down, and Steve says, ‘You write? You can transcribe?’ ‘Yeah!’ ‘Well, I went to Berklee!’ ‘I know you went to Berklee. I went to North Texas!’ ‘Bro, I’m pulling for you...I want somebody in the band who knows how to count, a drummer who can write out little things so we can get things done. This’ll be great! I’m gonna tell Dave tomorrow!’”

DIAMOND DAVEAt Bissonette’s request Vai gave him two

cassettes of material they had been working on, twenty songs, and Gregg made little cheat-sheet notes for himself so he’d be prepared at rehearsal the next day in Dave’s basement.

While the band was running through the tunes, Diamond Dave came in from another room, introduced himself to Gregg, and then asked how Gregg had managed to learn all those songs since his audition the day before. After Gregg explained what he had done, David expressed his amazement and asked him where he had learned to read music. Gregg was equally amazed when he discovered that Roth actually knew of North Texas State and its reputation: “Yeah, the big band school!”

When David learned that Gregg had toured and recorded with Maynard Ferguson, that was good enough for him: “The high-note lead trumpet big band leader, “Rocky.” Bro, I’ve heard what you’ve done with those guys. If you can power that big band, surely

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you can power the three of us! Welcome to the band, payday starts Friday!”

A LATIN LOVERInterestingly, between leaving Maynard

and picking up the David Lee Roth gig, Gregg chalked up a couple of interesting situations. One (with his bass-playing brother) working with Gino Vannelli, and another syncing up with percussionist Luis Conte behind Tania Maria: “I remember playing in Japan with Maynard at a Japanese festival up in the north island there, and every night I would go see Tania with John Peña, Ron Powell and Joey Heredia.” When Gregg asked Joey to teach him the Cuban songo stuff he was doing, Heredia suggested that he go to Discolandia on Sherman Way and buy a bunch of records. When Gregg pressed him

to show him some of those grooves, Joey said, “If you really wanna learn, you should go to Luis Conte.” So Gregg got with Luis, and Walfredo [Reyes] who was working with Tania at the time, and through both of them, got that gig and “fell in love with Latin music, especially Cuban music.”

FEAST OR FAMINEGino’s thing was just coming together

when Bissonette aced the David Lee Roth audition, fortunately Vannelli “was really cool” with Gregg moving on to the mega-tour level of the business. Soon thereafter, the band was recording Eat ‘em And Smile at Fantasy Studios in Berkley, California with producer Ted Templeman. While they were tracking “Tobacco Road,” Gregg heard that Journey, having parted ways with Steve Smith, was

auditioning drummers in the other room. Steve Perry asked if Gregg wanted to try out for the band, but Bissonette politely declined, as he was now a member of David Lee Roth’s band.

After Dave, Gregg and his brother Matt got to work with Joe Satriani whose original trio with Jonathan Mover and Stu Hamm had run its course. Joe and the brothers Bissonette recorded and toured behind

the Extremist album, with some live tracks making it onto Satriani’s next record, Time Machine. After that, the two brothers decided it was time to start their own band, The Mustard Seeds.

CUTTING THE MUSTARDThe new band came together at a time

when Gregg was sitting at the top of the musical heap, with a list of drum clinics and recording sessions as long as his arm. He had toured and recorded with all kinds of heavyweights in all styles of music, and had serious credibility, a name, and tons of contacts in the business. Putting together his own band and securing a record contract looked easy, almost like a foregone conclusion. Put his dream band together with his brother Matt, make a few phone calls to managers, agents, attorneys

and some record labels and–voila–instant success. But that’s not exactly how it turned out.

Timing, as they say, is everything, and in 1994 the time was not right for a new LA band. Thanks to the seismic shift that relocated rock’s musical epicenter up to the Seattle environs, everything coming out of LA was deemed passe: no matter what its actual merits may have been. By definition, “pop” music must be “popular,” a term whose definition is ever shifting.

