Ghost Drummer Transcription
Wait, what really? Really? OK with your host, Loren Weisman. This is a fully licensed theme song for the show about stuff that makes you say, wait, what? Really? Okay. This is. Wait, what really? Okay. Episode 112 this one’s titled Music Business Ghost Drumming. Being a ghost in the machine. A day ago I was brought into a pretty toxic thread about the facts and the fiction when it came to ghost musicians. And there was an interesting attack on some of these ghost musicians and what they had done and what they intended to do and what they were about. And just it was this pretty vicious one sided view of things. And so I got into the conversation and before I did the brand messaging, I was a music producer and before that I was a drummer and I did a fair amount of ghost drumming. For those of you that don’t know what it is. And this is not just about music, this is some of the behind the scenes stuff. And it really does relate to messaging and it really relates to the way information, the way certain stuff is put out there, what we think is out there and how it’s done against what’s actually happening. It was funny. I spoke to a friend of mine I haven’t Talked to in 20 years the other day and as he’s been following and listening to the podcast a bit, he said, I see a lot of parallels between what you do now and what you were doing in the music industry. So to come back to the definition of ghost drumming and for that matter, ghost session playing, you have the session players, you have the cats that know how to perform in the studio and they’re brought in oftentimes to support bands and support artists. And when you have a single artist, it’s easy, okay, you bring, bring in your session players and their names show right up. There are even bands and more. So today you don’t really hear about the ghosting thing as much where it’s okay, we’re going to bring in this guy and he’s going to handle this track. That’s what I did. My first ghosting session was in 1993. There was a drummer that was supposed to come in. He was part of a group. It wasn’t working out. He wasn’t able to get there. It wasn’t that he didn’t have the quality. I was nearby. He wasn’t able to get there. And I was explained that Ringo Starr didn’t always play on the beat Beatles and it wasn’t always Dennis on the Beach Boys. And he began to share about this angle of the music industry, which I found really cool where it was the idea of you bring in these people and where session players get paid X amount, you get paid a little bit more for a tracker, for an album if you’re in a sense giving up your name. And the guy goes, he goes, I got a sense that you have the humility to be able to handle this. He goes, I don’t think you’re ever going to be a rock star with your look. And there was the old joke of saying I was tall, hairy and scary. And this particular guy, his name was Earl, he said, I don’t see you being a rock star or being in a boy band, or being in a pop band, or being in a metal band that has, you know, massive levels of success. But I see you drumming for them or at least being on the albums. That was appealing to me. I’d been a part of a band coming up and it was not the most wonderful experience. I enjoyed it. But as I began to hear about these studio elements, and it wasn’t that I wanted to hide in the studio for that matter, but there was something cool and there was this just detective kind of vibe to it that I really dug. I like the whole thing with Magnum PI I say the same thing about branding. Kind of finding your way around somebody’s story. Back then it was finding my way around somebody’s song. So in this, I played on this particular track, they really wanted to make it appear as X, Y and Z players were on that thing. So I signed the right away. I then not listed on the album. And it was cool in doing that. It opened up a lot of doors to play on a lot of other stuff that way. Now I was not one of the high echelon, top rated LA or New York cats, but when you know how to shut your mouth, when you can stay quiet, when you can show up on time and when you can keep it together, you get a lot of work. So where my resume of the albums that I did aren’t showcased on my website, and the bulk of them, three quarters of them, you can’t find the producers, the labels, the management they knew when I was around or when certain stuff was needed. I was reliable in that sense. I could keep my mouth shut, I could get the job done. The history of it was also, and we’ll get back to that, that thread where people went attacking the history of it was not to come in when it was a band situation and you were fixing something. So the guy’s either drugged out or the guy’s got too Much alcohol, or maybe he just doesn’t have the ability. That was one of my favorite things to do when the guy didn’t have the ability and not knocking it, but it was saying, okay, what belongs here for the song? But then at the same time, what belongs here for something that this guy eventually can reach in a short amount of time? I’m not gonna go. I’m, I. I’m starting to get to that point. Beyond the confidentiality agreements and the expirations and. And yada yada with NDAs and blah, blah, blah. I’m not gonna sit here listing down and I’m not gonna list a number of the guys that I know that were actually the drummers and the bass players and the guitar players on tracks. But the point is they got the gig not just because they were good, but because they had that detective skill of not saying, okay, what. Not just what do I think should be on this, but what should go here that this person can eventually get to be able to do was a particular band that came out in the 90s. They were really set on