Bob Henrit
Bob Henrit is a drummer/writer who is best known for his tenure as a member of Argent and The Kinks. In his youth, he was handed a washboard and told that he was the new drummer for a local teen group. This led him to constructing a hand-me-down drumset. It didn't take Bob long to start making a name for himself, as he was performing professionally while still in his grade school years. One of his early bands was called The Roulettes, which featured his childhood buddy Russ Ballard... also from Argent fame. The Roulettes backed the popular British "bad boy" singer Adam Faith. Following the success of the Roulettes, Russ and Bob were a part of Unit 4 + 2 who had a number hit on the English charts called Concrete and Clay. While performing live with Unit 4 + 2 one night, Rod Argent - of the Zombies - was in the audience. He was impressed with the sound and asked him and Russ to join his new project. This would turn out to be the band Argent, that scored two major hits with Hold Your Head Up and God Gave Rock and Roll to You. With Argent, Bob enjoyed numerous world tours and many trips to America. That's when he started considering writing about his adventures. When Argent decided to disband, Bob was asked to join Don McLean for a few tours as well. A similar situation happened to Bob while performing a local gig with his friend Jim Rodford... Ray Davies of the Kinks was in the audience. After the show, Ray asked Bob if he was interested in recording with them. After a few sessions, he was now a member of the Kinks. Bob appears on the Kinks hit Do it Again. He remained with the Kinks to 1996. Today Bob is still performing with Russ Ballard and other friends. He has written a few books on travel, drums and rock & roll. I recently spoke with Bob about his career.
R.V.B. - Hello Bob. Robert von Bernewitz from New York... How are you today?
B.H. - I'm fine thank you. We have grandchildren here today so I'm going to go upstairs for some peace!
R.V.B. - That sounds like a special day, when the grandchildren are around.
B.H. - They come frequently. In the 21st century the grandparents have much more of a hands on approach to grandchildren than perhaps they used to. In my time we would see our grandparents once every other year.
R.V.B. - How many grandchildren do you have?
B.H. - Just two grandchildren but we have three children.
R.V.B. - Very nice. Are any of them musical?
B.H. - We hope so. All of my children are musical. The grandchildren all have general lessons. Hopefully they'll take up music.
R.V.B. - So all of your children are musical?
B.H. - Yes. We're all sort of a part Irish family. Most Irish families can make a tune out of anything. That was certainly our family. My mother could knock a tune out of anything. My eldest son can play any instrument that he puts his mind to.
R.V.B. - Why did you pick the drums and not another instrument?
B.H. - I went over to a friend's house when I was about 10 or 11. He had something hidden behind his back. He said "We're having a skiffle group and you're going to be the washboard player." He produced this washboard from behind his back. That was it... I was a washboard player. It didn't take too long to master it, although frankly I wasn't into zydeco then. It wasn't much like that, it was much more raucous. It wasn't quite as sophisticated as zydeco. Eventually I knew how to make the necessary sound and the next step was to become a drummer. I've often wondered what would of happened if he produced a guitar from behind his back and said "You're the guitarist."
R.V.B. - You would of had a whole different career path.
B.H. - Probably. I would have been further towards the front of the stage. And I'd have my own monitor to put my foot on.
R.V.B. - Hahaha. And you'd be in more pictures.
B.H. - Hahaha... probably.
R.V.B. - What kind of drum kit did you get at first?
B.H. - I had a Bitsa. Bits of this and bits of that. That's what I started with. It probably cost about £5. I ended up with one where all the pieces weren't made by the same manufacturer. It wasn't exactly the biggest drum kit you've ever seen either. It had a high hat... bass drum... snare drum and that was it. I couldn't play Peggy Sue for ages and ages. I didn't have a tom tom to play it on.
R.V.B. - I guess you started with snare drum rudiments?
B.H. - I tried to go for lessons for rock and roll drumming but nobody could do it. There wasn't anybody that was teaching that stuff. It was very frowned upon on the mid '50s. You could learn how to be a dance band drummer which was two on the floor mostly... sometimes four on the floor. That was everything I didn't want to do. I wanted to play rock and roll... the stuff that I'd heard.
R.V.B. - Where did you get exposed to this music... on the radio?