At that time, Gregg went to check out something called The Concrete Foundation, a big operation featuring a lot of industry pundits, seminars about new bands and who’s gonna be big next week–the typical thing. He went around the back, looked at the running order of what he thought was happening on the stage, and at the end he spotted “Pearl Jam” and thought, “I can’t believe those guys at Pearl drums. I’m an endorser of theirs, they’re having a big jam session and I’m not invited. They didn’t even call me to play in the jam at the end! (Laughs).

It starts off with Soundgarden, then Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam.” I’m thinking, “I’ve never heard of any of these other bands, but this is a ‘Pearl’ jam session?” Curious...he checked them out. “Soundgarden, this guy Matt Cameron is amazing, doing all this

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odd time, ‘Spoonman’ and everything. Then I hear Alice In Chains with Sean Kinney and I’m just freaking out. And then I hear Pearl Jam...Wow!

The Mustard Seeds just couldn’t get arrested because it was all about wearing flannel and work boots.” Well established in the business, Gregg had been doing lots of touring with different bands for good money, and was doing a lot of drum clinics to boot. As he says, “I almost couldn’t do enough of them. I could continue to write my ticket to a bunch of drum clinics and recording sessions, but I said, ‘For the next year I’m just gonna give my all to this band.’” And he did.

Gregg stuck to his guns, turning down numerous drum clinics and recording sessions while rehearsing and trying to sell the band. Their two guitarists, Doug Bossi and George Bernhardt, had gambled everything, quitting their jobs and moving to LA from Texas and Toronto, respectively, in order to give it their best shot, putting all their eggs in one rock ‘n’ roll basket. Fully aware of that, Gregg held on as long as he could, trying to roll their rock up the hill of industry indifference. But try as he might, the situation kept getting grimmer.

For over a year Bissonette watched his bank account and professional opportunities shrink, before he finally gave up in tears and quit his own band to go back out on his

own. “I loved the band, and of course, my brother is my best pal and favorite bass player, and a great songwriter. It was really heartbreaking to leave a band that you helped start.”

Gregg is happy to see that The Mustard Seeds managed to carry on: “They got a deal, the album came out, they did a little tour in Europe and they’ve done two albums since. They’re on their third album now. It’s all in the name–if you have the faith of a mustard seed, all it takes is a little bit of faith to be able to have great things happen.”

In short order he was back in the majors again. When Toto drummer Simon Phillips injured his back, at guitarist Steve Lukather’s request, Bissonette covered for Simon on the band’s tour, which then led to him doing an album and tour with Lukather. Soon after, he went on to work with ELO and Jeff Lynne, along with his favorite bassist, brother Matt, and it was business as usual.

RINGO – PART 2Flash forward a decade, it’s 2003, and

Gregg’s doing a session for Mark Hudson, who had produced many of Ringo’s albums. He had a Ringo drum set in his studio in Santa Monica, when he called and asked Gregg if he could come down and do a quick fix for a drum machine track that Steven Tyler did for his daughter. Tyler’s on a flatbed truck singing “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” and they needed real

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drums instead of the drum machine. When Gregg heard the magic words: “Come on down, you can play on Ringo’s kit,” he zoomed down right away.

Playing on Ringo’s kit was like Christmas for Bissonette: he immediately started playing Beatle songs–”Tomorrow Never Knows,” “Come Together,” “Ticket to Ride.” Realizing how much of a Beatle/Ringo-nut Gregg really was, Hudson told him, “If Zak [Starkey] doesn’t do this next tour, you’ll get the gig.” And sure enough, when Zak couldn’t do it because he was out with The Who, Gregg got the call to do the 2003 promo tour. When they needed a bass player, his brother Matt jumped right in. Then they did a live DVD, PBS special (Ringo Starr Live At Soundstage) on their second tour in 2005.

Afterwards Ringo told Gregg, “I love playin’ with ya, but in order to be in the All-Star band, ya gotta have two hit singles that you sang.” So that looked like the end of the Ringo experience.

