Disrespectful

I steal. It's that simple. When I play drums, I am stealing from Joe Morello, Stewart Copeland, Lars Ulrich, John Bonham, and Neil Peart - among others I'm not thinking of at this precise moment. I hear someone's drum beat and I think about how I can use it in something I am playing during Mass.

For example, when I nail anything that this drummer does on the Yamaha electronic kit in the den, I will groove to it in a live setting:

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Same with this groove:

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which I saw in this video:

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That is why when I saw this bullshit Tommy Lee is spouting about how other drummers stole his roller coaster drum riser idea from him, I couldn't stop thinking about how true the first sentence of this post is.

I steal.

Tommy Lee probably would say that listening to "Band A" and "Band B" inspired him to play drums when he was young. That's what drummers do. They listen to music, try to duplicate what they hear and, from there, they likely invent their own variation of what they hear. It's disrespectful to read that Tommy Lee wants to take credit for anything in his drumming. He's not being honest. When he plays 2 and 4 on the snare, that's Ringo Starr, who played drums long before Lee was born. When Lee opens his hi-hat on the off-beat during "Dr. Feelgood," that sounds like The Police's Stewart Copeland's playing on "Every Breath You Take," which came out in 1983 - "Dr. Feelgood" was released in the early 90s.

One other thought. Isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery?

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