B.H. - We had one radio station AFN... American Forces Network. Some of it was on there but most of the music on there seemed to be jazz. Every now and again they would play some rock and roll. Other than that, we had a small radio station in Luxembourg called Radio Luxembourg. The problem was that it was such a small transmitter that the signal came and went. You'd be listening to a record and then the sound would drop out. A bit later on it would come back. So we'd learn our music in a very strange way.
R.V.B. - Did you hook up with some neighborhood buddies and form a rock band?
B.H. - We started out with skiffle. It was a style of music inspired by Lonnie Donegan. Everybody that you know including the Beatles and the Stones started in a skiffle group. We were calling them bands but we weren't bands. A band was a dance band playing strict tempos for dancing. That was the last thing we wanted to be doing. We were groups. We started out murdering a lot of unsuspecting songs and eventually we got better. We started listening to rock and roll songs and it went from there.
R.V.B. - I guess you listened to some of the black artists from America.
B.H. - Having played with a lot of Americans now, I know that in the UK we had a broader outlook on music than the guys in America had. My contemporaries in America didn't have the benefit of what we had to listen to. The fat end of a trumpet was America and the thin end was in Britain, so we heard everything. We knew about stuff that a lot of people didn't. Race music... we didn't recognize that title. Even if we had, we liked what we were hearing very much. I remember when we went to America in 1970, I realized that Conway Twitty wasn't a rock and roll singer. People in America look at me aghast when I tell them that. Equally, we would play Doris Day songs because we liked them. We would play those sort of tunes because they were what we heard on the radio on the BBC. It was on the light program. They called it that for a reason. It wasn't at all heavy... It was novelty music. They would have tunes like I Discovered a (bum bum bum) right before my eyes. (The Thing Song) Now that's ridiculous but that's what music was when we were growing into music. Then we got going and started listening to what was happening in America.
R.V.B. - What was your first professional gig and how did it go?
B.H. - We were doing lot's and lot's of gigs while we were still at school. You couldn't call them professional gigs but with that said, we were getting paid for them. We'd be backing rock and roll singers. The guys who were making it in Britain at the time. We'd back them and do our own shows too. The promoter saved a bit of money because he only had to pay us once. We were playing with lots on embryonic British rock and roll stars. Professionalism didn't come along until 1962. When I joined up with Adam Faith. He was opposite to Cliff Richard. Cliff Richard was wholesome and Adam Faith wasn't quite so wholesome. I liked that. He was much more James Dean. Your parents wouldn't like Adam Faith but they would like Cliff Richard.
R.V.B. - A little roughness drew the teenagers in.
B.H. - People liked wholesome guys like Fabian and Pat Boone. They didn't really rock but that style was popular in those days. It really wasn't until what we started hearing music from Chicago and New Orleans, we began to realize what was going on.
R.V.B. - I think America was sick of clean cut teen idols also. A change had to happen.
B.H. - That's why we got away with it. We listened to what was going on musically in America and we copied it. Most of us didn't have a TV and even if we did have one, we wouldn't see rock and roll music on it. We didn't get to see how to play it. We played what we thought we heard as we went, and afterwards discovered we were wrong. We exported it back to you guys and everybody in America loved it because of the spirit... because the guys playing it had funny haircuts and funny accents.
R.V.B. - The British invasion was an amazing phenomenon. There were so many good groups and so much great music being made. What was in the air over there?
B.H. - I didn't get to go to America until the late '60s so I missed the results of the British invasion on American soil. I didn't get to see it but I didn't need to see it because I knew what was going on. I knew what we were producing and sending back. Some of it was completely wrong. For example Buddy Holly and the Crickets did Peggy Sue. We all bashed away at it and it wasn't until I played with The Crickets in 1962, that I realized I'd been doing it wrong for five or six years. It was a paradiddle and I didn't realize that. It wasn't just me, to be honest none of us knew Jerry Allison was just a paradiddle.
R.V.B. - You started with Russ Ballard at an early age. You guys were buddies?
