In case you missed this recent Blabbermouth.net article, a long-time touring drummer describes the painful rigors or touring and how lower budgets mean some drummers no longer play on their legacy band’s records.
Former DOKKEN Drummer MICK BROWN: 'I Haven't Touched A Drum Stick In Two Years'
Former
DOKKEN drummer
"Wild" Mick Brown has opened up about his decision to retire from touring in 2019. At the time
Mick said that he was "taking a break" from the road but implied that he would resume playing shows at a later date.
Brown, who turned 66 last September, reflected on his decision to stop playing music during a new appearance on the
"Rimshots With Sean" podcast. He said (as transcribed by
BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It's been about four and a half years [since I last played with
DOKKEN]. I was 63 [at the time]. My body started developing pain from playing drums. And I was really getting tired and it was really hard to walk through airports. I'm still in a lot of pain — shoulder pain, some joint pain in the fingers, which have subsided now, except the walking part. And it didn't occur to me to stop. Although I just blurted out to
Don[
Dokken,
DOKKEN leader], 'I've gotta stop doing this. I can't do it anymore.' And he got immediately, like, 'Wow. I'm surprised you even made it this far with what you did to yourself.'"
According to
Mick, the injuries that he had sustained over the decades of playing drums had taken their toll on his body.
"I wouldn't have stopped if the pain wasn't there," he explained. "But the pain was, and it was getting too much for me. And the traveling — listen, after 40 years of traveling that fast [
laughs], the last thing I wanted to do was go to another airport or sit in a van going to the hotel or on a tour bus. I was done. And I just let the higher power go, 'All right. You're done.' And I followed that. Everything I liked about it had kind of disappeared anyway. Like in today's world,
Don wasn't using me on the records — the last couple of records. And I'm, like, 'I'm the drummer in the band. You're not gonna…?' 'Cause it cost money to fly me; it turned into that world. And it became a job. And I was, like, 'It's still a real good job.'
…
Addressing what he does to keep himself busy nowadays,
Brown said: "I have no ambition anymore, and I've never really been ambitious with anything except music. I make enough money where I don't have to do anything. And guess what? I don't do anything. I ride that chopper… That's really what my passion is. I do a lot of sleeping. And I don't have anything I have to do — except enjoy my friends today. It's that kind of a thing. That's where I'm at. And I couldn't be more pleased."
Brown went on to say that he feels extremely fulfilled, even though he is no longer playing music for a living. "I want everyone to know — I'm just having the time of my life," he said. "But I've always done that. But this is just as good …
Last month,
TESLA drummer
Steve Brown, who is
Mick's younger brother, spoke to
Chaotic Riffs about his brother's decision to retire from touring. Regarding the physical challenges that forced
Mickto retire from performing live,
Steve said: "It's not so much the playing, but it's the travel on top of it. He's a lot bigger guy than I man, and cramming into airline seats for long flights… They would play in Washington state on a Friday and somewhere on the East Coast on a Saturday. Those two things, you just can't do it forever. And he's been doing it — what? Fifty years. So I was kind of surprised. To be honest with you, I thought he would do it till he just keeled over on stage one day.
'When [
Mick] was playing with
Ted Nugent at the same time [as
DOKKEN] and trying to do both, he kind of got tired of that," he continued. "And then when the
Ted thing was done, he stuck it out with
Don as much as he could. But then just came a point where he just physically couldn't do it anymore. And both of us have the same type of thing — I have it worse. It's psoriatic arthritis. So it's an immune deficiency thing. And he kind of worked his way through it; it kind of passed. But I know the kind of pain that I'm in, so for him to continue on like that kind of untreated too — 'cause I take shots and I do this and that and try to stay ahead of it a little bit… And one thing is when you're sitting on a plane and then you've gotta get up, and you're, like, 'Oh, God.' [
Laughs]
Former DOKKEN drummer "Wild" Mick Brown has opened up about his decision to retire from touring in 2019. At the time Mick said that he was "taking a break" from the road but implied that he would resume playing shows at a later date. Brown, who turned 66 last September, reflected on his decision...
blabbermouth.net