this drummer, and they wanted him to be a part of the band. He couldn’t play it, Couldn’t play it out on the. On the album. They brought in high echelon, way above my. My pay grade session drummer who signed to be a ghost drummer. And it clearly not him. And still the guy he was. He was teaching the. He was teaching the real drummer, the session guy, the ghost drummer, was teaching the real drummer how he was doing these parts. He became, in a way, an instructor. And a couple months later, the humility of this particular drummer who, yeah, his feelings were hurt. He couldn’t play on the album. It wasn’t him. It was written that it was him. He had to go out there and say how it was him, but it wasn’t him. But he had the humility to just get there and get it done, done and build up to be able to do that. Now, tie this to your messaging. Are there certain people that are coming in that are trying to set up your branding, your messaging, your marketing, in a voice that has nothing to do with you, not in your harmony or not in your song? That’s where the comparison and the parallels come from. So in that story of some of what my favorite things to do back then as a ghost drummer and even today doing the messaging was to figure out the story of the song, of the band, of the ability. Now, there were certain cases where it’s. You’re playing for an individual artist and it’s not really a ghost situation. It’s what do you think goes here? What would you play here? What would you play here for the song? And don’t get me wrong, I hear some amazing drummers out there. I mean, some of these cats on Instagram, they circle around me. When I was at top shape of any drumming, I couldn’t touch half these cats. But at the same time, chops is not always where it’s at. Knowing what’s going to work for the song, what’s going to make for the motion, what’s going to highlight, the melody, the singer, the flow, the verse, the chorus, the transitions, that’s the people or those are the people that got the work. And it’s the same thing with your messaging. Somebody can come in and use all the biggest keywords, all the hype words, all the right now, hot, hot, hefty, here we go. But does it tie to you? And when it doesn’t tie or relate or attach to your authenticity or your authority, it can die off. So that was the thing that I liked. It was trying to figure out how to fill it in and make it work for that person. Now this thread, coming back to the thread from yesterday, we were being. There was a couple of us, we were being attacked as saying that we were hurting the music business, we were destroying bands and, you know, we were, we were taking advantage of. I never. Myself and most of my friends that I know and session cats that have gone the ghosting route for certain stuff, that was never the intention. This was a one off gig. These were situations where it’s like, let’s come in, let’s get it done. And it could be an incredibly toxic environment. I remember a particular studio in New England walking into that after getting the call. And it was a producer I knew, it was an engineer I knew the label that was paying for it, I knew that guy. We straightened up everything. And I walked in there and I remember it being one of the most uncomfortable situations where I mean, the band didn’t want to talk to me. They were all offended that their guy was being moved out. They didn’t realize inside of their contract that in a sense they had a responsibility to get an album out at this budget, at this level. And a lot of times, most of the ghosts that you’ll see or a lot of the session players, they’re the drummers and the bass players. You can get away with a lot when it comes to guitar keys, vocal with the autotune and this and that. But when you got that drummer that’s just not piecing it together or that bass player that’s not holding it together, Those are the first people that get replaced. And later in my career, as I became a music producer, when I worked and it was a certain budget, there was a cutoff point and it was in my contract. If your cat is not getting, if your guy is not getting it by this point I got to pull in the reinforcements, I got to pull in the guy that I know can. It’s not saying also. And then people, they used to say, okay, well this is about the ban. That’s one of your self recordings. If you sign a deal and this to any of the musicians that are listening, if you sign a deal, check out what that deal consists of. Make sure is, are you now are they paying for a record, a recording, a song to be cut? And at a certain level that they see that they require because if so they’re not taking advantage of you, you agree to that. If on the other hand it’s saying, hey, you cut it till you get it there, you guys want to front the money, that’s fine. But you’ve got to think about from the business to the creative. And that’s where a lot of the session cats and that’s where a lot of the ghost players got it. They were as creative as they were business minded. They knew when to go in, they knew, this is how we’re going to play the part out. This is how we’re quietly going to go into places, how we’re quietly going to leave. I remember some 2am sessions, I remember going in very quietly and very quietly out and taking care of certain things. This is the same thing in business today when it comes to messaging. And it’s not saying that you necessarily have to say this is the marketing firm or this is the branding firm or this is the strategic group that put it all together. A lot of times it might be better if the message comes off that it was you. But making sure that you’re grabbing the right team and the right people to make sure that that is your message is the best way to go. Also, it