Chris Frantz

So how do you keep the beat when you are the drummer to one of the quirkiest front man?  Ask Chris Frantz. As the man who had to redefine the drums in order to make the songs of David Byrne brilliant he would have the answer, but then you could just listen to a Talking Heads album and you would know why this quintessential drummer belongs on this list. Fratz’s versatility is legendary in the world of college rock music.   Without Frantz, the Talking Heads would have been just another darling new wave band rather than a premier  art rock band out of New York’s late seventies scene. His background and interest in setting African tribal drums to rock and roll was revolutionary and even today inspirational—anyone with a discerning ear will immediately recognize the influence of Frantz’s experimental endeavors found in the songs of Destiny’s Child and Missy Elliott.

Besides his work with the Talking Heads there is also the work he does with his wife of 30 plus years, Tina Weymouth (former bassist for Talking Heads), the Tom Tom Club.  As revolutionary as the Talking Heads were on art rock, the Tom Tom Club were an early vanguard to introducing white America to rap and hip-hop music. For those of you familiar with their work, it goes unsaid that their song, Genius of Love, had a major impact on opening the suburban front door to the urban back door. Inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame in 2002, Frantz still contributes his influential backbeats to contemporary acts as the Gorillaz.

John Bonham

“Yeah, I believe in God, man. I’ve seen him, I felt his power. He plays drums for Led Zeppelin and his name is John Bonham, baby!” (Nick Andopolis, from the pilot episode of Freaks And Geeks). For many, Bonham is God; I would go as far as to say he was a legendary drummer, but God? I can’t see Bonham as a vengeful supernatural entity that rewards people in the afterlife. But I do see him as someone whose visceral impact on the drums paved the way for orchestrating the technological nihilism that gave birth to heavy metal.

The best synopsis of Bonham I have every read came from Jim Miller. Miller said it best when he wrote, “John Bonham’s barrage of drum rolls like a sleepy dinosaur coming to life.”  Bonham’s behemoth-like banging set the stage for Led Zeppelin’s sluggish and lumbering concoction of over amplified guitar rock. When stripped down to its bare essentials, Bonham was a classic late-Sixties blues-rock drummer, but what set him apart from his peers was his wandering spirit to challenge conventional drumming standards.  Unlike Keith Moon’s sloppy approach to bombastic backbeats, Bonham was the first drummer to actually make bombastic rhythmically solid.

Until Bonham, the drums and drummers were usually buried beneath the brutal guitars, thick-thudding bass and banshee screaming vocals of heavy metal. Bonham brought the drums to the forefront with his creation of the obligatory extended drum solos he played during Led Zeppelin’s concerts.  Before Bonham Moby Dick was mandatory reading in high school English Literature classes. Ask a high school student today and they will say, “Moby Dick is the coolest drum solo ever played.” Bonham is legendary for the fact that even today no drummer has been able to reproduce his complex, subtle and idiosyncratic approach to rock and roll drumming.

D.J. Bonebrake

As Billy Zoom, guitarist for X, recalls, “[In 1977] there were about fifty groups in L.A. and three drummers who played with all of them. I had this standing line about a drummer who played a parade snare with big sticks.” That drummer was Donald James (D.J.) Bonebrake, who at the time was drumming for The Eyes, Charlotte Chaffey’s former band before her infamous stint with the Go-Go’s. It took a lot of goading by Exene, John and Billy, but after promising him a lifetime supply of bubblegum and Coca Cola, Bonebrake relented and became the ideal skinman for X’s unique approach to punk rock—a blend of metal-edged and rockabilly sounds.

Bonebrake’s introduction to the drums came from going to Nichiren Shoshu Buddist meetings with his older brother. They had a marching band and were recruiting people for it. He went to one of their rehearsals and they asked him, “Do you want to play sax or drums?” Gratefully, D.J. did not take up the sax. The primal ferocity of Bonebrake’s hammering drums are what breathed life into the rapacious vitality of John Doe and Billy Zoom’s musical underworld compositions. Despite his formal training in marching bands, bossa nova bands, Dixieland bands and classical symphony orchestras, Bonebrake is not one to embellish.  Keeping it simple, he is the perpetual machine that would rather invent and explore unknown territory with his drum lines than try to throw every lick into each song. His sensuous restraint and intelligent detail is what kept X’s musical pulse high.

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