Micky Waller: The drummer Jeff Beck said was closest to Keith Moon
Drummers are rarely afforded the same reverence or respect as guitarists or lead singers, but rock and roll was built on the driving rhythm of drums. Throughout the history of rock and roll, countless figures have aimed to redefine expectations of drumming, from the hard rock sounds of John Bobham to the underappreciated genius of Karen Carpenter. However, very few drummers could aim to live up to the power and energy of The Who’s Keith Moon, a force of rock and roll nature.
When The Who burst onto the scene with ‘I Can’t Explain’ in 1965, the unparalleled energy of Keith Moon’s drumming was already evident. Over the next few years, his amphetamine-fueled playing style and equally wild off-stage persona helped to establish the mod rockers as one of the biggest rock and roll groups of Britain’s swinging sixties period. With that success came more opportunities for Moon to push the limits of rock star life, living exclusively on the edge.
Inevitably, this lifestyle eventually caught up with Moon. In 1978, after over a decade of living a life of rock and roll excess, the drummer passed away at the age of 32. His passing left an absence in the landscape of rock and roll that could never be filled – largely because no other figure managed to ride the line between musical quality and wild lifestyle quite as expertly as Moon himself. For years, artists like Jeff Beck tried in vain to recruit a drummer with half as much skill and energy as Moon himself.
Beck was as deeply ingrained in the British music scene of the 1960s as Moon and The Who, pioneering the psychedelic guitar riffs of ‘Heart Full of Soul’ alongside The Yardbirds. Every great guitarist needs an equally outstanding rhythm section so when forming The Jeff Beck Group in 1967, the songwriter called upon session drummer Micky Waller to fill the position. Having cut his teeth playing alongside Little Richard, John Mayall, and Brian Auger, Waller was an undeniably skilled player, as Beck himself confirmed.
“He was great,” the guitarist once shared. “For a long time he was flatmates with a Motown drummer, Benny Benjamin, which must have rubbed off because he had great dexterity and fantastic Motown chops.” Together, Beck and Waller were an unstoppable force for British rock and roll. Nevertheless, the guitarist couldn’t help but feel as though Waller’s skills weren’t quite as good as what he had witnessed with Keith Moon.
“Unfortunately, having seen Keith Moon, I just couldn’t be happy unless I had a drummer with that amount of charisma and power,” Beck revealed. “Mickey was a great drummer, but he didn’t have the charisma.” Still, Waller was about as close as you could come to recruiting Keith Moon without poaching him from The Who…or taking out a hefty insurance policy.
Despite the intense quality of The Jeff Beck Group’s line-up, which also included Rod Stewart and future Rolling Stones member Ronnie Wood, the band only lasted for a handful of years. The original incarnation of the band broke up the night before Woodstock Festival, which they were scheduled to play at, and Beck’s new version of the group in 1970 saw Waller replaced by Cozy Powell.
Finding a drummer to rival Keith Moon was an impossible task, so it is no surprise that Beck’s recruitment of Waller didn’t last long. It is not that Waller was a bad drummer by any means, but Moon was a force of nature that could never be replicated.
