Phil Rudd

Yes, they can copy those simple lines, but will they? There's the rub ...

Kenny Jones might have been the wrong kind of drummer to replace Keith. One, he's sane and, two, he's more disciplined. The Who and their fans fed off Keith's wild energy. They needed another loony but I'm not sure anyone can do "loony" as well as Keith did it :)
 
Good thing I joined this forum. How can you have a list of drummers with no Phil Rudd.

The guy defines the word 'solid'.

he always reminds me that you can keep it simple and interesting. I think the album Highway to Hell has some of the most tasteful drumming.

Anyone else? Eh?

I agree!!!!!! I love the start of the hihat on highway to hell!! thats really cool how he starts it!! They have Phil Rudd on Drummerworld though, maybe you missed it!!His drumming technique is very plain and has a straight ongoing beat. I like John Bonham better But phil rudd is good too.
 
my thoughts exactly.

No disrespect to Rudd and Watts, AC/DC and the stones can still move on if they ever decide to quit.

However, when Keith Moon died, the whole band died! (Thats what uniqueness or creativity in drumming means to me)

Time keeping is hard but can be copied by a moderate drummer. All the AC/DC drummers are Time Keepers.

Chicago died when Seraphine left, too. I listen to songs like Beginnigs, Dialogue, I'm a Man, etc, and that guy not only has the chops, but his timing is impeccable. We can hardly get a thread going on him, and Rudd already has three pages - Watts probably more. Sometimes I have a hard time understanding our forum.
 
my thoughts exactly.

No disrespect to Rudd and Watts, AC/DC and the stones can still move on if they ever decide to quit.

However, when Keith Moon died, the whole band died! (Thats what uniqueness or creativity in drumming means to me)

Time keeping is hard but can be copied by a moderate drummer. All the AC/DC drummers are Time Keepers.

The same with Led Zepplin. They stopped playing just because Bonham died. Frankly, I think it was a good move because Bonham defined their style. Without him, Zepplin would never had been the same!
 
you dont need to be elaborate on the drums to be good....

Rudds my main influence. As a drummer, my job is to keep the other band memebers in time, and keeping it simple but catchy like Rudd is excelent.

Besides, Rudd doesnt use click tacks or warm ups which is pretty cool, and thats what i admire. He doesnt stuff around like other drummers.
 
Phil isn't a Mike Portnoy, a Danny Carey, a Stewart Copeland, a George Kollias, or a Sumus Paulicelli but what he can do with that moneybeat is something that frustrates many chop-heavy drummers to the core with it's simple solid yet dynamic and flowing "feel".

Phil spells solid with Das Capital "S", he must like sit down for 8 hours a day (straight) and play that groove to a moneybeat like a machine, no wonder he gets the gigs.

For some reason ACDC sounded best when they had Bon Scott and Phil Rudd, lose them both and they were crap, when they got Phil again they sounded good, I reckon Phil Rudd atleast had a say when it comes to their song production. Listen to the Black Ice album, I've actually notice his drumming has improved over years...

...remember, there are good drummers who are solid and creative and with mind blowing chops but...they just don't play drums for ACDC and usually aren't as solid as Phil if you graphed their timing in relation to a click.

I reckon Phil Rudd is a good drummer, if he had the space in a song to solo and go "Portnoy-esque" he would, but he would leave atleast some space, it would be solid and wouldn't just be a dissonant wall of sound neither would it be poly-rhythymic clockwork piece like Virgil, but hey we all have our own musical tastes, and Phil Rudd isn't aiming to be a star, that just shows his sort of devotion to his art.
 
Besides his solid and strong time-keeping, Phil has improved a lot on - Black Ice - album, including several fills on the songs.
 
I think Phil (Rudd) does the job - and He does it dead right for AC/DC or Accadacca (real Aussie term). Must be the reason, why He is Back In Black Ice...and harder than a rock!

Can't shoot, root or electrocute that guy, He is made for AC/DC.

Did I say it right, Pollyanna?....:)

Yep, that was a solid effort, Ian :)

When I was young I thought you HAD to play all sorts of exciting things and it annoyed me that drummers like Phil could just chug along could be so successful. I put it down to hype. Many tyears later I realise it wasn't hype, it was his great sense of time and groove. Plus his single minded interest in playing the song rather than pleasuring himself.

That's all a drummer needs to be successful. If they can bring something else to the table - dynamics, feel, imagination, originality etc - that's a bonus. Not that you need those things in Accadacca :)

So Phil's playing fills, eh? Hmm, sounds like the lad's getting a bit carried away ...
 
I think Phil (Rudd) does the job - and He does it dead right for AC/DC or Accadacca (real Aussie term). Must be the reason, why He is Back In Black Ice...and harder than a rock!

Can't shoot, root or electrocute that guy, He is made for AC/DC.

Did I say it right, Pollyanna?....:)


Venezuela.....seriously??

Man, ROFL........I'm in tears. Absolutely brilliant!!!!
 
Phil Rudd has always been a big influence on me. His "play what the song needs" philosophy has been at the heart of my drumming. I have gotten so many compliments over the years for not "over playing" on songs. I always say as a drummer if you listen to the song IT will tell you what needs to be done. Alot of times it's not what you play but what you don't play that's really important. I find I have to intentionally reign myself in when I do a song ( especially an original) so as not to overpower the tune. This is where Phil shines it seems to come naturally to him. Besides when my band does a AC/DC cover it can be quite challanging to keep "true" to the song. Your just dying to throw some rolls and extra stuff in. atleast I know I do. I absolutely love Phill Rudd.
 
To understand what Phil Rudd adds to AC/DC it is only necessary to listen to the AC/DC "live" album with Chris Slade drumming. Everything, to my ear, is subtly "wrong."

It sounds like a good AC/DC cover band.

Slade is a competent drummer, but it seems to me he plays most of that album right on top of the beat. Rudd finds that pocket, crawls in and sets up shop.
 
The thing is, there are a lot of little things Phil Rudd, and the whole is more than the sum of parts, so to speak. I would say Chris Slade is probably a better drummer skill-wise, but Phil fits better. Angus Young is a very basic guitar player, but nobody else would work in his shoes either. But a point I haven't seen discussed much... Phil Rudd is just damn cool!
 
Phil Rudd rocks! The way he can play that steady beat & drive the song with such confidence & power puts him in a class with few others. Doug Clifford from CCR belongs in that class, too, along with Les Warner from the Cult. The Cult supposedly fired one drummer because he dared to play a fill!

Anyway, it's not my style. I used to try to play like Moon or Mitchell, but I've settled into a more Joey Kramer-type style. If I tried to play for AC/DC I'd go crazy. I've gotta fill, but I love Phil Rudd's sound & sense of time, & yes, he's got soul (or magic or whatever)!
 
Until I joined a band that covered some ACDC, I never realised how hard it was to play their music well. The Young bros. have a genius for writing three chord rock songs that work because all of the micro elements/riffs/pushes are perfectly integrated into the whole. The songs are deceptively simple, but if you take out one element of an ACDC song it falls apart.

Their bass player, who like Rudd doesn't seem to do much, but in fact does exactly what is required, was once quoted as saying that with ACDC it was all about the song, not the individuals. In my opinion, it is as difficult to play Back in Black well, as I'm a Boy - and I'm a huge Moon fan. If you get the tempo or the pushes in an ACDC song just slightly off, it doesn't work. But when you do get it more or less right, it feels great and you can see the audience getting it. Rudd's not just a timekeeper - he's the pulse.

David
 
He is the "money beater and steady time keeper."
 
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