Drums and Drummers

I've actually been itching to talk to Queen fans about the band's use of drum machines. It absolutely baffles me anyone would prefer substandard electronic drums over Roger fucking Taylor. And it's to my understanding that even Roger Taylor preferred programmed drumming for that period of time. It just...ugh...annoys me so much on the later albums. I'd be interested to find out more about the equipment they used and if the motivation was really just because it was so new and exciting at the time. It fascinates and annoys me at the same time.

Take a track like The Invisible Man. The demo had that thick drum sound. I love it. And on the album version it starts (aside from the triplets) with a drum machine, and then grows into real drums which are played magnificently. The good thing I can say about that track is that at least Roger melded the two worlds together in an exciting way. Because when the real drums kick in I'm over the moon. It sounds so good. But other times, like on Staying Power, all you get is some weak ass programmed drum. Jeesh. 

Regarding modern drumming, it's a good question. I myself am thinking of buying an electronic drum kit because by now they've really developed the technology. But yeah, to hear an acoustic kit on a modern pop track, it's becoming more and more a rarity. I have to believe that we'll always come back around to acoustic though. 

Such sad news.

I'm a drummer myself. I've played professionally for many bands, on three continents. Queen were a very sensible group of individuals trying to sense what was going on around them and try to blend their style in what the zeitgeist was bringing and thus for better or worse, trying to stay relevant whithin the top 40 scene and surviving the 80's, starting with the punk era which was hell for them. You gonna note that very very little bands/artists popular in the 70's could replicate any kind of intensity in the following decade. The price to pay was to lighten up the sound, trim down the arrangements and get a more compact sound. A band who had a complete parallel experience to Queen was Genesis who by the early 80's had also went full on drum machine to a point that drummer Phil Collins went from prog drummer to programmer. That was a complete departure form everyone and soon rhythm sections would find their instruments replaced by Linn Drums and Dx7 that's why drummers went on with the flow learning to play along machines and also to replicate them when on stage. Think Prince when he would go live and keep his Linn sounds but played by a real drummer. Sick! By this time everybody in Queen was programming drums, not Roger only and he had very little to say about what input his band mates had on it. Entire songs were made by only two band mates only — most of the time not even in the same room! Time evolves in cycles, real drums went back into fashion by the late 80's when alternative radios bands (Pixies, R.E.M, The Smiths...) started a fresh wave until Nirvana came and wiped all these dinosaurs that suddenly had to reinvent themselves...or die. Sorry for the long post but there was value in your first enquiry !!

You’ve said that the Punk era was hell for Queen. Not true, they became more successful in sales of albums and tickets during late 70’s and into the 80’s.

With regards to Roger having no say in what other band members were producing, wher did you get that from. In a 1980 interview in International Musician roger himself said that within Queen and on Fun In Space he often made drum loops as part of the backing track, he followed that comment by saying he’d defy anyone to spot which tracks had live played drums and which were loops. There’s only a short jump from that to using drum machines.