Tommy Aldridge talks about his Rock Scene

first introduction to music that was listening my mom was at Mercer she passed away a couple of months ago was she was the music fountain in the family natsu-san he was now a musician when a musician she was the one the first person put me in first contact music when I was just a baby I remember we were living in Florida and she'd like to prove that quartet did take five you know the clown and that was some of the first music that I heard it was Joe Morello was playing drums I didn't know that I was just a kid and she listened to all of us the Everly Brothers people like that I was growing up and The Supremes probably mostly radio stuff she didn't have a lot of records where there's mostly radio stuff and that was my first first music she brought music in well my first contact with drums it was one of those really well I was just a kid maybe six five or six possibly and it wasn't a real kid it was one of those stupid made-up kids that made out of cardboard you know and like a palm tree on the front you know TT I looked over 20 magazines and it didn't last very long I destroyed it you know straight away and I've been banging around on pots before they happen and then there was a long a period of time well in my mind back then you know a year was forever then I was like thirty seconds you know like his time went by that was my first time I had any kind of thing with extra German I didn't even have real sticks little baby sticks it came with that kid and it wasn't until years later that I actually got a snare drum and booklets you know and some real sticks started messing around but that was quite later on that was probably when I was 11 or 12 well the first time I got together with so-called musicians was at that time when I was 13 maybe playing with guys you know went to school with you know just banging around in the garage or we could get away with it you know and there was a period of time where I switches from drums and ones and because I found that boom it's really tedious and it was very challenging and the whole independence thing trying to teach my left side to do one thing am i ran it might had to do something one mile if it was doing something else my wife it was doing something else and you know and a cop ability ability is working my way through the rudiments so I thought home oh I'm gonna try guitar so I try I played guitar for a while and I really enjoyed it but after a year or so of that I went back to the drums full-time probably the first the first really cool big time bandit was probably the who you know with who and it was a whole British thing it was the who clothes I think Herman's Hermits were on that deal I think think that kinks may have been on that bill it was like a British Invasion kind of thing so there were some really poppy bands on there and in the hood close and they were like you know they were like heavy-duty because they were destroying everything you know and it was before they started distinguishing between like heavier bands and it was all the same genre you know anybody even had long hair and played anything other than jazz or swing or big band was it was it was it was of a rock band you know it was before they started pigeon holding everything you know well I suddenly buy and play with more local bands and stuff and I started I started playing pretty early on original music with this trio and it was a strange trio the guitar was Brooke summer he was a guitar player singer we had a keyboard player and he played a c3 with bass pedals with that was a three-piece family with guitar keyboards and drums and and the bass was covered by this keyboard player and if you played football is you know with a c3 because B threes in C threes when they were just used in churches you know they come with a set of bass pedals it was really good he was a Juilliard or some you know he graduated he was way over he had to dumb down to play with us he was way over skilled to be playing you know in a rock trio it was so good it was so well I was playing dumb party playing double bass pretty close to that same time we would work out all these really cool patterns and he could play all those awesome patterns with double bass and still play on the keyboard stuff and so it sounded really full it sounds like a real instead it almost like four pieces and we were doing our own original music and living in rural into the French Quarter that was kind of like a a real Mecca at the time the Allman Brothers were there dr. John it was Pink Floyd we're hanging out there it was like it was a really cool thing going on I didn't know at the time your lives how cool it was you could go to the warehouse we would be the opening band at the warehouse in there Blue Cheer would play The Young Rascals Pink Floyd and the Allman Brothers closed that was one show one line we go into like 2:00 in the morning we opened up and because we were living in New Orleans you know and that was really it was a really fun time and that was one of the first time playing no 16-17 you know it was during that period of time when I got there it wasn't in that band that some guy that worked with Black Oak hurt their clients if it disband it just kind of signed to Atlantic native the drummer so I gave him my name and number because even though I was really having a lot of fun we couldn't get anywhere because their music was really weird it was speed freak music and we just played whatever we want to play so we couldn't we could have to go way down in the Florida to get the gigs and stuff we couldn't get kids when we lived in Mississippi and Louisiana around in there if we didn't play in the French Quarter then we had to go away you know way out and found in southern Florida or a few places we could play and so it just got really frustrating those