With playing credits such as Victoria Beckham, Acoustic Alchemy, Liberty X, Hall and Oates, Rick Wakeman, Roger Daltry, Leo Sayer, Darius Danesh and Avril Lavigne, you’d think you really should have heard more about Richard Brook than you have.

Aside from being a really nice guy, Richard is a great example of what you can do if you really stick with something and work hard at it.

I met with Richard at the London Centre of Contemporary Music for his first ever interview, where he explains how he got to where he is and how he is adamant about staying there.

DB: When and where did you start playing and why?

RB: I suppose I didn’t start really till quite late – I didn’t start playing until I was eighteen. Me and some friends at the time were all really kind of into rock stuff and they all had a lot of guitars and things like that: I didn’t have a kit so it was a classic sort of bins and suitcases and hairdryers and whatever… so that’s how I got into that and I remember that I played my first live gig two days after I got my first kit, which we played in a back garden of a friends house and it was just horrendous and awful, but we thought ‘we are rock stars now’ because we’d played a gig in front of sixteen people. So, I suppose that’s where I had like the real feel for the live thing going. It was like, a bit of a buzz and I like that and I want to get on with this and I want to do it more. Then I went in with the school band and it was only – it was right at the end of my last year at school, I’d never had a music class and we had this school rock band and we were playing really, really awful heavy metal for about two years. There was a lot of rock stuff – I was into Slayer and Maiden, Helloween – all the real kind of mullet bands, that I used to love and then when I went to university and again it was loads and loads of rock stuff throughout that and it only changed when I went to work in a holiday camp band and it was the keyboard player and he handed me a couple of albums by Steely Dan and it was like Bang! Changed. And like rock stuff then wasn’t enough if you know what I mean. And then I got into just feel, feel, feel and having to play with the song and not as a muso. I suppose I was into a lot of the jazz stuff and a lot of fusion things and playing really, really fast in 9/16 and ridiculous sort of times and things and as soon as I heard Aja, it just absolutely went Bang! That’s it. That is exactly what I want to do, or at least what I want to try to do. So that was that. And then I moved down here in ’95 from Scotland and went to music college here and then spent the next three years with no work whatsoever. [laughs]

DB: Paying your dues.

RB: Oh, I’ve done some really crap jobs – really awful ones and a lot of the guys who I was on the course with lasted maybe a about year. That’s because we all thought like, you move down here and you go to music college for a year and then you walk out of there and get a deal, or you walk into like, a lot of studio stuff and you get loads and loads of phone calls and loads and loads of work and it all works out. It was a bit of a shock that.

I had to spend almost three years having to sign on and it was really, really hard that – really hard and especially, on a mental thing of like ‘what the hell am I doing with my life?’ and things it was…

DB: hard to stay positive

RB: yeah, yeah. But I just kind of had to get on with it, as I didn’t want to do anything else; it was just drums, drums – music and that was it.

DB: Who are and who have been your influences?

RB: I suppose when I first got into music and got into drums, I was really into the rock stuff and everything and then in a really kind of naïve way it was like, right; who’s got the nicest kit and who’s got the biggest kit…

DB: a bit shallow then

RB: absolutely. Shallow as a puddle. I suppose with all the James Brown feels and just… it was fantastic. As well with Steve Gadd and Purdie who were all on the Aja thing and also Chuck Silverman. I spent a week once having loads and loads of lessons with him and he was really inspiring, as he just wants you to have all of his knowledge. He was just like, ‘Here, [have] more, more, more…’ and so I really enjoyed that and got into the Latin stuff. It was at that time I was doing a lot of fusion stuff and so that really helped independence wise, especially with the Latin stuff because that is all about independence and the feel and everything. Who else? There must be about a hundred people, because if I hear a piece of music and I like the groove on it, then I suppose that’s an influence. It could be dance music or Latin music, jazz, rock, a lot of indie stuff – I love the Foo Fighters, they’re outrageously good. It’s hard really to say that a couple of people have been an influence, as there have been hundreds of people and it would be impossible to say, right it’s just him, him, him and that’s me. Hundreds and hundreds of people in all styles of music: a lot of British guys actually. I’m a big fan of Mark Mondesir and Ian Thomas, who’s got a fantastic groove and is a tasteful player, which is what I like now. A couple of years ago I was really into, as I said, all the of the fusion stuff and doing all of these weird kind of polyrhythms and odd-time stuff and things, and I kind of moved on to doing more groove oriented things. I think it tends to change every six months and I hear a new player and think ‘oh he’s good, what can I steal off him?’ so I try and mix that in with my own playing, but yeah, hundreds and hundreds of people really.

