Why is it so hard to find good drummers?

I'm currently in a band that has been together for 1 year 2 months. We have had a LOT of difficulty finding a decent drummer. Our original drummer was one bad mofo however he could ONLY gig on Wed & Thu's due to his job (graveyard shift at Wal Mart!). Since we were turning down gigs on Fri & Sat we opted to replace him as it was difficult rehearsing with 2 drummers. Anyways we had gigged CONSISTENTLY for over 7 months now. PAID gigs. You'd figure it would be EASY to find someone. It's not. Either the decent ones don't want to commit as they are sitting in with different bands/idividuals on any given night or they are already in band. The ones that DO try out just simply do NOT have it. I'm talking abut overplaying, being off in time, dragging, rushing...man it's a freaking nigthmare man.

We once did a 12 week contract at a local place with a drummer that would sit in & only rehearsed ONCE with us!!

Any suggestions on finding someone?

Heck we aren't looking for a Dave Weckly or Steve Smith or Bozzion we'd settle for Ringo man.

Good drummers are always in demand (unlike guitarists, who are like dog {censored}, ie, they're everywhere) and therefore can afford to pick and choose what they want to do with their time.

Great for us drummers, tough titty for everyone else I guess.

Such is life.

Are you offering enough booze and drugs at your rehearsals?

What really helps, especially with drummers, is that you leave a pile of blow right on his snare so that everytime he plays he gets a nice cloud of the stuff around his head. During the guitar solo he can just snort it right off the snare without putting the sticks down.

Pot, you gotta always have pot no matter what. Don't let them drink the hard stuff. Give them beer because the hard stuff dehydrates them too quick and they pass out quicker. If he asks for a wine cooler, don't let him come back.

Always remember, don't offer heroin right away. Tease him/her with it by shooting up in front of them for a month or so. Also, acid and shrooms might be a bad idea...special k and other downers are an obvious no-no as well.

Do this and they'll be standing in line outside your rehearsal pad.

AttaBoy! That's how it's done!LOL

Hmmm, you might want to reconsider your 'standards' for a drummer. It appears they might be kinda high if your thinking is:

"we'd settle for Ringo man"

Have you called Ringo? He might be available.

In fact your gig sounds like such a peach that I wouldn't be surprised if we see Bonham rising from his grave to come play for you.

So I gather from the responses that I should either A.) start seeking my local drug dealer or B.) consult a medium.

Yeah, that dude is ALWAYS looking for gigs since his other band split up.

As for Weckly (it's actually spelled "Wackler") or Bozzion (actually spelled "Bozzial") they're booked up from what I hear.

There's a guy here that posts under the name Zacamargeca that is always looking for something cool. Might try to e-mail him.

Exactly... drummers are in shorter supply.

When any sensible band finds a good drummer, they'll sooner cut off their own heads than let he/she go.

Yea, in my last band, the leader was so happy to find me he asked me to marry him at the audition...right in front of his wife.

I thought that you guys were being kinda rough on spyder, so I tried to think of some practical advice . . . . and "Such is life" said it all.

Weird. I consider myself to be a pretty decent drummer, not professional by any means or anything but decent. And I have started playing drums in a bunch of bands but I never finish playing drums.

I also play bass and bass players must be harder to find becuase someone always finds another drummer and I get booted down to bass.

If I lived in TX I'd drum for you, but I'm near Detroit and that would be a long commute.

Yo.

Yeah, thanks. But that would be a lot of gas $$ & we'd probably be pissed if you were late for a gig due to traffic.

Hey spiderfinger........I notice alot of the regulars in here where kinda kidding around with ya!.... (so so true rumblebelly) LMAO...........but if you want to find a good drummer......go to your local drumshop or GC or Daddy's and ask!.......and or place an add in the local paper or flyer asking for an "experienced drummer" and instead of having him bring his drums to the first reheearsal. interview him..see if he knows his stuff.Get the important things out like are you available when we are for practice. and are you available for weekend gigs and can you haul your own stuff to gigs.This will kinda weed out the bad ones . I'd say.