B.H. - Yeah. We started at around 12 or 13 years old. We're still big friends. I spoke to him today. It's been 57 years since we were in a band called The Roulettes. It was our first proper professional band. We were backing Adam Faith. We're celebrating the occasion and doing a gig with everybody who can still play... or stand... Hahaha. It will be great fun. Certainly Russ and I are of the opinion that up and down the country, people should be doing this. They should be doing it in Liverpool specifically.,, they should be doing it in Birmingham... they should be doing it in London. Without being morbid... you can look around and one of you will be gone. Now this has been coming very close to us.
R.V.B. - You have to take advantage of the situation of the fact that you can still play. It's a privilege to play and that your buddies still want to do it.
B.H. - Absolutely. We had a rehearsal last Wednesday. You would think that after 57 years we wouldn't have to rehearse.
R.V.B. - You have to shake out the cobwebs. Haha.
B.H. - Of course certainly in my case, there has been an awful amount of songs I've had to learn during the past 50 odd years. I played with Don Mclean. The thing about him was he would just put in whatever song he wanted to play without even telling me. He wouldn't say "We're going to put in Baby I Don't Care." He would just start it. He would trust me to know that it was Baby I Don't Care and I would adjust my rhythm accordingly. Ray Davies is very good at that too. It's called creative tension.
R.V.B. - So you paid some dues with Adam Faith. I know you were busy playing your own music but did you get to see the Beatles or other popular bands?
B.H. - It's interesting... we were actually going before the Beatles and they would come to Adam Faith shows. The shoe was on the other foot. We knew all about them. The reason I knew about them is because we were playing for a week in Liverpool and I went into a famous music shop called Hessys'. I was curious to find out who was making it in Liverpool. The guy behind the counter said there's a band called The Beatles. I though "That's a strange name. What are they like?" He said "We don't see much of them here." They play a lot in Germany... in Hamburg." So time went by and we did a gig in Liverpool and they were in the audience... I was told. From there, we began to bump shoulders. I found myself getting a new pair of stage boots. I went to a shop in London called Anello's and sitting next to me were these four guys with Liverpool accents. I'd never met them before but one sitting right next to me was very pleasant. The other three seemed to be having something of an argument. I said to the quieter one next to me "Are you from Liverpool?" He said "Yes." I said "Are you a band?' He said "Oh yeah... of course." I said "What are you called?' He said "The Beatles." He said it rather sheepishly, like you do before you've actually made it. I said "I've heard of you." He said "Really." I told him I was in Liverpool a couple of weeks earlier and they told me about you in Hessys'. That was the first time I met Paul McCartney. I ended up making an album with Ringo, which Russell Ballard produced. I went up to Copenhagen to make On The Rebound. Just prior to Argent I was in a band called Unit 4 + 2. We had a hit record called Concrete and Clay. We did the record without any idea what was going to happen. The thing about being a session player is you don't have any idea whether the record is going to be successful or not. They're good fun and of course you enjoy doing it. I had just learned the bossa nova. I thought that that would fit in really well so I played it and it did. I think the record sold two million. We got £5, 15 shillings and 6 pence. Which in today's economic climate would equate to $6.
R.V.B. - Hahaha.
B.H. - It wasn't just us that it happened to. It happened to Hal Blaine... it happened to a lot of studio musicians. You got paid studio rates. That would be it unless you could persuade them to give you double scale. We didn't know anything about scales of payment in those days. We knew we were making records and that was great.
R.V.B. - How did you get the Argent gig?
B.H. - Good question. Russell and I were in Unit 4 + 2 and we were somewhere in Essex. I looked out in the audience and thought "That looks like Rod Argent out there... and that's Chris White with him." It turned out that it was Rod and Chris. Rod wanted to stop being the Zombies and expand the musical envelope a bit. I wanted to push the envelope too to say the least. He came to see us and liked what we did. We then went to listen to the songs. We were absolutely entranced by them. The next thing we knew, we were in Argent... and in Germany playing nine 45 minute spots a night.
R.V.B. - That's a lot of playing.
B.H. - That's an awful lot of playing but that's the way to do it. If you want to have a crash course in progressive music, that's the place to do it. We discovered that what we thought was going on was that the audience were there for the music. It wasn't true at all. There were all these women who were lined up along the bar. They were women on negotiable affection. All the guys were there to see them. They didn't care what we were doing. Without being over the top, there's several different places you put 2 and 4, if you're playing an offbeat. Those places are very important and that's where all the nuances come from.