Also Jeff Porcaro and Carter Beauford.

DB: How did you get into playing professionally and at what age?

RB: I suppose the first pro thing would have been the holiday camps and I kind of lied a lot to get into the gig. They asked me ‘How’s your reading?’ and I went, ‘Fine. Great’. Couldn’t read a note – couldn’t read anything and they had things thing where each week there would be a visiting act and they’d just walk in with a whole bunch of dots and go right, here we go and we’re on in two minutes. I was like, what the hell have I talked myself into here and I must have made a mess of every act for the first six weeks. I was surprised that I didn’t get sacked because it really was a lot of train-wreck endings and things. But, I kind of learned to read really, really quickly, so I suppose that I can say my time at the holiday camps was like a reading learning curve – a very, very, very steep one.

As I said, after the holiday camps, I moved down here and went to music college and then spent three years out of work and it was only just having to get out, meeting people, just trying to play in as many bands as I could. Rubbish bands, loads and loads of indie bands, up to folk bands, up to Scottish bands, just doing anything really and it was through… I suppose the first real gig was with Acoustic Alchemy as I met the bass player in a music shop and we just kind of got speaking with each other and he said he was after a new guy to play and I said as it happens, I’m a drummer. So I had to go down and have an audition, which I got and they asked me to join and the first gig was in Hawaii, so it was like, talk about falling on your…you know. You just walk into a music shop, meet the bass player, have an audition and then you’re on a plane out to Maui to play in front of 60,000 people – it was just bizarre. I must have spent about a year and a half with them and we went all over the world. We went to a jazz festival in St. Lucia and we did the States, went to New York and then we toured for about eight weeks I think it was and went all the way to New York, Florida and all along south and up the west coast and then we went along the top and I was just, ‘this is the only way to make a living!’  With the whole tour bus thing and having a laugh with the band being out in the States, it was really, really good. I did an album with them and a DVD of us playing at the jazz festival in St. Lucia and that was great. From there, Adam Wakeman, because I used to work with him and his old man, Rick, and I did Adam’s own album and then he had the job right after that as the MD (Musical Director) of Victoria Beckham’s band, so that’s how I got involved in that.

DB: How do you go about finding work, or does it find you?

RB: I think that when I moved here I had to spend three years which I was out of work and during that time I just tried to work with every band I could and meet as many people and as many kind of players as I could and it was a lot of function work and a lot of Irish bands which went over to wedding bands and doing a couple of jazz things and a couple of fusion things and so on, and it all kind of changed when I met up with Adam Wakeman and he got me into playing with his old man with Rick, which was immense fun I have to say – he is one of the most hilarious blokes I have ever met. He’s got stories for every single occasion, he’s just hilarious. So I worked with Rick and then I worked with Adam on his own album and that came out earlier this year (2003), so I worked on that. He’d been offered the job as MD of the Victoria Beckham band and it was with a whole bunch of guys who I’d known for years really and that was a lot of fun. There was a lot of live stuff, which was much to the surprise of a lot of people – the band was live, Victoria was live and that was a good band, I had a lot of fun with them. I went all over the world with it. At the time, the guitarist in the Victoria Beckham band was also working with Go West and I’d loved them since 1986 and so I spoke to him and said ‘I have to have that gig, I have to have the gig, I’d love it’ and he said that… at the time it was Gavin Harrison and he was about to leave to go and join Porcupine Tree and so I said, I have to have the gig and I phoned him and phoned him and just made a nuisance of myself and he was like, ‘Ok, all right, fine! Stop phoning me and I’ll try and sort you out an audition’ and so I worked my arse off for it. I knew each song inside out and I had a recording of the live set with Gavin Harrison and he was just all over it. I phoned and spoke to Richard Drummie who is one of the main guys out of Go West and said so you don’t want me to play it the same as Gavin Harrison do you, and he said no, no, I just want to hear you and your approach to it. Richard and Peter Cox have been really kind of helpful about that as I’ve got a free reign up to a point with what I do with the songs, so I get to put a bit of myself into it. I have to say it is one of the most fun gigs which I’ve done, although you really have to have your chops up to speed as it isn’t really an ‘easy’ gig and I have had to work really hard at it. But it is one of the favourite things that I have done over the years. That’s where we are at the moment. We’re about to do a live album and DVD, then we’re going off on tour with the Go West boys and Tony Hadley (ex- Spandau Ballet singer), so that’s where we are up to speed.

