“I’d never heard anything as fluid”: Alex Van Halen explains the brilliance of Ginger Baker
Nick Mason once said he learned everything he knew about drumming from Ginger Baker of Cream. Despite not even being a rock and roll drummer, his fervour while playing was second to none. As Mason described, “Absolutely terrific character. I wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for Ginger, […] The curtains went back, and I just thought, ‘That is drumming. That’s what I’d like to do.'”
Although Alex Van Halen’s talents were somewhat eclipsed by his brother’s musicianship, Halen’s drumming style is not to be overlooked. Like Baker, Halen’s playing came from the heart and soul, his rhythmic beats enough to earn him a place among the greatest drummers who ever lived. Moreover, he rarely pulled the same trick twice and always approached each track uniquely.
Halen’s sound was so impressive that it influenced Eddie’s guitar playing after he realised his brother had the exact kind of flare he wished to emit. “I want my guitar to sound like Al’s snare…warm, big and majestic,” he once said, describing Alex’s playing as “brown” while attempting to capture the ways his brother plays like he’s “beating on a log”.
Although Halen’s influences in drumming include many of the virtuosic names you might expect, including Billy Cobham, Keith Moon, and John Bonham, Baker showed him how drumming could excel beyond the confines of the kit and appear larger than life, reverberating long and hard enough to match Eddie’s lightning guitar playing.
While Bonham was also a seminal influence when it came to velocity, Baker taught Halen about real nuance. “It blew me away,” the drummer recalled. “It was simple, yet it was complicated. It had a lot of feel to it. The thing that I got from Ginger was that drums are a musical instrument. There’s more than just the hits, there’s the nuances, dynamics, colours.”
Commenting on his technical prowess and how it set him apart from any other percussionist, he added: “Nobody played double bass as a musical separate part the way Ginger Baker did. What he played were unique patterns that shifted across what he was doing over the top. I never heard anything as fluid before. Somehow, everything flowed and rolled.”
Baker’s ability to craft a unique tapestry with drumming alone is something that has impacted many musicians, mainly because he brought his jazz background to a predominantly psychedelic space, rivalling Eric Clapton’s guitar playing by challenging the traditional musical structure that had already long hindered music.
However, although his prowess became a template for many subsequent percussionists, his unique artistry led Bonham to believe that attempting to emulate was no use. “When I listen to drummers, I like to be able to say, ‘Oh! I haven’t heard that before,’” he once said. “Being yourself is so much better than sounding like anyone else. Ginger Baker’s thing is that he is himself. So it’s no good trying to do what he does”.
In Halen’s case, therefore, becoming one of the most dynamic drummers in the music scene meant embodying someone who truly understood the power and potential of the instrument. While Baker’s approach initially opened his eyes to these possibilities, Halen took the art of emitting energy from a singular source and ensured it harmonised with all other elements of Van Halen.