R.V.B. - You gained a lot of experience playing all that time.
B.H. - Yeah, but we only had three sets. We had three 45 minute sets so we did them three times. It was great fun but it meant that there were three drum solo's every night.
R.V.B. - Hahaha
B.H. - So that was a lot of drum solos.
R.V.B. - You had to have been in good shape.
B.H. - We never complained... it was really great fun.
R.V.B. - When did you make your first album?
B.H. - Other than the Roulettes album and another with Adam Faith which came out around 1964, the first Argent album was recorded in 1969 and coincided with a worldwide convention, that CBS used to do. The year that we were beginning, the worldwide convention was in London. CBS would take over the city and bring all of their people. It was packed with people who were looking for new things... new artists... new music... new songs... the whole bang shoot. They turned up and we played in a showcase type gig, and the next thing we knew, we were in America, seeing all these people who had already seen us in London. These guys were still buzzing from having been in London. This wasn't the swinging '60s, it was close enough for jazz. They all went home and started telling everybody what a great time they had in London and they'd seen this band called Argent. You must hear their record. The job for promotion of the record was done by just turning up in London.
R.V.B. - How did you enjoy your first trip to America?
B.H. - I remember looking out the window of the plane, looking at the statue of liberty, and I actually said to myself "I've made it!" I'd been trying to get there for years. I was supposed to do a tour of universities with Spencer Davis. That was cancelled just before we were about to leave. There were a few times that I should have gone but I didn't. Then all of a sudden there I was. Once I had been there once, it had been contagious. I couldn't stop myself going... really. Our first Argent tour of America was 51 planes in 51 days. The 51st plane took us home. That was an awful lot of work but we immediately assumed this what it's gonna be like for the rest of our days. More or less it was, except there weren't quite as many planes going everywhere, after a while.
R.V.B. - Did you get teamed up with other groups on this tour?
B.H. - Yes. I got to see a lot of drummers. They were jazz players. How it worked with CBS is, they put all their bands together and put them out on the road. We worked with Buddy Miles, with The Buddy Miles Express. He then became my favorite drummer. He still remains my favorite drummer because of the way he played. We just kept seeing more and more great players. It just seemed very natural to see all these wonderful stars.
R.V.B. - Did you find yourself concentrating of watching the drummers?
B.H. - I tried not to do that. It's not just about drums. We all know a great drummer will make a band better. I was looking at the whole thing. There were some bands that I didn't get to tell you the truth. The Grateful Dead I didn't really understand. We did gigs with them and I thought "I sort of get it but they didn't swing like I wanted them to swing." We toured with Zappa and that was an education in itself. We were seeing something that we really hadn't expected to see. Ruth Underwood was in the band at the time. It was just great fun. We seemed to be joining other artists' tours and seeing other people. It was a great time and fortunately people liked us.
R.V.B. - In that time period, Argent was all over the radio airwaves.
B.H. - Oddly enough, we supported the Kinks in Cincinnati. We were number one and they weren't and we were supporting them It was very strange and weird experience. Of course we knew the Kinks because they lived down the road from me here. We would bump into each other on TV programs or motorway service stations. I would have never thought that someday I would join them. It was something that never crossed my mind.
R.V.B. - Did that happen after the end of Argent?
B.H. - Not exactly... no. I played with a guy called Ian Matthews. He was in Southern Comfort. From nowhere, having been a folk artist, he was playing garage music. It was aggressive and as close to punk as you could get without wearing the clothes. We had great fun. We did lot's of touring and had lots of silliness. Musically, it was pushing the envelope. That came after Argent. Then I got a phone call from Don Mclean. He said "Would I like to tour with him?" I thought "Am I too heavy for Don Mclean?" He said "I'm doing it with an orchestra." It turns out that he rejuvenated himself with "Crying." I thought "I'm going to chuck myself into the deep end and see how this goes. My reading was OK at best.
