From The Beatles to Led Zeppelin: Five bands Ginger Baker always hated
In conversations about the greatest drummers of all time, Ginger Baker is almost always the name at the top. Beyond his obvious knack for unparalleled percussionist technique, Baker was also something of a prodigy, especially when it came to viewing music as a holistic entity. After all, he understood that drumming wasn’t just a mere component, but part of a bigger, broader and oftentimes improvised artistic expression.
What makes this particular statement even more true is that it seemed to be one shared with many major players across the board, from Eric Clapton to John Bonham. In their eyes, Baker wasn’t just an exceptional drummer but someone who knew how to be around the instrument and the broader production, evoking a certain charm that felt refreshing and revolutionary. As Bonham noted, “[Baker] was the first to come out with this ‘new’ attitude—that a drummer could be a forward musician in a rock band, and not something that was stuck in the background and forgotten about.”
Everything in Baker’s life, from his drumming to his external antics, was deemed explosive by nature and unapologetically himself, no matter the situation. Those who met him—famous peers or otherwise—often evaluated him as someone who you either loved or hated, with his self-assuredness often interpreted as either artistic brilliance or egotistical stand-offishness. Either way, he never held back his opinions, especially when it came to disregarding the talents or achievements of others.
Many of these instances came from a personal place of disdain or confusion, with certain musicians acting in a way that made Baker feel undermined—something he had no time for and made him feel the need to push back where it hurt. Other times, it concerned the musicians’ material, which, if it was bad, made Baker feel intensely put off, aggravated about ever coming close to what others considered to be “art”, when it was just, in his view, pure nonsense.
Bands Ginger Baker hated:
Hawkwind
When it comes to musicians disregarding other musicians, it’s usually in response to someone they find threatening, or people who seem to be imitating the work of others but passing it off as their own. It’s usually not with regards to bands they’ve been a part of, unless those are the ones with bitter ends with so much tension it’s hard to ignore, like The Beatles.
Baker drummed for the space-rock outfit Hawkwind between 1980 and 1981, but later conceded that he was only in it for the money and actually hated the music, describing the band as “the biggest joke in history” with music that was “fucking appalling”.
He added, “I needed the money, and that was the only reason. Hawkwind were more interested in their stage appearance and their lighting than their actual music – and their music was fucking appalling. Atrocious. I hated it all.”
BBM
Another group Baker was briefly a part of was the supergroup BBM, within which he shared a stage with Jack Bruce and Gary Moore, releasing just one album together before disbanding after a tour and a string of other performances. For Baker, everything fell apart the moment they started rehearsing for the tour, with Baker growing to resent Moore more and more as the days went on.
“That was a terrible time, playing with the Pampered Pompadour Of Pop,” Baker later said, recalling how more gigs were cancelled than played and the ones that went ahead were “awful anyway”. On working with Moore, he delivered the scathing assessment: “Unlike Cream, everything with Gary Moore was contrived. Every solo he played was the same. I like to improvise.”
Led Zeppelin
There was an intense dislike for Led Zeppelin among all three Cream members, each harbouring it with varying degrees of passion. And the fact that Cream broke up just as Led Zeppelin was forming only fueled their suspicion that Zeppelin had taken everything Cream had built—only to steer that legacy in a direction none of them respected or had the patience for.
While Clapton and Bruce dished out swipes about their joint artistry—or lack of it—Baker more pointedly used Bonham as a target while disregarding anyone who finds him talented, despite admitting that, sometimes, he had “technique”.
“The general public are so fucking dumb that anyone could think [that] Bonham was anywhere near this kind of drummer I am is just extraordinary,” Baker claimed in Beware of Mr. Baker. “Bonham had technique, but he couldn’t swing a sack of shit. Or Mooney, for that manner. I mean, if they were still alive today, ask them!”
The Rolling Stones
While some of The Rolling Stones‘ material remains incredibly polarising to the point where even Keith Richards and Mick Jagger hate some of it, Ginger Baker maintained a low opinion of them from the beginning, and felt like their status as musical legends didn’t really match up to their capabilities behind closed doors.
“I won’t go within ten miles of a Rolling Stones gig,” he once told Rolling Stone, adding that “they’re not good musicians, that’s why. The best musician in the Stones is Charlie [Watts] by a country mile”. Lyrically, he didn’t have anything good to say, either, admitting that they fell short in that department with a dismissive “No, not really”. Then again, he also said he wasn’t a “big anybody fan”, making his dislike of the Stones feel more like a jab at mainstream rock than anything too personal.
The Beatles
Looking at all of Baker’s previous remarks, it’s clear that he had no time for those who generally lacked the know-how, capability, and even professionalism to gain respect in an authentic and effortless way. Many of his targets follow a similar theme: musicians who, in his eyes, somehow gained immense popularity with little appeal and who relied on cheap tricks rather than genuine skill. According to him, The Beatles were no different.
Discussing the Fab Four with Forbes, Baker criticised Paul McCartney’s inability to write and read music, saying, “Even [he] needs someone to write it down for him”. Adding, “And he thinks that’s good. There was an article where he said that if he learned to read music, he might not be able to write as well. We used to say about the Beatles in 1963: ‘They don’t know a hatchet from a crotchet.’ A crotchet is what we call a quarter note.”
Elsewhere, he also attributed their success to George Martin, saying he “was The Beatles” and that without him, “they’d have been nowhere.”
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