<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When my issue of <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine <\/span><\/i>arrives, I always approach it like I do reading a newspaper.\u00a0 Dating back to the days when the <\/span>Marquette Mining Journal <\/span><\/i>ran their cartoons on the back page, I began a life-long habit of always starting on the back page of newspapers and magazines.\u00a0 The late Tom Hartzell and I discovered we had this mutually shared quirk when he noticed me paging back to front reading an issue of <\/span>The Milwaukee Journal <\/span><\/i>that used to be delivered to the teacher\u2019s lounge each day.\u00a0 Tom asked if I did the same with books.\u00a0 We had a good chuckle over those strange people who read the ending of a book first – we agreed that it made NO sense (no offense to those of you who happen to think it does).\u00a0 I was reminded of this long ago discussion when the seeds of an <\/span>FTV <\/span><\/i>popped up as I paged through <\/span>CRM <\/span><\/i>Issue 301 (June 2022).\u00a0 Finding two articles about drummers as I scanned forward through the magazine, the <\/span>Tale of Two Drummers<\/span><\/i> title popped in my head.\u00a0 Then I found Dave Everley\u2019s tribute to the Foo Fighters Taylor Hawkins closer to the front of the mag and upgraded the title by one.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With Taylor\u2019s passing so fresh at hand (he died unexpectedly on a South American tour on March 25, 2022 at the all too young age of 50), it was impossible for me to start talking about drummers without at least acknowledging Hawkins.\u00a0 He was a terrific drummer, singer, and a family man who left behind his wife of fifteen years, Alison, a son, and two daughters.\u00a0 With that said, I upped the title to <\/span>Three Drummers<\/span><\/i> but found it difficult to dig too deeply into his career for a couple of reasons.\u00a0 First, I have never been a big FF fan.\u00a0 Dave Grohl and company are a good band, but I have a hard time watching any of their live clips or reading their interviews because Grohl has an uncontrolled propensity to drop F-bombs into every other sentence.\u00a0 Grohl\u2019s habitual swearing prevents me from posting FF videos on the station\u2019s website.\u00a0 Secondly, having grown up watching membership in the \u201827 Club\u2019 gain too many new members, I find it hard to write about yet another drug related death.\u00a0 The \u201827 Club\u2019 is the name given to the large contingent of musicians who have died at the age of 27 including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse just to name a few.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We all realize substance abuse is not confined to famous musicians.\u00a0 Taylor Hawkins was a human being with the same frailties that lead others to a similar sad end.\u00a0 Hawkins put 23 more years on his odometer than the members of the \u201827 Club\u2019 but not by much.\u00a0 He nearly OD\u2019d on heroin in 2001 and spent two weeks in a coma before recovering.\u00a0 At the time, being just barely outside the \u201827 Club\u2019 age limit, Taylor seriously considered a change of vocation.\u00a0 Hawkins also suffered from severe stage fright which was no doubt a contributing factor to his final demise.\u00a0 The toxicology report from authorities in Bogota, Colombia showed ten substances in his system at the time of his death including opioids, benzodiazepines, tricyclic antidepressants, and THC.\u00a0 I just didn\u2019t want to write Hawkins final chapter and make it all about drugs.\u00a0 If you read the last paragraph and are now wondering, \u201cOkay, so why did you just do exactly that?\u201d, please read on.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The two drummers that inspired the first iteration of the title were Bill Ward (Black Sabbath) and John Coghlan (Status Quo).\u00a0 As a long time Sabbath fan, I have always admired Ward\u2019s drumming.\u00a0 Coghlan, on the other hand, was more of a cipher for me because I have never been much of a Quo fan.\u00a0 The more I read about their musical journeys, the harder it became to simply add an \u2018RIP Taylor Hawkins\u2019 line to the introduction and ignore the sad details of his death.\u00a0 It seems Hawkins\u2019 flirtations with unhealthy substances was something he shared with Ward and Coghlan (and more than a few others);\u00a0 the major difference being they survived.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bill Ward, now 73 years old, grew up in post-WWII Aston, a suburb of Birmingham, England.