Five great drummers to check out from this month's Rhythm

Paul Cook

Seminal punk album Never Mind The Bollocks album is 35 years old this year. Blimey. Here’s Pistols’ drummer Paul Cook in this month’s Rhythm, explaining that the much-maligned (at the time) music came first for the band. “People thought the music was crap when it first came out. They thought it was just noisy, horrible punk stuff. It wasn’t until later that people gave us credit for the album. It was not a bad bit of musicianship if I don’t mind saying so.”

Check out The Sex Pistols’ doing ‘Pretty Vacant’. Check out Paul’s tom work!

Chris Johnson

Two of r’n’b’s finest players are interviewed together in this month’s Rhythm, Chris Johnson and Aaron Spears. First of all, here’s Chris talking about restraint:

“When I play a song I think back to church. Okay, if I play this my mom would look at me crazy, so if she would look at me crazy then I know the musical director will be like, ‘What are you doing?’”

Here’s Chris playing live with Rihanna:

Aaron Spears

Another drummer with a solid background in church drumming, Usher’s drummer Aaron Spears was nevertheless quick to refute the idea of ‘Gospel Chops’: “When people say Gospel drumming or Gospel chops or licks or whatever, I don’t necessarily think it’s a style outside of playing from your heart.”

And here’s Aaron Spears, with James Brown’s Jabo Starks at the Guitar Center Drum-off 2011…

Bernard Purdie

If you don’t know Bernard Purdie, let’s just say that as a drummer you SHOULD KNOW BERNARD PURDIE… He’s only the inventor of the Purdie Shuffle, one of the most sublime grooves in the history of modern drumming. Jeff Porcaro adapted it for Toto’s ‘Rosanna’, and every drummer worth his salt loves to play it. In this month’s Rhythm, Bernard gives you Five Tips on how to play his famous shuffle about which, he reveals: “I got it from the locomotion of a train.”

Check out Bernard “’splaining’ it” on YouTube.

Robyn Griffith

“Playing drums I just thought was an awesome thing to do,” says Evarose stickswoman Robyn Grifffith (front, right). Although the all-girl punk/pop quartet draw inevitable comparisons with Paramore, they revealed to Rhythm that they take their cues more from post-hardcore bands such as Taking Back Sunday and Reuben, as well as blues rockers from John Mayer to The James Cleaver Quintet. Read more about Robyn and Evarose in Rhythm’s Introducing section this month. And check out the video to ‘Cough It Up’ right here!