rare places to fly and so I didn't I was really happy musically but this guy said he has spam so black hawk I've never heard of him no one had really at that time but I gave my name and a few weeks later he phoned and I flew to Memphis auditioned and got the gig and it was downhill from there for about five and a half years you're around kind of I went through some you know unsavory dealings with management that was involved with that band got tied up and and it was my it was my bad really because I was using as a stepping stone you know to get yet known and so I paid a real high price for that you know that time even though I was an equal owner and everything and it was a very successful band I didn't care about me and then I just wanted to play with people that I wanted to play with and I was very unhappy you know tried to leave once and they threatened to break my arms and not the guys in the band but this manager diet I said if you don't play here you're not gonna play anywhere and it scared the hell out not because I've never you know is still really young at that time you know I started with the who knows seventeen and a half you know to China eighteenth birthday so I didn't really know that it was that way it's really not that way but you know would somebody not happy because I all of the awful things if things you know go beyond your way but no it wasn't that way there and then from that I went through a whole year a little over a year with lawsuits in the first gig that I got after that was when I live with Chicago and put this little band together call the thumbs it was really cool band but consign anything because I was tied up Kathlyn record offers a really good deal the prepared came out in her Caban but they wanted me to sign a key member clause and I couldn't do that because of what I was tied up in leave anyway long story short and that went on for about a year and a half and I learned a lot about the legal system and stuff like that he owned lawyers and the whole thing and that was the last manager I'd ever had and it was toward the end of that peered I got a call from David Hemmings not the actor but a British manager who I'd met when I was with black oak and the first two of that I did we were supporting Black Sabbath in Europe and David Hemmings who was the band's luggage guy he carried there I'm able an elevator with Ozzie and Tony Iommi the first people when I got to class we were fighting the Apollo and Glasgow or supporting Black Sabbath it's the first time black dopey to it out of America I'm trying to condense this anyway he was worked for them as carrying their levy he was a luggage guy well in the interim through all those years he started to onaconda management was managing Judas Priest Pat Travers and a couple of other bands along with his partner Dawson was his name well from that contact with David Hemmings then and Pat Travers in Herbie play some black folk supported Emerson Lake and Palmer and non Toronto where was Pat phone it was from somewhere in Canada and Pat was at that gig and heard me play and then mentioned my name and David David Hemmings David Hemmings was then his manager David hemming sometimes gets in touch with me and I thought in New York you know got together we champ out boom started with Travers and that went four more years maybe through you know some pretty good and it was right on the precipice of getting get really big and you know people were doing things they should have been doing you know including mr. Hemmings and you couldn't sit down with anyone and have any kind of really constructive business meeting about going on and taking the next step so I left and after all left at the same time and from that I moved to England I lived in England for about a year and a half two years and that's when I started working with Garry Moore that's when I Randy Randy was just come over he just started working with Ozzy I was working with Garry who was signed to chair it was the same label that Ozzy was signed to it was owned by Don Arden who god rest her soul is gone now Sharon Osbourne's father and so that that's how it all came and I was rehearsing with Gary and working with Gary women Ozzy I mean Bob Daisley and Randy came to a rehearsal because Randy wanted to be care he was a huge hearing more fan that's when I met the first campaign was living there at the time same time period that John Bonham passed away it was to during that same time period and with you know 52 couple records we carry a couple of tours to carry and then was living in England and I got looked up another member Don Arden called me to his office and playing something for me said he said listen the stalwart wanna know if you could dome for some drums on this for me and I said sure Don what is it and he played it and it was outtakes from blizzard and diarrhea madman the sessions and I'm listening to it I'm thinking I listen to an headphones I'm saying employer I said he wanted me to put overdub the drums on it that's what why Don would you want maybe that I said that sounds really good you don't want to mess with that he said he was like the pattern and I said what you mean just from a drummer's point of view I said well I'd like to think I could do it better but it's not gonna make that music any bag that's really special some serious stuff that's going on there I didn't know what I was really listening to you know what ended up being those two albums and he was trying then they were trying men to get the drums and the bass off of those records to then before they were even really officially released Sharon at that time just worked in the office in chat for her father I remember say meeting her at a party at Rob McSween's who's an agent you caught me you know what you know all these people and when when I was living in England Maude was