Why rock bands keep firing their drummers

It has been a bad couple of weeks for drummers in huge bands. Firstly, on May 16, Foo Fighters drummer Josh Freese announced that he was 'shocked and disappointed' to have been 'let go' by the US rockers for no apparent reason. Then, four days later, Zak Starkey, drummer for The Who, said he'd been kicked out of the band for the second time in a month.
'I was fired two weeks after reinstatement,' wrote a bewildered-sounding Starkey on Instagram, describing the situation as 'mayhem'. And this is from a man whose family has precedent in drummer drama: Starkey's father Ringo Starr walked out on The Beatles in 1968. The difference here, though, is that it was Starr's decision – he was greeted back into the fold a few days later with a studio full of flowers, an eventuality you suspect will elude his skin-smacking son.
The unfortunate truth is that Freese and Starkey are the latest in a long line of drummers who have been unceremoniously axed over the decades. The aforementioned Beatles sacked Pete Best just as the band were taking off; Oasis binned original drummer Tony McCarroll once they went supersonic, while Stan Lynch left Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers after reports of tension in 1994.
Guns N' Roses fired original sticksman Steven Adler in 1990 (and parted ways with their drummer of 19 years Frank Ferrer back in March). Meanwhile, grunge band Nirvana went through six drummers before settling on Dave Grohl, ironically the Foo Fighter-in-chief responsible for Freese-ing out his bandmate. Even mild-mannered Chris Martin sacked Coldplay drummer Will Champion briefly in 1999 (guilt-wracked Martin wrote the ballad Trouble by way of apology).
As a percussionist might say, there's a pattern here. So why are drummers always getting fired? Like a Neil Peart drum solo, it's complicated (the late Rush drummer's kit comprised up to 40 drums). But the answer lies in a mixture of misplaced band hierarchy, an entrenched and unjustified cliché that casts drummers as expendable jokes, the geeky tendencies of the people behind the kits and – frankly – noise.
'The loneliest place in rock' is how my friend Jack, an accomplished drummer, describes sitting behind the kit. 'On a drum stool, hunched with blistered fingers and aching joints. Waiting. Waiting for the guitars and vocals to agree on something that will only work if you lock in…' he says. Jack points out that most bands are formed by singers and guitar players who then look for bass players and drummers. This means that drummers are seen as supplementary rather than integral, and therefore replaceable. The truth, though, is very different, as his 'only work if you lock in' comment suggests.
'The beat will give a song a structure and a base on which to decide if it's worth pursuing further. Put another way, songs are written on an acoustic guitar or piano. It's only when the rhythm section gets beneath it that it starts to take shape. As a result, the band only starts to feel like a band when the drums are there too. Otherwise it's just busking,' Jack explains.
Try telling that to the singer. Drummers are also fall guys because they're the loudest, I'd argue. The sound they make sticks out like a sore thumb and therefore it's the easiest and most obvious element to change, even if someone else is at fault. As Sting and Frank Zappa drummer Vinnie Colaiuta euphemistically put it: 'Anytime you strike the drums, you have to be aware that you're creating a musical event.' For 'musical event' read 'almighty noise'.
Drumming is primal. 'When you approach this instrument for the first time, what comes out of you is simply what you feel,' the Parliament and Funkadelic drummer Dennis Chambers once said. Pick up a guitar for the first time and what you feel are sore fingers. But whack a drum for the first time and what you ­– and your neighbours – feel is elemental expression and thundering power, another likely reason why singers feel threatened.
But the technical 'feel' that a drummer brings to a band can also be a reason for tension. Take Guns N' Roses as an example. Original drummer Adler ­– who was sacked for drug addiction after he tried and failed to play drums on Guns' track Civil War in the studio up to 30 times – had a loose, swinging style that formed a groove with Slash's guitar riffs. He was replaced by Matt Sorum from The Cult (a man whose battered drumstick has sat on my desk for decades, after I caught it at the end of a concert in 1989).
A technically brilliant drummer, Sorum's harder and more disciplined drumming essentially turned Guns N' Roses from a rock 'n' roll band into a heavy metal band, something that contributed to guitarist Izzy Stradlin's decision to leave in 1991. A 'big musical difference' was how Stradlin described the vibe shift.