Three years later, Starr’s manager called and said, “Ringo’s run out of drummers with top-ten hit singles. You got the gig.” Gregg then did the All-Star Band gig in 2008, had a blast, and now two years later, Ringo has called and offered him the drum spot on the 2010 summer tour. Back in hog heaven for Mr. Bissonette: “I get to go out on a six-week all-star tour with my favorite drummer. And playing double drums with him is just wild.”

Just thinking about it gets Gregg as excited as a teenager: “Ringo’s always to my right, and my number one goal is; just

stare at his snare and make sure there are no flams. (Laughs) His pocket is so deep, it’s like putting on your favorite pair of jeans or slippers that you’ve had for a million years.

“We do ‘It Don’t Come Easy’ and ‘Photograph’ with Ringo out front. Then we do double drums on the others; ‘Boys,’ ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ and ‘Choose Love,’ and then the song he wrote for George, ‘Never Without You,’ he’s out front again and stays out for ‘Yellow Submarine,’ ‘With A Little Help From My Friends,’ ‘Act Naturally’ and ‘Octopus’s Garden.’

“It’s just incredible. Last tour, Hamish Stewart was the bass player, so we did ‘Pick Up The Pieces’ and ‘Work To Do,’ all these funky songs. With Billy Squier,

“It’s all about the melody;there’s nothing more important.”

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doin’ ‘The Stroke’ and ‘Lonely Is The Night.’ Colin Hay [Men At Work] with ‘Who Can It Be Now’ and ‘Land Down Under.’ Gary Wright, ‘Dreamweaver’ and ‘Love Is Alive,’ and Edgar [Winter], ‘Free Ride’ and then ‘Frankenstein.’ Ringo said, “You do Frankenstein, that’s not my bit.” So he goes off and has a cup of tea, and I do ‘Frankenstein.’ What a ball!

“This summer it’s Rick Derringer on ‘Frankenstein,’ and he’ll be doing ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Hoochie Coo’ and ‘Hang On Sloopy.’ On rhythm guitar it’ll be Wally Palmar from The Romantics, doing ‘That’s What I Like About You’ and ‘Secrets That You Keep,’ and Richard Page from Mr. Mister doing ‘Kyrie’ and ‘Broken Wings.’ I’m so excited.”

tap dancingThe life of a professional musician can

go from the sublime to the ridiculous, sometimes in back-to-back gigs. Gregg recently rediscovered this when he went from playing with Andrea Boccelli in Tuscany to rocking Wembley Stadium with the world’s most dysfunctional heavy-metal band, Spinal Tap. Even for someone as versatile as Gregg, that’s a bit of a stretch. How did it all come about?

David Foster was the musical director for a gig called David Foster Presents Andrea Boccelli: Live in Tuscany. The guest artists were Kenny G, Sarah Brightman, Chris Boti, Lang-Lang and “all kinds of other people.” Bassist Nathan East, a buddy of Gregg’s,

got Bissonette on the gig. A sweet little deal: Go to Tuscany, Italy, rehearse for two days and record for two days. Needless to say, Gregg jumped on it immediately, but there was a problem: he was then asked to play with Spinal Tap at the Live Earth concert in London.

Gregg picks up the story: “I think it was Tuesday and Wednesday, rehearsals with Boccelli and the orchestra, the click, the charts and Foster–all these guest artists. Thursday and Friday, shows in Italy. But, I find out there’s a Friday rehearsal with Spinal Tap in England, and Vinnie [Colaiuta] was rehearsing with Jeff Beck in the next room. I didn’t need to rehearse, since we had rehearsed in LA a week before, but

“my number one goal is; just stare at his snare

and make sure there are no flams.”

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not only was there was the rehearsal on Friday, now there was a 9 AM soundcheck on Saturday morning.

“So I just told the guys, ‘Look, I really want to do this. It’s really good money, and I’m a self-employed musician.’ As you know, I don’t have acting careers like those guys. And they were so cool, they said, ‘Yeah, go ahead and do it!’” So Bissonette got his friend and U.K. drumming ace Steve White to rehearse in London with Tap. “I sent him the tunes and he learned everything, charted them out, and did a great job at rehearsal.”