gets to a point here and this ties to business as well. I can’t take credit for 75, close to 80% of the recordings that I did. Now it doesn’t mean I didn’t get credit. I had credit in a circle of people and they helped get me work. And yes, certain friends. Can you tell us what you played on? I did the whole thing. I can’t confirm or deny. I won’t confirm. I won’t deny, but I played on certain stuff. I had other people. You’re full of it. Fine, I’m full of it. In the humility of not trying to prove myself to certain people that I had no reason to prove myself to. It stayed cool. There’s some ghost cats out there where the ego, it gets to just this total different level and they feel like their honor is being challenged. So then they start to give away information that they shouldn’t give away. And in the same time, it sets them up in positions for liability and lawsuits. You agreed to do X. You agreed to keep your mouth shut. Somebody offended you and questioned your honor, and now you break that agreement, that’s on you. It can be a great thing to not worry about getting the popularity credit and getting credit inside of the circles that are going to help you the most. My ability to stay quiet allowed the amplification of a whole bunch of work that I wouldn’t have got if I was out there, you know, screaming my resume to the masses. And yes, okay, at times it kind of bummed me out. There were certain times, yeah, I wanted to scream it to the masses. But I also, I knew my road, I knew my zone, I knew my role. And inside of knowing, okay, I’m taking this from a business standpoint. I’m taking this from a creative standpoint. And it allowed me the opportunity. It allowed me the experiences and the relationships and learning the things that I learned across the music industry. That brought me to the books that I wrote, that brought me to doing the brand messaging that I do today. That brought me to the understanding of all sorts of different intentions and perceptions, subjective views, objective views, and everywhere in between. Had I just been that guy trying to be out front, trying to brag about every single thing, I don’t know, I would have gotten all these opportunities or gotten to meet all these people. It never was the amount of albums. It was never about putting an album up on a wall. It was never. I mean, I was, you know, it wasn’t like, I’m going to brag about this. It was an experience that allowed me to do what I’m doing now. And I never thought I’d leave music. This became a very natural transition. It was fun. And now I like, I pass that. I love my life. So in the same thing, wherever you’re at, on the road with a band, as a session player, in any kind of business, look down the road as well. And in this, in the ego part, it means you don’t need to write a book. If you don’t have a book in you, you don’t need to become a speaker. If you’re not really a speaker, you don’t need to become a coach. If you’re not the coaching type. Some of the most successful people that then decided, okay, I’m going to shift over here and I’m going to coach. And they know nothing about it. Yes, there are certain players, let’s go to sports, and they transition through amazingly, and then they become amazing coaches. But then there are other people that have played for so long and they have all this experience, but in that sense of coaching and leadership, they can’t do it for squat. We’ve come into a time where it’s this ego amplification. And sometimes when you can be a ghost in the machine, when you can dial it back, not necessarily push there to be profiling the credit, you still get the credit, and you get the credit in the right circles, and it opens up that many more opportunities. But maybe the world doesn’t know you can do better for your business, your vision. And this is inside or outside of music, the people that are screaming from the mountaintops end up being some of the biggest liabilities and the highest danger levels. And this goes for music, this goes to tv, this goes to developing projects, this goes to products. And they turn around and say, this was stolen from me. Maybe it was. Maybe you helped it get stolen because there wasn’t the humility to keep it quiet, to keep it under wraps, to protect it, to secure it. So it’s not about necessarily being a ghost drummer, and it’s not necessarily about being a ghost session player. And really, it’s kind of died off, from what I understand, and I’m a few steps back from the music industry these days, and from the cats that I knew that used to do a lot of the ghosting, they’re also doing a lot less, too. They’re making the jokes going, hey, I’m actually credited on this, and that’s cool. But at the same time, the ghosting that you can do, the ghost in the machine, that you can be behind a business, that you develop behind a business you’re a part of, regardless of your role, from the messaging to the marketing to the structure, sometimes sitting out there and just wearing your accolades on your shirt, it can get old. The real estate people that continually post about the houses they just sold, maybe there’s some people out there that don’t want to become marketing fodder for a real estate agent, and they want it to be a little quieter, maybe for some of the business people. Let me tell you all the stories around it. Maybe there are people you could work around that want to be a little quieter about their stories. They’re not trying to hide certain things, perhaps, but they just don’t want it out on the front edge. One of the things, or say, for that matter, above the fold. One of the biggest things I took away from being a ghost drummer and learning about that and the session and the behind the scenes