Tommy Aldridge talks about his Rock Scene

my first introduction to the music I was listening to my mom was at Mercer she passed away a couple of months ago she was the musical source in the family natsu-san he was now a musician when I was a musician she was the first person he put me first I came into contact with music when I was just a baby. I remember we lived in Florida and she would like to prove that the foursome took five. You know the clown and that was the first music I heard. Joe Morello played drums. I didn't know I was just a kid and she was listening to all of us Everly Brothers people, so I was growing up and The Supremes, probably mostly radio stuff, she didn't have many records where there's mostly radio stuff and that was my first music, she brought the music, well my first taste of drums was one of those really good ones, I was just a kid maybe six five or six years old possibly and I wasn't a real kid, I was one of those stupid ones facts- Even children who were made of cardboard, you know, and like a palm tree in the front, you know?

TT. I looked at over 20 magazines and it didn't last long. I destroyed them, you know, right away and I've been banging pots before. happen and then there was a long period of time in my mind back then, you know, a year was forever, then I was like thirty seconds, you know, like its time passed, that was the first time I had any kind of thing with extra. German I didn't even have real drumsticks, little drumsticks, they came with that kid and it wasn't until years later that I bought a box and booklets, you know, and some real drumsticks started messing around, but that was quite a bit later.

It was probably when I was 11 or 12, well the first time I met so-called musicians was at that time, when I was 13, maybe playing with guys you know, they went to school with those who were just hanging around in the garage or we could go out. I got rid of that, you know, and there was a period of time where I switched from battery to battery and because I found that boom to be really tedious and it was very challenging and the whole independence thing trying to teach my left side to do one thing, right? ran, I might have to do something a mile if I was doing something else, my wife was doing something else and you know, and a police skill is working my way through the rudiments, so I thought at home, oh, I'm going to try guitar, so I tried playing guitar for a while and I really enjoyed it, but after about a year I went back to drums full time, probably the first, the first really cool big bandit, it was probably who you know who with and it was a completely British thing, it was the clothes, I think Herman's Hermits were in that deal, I think there may have been problems on that bill, it was like a bit of a British invasion, so there were some really pop bands there and on the hood. close and they were like, you know, they were like heavy work because they were destroying everything you know and it was before they started distinguishing between heavier bands and it was all the same genre, you know, someone even had long hair and played any other anything that wasn't jazz or swing or big band was was was was was a

rock

band you know, it was before they started supporting everything that you know well.

Suddenly I bought and played with more local bands and stuff and started I started playing original music pretty early with this trio and it was a strange trio the guitar was Brooke Summer he was a singing guitarist we had a keyboard player and he played a c3 with pedals bass with that was a family of three with guitar keyboards and drums and and the bass was covered by this keyboard player and if you played football, you know with a c3 because the B threes in C threes when they were used in churches, you know that come with a set of bass pedals, it was really good, he was a Juilliard. or something, you know, he graduated, he was already over it, he had to go dumb to play with us, he had a lot of playing skills, you know, in a

rock

trio, he was so good, he was so good, I was having a party silly, playing the pretty double bass.

Around the same time, we were working on all these really cool patterns and he could play all these amazing patterns on double bass and still play the keyboard, so it sounded very full, it sounds like the real thing, instead, almost like four pieces and we were making our own original music and living in a rural area of ​​the French Quarter, which was like a real Mecca at the time the Allman Brothers were there, dr. John, it was Pink Floyd, we were out there, it was like something really cool was happening. I didn't know at that time in your lives how cool it was that you could go to the warehouse, we would be the opening band for the warehouse there, Blue Cheer would play The Young Rascals, Pink Floyd and the Allman Brothers closed, that was a show, a line in which We walked in at like 2:00 in the morning, we opened up and since 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 times I played in 16-17, you know, it was During that period of time when I got there, it wasn't in that gang that a guy who worked with Black Oak hurt his clients.

If he broke up, he just signed Atlantic's native 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 his music was so weird, it was speed freak music and it was just We played what we wanted to play, so we couldn't, we might have to go to Florida to get the gigs and stuff that we couldn't get with the kids when we lived in Mississippi and Louisiana around there if we didn't do it. We played in the French Quarter and then we had to leave, you know, and we found a place in South Florida or some places we could play, so it became really frustrating those weird places to fly out, so I didn't do it.