But, then the next day, Saturday, there’s that 9 AM sound check. He finished the gig with Boccelli at 11 PM and took the 6 AM flight out, getting into London Heathrow at 7:10. He recounts: “I remember staying up all night emailing with Nathan in the lobby of the hotel. Then flying into London, and sleeping in the black cab. I was so tired…and all of a sudden, we pull up and there’s the hotel.

“I walk into the lobby and all the guys are there, ‘Skippy!’ (My name with the Tapsters is Skippy Scuffelton.) They were literally getting in the car to go to the gig. We did

the sound check and we do the gig, and I’m thinking, ‘I can’t believe I pulled this off!’ It was such a blast. Phil Collins and Chester Thompson started it off with Genesis, and then ten other bands. The Chili Peppers, Metallica, and then the Foo Fighters, and Madonna. What a day, man.”

Is it scary playing with Spinal Tap? After all, Gregg is the one and only drummer who has survived…so far. But danger be damned, Gregg loves playing and hanging out with a bunch of guys who are essentially America’s Monty Python.

He gives a little nervous laugh: “It’s amazing I’m not a green globule. The first gig I did with them was back in ’97, and we just recorded that whole first album over again about six months ago. It came out really good. It’s called Back From The Dead and it’s a really cool album. It’s all more modern-sounding versions of the same songs like ‘Big Bottom,’ ‘Give Me Some Lovin’,’ ‘Tonight, We’re Gonna Rock You,’ ‘Stonehenge,’ all that stuff. And then we did ‘Jazz Odyssey,’ in three different chopped-up segments.

So with another record coming out, can the great unwashed expect to see the

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band trampling Stonehenge underfoot and getting stuck in uncooperative futuristic cocoons onstage? Not likely, according to our danger-defying drummer. Blink and you missed: “I think we did our whole big world tour. We printed up t-shirts, and right after the album came out, we went over and played Glastonbury with Springsteen and The E Street Band and Crobsy, Stills & Nash. Coldplay had canceled, and Spinal Tap’s pretty big in England, so they put us in there. The next night, we booked a gig where they opened for themselves as The Folksmen. They sold out Wembley Arena and opened for themselves, so the entire tour was Glastonbury with one set of ten songs, and then the whole two-and-a-half hour show at Wembley. The t-shirts were, ‘One Night Only! World Tour!’” (Laughs)

“But there will always be more stuff with those guys, and there’s always the movies. The first film I worked on with Chris [Guest] was Waiting For Guffman. They had the scene where the whole town takes over the band. The dentist is the bass drummer and the barber is the clarinetist. And you’ve got to play the concert bass drum and play these bad snare rolls–it was a blast. And then Best In Show, A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration. I was just thinking about that the other day; I’m sure Chris has got a movie in the works right now. I’m not supposed to say ‘movie’ though, it’s Hollywood, right? It’s a ‘film.’”

SOLO ALBUMAfter being sideman El Supremo for years

and years, Gregg was asked to do a solo album by former bandmate Steve Vai for Steve’s Favored Nations label. Even though he doesn’t write much, Bissonette jumped at the chance, roping his brother Matt into penning all the material. Vai encouraged Gregg to take it out, remarking, “I know you like lots of different styles of music–hard rock, pop rock, Afro-Cuban, bebop, funk, odd times, all this wacky stuff. Don’t have any limits on it, do whatever you want. It’s our label, we want musician-oriented stuff.”

With that freedom, Gregg had Matt write tunes in a variety of different styles. The only restrictions were: no brush ballads, and a drum solo in almost every song. At the end of the day, they ended up with an eclectic mix of eleven songs that included a Steve Jordan-type funk tune, which they called “Marbles,” (named after all their relatives on their father’s side whose middle names were Marble); a Stevie Ray Vaughn-esque blues shuffle with guitarist Robben Ford; a Foo Fighers/Dave Grohl, “There Goes My Hero” beat thing–two drum sets double-tracked, with guitarist Steve

“It’s amazingI’m not a green globule.”

