Drums are at the center of many lives, and Don McAulay seems to live in all of them. Don is a drummer, a woodworker and drum restorer, studio owner, a vintage drum collector,, and a drum tech for some of the great bands, such as Neil Young, My Morning Jacket, NRBQ, and Faith No More. For the last 9 years, Don has been working with Charlie Watts, traveling as his tech and helping Charlie with his incredible collection.

Many people wonder how you get a gig like that, working for a Rolling Stone, and a few minutes with Don gives you a hint. He’s a light and thoughtful person, and talking drums with Don is a delight. You quickly understand why someone like Charlie would want this easy-going and knowledgeable guy around. We discuss Don’s day job, as well as the lessons he’s learned from the greats when he sits down at the kit in his own projects.

 

Clementine: Your story seems like kind of a magical drum story to me. Your dad was a drummer?

Don. Yes. He was living in Boston, where there was a rockabilly, blues scene going on. I don’t know that he stuck to a solid band. He played through his late teens, early twenties, and then he started a family. He would play with guys who were into rockabilly and blues. That’s what I came up on. Then he got into avant garde, bizarre music. Great record collection. He just always played. We always had a drum kit in the house, so I never knew any different. My uncle is a guitar player, so there was always somebody to play with. My cousin is also a guitar player.

C: Your dad is also a woodworker, right?

Don: We’re both woodworkers. He also restores drums. He took apart and put together drums before I did. I’m just kind of following his lead on that.

C: Did you know that drums were your instrument, or did you kind of bop around on a bunch of them before you chose drums?

Don: I just stuck to drums. I had so many opportunities to play different instruments, and I never did until much later in life. Still, at this point, the first thing I want to do is go sit at a drum kit. Right now, I’m looking at a guitar and a bass and a piano at my drum studio here, but I seldom pick them up. If I’ve got a song idea, I’ll say, let me record it with the drums. Drums are always the first thing.

This winter, I’ve determined to be a piano player. I want to make it serious and more disciplined, and be like, I need to learn that instrument and put a sheet over the drums. That’ll be hard.

C: Why do you think you have to do that?

D: I want to contribute more in the studio. Using piano, and bass, to hone my music theory.

I think for kids, that’s really important. You might like to bash away on drums, but piano is just as musical. It’s a percussion instrument. Think of it as the left hand side is a lower tom or bass drum and the right hand side is your rack tom. Reverse it as a left-hander, think about it like that. It’s just a drum kit with keys.

C: It is really important too, when you’re having that musical communication with the band, when they say, hey, in the descending part…, you think, oh yeah, keys on a piano descend and ascend.

D: What is a diminished chord? What does it really mean to build up tension when you go to the minor keys? I think it helps you no matter what.

I’ve been very fortunate to work with some piano players, and that person is basically creating a beat and a groove. You see the Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis, or Terry Adams from NRBQ. I used to work with them and I’d think, that dude is playing drums with his fingers. The drummer is more connected with him than he is with the bass or guitar player.

C: As a drummer, isn’t it wonderful to play with a keyboard player? It’s just such a pleasure. It also really seems to me like songs written on piano seem to have a different kind of musical depth as well. You listen to an Elton John song, it’s like there’s some kind of elevation of melodies, the way the song works.

D: Nigel Olson. I saw him for the first time up in Vancouver last year, and I was blown away. He’s super clean. He’s amazing. He made every song an individual show. Elton John craves attention out there, but Nigel, in the background, he’s been playing with him forever and he’s playing so damn simple. You’re like, how is that even possible?  It’s all piano and drums.

C: I was thinking about Charlie Watts, and that wonderful, wonderful time when I got to meet him. You hooked that up for me. The thing that stands out the most is how once you said she’s a drummer, his entire demeanor changed. He was kind of suffering through having to meet someone while he was working, but then as soon as he heard I was a drummer, it was like everything in him softened.

D: Oh, I can talk to this person!

C: I think that’s remarkable for somebody who’s been doing this for so long, that he still feels such deep connection to the instrument and to people who devote themselves to it.

D: He doesn’t want to talk about the Stones, but he is such a drum geek. He’s so happy to talk drums. I brought Jay Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. back there and introduced him. Jay’s a drummer, but he’s not known as a drummer. Charlie never met him before. Jay doesn’t talk a lot, but he said, I got this drum kit, and he showed Charlie a picture. They were off and running. Charlie didn’t care what kind of music he played. Jay’s a stoner rock drummer. Charlie didn’t care. It’s like, oh, you have the affliction too. I know your kind.