he was working for the agency did he now own that Don Martin owned he now owns ooh but it was all kind of collected to get connect together just small st. names are still in the business very few of them you know and then from Ozzie it went until until Randy was killed in the crash you know and I was there and trying to audition and find guitar players and Brad Gillis through my connection with that thrall of me up with Brad Gillis he came out and and he was what good enough to play all the parts and willing to faithfully replicate Randy spots so he you know kind of saw us through that first you know transition cuz I met Sharon woman to trying to maintain some momentum you know that was important with Madison Square Garden coming up some big gigs and Bernie Torme came in originally in poor guy there was so much pressure on him and he just was just a nervous wreck we did Madison Square Garden with Bernie and I felt so sorry for him because it was just too much too soon you know too much information and too big a feels unfillable shoes I believe some people are just they're not you know people aren't just gonna change you especially from an artistic point of view Randy happened to be one of those you know but it was still that time when where any past was when he was killed I was trying to find a replacement you know and found in that through that after Brad fulfil those who commit those turning commitments when we were full-time trying to find a guitar playing this when I ran across the Jay Jay Ely in LA throughout an audition to him and he got the gig you know she was Bonita Jim George Lynch name was on the you know was on the top two or three of that list you know check out the gig and and then Ozzy was going through some throws you know is trying to get off the booze and from that transition I went to from that to watch tank when I left Ozzy Rudi dis left wat Raya yeah and we've got together in LA and we're trying to put something together so we were looking for a guitar player and a singer vice-mayor drummer looking for a guitar player singer and we were flying guys in from all over the place we were mates for almost a year you know auditioning guitarist in the city and singers and and then John Sykes a good buddy of mine and he kept saying well come down you know I left off the DC and and and it's only down and talked with David and John we went out to dinner you know I talked about Whitesnake thing and I had a commit with Rudy but they were particularly I don't know we're just what they weren't that infinity was just wanting my services at that time and I was trying to faithful be faithful to my commitment you know and so that's when he went in anyway he ended up going and hooking up with Ansley and do him finish they doing the record and shortly after that is when they were looking still looking for a rhythm section well David at that point was looking for an entire band because all of a sudden Sykes an easily all those guys are out of the picture now and so we got the singer and David got the bass player the rhythm section it was looking for and then Adrian and Vivian came up and that brings us up to the 87 hours and of course then it was the MTV and there were so many things that were dovetail and you were there in that period there were so many things that were responsible for the just a huge huge miss of that 87 record upon flamenco factory it's an iconic album it's just kind of dovetailed with a with a hero of mtv and huge massive that the charts were dominated by all rock bands it wasn't you know rapper or it was all you know the top 5 Aerosmith would be there Whitesnake you know a couple of other bands would be there you know raising it your machine it was just really amazing ECDC you know it's amazing out what the charge were filled with it at under the top 10 there's some completely different so there are so many things over detail of dovetailing that culminated in you know the massive success in the film Whitesnake endeavor didn't at the time it wasn't just us and you know that album and stuff so there were a lot of things into a part II to that level of success playing five nights in every city and you know we were out for a year and a half that first that first tour you know out for 18 months you know and it just doesn't happen anymore and with MTV and it was almost like being a film star everybody knew you were in town they knew what you look like it was you know it was just really crazy it was some fun to be part of that and and thankfully Whitesnake has enough substance and there's enough musical integrity this meant death and maintain because david has always been in the common he's always been a thumbprint you know and he's always been there with all the personnel changes and is that any other you know it's happened he's he's the DX factory now and so because of the groundwork has been laid from a stylistic point of view it's it's progressive loose rock that's kind of timeless you know not to the degree that it may be Led Zeppelin is you know that's a whole nother stratosphere you know and I would dare compare it to that but it's not too far away from that there's there's the music itself it doesn't lend itself to a certain trendy you get off a Whitesnake fan they tend to grow with you instead of away from you which is really intense most rock band fans you know they're the power band is this why they outgrow you and go to do something else you know but we've been able to keep a pretty good you know foothold and managed to still be out here and somewhat viable still to this day you know thankfully West you still be a part of [Music] you you

Channel: Rock Scene Magazine

Views: 195,241

Keywords: Tommy Aldridge, Whitesnake, Ozzy

Id: ei9fngWJyjQ

Length: 17min 35sec (1055 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 30 2018