Master of the ghosts

[Rasmus Heide <rasmusheide@xxxxxxxx>]

Little Feat are in town tonight and drummer Richie Hayward did a 
clinic
at the venue this afternoon. Nervous man, scary drummer! He has such 
an
unimaginable groove. 

The band's equipment was all set up and one guy was speculating how 
cool
it would be if Hayward was helped out by a few of them for the clinic.
Sadly, this didn't happen. But the man played like you wouldn't 
believe.
He's not used to doing clinics - last one was three years ago and he's
only ever done a dozen or so - so he was very nervous to begin with. 
The
very passive crowd - no doubt 99% drummers - probably didn't help.

I don't have any LF albums, and since questions weren't exactly thick 
on
the ground (he'd come forward for the next question after having shown
something on the kit, and when there wasn't one he'd just go back a 
play
some more), I got to ask him about his time with Robert Plant. 

In 1984 he joined Plant's band for the Principle Of Moments tour and 
the
following album, Shaken 'N' Stirred. This is Robert's most left-wing
album, an excercise in strange and off-the-wall. It was my first 
Planty
album and as such has a very special place in my heart (Easily Lead
anyone?). The drumming on it is absolutely amazing, probably spurred 
on
by the quite unusual style of music.

Hayward seemed surprised to get questions about Plant's band, but 
spoke
fondly of his time there. He was the only American in the band which 
in
itself was an experience. "Robert called me up and asked me to 
audition.
I went to England and stayed for 3½ years."

Later in the clinic he played some stuff off Shaken 'N' Stirred. He 
did
a long take of Little By Little and later also did bits of Kallalou
Kallalou - I just sat there with a big grin on my face! I'm sure I was
the only one there who recognized it. :-)

When he joined Plant's band Hayward had never played anything like 
that
music before and was quite baffled by some of it. He was a bit miffed
that Robert put a tight lid on any Bonham leanings, as he would have
loved to do some of that. Whenever a band member would go into Zepland
he'd get told off by Robert. What they did do though was very
adventurous and because of the almost suicidal lack of commerciality 
on
the album it can probably be had at your nearest secondhand store for
next to nothing. Go investigate, it's interesting! 

I said to Hayward afterwards how Robert has commented on the album 
that
if he'd shrinkwrapped a 10$ bill into each copy it would have sold a 
lot
more copies. "That sounds like something he would say," Hayward 
replied.
;^)

- - Rasmus Heide -> Assistant Editor:
                  http://www.deep-purple.com
                  http://www.companyofsnakes.com