I was very happy musically. but this guy said he had spam, so Black Hawk. I had never heard of him, no one had heard of him at the time, but I gave my name and a few weeks later he called me and I flew to Memphis, auditioned and got the gig, and everything went downhill. From there, for about five and a half years, I was around, I went through some, you know, unpleasant dealings with the management that was involved with that band, they got involved and it was my fault really because I was using it as a stepping stone, already you know, to be known, so I paid a really high price for that, you know, at the time, even though I was an equal owner and everything and it was a very successful band, I didn't care and then I just wanted to. playing with people I wanted to play with and I was very unhappy, you know, I tried to leave once and they threatened to break my arms and not the guys in the band, but this manager went on a diet.

I told him if you don't play here, I'm not going to play anywhere and I got really scared, not because I've never done it, you know, he was still very young at that time. You know, I started with who knows, seventeen and a half, you know, until China's eighteenth birthday, so I didn't really do it. I know it was like that, it's not really like that, but you know, wouldn't anyone be happy because all the horrible things if the things you know are beyond your path, but no, it wasn't like that, from then on I went through a a whole year, a little over a year with lawsuits the first gig I got after that, was when I lived in Chicago and put this little band together, call the thumbs, it was a really cool band, but give up anything because I was busy .

Kathlyn disco offers a really good deal, the set up came out in her Caban, but they wanted me to sign a key member clause and I couldn't do it because I was tied up with the licenses anyway, long story short, and that lasted about a year and a half and I learned a lot about the legal system and things like that, he owned lawyers and all that and that was the last manager I had and it was towards the end of that look that I got a call from David Hemmings, not the actor but a British manager that I met when I was with Black Oak and the first two that I did we were supporting Black Sabbath in Europe and David Hemmings, who was the luggage boy for the band that I had there.

I can take an elevator with Ozzie and Tony Iommi, the first people when I got to class, we were fighting Apollo and Glasgow or rooting for Black Sabbath. It's the first time a dumb black man leaves the United States. I'm trying to condense this anyway, he worked for them as their Levy carrier, he was kind of a baggage, meanwhile, during all those years he started in Onaconda, the management ran Judas Priest, Pat Travers and a couple of bands more along with his partner, Dawson, was his name since that contact with David Hemmings at that time and Pat Travers. at Herbie they played some blacks who supported Emerson Lake and Palmer and outside of Toronto where Pat's phone was, it was from somewhere in Canada and Pat was at that concert and he heard me play and then he mentioned my name and David David Hemmings David Hemmings was then his manager David Hemming sometimes contacts me and I thought that in New York, you know, we got together and defended the boom that started with Travers and that lasted four more years, maybe through something pretty good and was right on the verge of becoming really big and you know people were doing things that they should have done, including Mr.

Hemmings and you couldn't sit down with anyone and have any kind of really constructive business meeting about how to move forward and give the next step, so I left and after all, I left at the same time and from there 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 Randy Randy had just arrived and started working with Ozzy. He was working with Garry, who was signed to front, it was the same label as Ozzy. signed was owned by Don Arden, may he rest in peace, his soul is gone now he is Sharon Osbourne's father and that's how it all came about and I was rehearsing with Gary and working with Gary's women, Ozzy, I mean, Bob Daisley and Randy came to a rehearsal because Randy wanted to be taken care of, he was a big fan of the audience and that's when I met the first campaign who lived there in the same period that John Bonham passed away, it was during that same time period and, you know, we have 52 couple albums that we carry. a couple of tours to do and then I was living in England and they looked me up, another member, Don Arden, called me into his office and played something for me, he said, listen to the stalwart, I want to know if you could play drums for me . and I said sure Don, what is it? and he played it and it was outtakes of blizzard and diarrhea, crazy, the sessions and I'm listening to it, I'm thinking, I'm listening to headphones, I say employer, I said he wanted me to do it.

Put overdub on the drums, that's why Don would you like maybe I said that sounds really good, you don't want to mess with that, he said it was like the pattern and I said what you want to say just from a drummer's point of view. I said, well, I'd like to think I could do better, but it's not going to make that music really special, some serious stuff going on there. I didn't know what I was really hearing, you know what it ended up being? Those two albums and he was trying, then they were trying to get guys to take out the drums and bass on those records before they were officially released.