DB: Obviously playing is just part of being a professional drummer/ musician. What is it you have/ do that makes you successful? Why do people hire you?

RB: Erm, I tend to pay them quite a lot of money [laughs]. Buy them meals a lot. Do you know, I have no idea. I mean, I work really, really hard if I get a new gig or a bit of recording, then I work really, really hard so I know the stuff inside out. I tend to try to not make a nuisance of myself and I think I just try to get on with people. I like to think that I haven’t got a big sort of ego and I’m open to a lot of criticism. I can take that on and if I agree with it, then I’ll say ‘Cool, yeah, you’re right’ so I will change and if I don’t agree with it, depending on the wages being paid… that’s bit of an odd one that actually. I think that I do get on well with a lot of MD’s because they obviously know what they want and I’m not gonna go, ‘Well, I think we should do it like A or should do it B’ because if they got hired as the MD, then they got hired for a reason, and if I go ‘I think we should do it here’, then I would be the MD. So I think that a lot of it has to do with a lot of people skills – I’m mean, I’m not up to say, Gavin Harrison’s league as a technical player, although I think that half of it is being able to get on with people and if you are going to spend long months of the year with people on the back of a tour bus, then obviously you have to get on with people. I think that a lot of that is people skills and even as a live thing, if you get on with people then that also kind of projects live as the audience go, well the band look like they’re having a good time and they all obviously have a laugh and they all get on – you have to do your homework with the music, you have to get that right and you have to get your chops up to speed and get the feel right and the form right, but the rest of it is all down to people skills.

DB: Do you have anything recorded that is just totally you?

BR: I have this thing of where I’m never 100% happy with anything which I’ve recorded. I’m just trying to think… I even kind of annoy myself that I have to get it exactly right and I have to get it right in my own mind and it has to be 100%; I suppose I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I think a few of the tracks I played on Adam Wakeman’s album, ‘Neurasthenia’ (see below), which is a bit of mouthful, I think a few of the songs on that I was happy with and there’s a few things on the Acoustic Alchemy…

DB: Jeff Porcaro was like that. He couldn’t listen to his own stuff.

RB: Right. And he was just all about feel.

There’s a couple of tracks on the Yes tribute album which I did with Adam and Rick, which was hard work actually as we had to get all the drums down in one day and there was twelve tracks, each of which were about an average of six minutes long and that was the hardest thing – it was a long day that. There was a couple of things on that and I’ve just been recording with the guitarist of Reef on a solo project on which he’s on and I’m quite happy with the feel on that, although I’m not sure when that’s out yet. I have to say on that personal thing, I’m never really 100% really kind of happy with a lot of the recording stuff that I’ve done.

DB: Obviously we’re here (at the LCCM), so obviously you teach. Can you briefly tell me what you teach and how you teach.

RB: I don’t do a lot of teaching, I tend to prefer to play live and I love recording. I’m really quite at home in the studio now even though I’m never really happy with anything I do in the studio. I have been working here: it’s a brand new school and I teach with the drum classes reading classes and applied rudiments around the kit and a groove class, which I think nowadays students have to have hammered into them – they have to groove and have to have good time and be able to move hihats and snare and the bass ahead of the beat and behind the beat and on the beat and know what it all means. I mean, when they leave here they’re not going to get a gig on being able to do a six minute Latin solo in 9/8 – I wish I could do that [laughs]. I’ve found in my experience it’s all about having feel and having the groove and yet I’ve been able to… I’ve a few sort of chops and I’m be able to be flash in the right place, but you’re not going to be able to get a gig on the strength of being able to play 6/8 with one hand and 9/16 with the right foot and as well as that I really enjoy to teach here with the band workshops. I’m working with a whole band – drums, bass, keyboards, with the guitars and the vocalists and I think that’s the best part of it. That’s the whole kind of point of learning how to play with individual rudiments and hand patterns and things is to be able to use that in a musical way and with a band, so I think that that’s the most rewarding part of the thing here is working with a band and if you get inspired by that, then it kind of rubs off with the students and if you’re enthusiastic about it and you take the time to get things right, then that’s going to rub off on them and make them more employable once they leave here, but hopefully not nicking any of my gigs.