C: Is there anything else that surprised you when you started working with Charlie?

D: How he carried himself. He carried himself as the most non-rockstar rockstar in the world. He’s one of the biggest drummers in the world, not so much because of how he plays as much as the company he keeps. He could easily be that rockstar. All of them, for the most part, are that way. He carries himself as a gentleman.

What really surprised me too, is that he’s not that interested in rock and roll. He sometimes doesn’t want to even listen back to what he does in a recording session. He is thinking, what would Chick Webb be playing? What would Chico Hamilton or Max Roach be doing if they were faced with playing this simple four-four rock and roll beat? How does Earl Palmer deal with playing all these pop tunes for the Wrecking Crew, when he’s really a jazz drummer? How does he not freak out? Charlie is a swinging jazz drummer in a rock and roll band.

C: How do you think he does it? Is it the connection with drums and the other instruments that excites him as he plays?

D: It’s the friendship within that band. It’s the fact that he’s drumming. He could care less that it might be a pop tune. Or that it might be a hit. He could care less. It’s the fact that he’s able to drum. I think that’s the biggest thing. That’s the reason why he still bothers. He just wants to play drums and hang with his mates..

C: I got a book that I heard you talk about, Sympathy for the Drummer: Why Charlie Watts Matters.

D: The author, Mike Edison, is an awesome guy. He’s a punk rocker. He was a High Times editor. He’s punk, but he gets it and understands what’s going on with that.

C: You help Charlie with his drum collection, is that right?

D: Mostly, he collects famous jazz drummers’ drum kits. Charlie is interested in that obscure jazz drummer he loves from the thirties.

He’s got a pretty awesome collection that I’ve helped him with. A more recent one was the Gene Krupa collection.

C: I saw that. I thought, the cowbell! I want to get that cowbell! But, sold. 

D: I’ve learned a lot about jazz drummers. I’ve always been into jazz, but not nearly as much as I am now, hanging out with Charlie.

C: I know you worked with Neil Young. Did you get to work with Ralph Molina from Crazy Horse?

D: I was bummed, I didn’t. I was going to work with Ralphie after I had worked with Chad Cromwell. I’m not sure exactly how it all panned out, but it was all timing. I hope to someday.

C: Who are your favorite drummers? I know it’s a tricky question to ask after the greats you’ve worked with.

D: I think even before I knew Charlie, he was way up there on the list. No doubt because of his pocket and tone, supportive. He’s definitely one of my favorites. I saw Max Roach at a really early age, because he was a teacher at UMass, which is just down the street. Not even knowing who he was, but because of the way he played, he was one of my favorites early on. Keith Moon, of course. Pete Thomas from Elvis Costello and Attractions.

I like drummers who are supportive of the song. Martin Chambers from The Pretenders. I think The Pretenders are my favorite band. I like drummers who are supportive of the song. There are a lot of them. Jim Keltner, again, supportive.

C: He’s one of my favorites. He’s got a magic in his playing. I think it’s about what he chooses to play.

D: It’s a statement. Simple, and every part you lay down is a statement. I got to know him, and we chat on the phone and we’ll talk for an hour. He’s a sweetheart of a guy, and really helpful when you’re asking about certain things on drums. He’s also a Charlie. He just loves the drums.

There’s a million drummers. I could go on and on. Brendan Canty from Fugazi. As far as Nineties rock, I think everybody owes him a big apology. I think it starts and ends with Fugazi, as far as that style.

Keith Moon of course, but you know, he doesn’t swing, he can only play with Pete Townsend. Put him in a different band, who knows.

C: I adore Keith Moon’s playing, but I always thought that if it wasn’t for John Entwistle, he might not have been the drummer he was. There was something about that conversation that enabled Keith to play that way.

D: Entwistle was able to fill up all those frequencies and voids, so Moon could do whatever he wanted. There are a lot of guys like that, who can play with their guys and be in that one world and that’s their magic.

Charlie could play with a lot of guys, but you stick him in another rock and roll band, I don’t know that he’d be the player we know.

C: It’s so much about the conversation. I know that Charlie’s conversation with Keith is one of the magic conversations going on in that band. I remember when I lived in New York, and Charlie was playing at the Blue Note. This friend of mine was standing outside and Keith came walking up and said, I’m here to see my man.

D: My drummer! That would get him punched in some circles.