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As we’ve noted, Gregg can and does play almost anything under the sun. But what really rings his bell? “I have to say, my favorite kind of music is rock. I love jazz and I love Latin music, I love everything. But my favorite kind of music is rock, especially Beatle-y rock. I’m still a sucker for pop rock. It’s all about the melody; there’s nothing more important.”

Play Mea Melody

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Stevens; a Hendrix-y thing with guitarist Michael Landau; and a Beatle-y thing called “The Son Man,” with Tim Pierce playing sitar and Echoplex. In addition to his enthusiastic tub thumping, Gregg also stepped up as a lead vocalist for the first time, taking the mic on “The Son Man,” “Submarine” and “Train To Willoughby,” as well as playing trumpet (with brother Matt on trombone), on an Afro Cuban 2-3 rumba clave called “No Hay Parqueo,” with Gary Hoey on guitar and David Garfield on piano and organ.

DIY DVDAfter his solo album, Gregg next tackled

doing a DVD, which turned out to be an epic adventure. “I had several instructional drum videos out, but those were like, ‘They’re offering this much of a deal; so if I do it myself and I pay for everything, and just give them a mastered finished video, I’ll get a better percentage rate.’ Yeah, true, but that was a year of my life on each one of those videos. From getting the crew together, to finding the location, to the lighting, and the editing at four hundred dollars an hour, the photos and the packaging, and sending it all off to be done–that was like a year. Then I did another one after that, same kind of deal, all on my own. Finally I said, ‘It’s time to do a DVD.’

“It ended up being two discs, four and a half hours long. I completely scripted out the whole vibe myself and did everything. It was such a big part of my life that I think I’m still recuperating from it. Down the road there will be another CD and a DVD, but right now I’m having a ball just being a sideman and going on the road with Ringo this summer.”

GEAR, GEAR, GEAR...When it comes to drums, Gregg’s been

around the block a few times. Way back when, he started out on Yamaha, moved to Pearl, then had a short-lived association with Gibson-owned Slingerland (including a signature double-bass kit in a very classy maple frost finish) before hooking up with newcomer Mapex. How did all that happen?

“Back in ‘82 with Maynard Ferguson’s band, I wanted to play Yamaha drums. Lots of my favorites were playing them–Vinnie Colaiuta, Steve Gadd, Steve Houghton, Ed Soph, Peter Erskine, Alex Acuña–so I wanted to be a Yamaha guy. At the time, it was, ‘Okay, you’re with Maynard, come on up and buy a kit real cheap.’ So that was my endorsement; I bought a Yamaha kit and I was in their catalog. Then I got the gig with Gino Vannelli, and it was still, no free drums or being a clinician for them or having ads in magazines. But it was like, cool!

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“Then I got David Lee Roth’s gig and Yamaha stepped up, ‘Oh man, we gotta do a poster, we’re gonna put ads in the magazines and we’re gonna do all this stuff. And, how many drums do you need for free?’ I told them I had just worked with this producer Ted Templeman [David Lee Roth], who said, ‘Ya know, those birch drums aren’t really gettin’ it for me for rock ‘n’ roll–I really like old Ludwigs. In Van Halen, the band that David Lee Roth was in before, Alex always used old Ludwig drums. They’re all thin maple shells and I love the way they really project and sing. The birch drums are deader.’ “I said, ‘But Steve Gadd and all these drummers...’ Ted didn’t miss a beat, ‘Yeah, but Steve Gadd’s not doing a Van Halen thing. This hydraulic head or pinstripe on birch drums, it’s not gonna cut through Marshalls. We need Remo Ambassadors with thin maple shells.”

Myron Grombacher, [Pat Benatar’s drummer] one of my best friends, said, ‘You can take my oversized Ludwigs and do the album.’ So I recorded the first David Lee Roth album with Myron’s Ludwig drums. They were just kickin’: they were loud! “I went back to Yamaha and said, ‘Guys, if I’m gonna stay with Yamaha, I really need to have maple drums...this is a creative thing.’ Their answer was, ‘We’ll never make maple drums. Never. We’re doing birch and we’re not gonna do maple drums–ever.’

