Gallery

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Ok, so this is a series of pics of me at various points in my drumming life. Kind of tells my story, I guess. No laughing, please……

I was not the happiest of children at that time of my life, but this first taste of sitting behind someone else’s drum kit sure put a BIG smile on my face!

My father kind of knew the band, and I was always desperate to have a go on the poor blokes kit. That drummer gave me my first sticks, a practise pad (which I still have); he showed me a paradiddle and tried to get me to use 4 limb co-ordination. I have no idea why I wanted to play drums! There are no musicians in my family. 

We called this room ‘The Den’. It was on the third floor of our posh new house in south east London. I spent hours drumming along to Sultans Of Swing and In the Cage - drove my sister nuts.

I am not sure how I got from being 10 and unable to do a paradiddle, to being 15 and able to sort of play In The Cage and Sultans Of Swing. I had no lessons, and just listened a lot, and tried to copy everything I heard. It was a bleeding slow process, I can tell you! 

Around 1979 I was blown away by the stuff  The Police were bringing out, and spent hours trying to do their stuff……

This was my first real ‘band’, though we were just mates having a laugh. Having said that, John looked like Sting and even sounded like him, so when we did Roxanne, it kinda almost sounded good! I remember Steve (a) going out with my 15 yr old sister (!) and (b) having a bad time with the bass line in Bring On The Night!! I’m still in touch with Steve - he happens to be one of my favourite people on the planet, but I suspect he has no idea of this……..

 If I was not wearing a Zildjian Tee Shirt, I was wearing a ‘Drums Only’ shirt - something I picked up from a drum shop in Vancouver on my travels. Don’t think I had any other tops to wear.

Red Herring was a great student band. Jason, Gavin, Alan, Ed - wonder where the hell they are now? They were Art students and dope heads. I was a Civil Engineering student and as straight-laced as hell. Made for an interesting mix! When they weren’t too stoned, we were fucking great. Hell, we even cut a record! That’s Alan in the frightening red jumpsuit thingy. Ooh look - a Drums Only T Shirt.

Red Herring was my life from 20 until 23. As soon as I finished my Engineering Degree, I went on the ‘Dole’ (Social Security) and was ‘a drummer’. During those few years, I spent hours every day drumming - on the kit, on my legs, on my practise pad, even my girlfriend’s bed - in fact, this is her bed here:

 And that’s the same practice pad I was given when I was 9 (and I still have it).

If you look carefully, you can see a patch of ‘elephant’ skin, from where I continuously drummed on my right leg. 

It seems my girlfriend in 1986 did not mind me drumming on her bed too much though - we married some 5 years later, and we’re still very much together, with two young children!

There are no photo’s of me on a drum kit for the next 10 to 15 years. This is ‘cos I basically did not play. I played in no bands, concentrating instead on my engineering career and on racing mountain bikes all over the UK. See -

My cycling has always been as important a hobby to me as my drumming, and it is my ‘other talent’ so you will perhaps not be surprised to hear I was rather fanatical, and quite good at it! I raced most weekends, dragging my poor wife with me. I’ve got a garage-full of MTB’s and Road Bikes!!!

One day, in 1998, I was training alone in the Welsh Mountains on my MTB. I went down a steep drop-off, and bang! I went over the bars after the front wheel stopped on a rock. I knew it was bad straight away, and hardly dared look at my smashed wrist. Suffice to say, I ended up in a hospital having my wrist pinned back together. I can remember the surgeon saying “This is a bad break, you are not a pianist are you?” He did not seem to appreciate that drumming was as sensitive to a wrist break as playing a piano, and that drumming was my life!

Anyway, here is my wrist on the day they removed the pins, several months later -

The doctor pulled them out with PLIERS! Yes, pliers. Except the pins had fused to the bone. I SCREAMED the walls down. (no, no anaesthetic, that’s right - after all, this is the dark ages).

Anyway, this became a pivital moment in my life. I lost all my nerve on a MTB, and never raced seriously again. Instead, my wife and I suddenly decided it was time to start a family. It is no coincidence then that our son, Daniel, was born in summer 1999. I was a Daddy!

And then in 2001, we had our daughter, Robyn. My life was complete. Here they are, in 2003:

So from 1987 to 2002, my drumming comprised playing along to Genesis and The Police with brushes in my spare bedroom. I was not in a band at all during this period. That’s a long time! Instead, I became immensly important at work……………………

They all stayed behind and decorated my office when I went home - ain’t that great?!

In 2002 I had bumped into Rob, in a music shop in Melton Mowbray. Next thing I knew, I was playing in his band - a mix of folk, rock and blues. It was great fun playing with other musicians again. Because Rob suffered from tinittus (ringing in ears), we had to play real quiet. So I played with Hot Rods, and then Flix Sticks - still no wooden sticks!

Here I am, gigging with them in Melton Mowbray, in about 2005 -

 

Welby Lane was a great band in many ways, but it suffered from having four people all pulling in different directions. By 2006, it did the inevitable, and fell apart.

Having spent 15 years in the drumming wilderness already, I was not well prepared for another stint on my own. I was traumatised by the collapse of Welby Lane, and packed my drums away for months. I could not even look at them.

