Post by ekforum on Dec 1, 2009 12:02:55 GMT -5
Many times in '91-'93, I'd work up a song with Custer where he'd just play the drum part on his leg! You could watch his bass foot and his sticks banging on his leg and KNOW he was getting it right. Didn't take him long to learn a song.
I heard COPPERHEAD ROAD by Steve Earle on the radio recently. Quintessential rock drumming by Kurt Custer. I had to turn it up loud. What a great song.
I can't tell you what a great experience it was playing on stage with Cus. We did this one gig somewhere in Missouri. We'd had very little sleep in 4 days and we were so tired. I mean, as tired as I can ever recall. Yet, we hit the stage...there was a full moon...and we had one great time. Custer was never afraid to try some new angles on old parts. He's an original.
Everybody learns differently. But NO one gets it like Custer.
Custer arrived in Jacksonville for his "audition". Tom Dowd suggested we needed someone for the 1991 album. I'd never met Cus but his playing on Steve Earle's COPPERHEAD ROAD was turned my head around.
That night when Cus arrived, I went to his hotel room with a small cassette recorder. That day I'd recorded a very rough version of a song we were working on called "It's A Killer." He'd never heard it before. I played it twice and on the third playback he took a pair of drum sticks and started banging on his knees, the chair...anything around. He played the entire song perfect with all the stops, licks, everything.
The next day when Cus sat down and played it with the band perfectly the first time through...it was pretty impressive, to say the least. I just wanted him to do the album...Rossington wanted him in the band. I couldn't argue.
The first time I ever noticed GROOVES in a drummer's hands was when Custer played with us. Bloody grooves the size of drum sticks.
" from Germany !!!