My current band found a really good drummer using craigslist.org.

No ego here, eh?

Uh, I wasn't kidding.

On a serious note...these things take time. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right guy. I don't know how long you've been looking but in my old band we waited about 1-2 years to find the right singer. We never found the right bass player and he ended up playing bass and singing. It's pretty frustrating but worth the wait I think. The only advice I can give is keep trying and put up as many ads as you can on the net and around town. Eventually someone might leave a band and end up seeing your flyer.

if you think find a drummer is hard, try finding ANY musicians up here in Fairbanks, Alaska.

or women...

The reason it's tough to find a drummer is it's both difficult and sucks to be a drummer.

* You can get a starter guitar and amp for under $200. Try that with a drumset. Now find someplace to put it.

* Guitar and bass can practice anywhere, anytime. Drums can't.

* Being the drummer sucks at rehearsals. The guitarist and vocalist are arguing for hours over chord progressions on the chorus or who's too loud or who's out of tune, and you're just sitting there playing two-and-four. And even if you do write songs sometimes, you don't get to play them because even if you can play guitar, you're the drummer and they can't play drums.

* Being the drummer sucks before and after gigs. It takes you five times as long to set up and tear down as anyone else -- more if you're playing larger venues where they actually mike your kit.

* Being the drummer sucks during gigs, because no one can see you behind the forest of cymbal stands. Any cute women present will be staring at the vocalist or guitarist.

* Drums take longer and cost more to maintain. I can tune a guitar in the same time it takes to tune one drum, and I can buy 2-10 sets of guitar strings for the price of a single drum head.

Here are some things a band can do to keep a good drummer happy:

* Help him load in and load out at gigs. Yes, that means you, Mr. Vocalist who never has to move anything bigger than a mic stand.

* If you need to spend hours hashing out a new song and the rhythm is basic, have a separate session where you do it without the drummer. Maybe you all get to practice at 7 and the drummer can wait until 8:30.

* If the band is making any money off gigs, make sure that some of it goes to the new drum head fund.

* Give him a shout out at gigs. Make eye contact with him and grin when he's on it. It means you remember that he's not just a rhythm appliance that gets glared at when he rushes a fill.

LOL - really funny man!

Good one there, very good!!! A drum kit Is not one Instrument, Its ten Instruments at least.

What El Caballo said is true and figures in, but I think SpiderFingers actually hit the nail on the head in the first post without realizing it:

With instruments like guitar, you can just play a short progression with power chords and make a song out of it. People who just picked the instrument up can do that. It's the same with bass.

However, with drums, even if you just play a simple beat, you have to have solid timing, which you don't get without a lot of practice. Now some people who suck may be able to pull that off, but then they think they can just go nuts and look really awesome because playing drums is "just hitting things," but their timing blows. If they can actually play the stuff, they may start speeding up or slowing down, or they wear themselves out and just screw up.

You ain't kiddn'

" But I would'nt want to strain my voice by lifting any thing heavy"

?!$#@!!!! WTF?

Seems whenever there is timekeeping problem, the drummer gets the blame. Sometimes I am sure its deserved.

Since I have been an auditioning drummer that didn't get the gig, I thought I would give the other side. About three years ago, I auditioned for a blues band looking for a drummer. The bandleader played guitar (one of two guitar players!). I locked with the bass player and thought I did pretty good. The band leader was all over the place. It was just some standard stuff. I just played plain and simple, which is me. The band leader passed on me ("We still have some more auditions . . . I'll call you . . . "). The bass player argued with the band leader in front of me saying that I should get the gig. The next week the band was looking for a bass player and a drummer. Not saying anything about guitar players, just giving the "lousy" drummers point of view.

My current band has complained about my timekeeping too, but since it was at a recording session and they played back my tracks they don't complain anymore about me being the one rushing and dragging.