If you’re ranking all drummers, dead or alive, top of the heap has to be Stewie Speer.
Gary Young, from Daddy Cool and countless bands afterwards, knows his way around the skins.
Phil Rudd of AC/DC had the perfect style for that band and Virgil Donati is well respected without being a household name.
If we’re talking about singing drummers, nobody’s mentioned Geoff “Coxy” Cox. I trust that this situation remains unchanged.
Virgil Donati.
Yep Virgil is unbelievable and John Watson one of the few left handers I’ve seen and is also VG.
Would have to be Virgil Donati for me, as well, but I admit that I have probably not seen enough of some of the other names mentioned here to be qualified.
Not a lot of names come to mind for me either…. I think it might just be because the biggest Australian rock bands that I think of are generally straightforward rock bands that aren’t necessarily about virtuosity or technical expression.
You look on any number of “greatest drummers” lists from overseas and they are generally either jazz drummers, progressive/art rock drummers, or heavy metal speed guys. I’m sure there are amazing guys in the clubs who are absolutely killing it that we may never know about.
Of course, these things are always very subjective.
Rob hitting the drums pretty hard in this performance (2009).
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Nothing screams “80’s” like Simmons drums.
A mate when I was at school (whose parents were LOADED!) had a full Simmons kit. He also had a Roland Juno keyboard. As befitting of a rich kid, he couldn’t play either of them - they were simply expensive toys.
They were great fun to play around with though! For all the presets those drums had, they really only had a bare handful of decent sounds.
Every conversation I have about Simmons drums goes like this:
(80s video on TV)
”Oh, lol, look at the Simmons drums”
”Simmons drums? What are Simmons drums?”
”The hexagonal things that are in every 80s video”
”Oh, THOSE"
A bit before my time, but I have heard those were hell on your wrists.