\u00a0 He lived next to a bombed out lot, testiment to their home being the onlyone on their row not destroyed by the German Luftwaffe blitz bombing.\u00a0 His mother told him tales about the family crouching under the stairs as the bombs fell.\u00a0 Only later, after he spent time talking with US military veterans about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) did he realize he grew up in a world and household where everyone was so affected.\u00a0 As a youngster, his family relations were colored by his family\u2019s experiences during the war.\u00a0 Once he got hooked on music, his father\u2019s wish that he follow him into the gritty Birmingham factories was less appealing.\u00a0 Little Richard, Elvis and later jazz, swing, and R&B records would all influence his musical direction.\u00a0 Ward figures now the constant thrumming rhythms of the stamping machines steered him to play the drums:\u00a0 \u201cI was born into drums.\u00a0 I wanted to play music.\u00a0 I wanted to take it as far as I could.\u00a0 I wanted to become whatever I could. I wanted to roll the dice on it.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At fifteen, Ward joined his first band:\u00a0 \u201cFor a kid from Aston, that was a big deal coming out of the city and going into the countryside.\u00a0 That\u2019s when I met some of the musicians that would become friends of mine for a number of years to come.\u201d\u00a0 Future Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi was one of them.\u00a0 Ward\u2019s whole band. The Rest, made the trek to Iommi\u2019s house to recruit him:\u00a0 \u201cIt was the first time I\u2019d ever gotten close to what I considered a real guitar player.\u00a0 He played <\/span>Johnny B. Goode<\/span><\/i>, and it was wild.\u00a0 I thought I was out of my depth, to be honest.\u00a0 \u2018Wow, this guy is really good.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Iommi did join The Rest for a while and over the next few years, Ward and he went in and out of each other\u2019s bands.\u00a0 After a brief stint in Carlisle with a blues band called Mythology, Ward came back to Birmingham to lay the foundation of what would become Black Sabbath.\u00a0 Once they answered an ad found in a local music shop (\u201cOzzy Zig requires a gig, owns his own PA\u201d), the first row of bricks were set firmly into place.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first grouping went out as the Polka Tulk Blues Band, which then became Earth.\u00a0 Finally, upon bassist Geezer Butler\u2019s brother\u2019s suggestion (which he took from a Boris Karloff B-movie he had seen with the same title), they became Black Sabbath.\u00a0 Ward\u2019s jazz infused drumming (his go to guys were Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, and Elvin Jones) brought something different to Sabbath.\u00a0 Ward laughs about their early days now saying, \u201cI came away [from their first rehearsals] knowing that we were different and that everybody would probably hate us.\u00a0 And I was right.\u00a0 But at twenty-one I was unstoppable.\u00a0 I was in Black Sabbath, what did you expect?\u00a0 It was us against the world.\u00a0 The camaraderie was amazing.\u00a0 We were all from the same place, same background;\u00a0 we had a common language.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Black Sabbath channeled the post-war feelings into their music:\u00a0 \u201cWe played like punks on stage.\u00a0 There was this force, all this resentment and anger that was coming out.\u00a0 It came from what we thought was (expletive deleted) at the time;\u00a0 politics and war, and upbringing, and people\u2019s ways of life.\u00a0 And PTSD.\u201d\u00a0 As was not uncommon, the band did more than its fair share of drinking and drugging.\u00a0 Ward himself got bogged down with alcohol to sooth the panic attacks he experienced in the 1970s.\u00a0 He left the band twice, the second time in 1984 just after they recorded <\/span>Born Again<\/span><\/i> with Ian Gillan (long time Deep Purple vocalist) filling Ozzy\u2019s spot.\u00a0 Bill said he was sober for those sessions, but the prospect of touring again yanked him off the wagon.\u00a0 It got so bad at one point he was homeless and contemplating suicide.\u00a0 He then got help and dried out for the last time:\u00a0 \u201cI last drank in January 1984 and spent some time thinking about a lot of the mistakes I made, the amends that I owed, and what I needed to move forward musically to make a living.\u201d\u00a0 Away from Sabbath, he released three solo albums;\u00a0 1990\u2019s (<\/span>Ward One – Along the Way<\/span><\/i>), <\/span>When the Bough Breaks <\/span><\/i>(1997), and finally 2015\u2019s <\/span>Accountable Beasts.