That summer, I fulfilled a lifetime ambition - and this kept my thoughts away from bands and drumming for a while! Whilst my MTB racing days were over, I had not stopped training on my Road Bike, and so I was able to enter and complete the ‘Etape du Tour’. What’s that? This pic should help -

A full stage of the 2006 Tour de France, with three mountains over a 100 mile course, finishing atop L’Alpe D’Huez. Not especially funny, if truth be told. I once climbed the Alpe in 54 minutes (which is bloody good, actually) but in 2006 I went up crawling like a beast on all fours - it took me 2 hours and 17 minutes!!! I suffered HORRIBLY.

Still, I looked good earlier in the day, descending that first mountain, Col d’ Izoard -

 Anyway, now you know why my legs look shaved on YouTube (they are) and why I have a strange and permanent sun tan line on my legs (decades of bike riding).

A few months after getting to the finish line of the Etape, I discovered YouTube. This has proved to be another turning point in my life. I remember suddenly finding all these amateur drummers doing loads of Rush covers. Kids doing YYZ and even Tom Sawyer! I was stunned! A quick search, and I had found a niche in the market - almost no one was doing Genesis or The Police! And I KNEW I could play this stuff quite well! Fuck me! Quick, start doing some vids!!!

That first weekend I decided to upload four tracks. Rush YYZ, Genesis In The Cage Medley, Police Message In A Bottle and Robbie Robertson Somewhere Down The Crazy River. It was terrifying, waiting for those first comments! Even though I figured what I had done was fine, you still wonder what the reactionwill be!

I still remember when I got my first ever comment. I had logged in, my then 7 year old son next to me. My computer said ‘you have a comment’. With mounting excitement, my son leaping up and down, I found the comment, on Message In A Bottle, and read it, noticing that the vid had already been watched nearly 100 times AND it had 5 stars! And in fact, there were four comments! And they ALL said ‘Amazing! Do more!”

My little boy was really excited, and I still had not reacted - “Shhhh”, I said. “Wait a minute. I just need to do something”. Daniel went quiet, and looked at me, wondering what his Daddy was doing. I stood up, calmly. I moved Daniel out the way. Then I threw my arms in the air and ran round and round the living room, shouting in delight, like I had just scored a huge goal. Daniel laughed his head off - that stands out as one of the happiest moments of my life, and Daniel still talks about it now, two years later!

And so it all started. Indeed, Message In A Bottle is by far my most watched video. My YouTube career had begun!

I could not believe the reaction my videos was getting, and in those first six months or so, I guess I pumped out around 2 vids a week. It was great fun! Genesis and Police fans going nuts over my work! Truly amazing, and very humbling.

In Spring 2008, I wrote to Flix, up in Glasgow. I had been receiveing so many queries from around the world along the lines of ‘dude, what are those sticks?’ that I kind of figured Flix might be interested in what I am doing. It was difficult to write, at the end, the bit that sort of said, ‘er, anyway, if you want to make me an official endorsee or something…..’, but I need not have worried: I got an amazing reply from Flix saying they loved what I had been doing on YouTube, and yes, they would supply me with all the Flix products I needed!!!! AWESOME!

By the time I reached my first anniversary on YouTube, I decided to do something different, and so re-enacted the Cadbury’s Gorilla advert (very long version!).

 

Damn me, but it was hot in that suit! My whole family helped film it, and it was a scream! I never would have imagined that I would happily dress as a Gorilla and film myself and then show the entire world - but this YouTube game has been such fun, I really didn’t think twice about doing it! My workmates think I am MAD! (they are right).

In 2007 I joimed a Blues Band - they had seen my stuff on YouTube, and were local, and they felt I might be the right person for the job! It was the first time I had used wooden drum sticks for over 15 years! It was very weird indeed! I found it very difficult to control the bounce. Anyway, after about 6 months the leader kind of decided he did not want to do it anymore. So that left me, Dave and Ivor - and we decided to carry on, but in a slightly different direction.

And so ‘Cornerstone’ was born, in about March 2008. Dave and Ivor are awesome musicians and great blokes, and we have a huge laugh every time we get together. We have been busy getting a set together, and we are just about to start gigging. Lots of Hendrix, Clapton and things, but with a twist - it is not a straight covers band. And I can tell you that quite a lot of the stuff is pretty challenging on drums! You can check Cornerstone out on it’s own website - there is a link on this site. And I have posted a couple of rehearsal vids on YouTube. The best bit for me is that I am not playing with wooden sticks. I am using various Flix Sticks, for rehearsals, gigging and even recording! Much better control of my sound, and makes me play much more confidently!

We have just come out a recording studio (today, 2nd March 09) having done 3 numbers. I am gonna post the audio files onto this site, and might even try and get three YouTube vids out of them - they went really well, and you lot would appreciate the drumming, especially the one with a drum solo in it!

If any of you ever want to actually see me playing, then you need to get to a Cornerstone gig! Gigs listed on the band website!

 

So fast forward to January 2009. Here I am in full YouTube flight, doing the gentle (Another) Message In A Bottle……..

I’ve come a long way since I sat on that kit in 1974! Certainly learned how to pull a good face!

So today, March 2009, my life is complete. I am blessed with this -

 This…….

One of these -

And one of these -

 

I hope you enjoyed this little trip!

Jouxplan / Alex Warwick, March 2009.