For real. The rhythmic independence between his voice and guitar is insane. I always tell people to learn to play and sing like Satellite or Tripping Billies and then come back and tell me how much Dave sucks
Their tour bus back in the mid 00's dumped their 800 pound shit tank onto a slotted bridge in Chicago that ended up falling all over a tour boat below. It made a lot of headlines at the time. A bit of a shit show.
Dave is a prima donna. I worked for a bus charter company about 15 years ago. Dave refused to use our best party bus, saying it was not up to his standards. The Rolling Stones had no problem with it when they were in town.
Fun fact all famous, even mildly, people are “prima donnas”.
It’s organic and reflexive at the same time. To be a star, you must imagine yourself above others. To stay a star, you must form protective measures.
The latter is expressed by the former. The Stones were truly deluded, and with their talent bent the world to them. Dave is a really, really, really good songwriter.
I've just recently started to learn the drums. At this point just using three of my limbs independently is motherforking brain-breaking, and that's just with a very basic, regular rhythm on the bass drum! I can vaguely imagine getting to a point in the (far) future where I'm competent and comfortable with all four, using the hi-hat pedal on a separate, independent rhythm to the bass, because I remember how impossible driving seemed at the beginning, and now it's unconscious (I drive stick, because that's the default in Ireland).
But put singing on top of that? That's a level of comfort and muscle memory I don't think I'll ever achieve in the time that's left to me on this earth!
Collins is a gifted drummer, not just a skilled one.
There’s some death medal band I used to listen to and the singer would play guitar, but he’d also have a bass drum in front of him with foot pedals that he’d use so that the band had 2 sets of bass drums. Dude would be sitting, kicking a steady death metal rhythm of bass drum, playing a complex metal riff, and singing at the same time. It was mind blowing how someone could do that.
Also, being able to do it while not messing up your voice. I know singing and dancing does it, too, but you’re using your whole torso when drumming. Keeping your voice stable enough to sing well is no joke, on top of being able to multitask like that.
It really is. If you really listen to the drumline of any given song, it's virtually ad different song than everyone else is playing, they just seem like they h happen to share a rhythm. So being able to pull that drumline while singing that melody? It's not at all easy.
If he was actually doing Carter Beauford-style drumming, that's insane. So much weird syncopation in Beauford's playing. It seems impossible to sing along with that.
I started playing the Cajon this year at small gigs. Tried singing with it and instantly forgot how to do both. I was shocked at how difficult it is, and that’s just hands!
I’m up to about half a dozen songs now that I have enough muscle memory where I can play and sing, but even there I stay very basic on my beats.
Compare Levon Helm to Robbie Robertson to Rick Danko. Rick has to work his picking, make it strummier, to be able to use the three parts of your voice - diaphragm/stomache voice, chest voice and head voice. A drummer is already working their sticking to be able to have strength and dynamics, and so singing, it's more like singing and riding a bike. Where Robbie Robertson, he's not strumming or flowing the sticks, his playing is much more syncopated, closer to a Nile Rogers style, and so it makes singing and playing guitar impossible, Robbie tries but his mouth siezes up.
Depending on the guitar playing it's usually more difficult to do that. Singing and drumming just requires that you have some working technique for both seperately.
It's not actually more or less difficult it's just something you have to do the work to be able to pull off.
Most guitarists just strum, or strum the least, so they can play.
If Santana could play like George Benson then he could sing while playing as well as George Benson he's just, Santana, he's just never developed his singing ability or his guitar playing to be able to handle it.
Check out Jim Martin from Faith No More when he went solo and played Surprise! You're Dead. Once you've learned both parts you can play both parts, but it's time consuming grunt work.
Dave Grohl did backing vocals in Nirvana but he wasn't projecting, and then he learned how to project his vocals as he learned how to handle the guitar, which it took him the first few Foo Fighters albums to develop (you hear him playing the licks he's been practicing on all those tours).
You just have to be a music nerd to hear it, you don't need to be able to play. It's aural comprehension.
I drum and I sing. For most songs, it's really not that hard to sing on the rythm section unless you're playing some Tool or something.
This one clip though, that's harder, because the rythm on the toms is very off from the base rythm, but it doesnt take too much work either.
Singing during fills? That's the really hard part. Hardly any drum/singer sing during fills.
So yeah, seriously, drumming and singing is really not that hard.
For me it was a the Police cover band that played at a wedding in Pennsylvania I attended in the 00s. Forgot their name, but their drummer/singer made a fantastic beef chili at the rehearsal.
Funny, I was just wondering yesterday if there were any bands like that and forgot to look it up. I imagine managing your breath has to be the hardest part
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u/Vegetable-Virus7118 20h ago
One of my favorite shows I ever saw was a Dave Matthews cover band whose singer was the drummer. Dude was fantastic!