Drummer Number Three In the scramble to suddenly find someone to replace Mike, Jimmy suggested a drummer he had once worked with, Buddy Lewis, who happened to be available. Buddy agreed to an audition and showed up sporting a set of stainless steel drums he had made featuring a plastic hose he would blow into while playing to audibly change the pitch of the whole kit. What's more, he was a fine, professional player who could learn the songs easily. We hired him on the spot. As a professional player, Buddy was unaccustomed to the sustained high level of energy the band generated (harder and faster) but bore up well maintaining it. His equipment however, did not. He began to go through sticks, drum heads, and cymbals at an alarming pace. As a result, we decided to let the band pick up the tab for breakable items like these, as well as guitar and bass strings, which needed to be changed frequently because of the sweat. For Kelly and me, it was a constant battle just keeping the rust and corrosion at bay on our instruments so that the electronics and little adjusting screws would continue to function properly. I was changing my strings before every show, plus replacing the ones that broke... and I broke a lot of strings! Breaking a string, by the way, proved to be a traumatic experience for everyone because it broke the relentless momentum of the show. Everybody was so pumped up, both on and off stage, that the wait for me to replace one was unbearable. Kelly said a second guitar would be a godsend, but he knew I couldn't afford one at the time. So one night, while I was changing a broken string, he told the crowd we were starting a fund to buy me a second guitar and asked people to contribute. A few seconds later, nickels dimes and quarters began bouncing onto the stage. We all stared at each other in complete disbelief! Naturally, we kept this practice up for about a month when, after collecting $190, I was able to buy parts to assemble a second guitar (which became my primary guitar.) In case you're interested, it was a honey colored Schecter Telecaster with a maple neck and a black pickguard, Seymour Duncan Classic Tele Stack front pickup and a Duncan Jeff Beck humbucker (with a coil splitter switch) on the rear. Through my 50 watt Marshall 4x12 it sounded nice and fat. Thank you, and I still have it. Buddy Lewis, by the way, turned out to be a real character. He had the most unusual approach to drumming I had ever seen. As it turns out, he started his career as a tap dancer and learned his drum licks as they compared to dance steps. He'd refer to them like "...oh, that's just a hop-shuffle-skip." Then he'd play it and you'd see what he meant. Amazing. So, he was well grounded as a drummer because he was first a dancer. In turn, this proved to be the most groove oriented period the band ever had. At this time (Summer '82, I think), we had stopped playing at Country Comfort in Virginia Beach, as they returned to their Acoustic and Southern rock roots (I wonder why) and took up residence practically across the street at a new club called The Crystal. This proved to be our first real long term gig at the beach. We played there, seemingly, all summer long and it was packed almost every night. I think our regular exposure there is when we began building a tremendous local audience. We also began learning more music by The Clash and The Sex Pistols, anything heavy and/or political. |