The “worst rhythm section in rock” history, according to Henry Rollins
The blood vessel-busting Henry Rollins was never known to mince words about any rock band he was asked about. Since retiring from the spotlight, he has continued in that manner.
From his earliest days in Black Flag, Rollins would smell out bands that he thought were inauthentic, tearing down the preconceptions of rock and roll and creating the sounds of hardcore punk in the process. Although Rollins had a sharp sense of when he was being bullshitted, he had a particular distaste for one particular classic rock rhythm section.
When looking at the makeup of any good rock band, it all stems from the rhythm section. Although the drummer and the bassist might not be the most recognisable faces for the passive fans of the band, they usually hold the rest of the group up, taking the groove into wildly different places at any moment.
This musical truism even goes back to the days of swing, when the classic bandleader Duke Ellington proclaimed, “If you have a great band with a mediocre drummer, you have a mediocre band. If you have a mediocre band with a great drummer, you have a great band!” No doubt thousands of oft-overlooked sticksmiths nod furiously in agreement with that, right down to Ringo Starr.
If anyone knows the power of the rhythm section more than most, though, it’s Rollins. Throughout his work with Black Flag, Rollins was known to twist the rhythm section to suit the song in different phases of their career, from the lightning-speed precision of their debut Damaged to eventually shifting towards Black Sabbath-like dread on My War.
So, who has the most distasteful bloody rhythm section in rock?
Around the same time Rollins started in the late 1970s, another band out of Ireland was coming off the heels of the original punk revolution. After joining the post-punk movement, U2 quickly started to come into their own as a creative sonic force, creating songs that were designed to be rock and roll spiritual exercises as well as great songs.
Although the band would stray further away from the traditional punk route on albums like War and The Unforgettable Fire, they would end up incorporating new sonic textures into their sound, like the now-famous echoed guitar playing of The Edge on The Joshua Tree. For all of the strides they made together, though, Rollins was far from impressed with what Larry Mullen Jr and Adam Clayton were doing in the background.
Compared to the forceful sounds of his favourite bands, Rollins thought that Mullen and Clayton were among some of the least competent backbones that a band could ask for, saying, “They have the worst rhythm section in rock. That is the most plodding, corny rhythm section ever to fill a stadium.”
The scathing frontman, known for his love of likes of Jot Division, continued, “If you look at those records, they’re mediocre Brian Eno records with a bad band in. They need a producer like Eno or Daniel Lanois to kind of prop up this cabaret singer and his one-trick pony”. In this regard, the drums and bass don’t even enter the conversation, as though they’re simply disinterested session men.
While Rollins’s assessment of the band was indeed harsh at the time, the role that Mullen and Clayton provide perfectly serves what the song is supposed to do. As opposed to showing off any technical flash or putting added muscle into their parts, the sparse instrumentation in the background allows the melodies to have a free-falling aspect, which would go on to change when the band adopted various dance and electronic textures on albums like Achtung Baby and Zooropa.
Despite being one of the premier acts rock has to offer, Rollins gravitated towards the sounds of hard-hitting drums coming from acts like Black Sabbath rather than what could be found on something like ‘With or Without You’. Even though U2 may have basic drum fills now and again, it’s that sort of simplicity that makes stadiums of people go wild every time ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’ starts playing.
Nevertheless, ask the average music fan to name the members of U2 and Bono and the Edge will fly off the tongue of most, but the more stately duo who don’t go by any stage name would certainly be the lower-scoring answers on Family Fortunes. For Rollins, that’s indicative of the fact that they’re safe plodders who have never pushed themselves enough to be noted.