Sharon at that time only worked in the office chatting for her father. I remember saying a meeting. her at a party at Rob McSween who's an agent you got me you know what you know all these people and when when I lived in England Maude was working for the agency now she owned what Don Martin owned now he owns ooh but it was all collected to connect only with a small st. The names are still in the business, very few of them, you know, and then from Ozzie until Randy died in the accident, you know, and I was there trying to audition and find guitarists and Brad Gillis through my connection with that slave from I got together with Brad Gillis, he came out and was good enough to play all the roles and was willing to faithfully replicate Randy's places, so, you know, he helped us get through that first transition, because I met to Sharon, a woman he was trying to support. some momentum, you know, that was important with Madison Square Garden coming up for some big concerts and Bernie Tormé originally came in poor guy, there was so much pressure on him and he was just a nervous wreck.

We did Madison Square Garden with Bernie and I felt so sorry for him because it was too much, too soon, you know too much information and it feels too big, shoes that can't be filled. I think some people just aren't, you know, people aren't going to change you, especially from an artistic standpoint. Randy turned out to be one of those, you know, but it was still that moment where the past was when he was killed. I was trying to find a replacement, you know, and I found it through that, after Brad made good on those who make those trade commitments when we were full time trying to find a guitar that would play this when I came across Jay Jay Ely in Los Angeles during an audition for him and he got the gig, you know she was Bonita, Jim George Lynch's name was on it, you know, it was on thetop. two or three from that list, you know, look at the concert and then Ozzy was going through some releases, you know, he's trying to give up alcohol and from that transition I went to see the tank when I left Ozzy Rudi.

Raya, yeah, we met up in Los Angeles and we were trying to put something together, so we were looking for a guitarist and a singer, the vice mayor, the drummer, looking for a guitarist, singer, and we brought in guys from all over the world. place where we were partners for almost a year, you know, auditioning guitarists and singers in the city and then John Sykes, a good friend of mine, and he kept saying, well, come down, you know, I left DC and I just went down and talked to David and John we went out to dinner, you know, I talked about Whitesnake and I had an engagement with Rudy, but they were particularly, I don't know, we're just what they weren't so infinite.

He just wanted my services at the time and he was trying to be true to me. commitment, you know, and that's when he came in anyway and ended up going and hooking up with Ansley and finished making the record and shortly after that. It was when they were still looking for a rhythm section, well David at that time was looking for a full band because suddenly Sykes and easily all those guys are out of the picture now, so we got the singer and David got the bass. player the rhythm section that I was looking for and then Adrian and Vivian came along and that takes us to 87 hours and of course then it was MTV and there were so many things that fell into place and you were there in that period.

So many things that were responsible for the great loss of that 87 album at Flamenco Factory. It's an iconic album, it just fits an MTV hero and it's so massive that the charts were dominated by all the rock bands. You don't know the rapper or was that all? You know the top 5 Aerosmith would be there. Whitesnake. You know a couple more bands would be there. You know, lifting it with your machine was really amazing. ECDC. You know it's amazing to know what the charges were. Full of that in the top 10, there are some completely different ones, so there are so many things about the details of the combination that culminated in, you know, the massive success of the movie Whitesnake.

The effort wasn't at that moment, it wasn't just us and you know. that album and stuff, so there was a lot of stuff in a Part II for that level of success playing five nights in each city and you know, we were away for a year and a half on that first tour, you know, for 18 months. I know and it doesn't happen anymore and with MTV it was almost like being a movie star, everyone knew you were in town, they knew what you looked like, you know, it was really crazy, it was fun to be a part of. that and fortunately Whitesnake has enough substance and there's enough musical integrity, this meant death and maintenance because David has always been in the mainstream, he's always been a fingerprint, you know, and he's always been there with all the personnel changes and he's anyone else, you know.

It has happened that it is now the DX factory and because the foundation has been laid from a stylistic point of view, it is a loose progressive rock that is somewhat timeless, not to the point that it can be Led Zeppelin, you know, that is all. Another stratosphere, you know, and I'd dare compare it to that, but it's not too far from that, there's the music itself, it doesn't lend itself to a certain trend that you get from a Whitesnake fan, they tend to grow with you rather than away. . from you, which is really intense, most rock band fans know they're the powerful band, that's why they overtake you and go do something else, you know, but we've been able to maintain a point of pretty good support and we managed to move forward.

Being here and being something viable to this day. Fortunately, West, you're still a part of yourself.