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Though he signed up for, and then bailed out of, reunions with the Ronnie James Dio fronted Black Sabbath (who ended up touring as \u2018Heaven and Hell\u2019) and later the original BS line-up (replaced both times by Vinnie Appice), he has no regrets.\u00a0 Ward won\u2019t go into the details of what happened when he passed on the chance to tour with the original Black Sabbath members other than to call his unhappiness with the contract terms offered by Sharon Osbourne as,\u201dThe big thing we went through in 2012.\u201d\u00a0 In the meantime, he has been stockpiling songs and book ideas;\u00a0 Ward says he has a pile of seven unreleased albums in the queue.\u00a0 Of them, the one just completed in 2019, <\/span>Beyond Aston, <\/span><\/i>sounds, in his opinion, \u201cIncredible.\u00a0 A (expletive deleted) masterpiece, even though I say so myself.\u201d\u00a0 He continued, \u201cI\u2019m in a good place every day.\u00a0 I cherish what I\u2019ve been through, and I cherish what I have left in my life,\u00a0 I make the best of the best.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The other drummer featured in Issue 301 of <\/span>CRM, <\/span><\/i>John Coghlan, was an unknown quantity to me before I read this interview.\u00a0 I only remember his band, Status Quo, from their 1968 Top Forty hit <\/span>Pictures of Matchstick Men.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 I watched a clip from <\/span>Top of the Pops<\/span><\/i> and immediately understood Coghlan\u2019s comments about that period of the band\u2019s history.\u00a0 The song brought Status Quo to their \u201cbrief taste of stardom,\u201d but Coghlan says he, \u201cHated being part of the flower-power scene\u201d and was secretly pleased when his jacket, part of their required stageware, got too close to an electric fire at their manager\u2019s house and burned.\u00a0 Coghlan explained, \u201cThe psychedelic thing just wasn\u2019t us.\u00a0 The savior of the band was road manager [and honorary fifth member] Bob Young who told us to lose the outfits and buy jeans and plimsolls instead.\u00a0 We grew our hair long and hit the universities and colleges.\u201d\u00a0 Their road show included enough substances that, he claims, one could, \u201cget high by standing next to us.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, the Audrey Hepburn hairstyles, frilly shirts, and smirks shared during their miming on <\/span>Top of the Pops <\/span><\/i>point to a band that was not particularly in their element.\u00a0 It is no small wonder many count them as one hit wonders, but only in America.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Coghlan\u2019s first band practiced across the street from another group that included future Status Quo members Francis Rossi and Alan Lancaster.\u00a0 When he was asked to join them, Coghlan recalls, \u201cI thought, \u2018why not?\u2019\u00a0 It was the only offer I\u2019d had.\u201d\u00a0 The band first came together in 1962 as The Scorpions, soon changing to The Spectres.\u00a0 Hired for a six-week summer gig at a summer resort area called Butlin\u2019s at Minehead, the final piece of the Status Quo line-up would turn up there in the person of Rick Parfitt.\u00a0 As for their summer gig, John winked and said, \u201cThat season at Butlin\u2019s was fantastic, because we could be away from our parents and get up to mischief.\u201d\u00a0 Past the <\/span>Pictures of Matchstick Men<\/span><\/i> phase, they created a pile-driving, headbanging style that made them a great live attraction.\u00a0 Popular in Europe, they just didn\u2019t sell all that many records or garner much radio play on the American side of the pond.\u00a0 As <\/span>CRM <\/span><\/i>interviewer Dave Ling puts it, \u201cQuo became a gang prepared to take a bullet for one another in the name of unity.\u201d Coghlan continues,\u00a0 \u201cWe had so much fun, it was pure rock \u2018n\u2019 roll.\u00a0 All of us would share the driving.\u00a0 You\u2019d play the gig and then have some drinks and a lot of laughs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As the substance abuse increased, the band began to fracture.\u00a0 Though Francis Rossi said any one of them could have gone ballistic in that increasingly stressful environment, it was Coghlan who exploded after a gig in Switzerland.\u00a0 Fed up with the drug fueled antics, he put his twenty-year history with Status Quo in the dustbin and went home.\u00a0 Hindsight says the band should have taken some time off but it didn\u2019t happen.\u00a0 Thus began a forty year span of keeping himself busy with a variety of musical projects. Coghlan says at 76, he is, \u201cnear the end of my performing career.