I did the first rehearsal and they dished out the parts. It was with the orchestra and I realized the parts weren't being written by a guy who wasn't pedantic and he would write "fill"... as in fill in there. Rather than how the fill should be. He would leave what the fill should be up to me. I did the tour of Britain with him. Then he said "Would you like to come to America?" I said "OK.... when is it?" He said "Very shortly." I wondered if there was going to be an orchestra. He said "No... it's going to be me, you , Garth Hudson and Bob Metzger. We set off around America on a silver eagle. It was fascinating. I spent most of my time looking out of the windows. This was a time where I'd be looking out the back window and there'd be a horizon. I'd look out the front window and there'd be another horizon. The side windows would have a horizon too... there was nothing there. I knew there was nothing there but it didn't stop me looking. That was when I thought of writing. I had been writing for Melody Maker and various other publications, but I had never considered writing a book at that moment so I started writing travel logs... if you like. I've got two travel logs ready to come out. What I have to do to get them out is to stop bloody well traveling. There's one called "On the Road Again." It's about Concorde... it's about Silver Eagle... all of that stuff. It's about all the things that I've seen. That's with bands... The Kinks, Argent and of course Don Mclean. There's also one about traveling the world with my wife. That's called "Have you come Far?" I get up in the morning and I sit at the computer and I write.
R.V.B. - I'm looking forward to reading that.
B.H. - There's also an autobiography out.
You went from playing a fairly long epic song like Hold Your Head Up to another fairly long epic song like American Pie. Do you like long songs?
B.H. - They were long... you're absolutely right. It taught me a thing or two. Dreidel is actually a long song too. If you just want to feel the music and not necessarily not be concerned where you are, what you do write the key words on your drum parts. So you don't have to write anything else... you'll know where you are. I'm surprised nobody else does that. It's got me through a lot of potentially difficult times.
R.V.B. - It's nice to have the flexibility to be able to switch from a progressive rock band like Argent to a more folk style like Don Mclean.
B.H. - It's all drumming to me. It's the same nuts and bolts. The difference between jazz and rock and roll is the way the nuts and bolts are arranged. Of course jazz is looser and different. The thing about rock and roll is I like the rigidity of it. It's something that I want to do. It's just in me. There's lots of other ways of playing 8 beats on the high hat. The one I favor is a much more pushy way of doing it. It certainly looks the same but it doesn't work in the same way.
R.V.B. - Throughout your career, Who were some other acts that you were on the same bill with?
B.H. - Redbone, Santana, Mahavishnu, Kiss, Weather Report, Return to forever, Steppenwolf, Jeff Beck, Beach Boys, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, QuickSilver Messenger Service, The Who, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Booker T and The MGs, Chicago, Frank Zappa, Queen. Oh and everybody who was everybody who played at the inaugural concert for the Rock and roll Hall of Fame at Browns stadium in Cleveland.
R.V.B. - In your repertoire, people like songs. Sometimes they like the singer and sometimes they like the drummer. What songs that you have recorded on do you personally like from a drum standpoint?
B.H. - Certainly, Concrete and Clay. As I said, that was a bossa nova. I learned the bossa nova... of course I had heard Brazilian music. I was looking in Downbeat magazine and it had a part for a Jobim tune. It showed you were all the beats came and you had to work it out for yourself. I learned from that. I managed to play that in Concrete and Clay. I was very pleased. I thought "God, that really, really works." There were a lot of things from Argent that I was very pleased with. One was called Sweet Mary. It was banned in America. Coming from the UK we couldn't work out why? The powers that be thought it meant sweet Marijuana. We had no bloody idea. It was a shuffle and it sounded great. When we did Argent gig, we always did Sweet Mary. Hold Your Head Up of course was a tour de force... if you'd like. That was our thing. I actually thought I had stolen the drum pattern. After looking through a great many books and a lot of stuff on the internet, what I was playing, was not an existing rhythm. I thought it might be a samba but it's not. I'm pleased with that because it does seem that I invented it. There were lots of Kinks songs where I was given my head that were great fun to play.
R.V.B. - You were friends with the Kinks and then you got the call. Something similar happened where they saw you in a club playing?