as well, was realizing that once I was presented with something, it wasn’t being negative and not believing it, but vetting in a little bit deeper. I had one guy, it was around 2001, and he asked me on a track that I. That I did play on, and he said, you know, was this you? I was listening to this. The song came out on the radio. I’m pretty sure it was you. And I said, I can’t confirm or deny it. And he goes on, I bet it’s you. I bet you a drink, blah, blah. He just kept going, I. I didn’t go there. And then he goes, I know it’s you because you played the same lick on my album as you did on this track. And he did have me dead to rights. He. I mean, I’m kind of beyond the. The timeline of that album, and. And that was a. I’m not gonna go into the song, but that particular drummer was going off on another tour they wanted. The way the contracts were set up, it had to all be him. I snuck in, knocked out one track, got off. But point being, point being the story and starting to wrap this thing up. The idea of being able to come in behind the scenes and look at things from a different view than what’s just there can allow you to make smarter decisions. You see certain things. This is how this was. I’ve seen books written. I’ve seen books written about sessions that I was in and I was a part of, and I read and I read about this one session, and it was this night and these things that happened. None of those things ever happened. And even bringing it up, when the author approached me, well, this was here and this was here, and this happened, and then this happened. Like, none of that’s true. Yes, it did. And I talked to this person. I’m like, I was there and I was sober. I wasn’t a heavy drinker. But it’s like even in that moment, that didn’t happen. And yet, whatever the cognitive dissonance of it was, they were so convinced that happened. The point of this sort of rambled on rant of a podcast is it’s okay one to be a little quieter, to not share every single accolade. And by being a little quieter, not sharing every single accolade, pulling back on that, you may draw the trust and you may draw the authority for more people to want to work with you or want to work with what you’re creating because they know you’re a little bit safer. The second part is the vetting to be able to look into that thing. Okay, somebody wrote a book on that. Somebody claimed this, but maybe it wasn’t true. I remember with the Ringo Starr thing, I had a really hard time envisioning that it wasn’t always him. And then there was a particular friend of mine, he laid three tracks across, across a CD and went from track to track to track and goes, here’s Ringo, he’s hanging on for dear life. Here’s the next track, same album, here’s Ringo. Just complete precision with this Latin feel. And here’s Ringo here, you know, just like kind of solid, kind of maybe, maybe it was him on a really good day. And in that, and it’s not, not stating it, not fighting it, but, you know, I mean, and then the old joke about the hearsay where they asked John Lennon is, is Ringo the best, best drummer around? Or whatever? And he responded, ringo’s not the best drummer in the Beatles. And again, respect to Ringo, but also the understanding, it’s okay for other people to come in, it’s okay to get that help. And it’s going to be even more okay if you can look into those stories, not trying to bring the truth out or spotlight or state, this wasn’t true, or this wasn’t wrong, or this was wrong. But when you begin to look at things with more of a detective eye, with a vetting eye, with a due diligence, you can learn more about the real stories. And in turn, from those stories, you’ll be able to make better decisions for your stories, for your journey, for your path in taking that humility, whether it’s not taking credit and a smaller circle of people knowing to looking at certain things. And before you copy and emulate, you look into that a little bit deeper and double check if it’s the hype that they claimed and the story that they want, because sometimes they have created the story that they want to tell and not the true story. And in many cases, if you follow the story and the narrative and the optics of what they want and what they want to have appear, it can send you down a really bad hole into a lot of trouble. So the point here, wrapping this one up, music business, ghost drumming, being a ghost in the machine, it’s in a way being a ghost in any machine. From a vision to a product to a service, from entertainment and the arts and music to any kind of business or any kind of product. At certain times, bite your tongue, hold it back, don’t share every element. And watch that a lot more trust and a lot more authenticity and authority and belief in you because they might feel that much more safe and protected in you can come along. Second off, as you hear stories, you read the books, you see the articles, you watch the videos, you even watch movies, they’re not necessarily true. Biographies, maybe some of the interviews. That’s what they’ve wanted to have shared. And there’s a little bit more to that story. So before you go after some system, after some belief, after some presented truth that might not necessarily be the truth, look in a little deeper, vet it a little harder, personalize it a lot more. And then that direction, that path and that approach may deliver the results you’re looking for and even more this is Loren Weisman. This was. Wait, What? Really? Okay. Episode 112 Not My Best show. I am a once was has been drummer. I was a ghost drummer and a session drummer. Now I’m a brand messaging strategist for the fish stewarding group. Find out more about me if you’re interested at LorenWeisman.com have a good one.