\u201d\u00a0 Having five tours canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic more or less took the wind out of his sails.\u00a0 As he looked back over his last span as a musician, which has been twice as long as his original tenure in Status Quo, he mulled over how things could have turned out.\u00a0 An honest appraisal, but one without regrets about how things actually played out.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0His first post-Quo action was to revive an all-star band he put together in 1976 to fill time when Quo was off the road.\u00a0 The membership in Diesel rotated over time but they had some raucous good times touring together.\u00a0 He also recorded a one-off single with Phil Lynott, Roy Wood, and Chas Hodges as The Rockers.\u00a0 A brief stint in Australia followed where he joined his former Quo bandmate Lancaster in a band called The Bombers.\u00a0 There was another band with potential formed with ex-Jimi Hendrix Experience bass player Noel Redding and original Thin Lizzy guitarist Eric Bell, but it never quite gelled.\u00a0 Through all the various musical combinations, Coghlan never lost touch with his former Quo bandmates.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Four days before Status Quo opened the world-wide broadcast of the musical charity concert <\/span>Live Aid<\/span><\/i> at Wembley Stadium (July 13, 1985), Rick Parfitt and Alan Lancaster jammed with Diesel at the Marquee Club.\u00a0 Coghlan half expected an invitation to join them at <\/span>Live Aid<\/span><\/i>, but explained, \u201cI watched it on the TV.\u00a0 Alan had told me there would be a call, but it never came.\u201d\u00a0 The chance to rejoin the band for a reunion in 2013 and 2014 (along with Lancaster) was his first opportunity to visit his old haunts.\u00a0 They were in the process of planning another tour (as the Frantic Four, not Status Quo) when rhythm guitarist Parfitt died in 2016.\u00a0 Coghlan was hit hard again when Lancaster passed away in 2021 leaving only lead guitarist Francis Rossi to carry on the Quo legacy with his own line-up.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Coghlan\u2019s own version of the band, playing as JCQ (John Coghlan\u2019s Quo) was thrown a double curve when many of the smaller venues they played closed.\u00a0 Time, as they say, marched on, and he began feeling less inclined to get back in the touring rut.\u00a0 The whole situation has led Coghlan to plan this summer\u2019s farewell tour to end at Butlin\u2019s seaside resort in Minehead come September.\u00a0 It would be appropriate considering it was at Butlin\u2019s that Parfitt first came aboard.\u00a0 It is also the site of an annual Quo convention.\u00a0 John expects it to be a memorable gig:\u00a0 \u201cWe played there not too long ago [2019] with Alan Lancaster so it will be an emotional experience.\u201d\u00a0 Will he hang up the sticks for good after the farewell tour?\u00a0 He says he may enjoy a few pints and sit in with a local jazz combo in his retirement:\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m not a jazz drummer, but it might be time to get the brushes out.\u00a0 I would love to turn up and play one more time with Francis [during a Status Quo gig].\u00a0 I think the audience would love that.\u00a0 I\u2019d invite Francis to play with JCQ at Butlin\u2019s, but I know he\u2019d make an excuse and wouldn\u2019t come.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing I\u2019d like more than that.\u00a0 And you know what?\u00a0 Maybe I just might.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is nice to hear that in spite of the ups and downs in their careers, both Ward and Coghlan have exit plans.\u00a0 It is too bad Taylor Hawkins departed before he could plan out his own end of career exit.\u00a0 RIP Taylor Hawkins.<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 John Coghlan and the Status Quo America is best acquainted with, circa 1968.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When my issue of Classic Rock Magazine arrives, I always approach it like I do reading a newspaper.\u00a0 Dating back to the days when the Marquette Mining Journal ran their cartoons on the back page, I began a life-long habit of always starting on the back page of newspapers and magazines.\u00a0 The late Tom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,8,6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-new-music","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2585"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2588,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions\/2588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}