DB: What’s the best bit of advice you’ve been given?

RB: I’ve mentioned it all afternoon, but feel. If you have feel and you have a groove, then you’ll always work – you’ll always work. A few years ago I got sacked out of a band and I was actually told that I didn’t have any feel and I didn’t have any groove and I just felt awful after that and I thought I’ll never be able to play again, I was so absolutely miserable about it. But, as it happened it was the best thing which could have happened because I just worked and worked and worked and spent hours and hours and hours in the practice room just working on feel and time and the groove thing and just playing along to lots of Sly and The Family Stone and loads and loads of James Brown stuff, loads of R & B. If that hadn’t have happened then I probably now wouldn’t be at the point at which I’m at, so it kind of all worked out, but at the time it was awful.

DB: How long was it after you got sacked did it take you to get up?

RB: I had maybe about a month of feeling incredibly kind of sorry for myself and thinking, right I’m going to work in a bank or be a computer programmer again. So it must have been about a month and then it’s like you have a choice – you can either take that kind of thing on the chin and get out of the hole or you can sell all of the gear and for me, move back to Scotland and I’d have to get a real job, as it were. You have to get on with it because I didn’t really fancy the move back home and I’d have to get a real job again and things, so I just worked and worked and worked and spent hours and hours and hours just playing really kind of simple stuff and just working on time and feel and the groove and then spent an hour at the end of that just working on a technique thing and working on the more flashy stuff and more kind of chops. At first it was really, really hard and you have to say, ‘What do I want to get out of this?’ and I did want to get a reputation for having a nice feel, so I worked really hard at it.

DB: What does the future hold for you? Or, what do you want the future to hold for you, if that’s a better question?

RB: The immediate future is that I have a lot of work on with Go West. We’re doing live album and a DVD and then from early next year (2004) we’re doing about 60 shows around the UK with Go West and Tony Hadley. After that I’m doing a new album with Adam Wakeman. I’m also doing a bit of work with a producer of a well known American act, which I don’t want to mention because might not happen and I don’t want to put the kiss of death on myself there. I’ve got a lot of stuff on. I’d like to a little do a bit more of the West End work as I have enjoyed that. I just try to keep the work as interesting and as varied as I can, as there’s nothing worse than going, ‘oh no, I’ve got to do that bloody band tonight’, so I like to keep things varied as a style thing as well because it keeps all your chops up to speed.

DB: Any outstanding ambitions?

RB: To work with Stevie Wonder! [laughs] Please. There’s loads and loads of people that I want to work with. I suppose that I feel I had one ambition that I filled two years ago when I got to work with Roger Daltry live: it was with him and the LSO which was just outrageous. To play Pinball Wizard with him swinging the mic around, I was just in seventh heaven. It was the most fantastic experience. It was in front of 10,000 people and it was just… that has been a real sort of highlight and that’s going to stick with me.

DB: Any thank yous?

RB: Yeah. I’d really like to thank Tina Clarke from Zildjian. She’s really helped me out when the times have been hard. There’s loads of people. I’d like to thank Geoff Helmsley at the LCCM, Adam Wakeman for being one of the best drinking buddies I’ve got. He has really kind of helped me out with a lot of work because he’s put my name forward to a lot of things.

You can find out more about Richard’s playing on Adam Wakeman’s ‘Neurasthenia’ album at www.adamwakeman.com and the man himself at the London Centre of Contemporary Music’s site, www.lccm.org.uk under tutors. Finally, you can see him on tour with Go West from the 14th of January to the 31st of March 2004 (see http://gowest.homestead.com/coxvshadleytour.html for full date listing).

Dave Bateman
January 2004