C: What about your playing? Anything that you’ve taken away from all the people you’ve worked with? Are there things that you’ve learned standing on the side of the stage with all of these great drummers, things that opened up a little piece of your brain?

D: Most definitely. First, playing to different-sized rooms. Frequencies can bounce around a stadium differently than in a studio. If you play too fast in a stadium, it just gets confusing. Speed is okay, but movement is just as powerful if you just let it breathe a little bit. If you’re in a small room, you can play really fast and a frequency hits you hard and it’s right there, immediate. But in a big room, you’ve got to learn to play to the people at the back of the room just as much as the people who are freaking out in front.

Find your own internal clock. Find the tempo that you’re feeling good about, and then criticize it. Play a little slower and see how it feels. I think if you lay back and pull the groove back, it can make it powerful. I think I’ve learned that a lot from Charlie. Pocket.

Also, be open to all styles of music and realize that it doesn’t start and end with what you just did. A jazz drummer might try a rock and roll beat. You never realize certain things until you start listening to different styles of music.

When you’re going into the recording studio, I’m realizing more and more, you have to think about the energy that you’re going to need to play the song live. Kick it around for a while and make sure this is going to work live before you commit to tape. Because that’s the end all be all. Try different things.

I try to encourage songwriters to stretch out when I’m playing with them, why don’t we try it a little different, throw it to the wall and see what happens? Take time to do it.

C: You are reminding me of an episode on Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast, about Leonard Cohen’s song “Hallelujah,” following the twists and turns of the song becoming what it is today, over years. Listening to other people cover it and then coming back and changing it himself.

D: And not being afraid to do it. It’s your song. Let that song live. I learned a lot from Neil Young about that when I was in the studio with him. It’s his song. He just recorded it, but really, it’s not his song. It’s everybody’s song at that point. The words mean something different to somebody else, that’s fine. If you’re hearing it faster and you want to play it like that, then that’s what you do. It’s not like you can only play that song like this. All of a sudden you’ve made a happy mistake. Those happy mistakes are awesome. Sometimes it totally sucks, but kick it around for a while. Take time.

Keith does that. We might have just had a rehearsal for four hours. Keith sticks around. It’s Keith and like three other people. He listens back to the entire rehearsal. It might take three hours. He puts seven hours into it. He’s listening to other people and he is listening to himself. A great lesson: listen back to yourself, take the time because you might think, that was great. But until you listen back to yourself on tape, you don’t know. He’d realize man we’ve been playing that way too fast. That’s another thing I’ve been doing a lot, listening to myself on record.

C: That’s such great advice.

D: Some people have a hard time with it.

C: I have a really hard time with it.

D: Me too. Criticize yourself a little bit, constructive criticism, you know? You get a lot better, really fast.

C: I think it was David Crosby who said that they did that in the beginning.

D: He’s got perfect pitch because of it. So he claims, anyway.

C: I feel like what you kind of hit on too, is really being able to take up space and time for yourself. I feel like that’s one thing I notice in successful drummers I’ve gotten the chance to see playing up close. There’s no question that they’re going to take all the time they need to do it. I know that comes from playing hundreds of shows in front of hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe it’s something that you only get with experience, but there is something about saying, I’m going to take up the time it needs to say what I need to say in the song. Let it be settled, rather than feeling like I’ve got to force it down everybody’s throat. It’s more impactful to take your time.

I remember when I saw the O2 concert with Zeppelin when they reunited, with Jason Bonham on drums. I just saw a bootleg of it, I wasn’t there, but it was remarkable when they came out on stage for that first show. 99% of bands would have come out blazing, and instead they just came out settled and in it. They were just in it from the beginning.

D: Exactly. It’s not a race. You’ve got the entire show to do, you know? Also, hydrate. Mike Bordin hydrates, that’s his method. Posture. Like Charlie, hold your posture, keep your posture good. You’ve got a long way to go. Loosen up. A drummer who is racing from the beginning will wear themselves out because they’re not warmed up.

Drink water, slow down, when you get off the kit, stretch. Take the time you need, make it impactful. Your first hit and your last hit should be just as meaningful, just as powerful. It’s hard to do. We never do. But that’s a goal we’ll reach when we’re 80, you know?

Take your time. Don’t rush this thing. If you’re 20 years old, you hope to do this for many more years, right?

C: Take your time, unless you’re the opening band and getting off stage, do not unscrew your cymbals on stage.