So I left and went to Pearl, a company that really wanted me. They said, ‘We’ll give you as many clinics as you can do, we’ll give you all the drums you need and put your face in magazines.’ I said, ‘Wow, this is amazing!’ I love doing clinics. It’s a great way to supplement your income. But then, after seven years, they said, ‘Well, the budgetary things, the economy...we’re gonna scale back on the clinics with all of our endorsers.’ And, they didn’t really need me as much as they needed me in 1987. I thought, ‘Well, I wanna be where I’m needed! I wanna be where I love the drums, and I wanna be where I can be used.’

Then the people at Gibson guitars had a really great offer to buy Slingerland. They asked, ‘What were the first drums you ever played when you were a kid?’ I said, ‘I had Slingerlands.’ And they said, ‘Well, we’re gonna do Radio King Slingerlands with maple shells, and we want you to be behind it.’ They did a signature set for me, but unfortunately Slingerland never got off the ground.

“But, Gibson was the distributor for Mapex. I said, ‘I love Mapex, can I play them?’ They said, ‘Well, Mapex is gonna be doing their own thing now as Mapex USA.’ And Ken Austin, who had brought me to Pearl, was now the president of Mapex USA. Before I said anything, Ken called,

‘Can I send you a drum set?’ ‘Can you send me a drum set?! Yeah, hello?!’ (Laughs) He said, ‘I know what you like: thin maple shells with no reinforcing hoops, the way we used to make our drums at Pearl.’ I said, ‘Yes, please send me a set of Mapex drums,’ and I just fell in love with them.

“We struck up a great relationship, and I’ve been with Mapex since ‘97. Thirteen years, the longest I’ve ever been with any drum company. I’ve been to the factory many times. I just love the people there; I love that whenever I have a request about an idea, it seems to happen. I do a lot of clinics for them–they’re very involved in education.

“And they still make amazing, thin-shell maple drums. But then they’re very creative.They’ll do the Deep Forest drums, which are walnut or cherry wood, and then they’ll stop with the Deep Forest drums, and they’ll do a maple kit with an inner ply of walnut that just brings the whole tone down really nice; you can tune it super low. And they’ve got the Meridian now–they are the best drums in the world to me.

“I put Remo white-coated heads on top and clears on the bottom. They’re extremely consistent, the bearing edges are always spot-on. I tune them up and they just sing. There’s nothing holding them back; nothing

“It was really heart-breaking to leave a band that you helped

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DrumsMapex Orion24” x 18” Kick12” x 10” Rack16” x 16” Floor14” X 5.5” SnareCymbalsZildjian14” K. Mastersound Hi-hats17” K. Custom Crash18” K. Custom Crash12” A. Splash20” A. Ping RideHeadsRemoRack & Floor - Coated Amb Top / Clear Amb BottomKick - Power Stroke 3Snare - Coated Reverse DotSticksVic FirthGregg Bissonette ModelHardwareDW5002 Chain Turbo PedalPercussionLP Salsa Bell

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restricting the tone of the shell, and the hardware’s fantastic. The people are great, and they’re based here in the U.S., in Nashville. They’re a Taiwanese company and they manufacture in China, I’ve been there and it’s just second to none. The Mapex factory is amazing.

“I’ve been with Zildjian since I was with Maynard–I love Zildjian cymbals. And I was the first guy to road-test the DW double pedal with Maynard in ‘82. Don Lombardi loaned me a pedal to take out. They’d just designed the 5000 pedal, and it had cotter-pins. I’ve been with Vic Firth with my own signature sticks since I was with Maynard’s band in ‘82, and LP percussion, too.

Then when I subbed for Simon with Toto, he said, ‘You’ve got to have all the Shure microphones.’ So I have Simon to thank for my great relationship with Shure. I get to go out and do clinics and do all kinds of fun stuff for Roland–I love their electronic drums. And Hudson Video, they kick in for educational clinics too, and they’re just the best in educational stuff, I think.”

