Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Charlie Watts: The Steady Stone [Highlight From Episode 341]

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Charlie Watts: The Steady Stone [Highlight From Episode 341] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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  Speaker 1: Here's a highlight from a recent episode of Booked on Rock,
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  Speaker 1: John Ling and the author of Backbeats, A History of
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  Speaker 1: Rock and Rolling Fifteen drummers, Charlie Watts. So glad he's
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  Speaker 1: in this book. So essential to the Rolling Stone sound.
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  Speaker 1: You're right quote no one else has a backbeat like
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  Speaker 1: Charlie Watts. Explain why Charlie was so unique in that sense.
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  Speaker 2: Totally unique in the sense of that band, especially as
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  Speaker 2: they went on and they entered that sort of like
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  Speaker 2: mythic period, you know, Beggars Banquet and let it bleed
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  Speaker 2: up through Exile on Main Street. I mean, I'm not alone.
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  Speaker 2: That's my favorite of their music. And so like the
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  Speaker 2: whole sort of what they achieved in that time was
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  Speaker 2: this just sort of amazing looseness where the guitars are
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  Speaker 2: kind of snaking between each other and the reverb is
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  Speaker 2: forming part of the stew and like you know, they
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  Speaker 2: got background singers and Mick Jaggers shaken things and it's
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  Speaker 2: just like this big and like what Charlie Watts did
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  Speaker 2: was like keep that really steady, and not just in
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  Speaker 2: a timekeeping way, because he was honestly not a great
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  Speaker 2: time I mean, he was like he sort of shifted
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  Speaker 2: and moved the you know that it was a loose band.
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  Speaker 2: They shifted and changed the tempo from time to time,
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  Speaker 2: but as a sort of calm in the storm and
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  Speaker 2: a just sort of like keeping a kind of like
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  Speaker 2: jazz influence and just like steadiness in the midst of that. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: just like the equivalent of an of just an absolutely
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  Speaker 2: flawless rhythm guitar player, just like never made a song,
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  Speaker 2: always made a song better when he played on it.
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  Speaker 1: Yep. I was fascinated at the part about Charlie snares
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  Speaker 1: sound really being a mix of sounds. Can you explain
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  Speaker 1: how he came up with that?
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  Speaker 2: So again, I love, I love to be asked these
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  Speaker 2: kinds of questions because these are things that I did
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  Speaker 2: want to sort of highlight in the books, these sort
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  Speaker 2: of like physical aspects of drumming. So the Charlie watts backbead,
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  Speaker 2: if you think of like a drumstick sort of tapers
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  Speaker 2: to a to a sort of bead at the end,
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  Speaker 2: And if you think of a drumstick hitting a drum,
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  Speaker 2: you would think of like that bead making contact with
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  Speaker 2: one area of the drum and then like as it
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  Speaker 2: as it hits that drum and you lift off from it.
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  Speaker 2: Then the air in between those two you know heads,
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  Speaker 2: as we say, reverberate, and that's what makes a drum.
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  Speaker 2: A snare drum of course is two super tight and
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  Speaker 2: it has these like snares on the bottom, so it
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  Speaker 2: doesn't reverberate but as much, but it still does reverberate
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  Speaker 2: a little. And one way that you can get it
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  Speaker 2: to reverberate more is to sort of simultaneously hit the
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  Speaker 2: bead on the head as well as the sort of
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  Speaker 2: middle part of the stick on the on the metal rim,
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  Speaker 2: and that's called a rim shot, So you get this
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  Speaker 2: sort of like that. It's like a tighter sound, but
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  Speaker 2: it also makes the drum vibrate more. So he was
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  Speaker 2: great at that, and he was great at like and
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  Speaker 2: again talk about those dynamics that we were talking about
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  Speaker 2: with sam Leigh, he was the master at like. His
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  Speaker 2: backbeat was super steady, but each one would sound different
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  Speaker 2: in certain ways because sometimes he'd hit us he sometimes
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  Speaker 2: he hit it in a different part of the drums.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes he'd be a rim shot, and it just gave
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  Speaker 2: it this like as as I say, this depth, this
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  Speaker 2: dynamism of the sound in a way that like Ringo,
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  Speaker 2: for example, we think of his playing as being very like,
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  Speaker 2: very like tight contained, and Charlie's much more reverberative and
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  Speaker 2: even in his snare, which is just an amazing thing
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  Speaker 2: to achieve, and he's like you can tell him from
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  Speaker 2: the moment you hear.
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  Speaker 1: So he's utilizing every part of the stick, every part
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  Speaker 1: of the kit.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's hitting. He's hitting it so that it's not
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  Speaker 2: just those it's not just the head of the drum
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  Speaker 2: reverberating and the air going back and forth between the
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  Speaker 2: top and bottom there. But it's also because you're hitting,
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  Speaker 2: you get the click sound of that of that wood
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  Speaker 2: hitting metal on the drum hoop, and then you've also
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  Speaker 2: got this greater reverberation that you hear because the like
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  Speaker 2: the wood of the or the metal in a snar's
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  Speaker 2: case is it is reverberating more because you're slamming a bigger,
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  Speaker 2: like more of the stick on it. And so again,
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  Speaker 2: would you notice this, like is this the kind of
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  Speaker 2: thing that like a normal non obsessive listener is going
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  Speaker 2: to necessarily notice. No, not really, but if you're the
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  Speaker 2: kind of person, it's the equivalent of like how a
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  Speaker 2: guitar player, like what effects they use or just what
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  Speaker 2: sort of like if you have reverb up a little echo,
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  Speaker 2: it's just like it's how to get a little bit
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  Speaker 2: more voice, a little bit more life into the sound
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  Speaker 2: you're making. And yeah, he was just, like I say,
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  Speaker 2: was really one of the one of the masters of
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  Speaker 2: that for sure.
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  Speaker 1: But now that you point this out, whenever we listen
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  Speaker 1: to the Stones, now listen closely. See if you can
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  Speaker 1: hear I loved you. I think you mentioned in the
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  Speaker 1: book too, the Stones, the shows get bigger and bigger
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  Speaker 1: the state, the stage gets bigger and bigger, and it's
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  Speaker 1: these huge backdrops of they get throughout right up until
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  Speaker 1: the end. Charlie had the same kit.
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  Speaker 2: And an old one, the old kids. Yeah, there's the
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  Speaker 2: great quote from Gina Shock of the Go Gos, who
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  Speaker 2: who I did talk to and who did say this
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  Speaker 2: to me? But she So they opened for the Stones
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  Speaker 2: in their nineteen eighty one tour, which was the first
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  Speaker 2: rock and roll tour to take place exclusively in athletics stadiums.
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  Speaker 2: So this is they filmed it for a concert movie
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  Speaker 2: called Let's Spend the Night Together. And so they're they're
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  Speaker 2: playing in like Tempe. They're playing in a giant, like
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  Speaker 2: seventy thousand person football Bowl, And she said the quote
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  Speaker 2: was that she was talking to Charlie's roadies and they
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  Speaker 2: were laughing at like the Oriental rug underneath of his
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  Speaker 2: kit was worth more than the drums itself.
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  Speaker 1: It's so great and it's terrific, by the way, the
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  Speaker 1: best dressed drummer in rock and roll history.
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  Speaker 2: It's those those several road suits and it's like again,
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  Speaker 2: big time jazz guy like so many people of that era,
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  Speaker 2: and he really those were the that was the sort
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  Speaker 2: of standard that he set for himself in a lot
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  Speaker 2: of different ways.