Report an error
A few weeks ago, I was invited to do Off The Record with Michael Landsberg and was stoked to discover that one of the other guests was Jeremy Taggart, the outstanding drummer from the Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady Peace.
The chance to connect with someone like Taggart was exciting because, well, like a lot of other guys, I always wanted to be a drummer. From the time I was as big as a cat, I?ve pounded on tables, desks, dashboards ... anything, anytime, anywhere, basically non-stop. The only time I?m not tapping is in my sleep, and even then I?m not sure. My daughter Bubba grew up thinking she was a cymbal. I should have named her Zildjian.
Unfortunately, I never had the discipline to carry it through. The old man putting his foot through my bass drum and then throwing my kit in the snow bank didn?t help. But that?s why I?ve always admired ?real? drummers, guys who have the chops and the discipline, and put themselves out there every day.
I never mentioned any of this to Taggart before the show, but I almost jumped out of my chair late in the program when Landsberg invited him to drum on a table. Later, I got a call from one of my buddies, Steve Chalmers, who, after watching OTR, asked how I felt when Taggart was drumming away.
?How do you think I felt?? I said.
?I bet you wanted to join in,? he said.
Are you kidding? I was dying.
The good news is, besides being a great drummer, Taggart is a helluva nice guy, and when I asked him if we could rap about his drumming and his love of sports, he was into it. Turns out there?s more to Taggart?s love of sports than just being a fan.
At one point in his life, before he took up drums in a serious way, Taggart had dreams of becoming a pro ball player. And it wasn?t just some Walter Mitty daydream. The dude had some serious pitching skills.
From the ages of four to 16, when he decided to give up mitts for sticks, Taggart?s dreams were on the field. He lived and breathed baseball, pitching mostly, and thanks to an obsessive work ethic, developed into a solid hurler.
?I practised to the point of insanity,? said Taggart. ?I used to pitch two-to-three hours every single day with my dad. I always had a leg-up on other players because I was the only one practising (that much). For 12 years, me and my dad worked super-hard at baseball. That was it for him.?
When Taggart eventually quit baseball to pursue a career on the drums, his dad was devastated, despite the fact that Ron Taggart was once a professional drummer himself.
?My quitting baseball was kind of a rope around my dad?s neck, in a sense,? said Taggart. ?He was a professional drummer who gave it up for his family because it was impossible to feed everybody and be a drummer, though he was very good.?
Ron worked at the Sears warehouse in Rexdale for 23 years and, while giving up a career as a musician was difficult, he did pass on his love of the drums ? and baseball ? to his son. The family moved around the province frequently when Jeremy was young, but he played at the highest level of youth ball wherever they went and dreamt of becoming a pro.
?At 16, I could hit 85 mph and I was pretty accurate,? he said. ?I could really find the corners, and those are the kind of pitchers that usually end up doing well.?
Taggart threw two no-hitters and a perfect game during his rep career and once fanned 21 batters in a game. He also attended an Atlanta Braves tryout camp in Toronto. But as he got older, he realized that, as good as he was, there were other kids out there even better. It?s a familiar story.
?When I went to the actual training camps, you could see the talent. I saw guys who were 6-foot-4 and could throw 90 miles an hour,? said Taggart, who checked in at about 5-foot-8 and 145 pounds. ?I could drop (a pitch) about a foot, I could take out a lot of guys. But all I had was accuracy and a brain.?
Sadly, in his late teens, Taggart became disillusioned with baseball. Not so much with the game itself, but with the politics of sport and some of his coaches.
?We weren?t a very well-to-do family and I was always on rep teams, and the coaches and the parents, well, it can be very clique-y,? he said.
Late in his ball career, one of Taggart?s coaches faced sexual assault charges as a result of an incident with a player. That was it. He quit baseball and concentrated on drumming, practising ?12 hours a day for three years.? The commitment paid off.
Though Taggart had only been drumming in a serious way for a relatively short time, he brought it. In 1993, Our Lady Peace held open auditions. Taggart, who was all of 17 years old, beat out dozens of hardcore drummers to get the gig. So while one life ended, another began, though it was a bittersweet time.
?I was done with the game and I hated it, and it was actually sad when I quit baseball in 1992 because I didn?t watch the Jays win the ?92 and ?93 World Series,? he said.