Another company that I’m really happy to be with is Zoom. I use their audio and video recorders for everything from rehearsals to sessions and tours. And they also take part in supporting the educational stuff.

STILL THRILLEDGregg’s one of the most well-rounded

drummers on the planet. Stylistically, he plays everything from big band brush work to driving an orchestra, cooking up Latin fusion and pounding out arena rock with David Lee Roth. Plus, he also plays with one of The Beatles: it doesn’t get much better than that. With all that, what’s his favorite?

“That’s a hard one because my first gig was Maynard, and I’d always wanted to play drums for him. And then David Lee Roth was such a thrill to me. I was, and still am, such a huge old Van Halen freak–those early albums with Dave, Eddie, Alex and Michael.

“I love every gig I get to do, whether it’s Keith Emerson’s solo album, Jeff Lynne and ELO, Toto with Steve Lukather and Mike Porcaro, or Joe Satriani and working with Andy Johns–every gig has just been so much fun.

The Spinal Tap thing, and playing with James Taylor is also great. I got to work a lot with James because Gadd was so busy with Paul Simon and/or Eric Clapton. We played three nights at the Hollywood Bowl

with John Williams and the LA Philharmonic over the Fourth of July. I couldn’t believe it, ‘This is James Taylor!’”

RINGO – PART 3“But my favorite – if I had to pick one – has

to be Ringo. Being on that stage, and now being a friend of his, is just unfathomable. I was extremely honored to be with him for his Walk of Fame Star on Hollywood Boulevard a couple of weeks ago. And, I get to go onstage, look to the right and see my favorite drummer–the guy whose records I used to play to. I played a lot to Chicago, and Blood, Sweat & Tears, Alice Cooper, Grand Funk, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Yes, and every other band under the sun, but nowhere near as much as I did to The Beatles. Now I’m looking over at him and I’m playing, and all I’m trying to do is just fall into his vibe. Which is easy to do, because he just wraps his drumming arms around you.

“The fact that I get to play with Ringo–that I’m gonna just groove with the guy that made me want to be a drummer in the first place–is it for me.

And to top it off, we’re gonna play Radio City Music Hall on July 7th, Ringo’s birthday. What an inspiration. It was Buddy Rich, Ringo and my dad. I just think, ‘God, thank you for letting me be able to be a drummer.’”

WEBFOOT

greggbissonette.com youtube.com drummerworld.com

Photo: Richard Pierce

2010 All-Star Tour Dates Date City State

06.24.10 Niagra Falls ON

06.25.10 Niagra Falls ON

06.26.10 Bethel NY

06.27.10 Uncasville CT

06.29.10 Boston MA

06.30.10 Westbury NY

07.02.10 Easton PA

07.03.10 Atlantic City NJ

07.05.10 New Brunswick NJ

07.06.10 Lancaster PA

07.07.10 New York NY

07.09.10 Cincinnati OH

07.10.10 Atlanta GA

07.11.10 Durham NC

07.11.10 Durham NC

07.13.10 Clearwater FL

07.15.10 Hollywood FL

07.17.10 Saint Augustine FL

07.18.10 Biloxi MS

07.20.10 Cleveland OH

07.20.10 Cleveland OH

07.21.10 Canandaigua OH

07.23.10 WIndsor ON

07.24.10 Hammond IN

07.25.10 Prior Lake MN

07.28.10 Calgary AB

07.30.10 Spokane WA

07.31.10 Woodinville WA

08.01.10 Eugene OR

08.03.10 Saratoga CA

08.05.10 Rancho Mirage CA

08.06.10 San Diego CA

08.07.10 Los Angeles CA

2010 All-Stars Ringo Starr - Drums, Vocals

Wally Palmar - Guitar, Vocals

Rick Derringer - Guitar, Vocals

Edgar Winter - Keyboards, Sax, Vocals

Gary Wright - Keyboards, Vocals

Richard Page - Bass, Vocals

Gregg Bissonette - Drums, Vocals