B.H. - I had a band with Jim Rodford. It was called GB Blues Company and it was a 10 piece band. A proper rhythm and blues band. We played great stuff. We did horn versions of songs like Purple Haze. Jim was in the Kinks at the time and I was with Don Mclean. There were times where Jim and I couldn't both be there but we managed. We were playing together in North London and I looked out into the audience and I Thought "That looks like Ray Davies. If it is, I'll talk to him later on." We got on with playing this interesting stuff and there was a lot to play. Afterwards Ray said "Do you want to play on our record?" I said "What about Mick?" I was friends with Mick. He said "Mick's not playing on this one." I said "If it's OK with Mick, I'll do it." I did about three weeks of recording with them. After it was over, the phone rang and I said "Ray, do you still need me for the recording? I've been offered something else." He said "You can't do anything else... you're in the Kinks now." So there I was in the Kinks. He said "Were going to need to rehearse next week because were off the America." The whole thing just escalated. It sounds like magic and I guess it was.
R.V.B. - Was there any difference in rules and regulations? I know the Kinks had a reputation that they liked to party.
B.H. - When I joined, Jim was in the band, and Ray was trying to push the envelope a bit. They were doing stadium rock and there might be 50,000 people in the audience. It couldn't be sloppy. To be honest the original Kinks were quite sloppy and there was a reason for that. I'm sure I don't need to go into it. They liked to drink. When I joined there wasn't the opportunity... well there was but I didn't want to let myself down. Very, very often, we'd go into a different song from the one I was expecting. Equally when You're within that song, you might be arranged differently. When I went to the first rehearsal at Konk Studios, I wrote down all the endings and came back the next day and we did all the same songs again with different endings. I said "Ray... we didn't do this ending yesterday." He said "No. No... we don't always do the same endings." I realized that this is not a drunken man's gig. That was okay by me. We started stadium rock. There was nothing quaint about the Kinks. We actually made an album towards the very end of our career where everybody had to have the minimum of equipment. I only had a small drum kit. Jim had a small bass... nothing else. The keyboard player maybe had an organ and a piano, and everybody else had one guitar. When we started playing all these songs, it sounded far more like the original Kinks than I've ever heard. Because of how we were equipped, we were making it sound far more like the original Kinks. Something I haven't told you was that I got a phone call in 1964 to do a recording session. At the time we were doing a week in variety, which was like vaudeville mixed with rock and roll... in a theatre in Wimbledon. I got a phone call from an American voice. He didn't tell me who it was and I didn't ask... really. I said to Adam Faith "I have a session on Friday. I don't know who it is with but I'll see you at the theater." He said "You can't do that, you might be late." So I didn't do the session and it turned out to be You Really Got Me. I was pretty close to playing on You Really Got Me.
R.V.B. - Well at least you still have a nice catalog of songs.
B.H. - The Kinks were very interesting to play with. In the studio, things changed very quickly. Then they changed back again. Ray was forever changing things, to make them better.
R.V.B. - You were on the hit "Do It Again" right?
B.H. - That was one of my first songs.
R.V.B. - Great song. When you did the tour with the Kinks, you were doing mostly stadiums. Was it different in any way with the lack of intimacy?
B.H. - It wasn't a new thing for me. With Argent we played for an audience of 500,000 in Finland. It was at The Festival of the Rising Sun. It never got dark. You didn't need any lights. Everywhere you looked there were people.
R.V.B. - Did you ever tour Japan?
B.H. - Yes and I was there three years ago with Russ Ballard. We played a few gigs and had a lovely time. Before that I was there a lot of times with the Kinks.
How did you enjoy performing in Japan?
B.H. - I enjoy playing where ever it is. After we did the first American tour of 51 planes in 51 days, I was standing at home in my garden with jet lag... I looked up and saw a plane going over and thought "I wonder where that's going? I wish I could be on that". I had that wanderlust. If you don't have wanderlust than you're probably in the wrong business as a musician. That can break bands up.
R.V.B. - I can understand that. Do you have any interesting stories from the road? Maybe when something went wrong or unexpected?