D: So let’s talk about that. If you’re a drummer and you’ve got the ability to have a tech, treat them well. You’re in it together. I know Mike Bordin’s big on that. He’s got mad respect for his guy. When I worked for him, he was like, I’m in a race. I’m helping him get from point A to point B. He respected that. It would be a great thing for a young drummer to maybe be a tech as well. That’ll make you a better drummer.

C: You can’t express enough what a small world the music industry is. You treat one person like an asshole and suddenly, you’re the guy who treats people like assholes. It will follow you around.

D: Don’t be an asshole. That’s a good statement.

C: At shows I always think, for everybody who’s doing a job in this venue tonight, the job kind of sucks. It’s really hard. The bartender, the bar back, the doorman, the promoter, the guy who sweeps the floor at the end of the night, the sound man, the drummer, everything is hard in its own way, and thankless, in some kind of way. You’re all in it together. Nobody’s better than anybody else. If the floor is not mopped up right and it’s all sticky and disgusting, people will come away feeling different about the show.

D: That’s right. I just saw Dinosaur Jr. at a drive-in show. I was hanging out with Jay Mascis after the show, and watched as he ended up hanging out on the stage with the crew. Is everything cool? You guys good? You know, seeing how it’s going.

C: That’s great. Any time we can express to other people that we should treat other humans with respect, I think it’s helpful. Especially at the beginning of a career, when you’re so focused on your own deal, focused so much on what you are putting out there and taking all the information in. You kind of forget you have a responsibility for how you present yourself in the world.

D: How you hold yourself. I think we talked about that with Charlie Watts, how do you hold yourself? You’re a gentleman, be cool. You have a lot more fun being cool with each other.

C: These are things that you’ve learned from the great drummers, what are those things that you’ve learned from the great techs you’ve worked with? It’s a particular temperament of human who can just roll with life on the road.

D: You have to be a gypsy. My grandfather was an antique collector and dealer, so he’d be working, and my dad and I were doing the craft shows, packing the truck and going up to Vermont and trying to sell furniture. Sleeping overnight, waking up the next day, setting up the show, trying to sell stuff, wearing all these hats. You’re the builder. You’re the driver. You’re the mover. You’re the salesman. That mentality in road work is really needed. You have to get to the end. There is a lot to do, and nobody loses their shit.

I think the best thing I’ve learned from techs is, don’t panic. Don’t panic, no matter what. Don’t show the artists your stress, because it’s really about them. It’s their party. We’re just throwing it for them. It’s not our party unless they invite you in. If you’re panicking, if you’re freaking out, it doesn’t help the situation for anybody.

C: What have you been working on as a drummer and in your studio?

D: I’ve been taking on a lot of vintage drum restoration projects since we’re currently off the road and I’m selling some historic drums from my vintage collection.  www.mcaulaydrums.com

 I recorded a cool track with my pal Johnny Irion at his studio called, Inside The Endless Om. He wrote and produced the track with myself on the drums, Robert DeLeo (Stone Temple Pilots), Tim Blum (Mother Hips) Mikael Jorgensen (Wilco), Griffin Goldsmith (Dawes) on percussion,  and the late Alan Kozlowski who studied with Ravi Shankar.  Jeff Bridges (the dude) is on that recording too!  https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/johnny-irion-ravi-shankar-song-inside-endless-om-1010633/

We also cut this great track a couple weeks ago with political rocker Mike Stinson. https://www.austin360.com/entertainment/20201021/song-premiere-mike-stinsonrsquos-rsquoclose-enough-for-government-workrsquo

I’ve also been recording with a lot of old band mates in Ware River Club, Spouse, Andrew Jones & Spirithouse, and others.

My friend and coworker Pierre De Beauport, (crew chief for the Stones and Keith’s guitar man) and I try to play and record as much as we can. That’s some great rock n roll and it keeps both of are skills sharp while off the road or out of the studio.

I’m also recording drum tracks for up and coming artists at my drum studio/restoration shop. That’s a fairly new thing for me. My latest obsession!

 

Don’s Favorite Drumming Albums

Images:

Stray Cats, Rock This Town
Slim Jim Phantom

Fugazi, Repeater
Brendan Canty

Howling Wolf, London Sessions
Charlie Watts

Pretenders, Learning To Crawl
Martin Chambers

John Coltrane, A Love Supreme
Elvin Jones

The Clash, Combat Rock
Topper Headon

Los Lobos, Colossal Head
Jim Keltner & Pete Thomas