Eventually, though, as OLP became more and more successful, and Taggart settled into his drumming career, his love of baseball returned.
?It wasn?t until I was on tour and comfortable in my own skin again that I started to realize how much I loved baseball,? he said. ?Every year I would write a history of baseball for my speech at school, I collected baseball cards, I was a huge fan of the history of the sport. So I knew it would come back, but it?s sad that I missed those two World Series.?
Like practically every other baseball fan in this city, Taggart is pumped about the Jays? chances this season. But it?s not just baseball that turns his crank. The man is a total sports freak. Check out his Twitter account (@Taggart7), including this post from Sunday afternoon: ?#Raptors game tonight. Gladly missing the Grammys for courty?s! Levon tribute everyday in my house anyway.?
Taggart adores baseball and golf the most (he?s a five handicap and will watch the entire European Tour tournaments on TV or his laptop), but is also a diehard Leafs, Raptors and Argos fan and tweets off almost every game. He?s currently in discussions with TSN on some sports/music related projects.
When OLP is touring, Taggart isn?t the only guy on his laptop every day checking stats and scores. The other guys in the band ? lead vocalist Raine Maida, bassist Duncan Coutts and guitarist Steve Mazur ? are all big sports fans. So much so that they named their last record, the group?s eighth studio album, Curve and put Canadian boxing legend George Chuvalo on the cover. The band contacted Chuvalo?s wife Joanne with the idea of using his picture and Taggart said getting to know Chuvalo, widely considered the toughest boxer in history, was a total blast.
?Absolutely unreal,? said Taggart. ?He?s such a sweetheart. He?s an icon and deserves tenfold (more) than what he?s received.?
To the members of OLP, recording a boxing-themed album wasn?t a total reach. In a blog he wrote for AOL, Maida explained what he considered the similarities between rockers and fighters: ?There are strong emotional and physical similarities between the two. The boxer skillfully relies on rhythm and improvisation to control a fight. An artist relies on rhythm and improvisation to help guide the listener. The boxer uses footwork, punching combinations and tempo to attack and escape his opponent. The artist uses chord progressions, melody and tempo to help the listener escape. Either in the ring or on stage, both the fighter and artist put a piece of their soul on display in a fascinating struggle of determination and acceptance. It?s a struggle for affirmation that their work and life force are worthwhile. This war is an age old battle between ego and the sacred self. One designed to fight, the other to heal.?
That last line resonates big-time. Sitting in the Sun cafeteria, Taggart is asked: When drumming certain songs or listening to a great drum groove, does he ever get emotional, or perhaps even shed a tear?
?Absolutely,? he said. ?Drumming has healing properties. It keeps you young, it keeps you less depressed, it keeps you happy.?
That totally rings true. Even to a guy whose drum kit includes kitchen tables, desks and dashboards.
?
THIS LITTLE DRUMMER BOY BECAME A PAPER BOY
I?m not the writer Steve Buffery is and I was never a drummer of Jeremy Taggert?s skill or accomplishments. But as those two wonder what might have been, I have to consider how fortunate I was to be able to pursue both passions ? though, regrettably, not at the same time.
Like Jeremy, I came from a highly musical family. Dad played drums professionally, mom the piano. My first cousin, the late Rick Danko, played bass for The Band and distant cousin Bobby Colomby was the drummer for Blood, Sweat and Tears. My sister, Caren Cole, is currently touring with the Jersey Boys while kid brother Danny has been a long-time jazz and blues bassist around T.O.
For me, however, it came down to a difficult decision. During the long-hair 1970s, my career in sports journalism was just beginning at the same time that I was drumming in a small handful of bands, doing everything from hard rock to Hava Nagila. Problem was, most of my drum gigs came the same weekend nights as I was supposed to be covering the local junior hockey team or a high-school hoops tournament. It became obvious that something had to go. As I knew I was never going to be the next John Bonham, I opted for the next Frank Orr and the drums were mothballed and eventually sold.
Haven?t touched a pair of drumsticks since, though I?ve never been able to stop slapping out those Neil Peart and Bill Bruford licks on whatever table top or steering wheel happens to be handy.
- Joel Colomby
Source: http://www.torontosun.com/2013/02/14/our-lady-peaces-jeremy-taggart-drummed-up-pro-baseball-interest
courtney robertson ben flajnik hunger games premiere red meat bachelor ben good morning america jon hamm
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.