B.H. - Lots of them... how long do you have? (Hahaha) Argent played a gig in Toronto, in an open air stadium. The headliner didn't turn up, so we became the new headliner. It was the first or second stop of our American tour. On this tour we didn't waste money by taking our own gear across the Atlantic. So we all had this rented gear. Rod had a rented keyboard that immediately went wrong. It couldn't be kept in tune. While they worked on it I did a drum solo. Then they got it going and we started playing again. After two or three songs it went wrong again... so I did another drum solo. We got started again and then it was time for the proper drum solo. I did three drum solos in an hour. Another story... at the end of every gig, Russ would be waving the guitar around his head. When I would close the door (building a shed at the end of a song) Russ would give the signal, I would close the door and the lights would go out... Russ would throw the guitar up in the air. So it went up in the air and the light didn't come back on again. That meant there was a guitar up in the air and nobody could see it. It came down on Russell's nose. The Variety headlines said "Ballard bangs beak."
R.V.B. - Hahaha
B.H. - These things happen to you when you're in a band. That's what makes things interesting. Those sorts of things are not going to happen to you in a bank. Not that I've ever worked in a bank.
R.V.B. - Anything goes in rock and roll.
B.H. - We were on the stage at the Fillmore in New York and there was a bomb scare. Everybody left the theater. They were all clustered outside... including us. When the bomb scare was over and everyone was allowed back in... 3,000 people had left and 4,000 came back in. (Hahaha) This was before mobile phones. How on earth they told their pals to come along, I'll never know. We were there for seven days and the reception just got better and Better.
R.V.B. - You operated a drum store at one time?
B.H. - I don't have it anymore. It was on Wardour Street. It was similar to the music shops that were on 48th street. I liked Frank Ippolito's store called Professional Percussion. I really liked American drum shops. There was a different atmosphere. I wanted that same atmosphere. I had great fun with the store for several years... until punk music came along. Punks didn't want to buy anything. They were getting the same money from the record companies as everybody but they weren't spending it on gear. They would come in and ask for second hand sticks and used drum heads. The writing was on the wall and it was a great shame. While it lasted, it was the best place to be in London. I had a hand in the development of Traps drums, Arbiter AT drums, a drum computer from Alan and Heath called Impulse One and Simmons drums.
R.V.B. - Do you have any drummer friends that you keep in touch with?
B.H. - Moony was definitely one of them. He would come and knock on my door at 3 O'clock in the morning. We lived very close to one another. He would be coming back from a club drunk and knock on my door and say "Let's have a cup of tea." I'd make him a bloody cup of tea. Moony was a great friend. Bobby Graham was a great friend. He did play on You Really Got Me. Bobby Elliott who was in the Hollies was a big friend. However we recorded a drum instrumental together with a b side called "Why won't they let us drummers sing".
Unfortunately they're not all around still which is a great shame.
R.V.B. - You have to take care of yourself.
B.H. - Yes you do. At times it seems that that term doesn't apply to musicians. We did 51 long-haul planes in 51 days. An air crew today is not allowed to do any more that two. Jim Rodford died last year. There's no doubt about that he shortened his career by wanting to be on the road. The Zombies are still out on the road.
R.V.B. - What are you proud about in your place in music?
B.H. - I'd like to think I'd played my part in moving Drums, Drummers and Drumming forward:. Playing them, Recording them, Retailing them, Inventing them, Marketing them, and Writing about them. (This last example is something I was the very first to do in the early sixties.) Of course everybody wants admiration. I'd like to think that what I had done has been admirable. I also like to think that what I've done with writing... I had been writing for Melody Maker for many years and I've kept that going. I'm not writing for any magazines anymore because there's very few of them left. I'm writing for a drummers website. I'd like people to think "This guy knows what he's talking about." People come up to me and say "How do you make it in music?" The first thing is be a nice guy. There are very few people who have made it that aren't nice people. They get kicked out. It's also like somebody that's habitually late for gigs or sessions, eventually, nobody will call them anymore because it's too difficult to get these people into shape.
R.V.B. - You have your gig coming up. Are you recording anything new these days?
B.H. - Russ has got an album coming out. I played on it. I haven't any of it yet. We're going to Portugal to do a gig or two in June. There's talk of another tour for the late summer. Most tours in the 21st century are booked two or three years in advance. We're already looking at 2020 for goodness sake.
R.V.B. - Good for you. I'm glad you're keeping busy. Congratulations on your career. You've made quite a mark with being in two major bands. Another band that you were in was Phoenix.
