At 69 years old, Rat Scabies isn’t the same man who erupted into the public consciousness as the flailing, destructive drummer of the Damned in 1976. “I’ve got this thing called viking disease [Dupuytren’s contracture], where your whole hand claws up, and some lumps, and arthritis. And I was always a heavy hitter, so I don’t think that helped.”
But still he tours – he is speaking from a hotel room in Glasgow, ahead of a 22-song, 105-minute show, including a drum solo, at Barrowlands – and he knows it is going to hurt. “The aches and pains get incredibly frustrating, because there are some things you want to do that you can’t any more. But as long as I’m still playing New Rose properly, and I can still make the songs sound like they should …”
All musicians age, but drummers face unique challenges because their job is so physical. And that’s doubly true of drummers famed for their power, not just technique – the ones who have to drive heavy bands through long sets.
Small wonder, then, that Nicko McBrain, 72, of Iron Maiden, announced his retirement from the road at the end of the band’s recent South American tour. As well as rheumatoid arthritis in his hands, he had suffered a mini-stroke last year, and though he recovered from initial paralysis on his right side, he found there were songs he could no longer play and others he had to adapt. In the end, he decided enough was enough.
Others keep going well into their 70s: Max Weinberg is still doing epic sets and huge Born in the USA fills with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band aged 73; Foghat’s Roger Earl tours with the hard-rocking British band aged 78, after well over half a century of gigs. Charlie Watts, who had a less heavy but still rock’n’roll style, was in his late 70s before he stopped touring with the Rolling Stones.
Ian Paice, 76, has just finished a tour with Deep Purple, the band he co-founded in 1968. Even 56 years on, the shows were touching two hours long and opened with the band’s fiercest, most propulsive song, Highway Star.
“Many of the things I found easy when I was much younger are now difficult,” he says. “But I know a lot more now than when I was younger. So you substitute things: that is going to be difficult, but I can do that instead. Anybody who thinks they can do exactly the same thing they did 50 years ago is mad. There aren’t many guys of my generation left playing what I call ‘powerful drums’.”
It helps, of course, that these men tend to keep in shape. Scabies notes that in the past he would have dealt with the pain in his wrists by asking for two of any pill going – now he uses turmeric oil.
His punk confrere Paul Cook, 68, of the Sex Pistols, is grateful that his band’s set is mid-paced: “We’re not as fast as people think, but the Damned – they were really going for it. I do feel a bit sorry for Rat.” But he makes life easier for himself by preparing for a tour with some cardio and upper arm work, as well as working with a nutritionist. “But I’m not a health fanatic,” he adds. “I haven’t turned into a lentil-eating hippy.”
The result of this prep is that though the first few shows of a tour leave him aching all over, “after that I’m in the pocket”. And he comes off stage feeling good, “in better shape than Steve [Jones, guitarist], who sometimes struggles a bit.” Even then, though, the end of the show can be hard work. “Right at the end we do Anarchy and then My Way for the encore. My Way’s a bit relentless and I’ve felt that a couple of times: ‘Lads! Look at me! Let’s end it!’”
Before the Pistols reunited, Cook had been playing with his band the Professionals, playing pubs and clubs without a crew; he has been relieved by the transition to the comfort of touring with the Pistols. Sixty-nine-year-old David Kendrick has made the reverse journey. After a peripatetic career, dominated by stints with Sparks and Devo, he’s now behind the kit with the experimental band Xiu Xiu, and while the music thrills him, the manual labour doesn’t.
“I’m more concerned about setting up and tearing down the kit [than the effort of playing],” he says. “I haven’t pulled my back yet, but loading in and out and dealing with stairways is more of a concern as I get older. I mean, the first bands I was in after high school there were full crews, so I could live this oblivious life of only having to be there for the set. But nowadays, touring the States especially can be pretty gruelling.”
One of the themes that emerges from Scabies, Cook and Paice is that getting older has shown them the benefits of being less frenetic behind the kit. It’s not necessarily physical – Cook feels he played too many drum rolls on Never Mind the Bollocks. “You can create more by doing less,” Paice says, and observes that improvements in amplification mean drummers don’t have to hit as hard as those of his generation learned to do.
Even Scabies, the most unrestrained drummer of his generation, has learned the benefits of moderation. “Some of the songs even benefit from being pulled back a few beats per minute. Back in the day we were just hell for leather – whoever gets to the end of the song first is the winner. But now we try to do the tunes a bit more justice. For Smash It Up Pt 1, he can even “dry my hands, drink some water, gather back some energy. I now quite look forward to the slower ones!”
