View from the back: my drum kits (and some drum history lessons!)

Hi! Steve here. If you’ve been to one of our recent gigs you will have seen I have a new drum kit, which made me reflect on the background stories to the drums I’ve owned.

My 1^st drum kit: Stratford Besson ‘Shaftesbury’

I started drum lessons back in 1979 I think, with my parents expecting it to be one of those many passing fads that teenagers have... not realising I’d still be playing after all these years. After a while I’d saved up enough hard-earned cash from working on a milk round (paying around £6 for a Saturday) to buy the blue kit you see in the photo, for £160 from someone in South Hornchurch.  I was so excited I probably would have bought almost anything I could afford, and being pre-internet I knew absolutely nothing about it except it was manufactured during the 1960’s as some of the drum ‘skins’ really were animal-skin rather than plastic. You can also see the vintage from the skinny cymbal stands in the photo. I was very proud of my drums, but they couldn’t look more different to the drums of the 1980’s which were getting ever larger and more ludicrous (see Capelle below) with cymbals sky-high and steeply-angled tomtoms.  These days it’s gone full-circle and yet again we have lower, flatter toms and cymbals (much easier to play fast)- my old kit would have fitted in perfectly. After around 5 years learning the ropes I sold it, hopefully whoever has it now gives it the respect it deserves. 

In writing this article I thought I would find out more about its history. According to web sources Stratford Besson originated in the mid-nineteenth century in France before locating to London in the mid-1930’s, and being bought by Boosey & Hawkes in 1948. It became a sister brand to Ajax and English Rogers (sister in turn to the famous US Rogers brand). My kit came with 2 Ajax cymbals (I can still remember the sound of one of them!). Most of the components were interchangeable and from the same factories. Interestingly, I found online a collector had a rusty Besson 1930’s snare drum (see photo), with identical ‘marine pearl’ coloured wrap and badging to my 1960’s kit, although improvements were made over those 30 years to the metalwork. The Besson brand disappeared at some point but has recently resurfaced in France, specialising in brass instruments exactly as it first started. Whether it’s fashions or factories, strange how history repeats itself.

Melanie Tri-Fantom

Also in my photo, you can see at some point I also added a curious black triple-tom arrangement manufactured by British brand Melanie. At the time Remo’s ‘Roto-toms’ were fashionable and this seems a simpler competitor. I still have it! I’ve never really found much use for it though as I could never find a comfortable position for them. Apparently they were popular with some reggae artists such as Sly Dunbar.

As a side-note, the Fantoms were supplied with a rugged stand made by the French brand Capelle, who most famously supplied some outrageous looking drums in their ‘Turbo’ range. A music shop in Hadleigh had them and I can still remember coveting a scarlet set similar to the photo. They also made a very unusual inverted-spring kick drum pedal I tried and admired. They had the wild look I was aiming for, but were far too expensive for a school-kid. Perhaps for the best as reviews suggest the extra size has little impact on sound, and the Capelle brand seems to have disappeared.

 

My 2^nd kit: Pearl Export II circa 1987

Well, what to say about this kit? The Pearl Export was the best-ever selling drum kit of all time, I believe because Pearl (from Japan) were innovating hard while the competition slept, pouring R&D money not only into new design features but also to their purpose-built factory in Taiwan. The Export was perhaps the most solidly made kit you could buy then at that price, and the investment paid off with a good ‘booming’ sound despite being made from cheaper wood. The funny thing with being so popular is I still keep seeing them everywhere! Pearl has recently reintroduced the range at around £500, which is amazing value as I seem to recall they cost the same price back in the 1980’s! I bought my kit from a friend (hi Stuart if you see this!) who bought it new. I’ve always looked after this kit and as it sounds great I expect to get many more years use from it. At the time of writing it’s recently returned from a month rehearsing in my office basement up in the City, culminating in a pub Xmas gig with colleagues.

 

My 3^rd kit: Drum Workshop (‘DW’) Design Series

So, after about 25 years I finally decided to get another kit! Well, I guess some people get a sports car in their middle age. It’s my first ever kit bought brand new, and the choices open to you these days are staggering. Everything is so much better made than it was years ago, competition and clever design has made it a buyers’ market. They say that 80% of what you hear with a drum kit is down to the heads (skins) and tuning, so I thought long and hard deciding what was I after to improve the remaining 20%. In the end I decided I wanted the warmth and long decay that maple shells would offer, wanting that 20% of the sound to go ‘boom’ as much as possible, and my budget suggested either the Gretsch Renown or this kit. DW have always been innovative since forming in the US in 1972 and take great pride in delivering something special for their customers (they are principally known for their special order custom kits), and the final two things that made me settle on the DW: firstly this kit might have to last me another 25 years, so I wanted the solid build DW are well known for (the shipping weight of the kit with stands was a whopping 75kg), and secondly DW are known for their shell technology meaning a deeper, longer resonance. Whenever I’ve seen and heard a DW kit in the flesh I’ve been impressed and deciding between the Gretsch and DW I felt  was that the brand appealed: I wanted something less ‘corporate’ than the historic brands. In the latest twist DW have bought Gretsch drums and hope to improve build quality.

Quite simply it sounds amazing, I'm looking forward to recording with it soon! With the addition of Duncan's arty skin it looks pretty cool too!

If you've read through this far then thanks for listening!
Steve