B.H. - That was the offshoot of Argent, a three piece power trio. With just three pieces you have great freedom to do anything you'd like... as long as you keep coming back to the downbeat from time to time. Phoenix was a really fun gig where I actually got to write songs for a change. We put out a couple of albums although when we played live, people were desperate to hear the Argent songs: God gave Rock and Roll to you , Hold your head up and so on.
R.V.B. - There's a lot of space to fill in, in a three piece.
B.H. - Yeah, but only where it needs to be filled. I just learned something from a drummer...Don Lamond. The most important thing in drumming is taste. You can learn it but more or less, either you've got it or you haven't got it. It's the taste that makes you different.
R.V.B. - Don't overplay.
B.H. - We hear kids who overplay. That's fine... I'm sure we all overplayed at one time. But eventually we learned that that's not what we should be doing. There's a lot of that going on. If you can get away with it, fine! With Argent we were slightly different because we were progressive and overplaying worked. Anything that's got properly formed songs in it though... they don't want you to step on the cracks and put fills all over it. I did a clinic once in France and everybody and his dog had been on it all day... playing and showing you how clever they were. Steve Ferrone got up and said "I've heard all this tonight. I just want to show you how I make my living." He went Boom Pa, Boom Boom Pa and the crowd cheered. Music is predicated on feel. If you don't put the beats in the right place, then you're not a great drummer.
R.V.B. - What do you think about Ringo Starr's drumming?
B.H. - He was a perfect drummer for the Beatles. I've read so much stuff on him. The reason that some of us couldn't play what he was playing was because he was a left handed player sitting right handed. His lead hand was his left hand. Most of us didn't suspect that. That nonsense about the subject Lennon had supposedly said when he was asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world, and he said "He's not even the best drummer in the Beatles"... it's not true. A comedian called Jasper Carrot actually said it for fun.
There are a lot of British drummers that made the music what it was because of their technique, or lack of it. You can't play Rolling Stones music unless you play it like Charlie. Equally, you have to play the Who's music like Moonie. Zack does it very, very well but they had some people who didn't quite get it. They didn't understand the whole mayhem of it. Mitch played with Hendrix it the way he wanted to play it and it worked. Bless Mitch but I thought Buddy Miles was better with the Band of Gypsy's. It was more rooted and more rock and roll.
R.V.B. - Mitch definitely had a jazzy kind of style.
B.H. - It worked for a while but I think they were looking for something more rooted, not necessarily something better, just different.
R.V.B. - It certainly was different. Did you ever get to see Hendrix?
B.H. - I did, and had I known that he was looking for a drummer, I would of gone along. They had auditions but I didn't hear about them. I know lots of people who did go. I heard it was a tossup between Ansley Dunbar and Mitch. I saw him in town here and we did lots of TV shows together. There was a time where there was a lot of TV shows that wanted to play live music. With Argent, we would find ourselves on these programs. I've seen a lot of the Who. We actually supported them... it was an interesting time. Moonie offered me a highly collectable Gretsch snare drum. I was too embarrassed to take it. he also offered me my own bottle of Remy Martin. I didn't take that either.
R.V.B. - I'm sure you've got a lot of stories.
B.H. - I do. Most of the ones I can remember are in in my books. I'm coming out soon with a book about drum companies in Britain... since the '30s and '40s. My auto biography is "Banging On." I did another book about Hayman drums and there's another about Simmons electronic drums. So far it's the only book written on the subject. I like to write these books because I was priveleged to be around at a time when things were really happening in the drum world. I feel it's important to share the knowledge before it gets lost.
R.V.B. - Thank you very much for taking this time with me. I appreciate it.
B.H. - You're very welcome.
Interview conducted by Robert von Bernewitz
This interview may not be reproduced in any part or form without permission from this site.
Over 10,000 records, CD's, Cassette tapes, 8 track tapes. Click here to see Musicguy247 Records, CD's, Tapes and Publications on Amazon
For collectable vintage music tee shirts click Collectable tee shirt tab on the right column.
More Records, CD's and tapes on Discogs under Bertberner. Click here to view products Musicguy247/Bertberner Records, Cd’s, Tapes on Discogs.
For more information on this site contact Robvonb247(at)gmail(dot)com
Comments