Recent tour footage suggests Guns N' Roses still have drummer issues. Introducing new drummer Isaac Carpenter recently, singer Axl Rose said: 'We've got a new guy. I'll think of his name in a minute.' Yeah, joking-not-joking. And at a Yokohama concert earlier this month, rookie Carpenter started playing the wrong song, leading to on-stage weirdness. 'Welcome to the bungle,' ran an unfair headline.
But drummers have always been the butt of jokes. Here are two favourites. Q: How many drummers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Five. One to change the lightbulb and four to stand around talking about how Neil Peart would have done it. Or there's this chestnut. Q: What did the drummer say when he landed his first job? A: Do you want fries with that?
Of course, the biggest drummer joke of all appeared in the 1984 Spinal Tap mockumentary. Famously, the spoof metal band lost a succession of drummers: one in 'a bizarre gardening accident' (John 'Stumpy' Pepys); another from choking on vomit (Eric 'Stumpy Joe' Childs); and yet another from spontaneously combusting on stage (Peter 'James' Bond). Expect drummer jokes to continue when the film's sequel Spinal Tap II: The End Continues comes out in September.
Like all jokes, there's a kernel of truth in this. Plenty of famous drummers have died tragically young. The two best-known examples are The Who's Keith Moon and Led Zeppelin's John Bonham, both of whom died aged 32 when their bands were undergoing concerns. Moon died from a prescription drug overdose and Bonham died after a massive drinking session saw him consume an estimated 40 shots of vodka in a 12-hour period.
Both men were large-than-life characters. Wildman Moon was fabled to have driven a Lincoln Continental into a Michigan hotel swimming pool while Bonham ­– known as The Beast ­– had a habit of trashing hotel rooms when he wasn't driving down their corridors on a Harley Davidson. To the 'drummers die young' list you can add Karen Carpenter (who also died aged 32), Rainbow's Cozy Powell (50), and Echo & the Bunnymen's Pete de Freitas (27).
It is entirely possible that Moon and Bonham died before they were fired. I doubt it with Bonham as Zeppelin disbanded after he passed away. But we'll simply never know. In many cases, bad behaviour is the reason behind drummers being axed. Bruce Springsteen's erstwhile drummer Vini 'Mad Dog' Lopez was sacked from the E Street Band in the early 1970s for getting into a fight with the band's road manager Steve Appel. Blink-182's Scott Raynor was kicked out of the US punk outfit for things 'going on' outside of the band that were 'affecting his performances', singer Mark Hoppus told Rolling Stone (some stories blamed drinking). And the late James Kottak was fired in 2016 as drummer of German hard rock band Scorpions two years after his arrest and brief imprisonment for public drunkenness in Dubai.
But here's the rub. Beneath the bluster and the tomfoolery, drummers tend to be sensitive souls who are obsessed with their craft, Moon and Bonham included. Why else would they choose to play the most unwieldy and physically demanding instrument in existence? Unlike peacocking guitarists, you can't stroll down the high street with a drum kit on your back. You've got to commit to drumming and all the humping of gear that comes with it.
Drummers also tend to have interesting hinterlands. Many notable drummers have gone on to have unexpected second careers after they'd quit music, which speaks to a certain eccentricity. Terry Chimes, one-time drummer with The Clash, became a chiropractor. Neal Smith, Alice Cooper's drummer, became an estate agent and Ray Boulter, drummer for Liverpool-based band The Farm, became a hugely successful TV script writer. Stuart Cable, the late Stereophonics drummer, had a chat show on BBC Wales called, ingeniously, Cable TV.
Mainly, though, drumming is a club. There's a rare brotherhood and understanding among drummers. When I interviewed Pete Best in 2018, probably the most famous sacked drummer in the world said that he and Ringo were chums before he was usurped. 'Drummers seem to buddy other drummers. I'd watch him play, he'd watch me play,' Best said.
Simon Kirke, the Bad Company and Free drummer, had a similar tale of drumming camaraderie when I spoke to him last year. The date was 1974 and the location was Chislehurst Caves in Kent where Led Zeppelin were hosting one of the most debauched and Fellini-esque rock 'n' roll parties of all time. Scantily-clad nuns were serving mulled wine, naked women were wrestling in coffins filled with jelly, naked men were wrestling in alcoves and midgets were tumbling from each other's shoulders. And where was Kirke as this decadent carnival unfolded? He was 'huddled in a corner' with Zeppelin's Bonham talking about 'bass drum pedals, skins and sticks'.
And perhaps this is why so many drummers get fired. They just love drumming too much.
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