Читать книгу Mad, Bad and Dangerous - The Book of Drummers' Tales - Spike Webb - Страница 21

Denise Dufort has been drummer with Girlschool since they began back in 1978. They quickly became notorious as the ultimate all-girl heavy rock band, breaking the rules and taking a traditionally all-male environment by storm. Since then they have released three hit singles and 15 albums, touring with a host of heavy rock icons like Motörhead, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Iron Maiden and Twisted Sister.

I caught up with Denise at her local in Streatham, just before she set off on Motörhead’s UK tour in the winter of 2009. During our chat we talked about the difficulties drummers experience with the most elementary pieces of equipment.

We’re on a big sound stage at Shepperton Studios doing a dress rehearsal for a major tour. So we’ve got the whole works: 30 crew operating sound, full stage lighting, follow spots and special effects.

I’m doing the usual, happily bashing hell out of my kit. After a while I can smell something unusual, a bit like burning plastic. I assume it’s coming from the stage lights behind the drums. After all, they are very bright and I can feel the heat coming from them. Still, the technicians know what they’re doing. They’re professionals and this is Shepperton Studios, not some scout hut down the road. So I carry on playing.

Soon I notice what I think must be dry ice coming up around my snare drum. That’ll be the special effects guys doing their stuff. Then, to my astonishment, I feel a burning sensation in my butt. It’s getting hotter and hotter. I look down and discover to my horror that my drum stool is actually on fire.

Never has someone moved so quickly off a drum riser. I leap up and dive across the stage, whacking my arse to put out any flames. No one else seems to be concerned; in fact they are all in stitches. I’m thinking, ‘Hey, guys – I could have died up there!’

Drum seats are generally made of foam padding encased in a plastic or leather outer covering, designed to make the drummer as comfortable as possible. What the technicians hadn’t bargained for was the intense heat from the lights working its magic on these constituent parts, resulting in fire. You can’t really blame them, because it’s a fairly rare occurrence. It’s probably never happened before, or since.

But it’s also fairly typical that road crew, techies and the like will know every detail of what goes into a guitarist’s equipment, what will electrocute him and what will not. But a drum kit, that’s just wood and chrome, innit? Anyway, if anyone is going to be seen darting across a stage whacking their arse, it’ll be the drummer.