Geoff Dugmore (September 2005 Issue)
From Pub Bands To Studio First Call

As a youth from a small town near Glasgow, Geoff Dugmore sat between a rock and a hard place, namely the barren Scottish highlands to the north and the impenetrable English music scene to the south. Despite Geoff's consuming love of drums and a strong start in pub bands, the odds pointed to a job clerking in a record shop or firing bricks--certainly not to a thriving London session career backing Stevie Nicks, Heather Nova, The Thompson Twins, Tina Turner, Dusty Springfield, Dido, The Gypsy Kings, John Paul Jones, Gary Clark, and Danny Wilson. But Geoff Dugmore had discovered something: the missing link between the much maligned cover band and the recording drummer.

"When you're in pop bands," says Geoff, "you go through so many styles that inevitably they rub off on you. I don't understand the phobia about playing covers. If you're not taking other musical influences onboard, you're blinkering yourself!"

When Geoff arrives at a recording date, he makes it memorable, first for the truckload of gear he carts: DW drums, spare snares, scores of Sabian cymbals, Roland V-Drums, a cocktail kit, and a percussion trunk. Then he casts his spell. "I place candles around the drumkit and in the control room," Geoff explains. "For Natalie Imbruglia's new album, I brought Persian rugs so that everybody could hang out on the studio floor."

In a declining session scene, Dugmore stays busy. For example, Sunday he finished a string of Ronald V-Drum clinics with Omar Hakim. Monday he was packing for a well-earned vacation when he heard the phone. "I got a call to do a session that night for a new Warner Bros. artist named Fahan," he recalls. Okay, just one more!

T. Bruce Wittet

Back