A breakdown of drummers
“I CAN do anything I put my mind to,” said the boy from Stoke-on-Trent. “I can even clog-dance.” His voice was belligerent with nervousness. He was told that clog-dancing was not essential; all that was needed was a bit of drumming and some singing. “We’ll give you you a Tamla top,” said a guitarist, “and you follow.” The boy looked up at the chandelier in the Edwardian room in Mayfair, wondered loudly why he come 160 miles to London to play Tamla Motown, and began drumming. When he had finished he knew he had lost; he left, his wounds soothed, by bandaging expressions of good luck.
“I didn’t like him,” said Olivia Newton-John, a 20-year-old blonde from Australis. “We’ve had no drummer with personality yet.” Nerves,” said Ben Thomas, an American with looks cut so clean, they dazzle. Vic Cooper, the Devon lad in the corner, looked wise and turned down the corners of his mouth in disapproval of the last audition. The Big Time had beckoned for a moment for the boy from Stoke-on-Trent; there was to be no embrace.
It beckoned this week for more than 60 drummer-vocalists, being auditioned to replace the missing musician of a new pop supergroup, Toomorrow, which opens in a million-pound science-fiction musical of the same name on August 27. The three who sat in judgment on the young hopefuls are already three quarters of the group. Missing now, is coloured drummer Karl Chambers, who has gone back to Philadelphia to do “my own thing.” The group is masterminded by film producer Harry Saltzman, whose previous musical knowledge was in the playing of box office bells for his James Bond films. “I think Karl hated the idea that we were sort of manufactured,” said Ben Thomas, who sings and plays guitar. Although Karl is in the film he has to be replaced for the already-lined-up TV appearances, the stage shows, possibly another film.
Chosen few
An advertisement was put in the “New Musical Express” and the “Melody Maker.” Many, this week, were called to the house in Mayfair. Few were chosen for the short list.
To keep a Saltzman-focused eye on the auditions was film executive Derek Coyte, whose manner is as urgent as a landslide, but who does have an open mind for the humour of the situation. “My wife was rung up last night,” he said, “by a drummer who wanted a testing but confessed that, foolishly, he had had his hair cut. My wife’s well-schooled in this business. If they really want you,” she told him, they’ll put you in a wig.”
The forcefulness of some of the drummers letters (“If you’re looking for a star, look no further, contact me”) was betrayed by their actual appearance for the audition. As blatant as a paster their clothes; their dialogue flip and uncaring. But fingers trembled on the drumsticks. When they were not concentrating, their lips quivered.
“I can’t be trapped into saying how much they’ll earn if they succeed,” said Mr Coyte. “But there is a chance of international stardom.” The victims willingly allowed themselves to be tied to such stakes.
One artist from “Vogue” magazine was told, sadly, he was no good after three minutes of playing: One professional from Blackpool gave a full 20-minute workout, but “he’s a funny shape isn’t he? He’s so long in the body,” said Olivia, afterwards. One girl drummer admitted to sighs all round that her only previous experience of pop was playing in “The Sound of Music” at the Town Hall, Kuala Lumpur.
Problems
“The difficulty,” said Vic Cooper, who was once a pianist with singer Tom Jones, “is getting a drummer who is also a singer. They don’t usually connect with the rest of the group. We don’t need a great drummer, but he has to complement the rest of us. I’m a Tommy Steele sort of person. Olivia is our Hayley Mills; Ben Thomas is the Robert Redford type. Karl fitted in so well with us but he had problems.” ..
Ben Thomas agreed that Karl Chambers had had problems. “But he was irresponsible to leave. We needed him at this time.” The three of them agreed that the drummer they picked did not have to be coloured. “The worst,” said Vie, “was a guy from New York. They say coloured people have natural rhythm. He was a flop.”
The day throbbed away. In the room the drummers come and go, said someone surprisingly. “singing soft of Go, Man, Go” Derek Coyte confessed that the film they had made “could became a cult thing.” Cooper said: “What’s going for us is that the underground people think we’re all so clean cut, but they’ll be surprised at some of the underground sounds that we put over.” “God, I’m so mentally tired,” said Olivia Newton-John. “And we have to make up our minds by next Wednesday.”
The cigarette smoke billowed and blossomed in the Mayfair house. I tried to think up a collective noun - a beat of drummers, a skin of drummers, a nervous breakdown of drummers? - gave up, said my goodbyes and left. Outside, fresh from playing at a holiday camp on the Isle of Wight, his trousers a flarepath of purple, a young man was asking: “Is this where it’s all at?”
By today he and all the others will know where it’s all at, if the Big Time is theirs for the having. It has to be by today because that is when Harry Saltzman is due back from New York. And he has the final decision on the drummer the rest have chosen. You see, it is his group. He owns the Big Time. If you are a good drummer he rents it out to you….