These drummer quotes will inspire you. A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drums or a person who plays a drum or drums.
Below you will find a collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging drummer quotes, drummer sayings, and drummer proverbs.
Best Drummer Quotes
- “But, I don’t think any arranger should ever write a drum part for a drummer because if a drummer can’t create his own Interpretation of the chart and he plays everything that’s written, he becomes mechanical; he has no freedom.” ~ Buddy Rich
- “My soul is that of a drummer…. I didn’t do it to become rich and famous. I did it because it was the love of my life.” ~ Ringo Starr
- “A good groove releases adrenaline in your body. You feel uplifted, you feel centered, you feel calm, you feel powerful. You feel that energy. That’s what good drumming is all about.” ~ Mickey Hart
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“There is no music unless the drum and the drummer are one.” ~ e. e. cummings
- “I’m not a singer who plays a bit of drums. I’m a drummer that sings a bit.” ~ Phil Collins
- “It takes a pretty good drummer to be better than no drummer at all.” ~ Chet Baker
- “I told people I was a drummer before I even had a set, I was a mental drummer.” ~ Keith Moon
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“If it doesn’t come from your heart, music just doesn’t work.” ~ Levon Helm
- “Historically, musicians know what it is like to be outside the norm – walking the high wire without a safety net. Our experience is not so different from those who march to the beat of different drummers.” ~ Billy Joel
- “Thank God that I had the ability to understand that I had a different beat and that I was a drummer.” ~ James Brown
- “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!” ~ Duke Ellington , Drummer quotes band
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“It doesn’t matter what songs we sing. I’m a drummer. Chicks dig me.” ~ Larry Mullen, Jr.
- “A drummer is usually like the backbone.” ~ Brody Dalle
- “March to the beat of your own drummer.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “I’ve always liked to be the kind of drummer and musician who likes to go outside of what’s expected of me.” ~ Matt Cameron
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“Just because you’re not a drummer doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep time.” ~ Thelonious Monk
- “I think that the rhythm sections, drummers in particular, are the unsuing heroes of the music. It’s the rhythm section that has changed the styles from one period to the other.” ~ Max Roach
- “But I think that any young drummer starting out today should get himself a great teacher and learn all there is to know about the instrument that he wants to play.” ~ Buddy Rich
- “Drummers are conductors – we set the pace for the music – so if you’re not relaxed and feeling right, the whole thing goes out the window.” ~ Steven Adler
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“I think every band is a little cautious when the drummer starts to write tunes.” ~ Matt Cameron
- “Every drummer that had a name, had a name because of his individual playing. He didn’t sound like anybody else, So everybody that I ever listened to, in some form, influenced my taste.” ~ Buddy Rich
- “That’s what the drummer is supposed to do. Keep the time. If you can do something else besides that, fine. But the time is essential and non-negotiable.” ~ Elvin Jones
- “It’s the honesty you apply to your playing that makes music enjoyable. The style of the music has little to do with it. It’s only honesty makes it beautiful.” ~ Elvin Jones , Drummer quotes music
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“To be a drummer you also have to be a musician.” ~ Ian Paice
- “Where I come from we say that rhythm is the soul of life, because the whole universe revolves around rhythm, and when we get out of rhythm, that’s when we get into trouble.” ~ Babatunde Olatunji
- “I try to keep my ear to the streets without sacrificing who I am as an artist. If a song needs a drum machine I’ll use a drum machine. If it needs a drummer, I’ll use a real drummer.” ~ Teena Marie
- “In jazz, you listen to what the bass player is doing and what the drummer is doing, what the pianist and the guitarist is doing, and then you play something that compliments that, so you are thinking simultaneously and thinking ahead.” ~ David Amram
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“I’m the greatest rock and roll drummer on the planet and you suck.” ~ Tre Cool
- “The drummer; he inspired me to play like no one else I have ever met.” ~ Chet Baker
- “I would like to think that the singer is the butterfly, and the drummer was just the little grub in the ground, working to become a caterpillar” ~ Robert Wyatt
- “There is no roles. No one is keeping any roles. The drummer is also answering everybody and everything. So it is a constant conversation and communication between musicians on an extremely high level with extremely valuable material, motifs, and melodies.” ~ Miroslav Vitous
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“I consider every drummer that ever played before me an influence, in every way.” ~ Buddy Rich
- “I’d just play ’til my hands fell off. My parents would yell at me to stop because they couldn’t stand the noise any more! I was terrible! It must have been hard for them to listen to me as a beginning drummer.” ~ Randy Castillo
- “We were always going to dump him when we found a decent drummer.” ~ John Lennon
- “I was in orchestra in high school, but I really started when a friend of mine who’s a drummer showed me some things. I was always just really fascinated with drums, it was the instrument I was always drawn towards. My ear sort of went to rhythmic aspects of music and songs. But he really was the beginning point of starting me on drum sets; like I said, I was in the orchestra first and I was playing orchestral snare and mallet instruments first.” ~ Carla Azar
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“I want to keep pushing the limits for drummers and expressing myself.” ~ Travis Barker
- “First and foremost I am a drummer. After that, I’m other things… But I didn’t play drums to make money.” ~ Ringo Starr
- “When I was thirteen I only wanted to be a drummer.” ~ Ringo Starr
- “God is punishing me for my past wickedness by keeping me alive and in as much pain as he can.” ~ Ginger Baker
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“Drumming was the only thing I was ever good at.” ~ John Bonham
- “Every man must walk to the beat of his own drummer.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “What’s the last thing a drummer says in a band? ‘Hey guys, why don’t we try one of my songs?'” ~ Dave Grohl
- “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
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“Certain drummers drop time, and I like to play on top of the beat.” ~ Miles Davis
- “Once I had defined myself as a compositional drummer, I thought, “Well, I want to be an improvisational drummer.”” ~ Neil Peart
- “Hip Nip just sounds groovy. A drummer laid it on me.” ~ Pat Morita
- “When I was young, I wanted to do something more low-key, like become a drummer in a rock band.” ~ Brooke Burke
- “Buddy Rich was one of the most incredible technicians in the world, on this planet, but the only people he could really impress, who knew what he was doing was another musician or another drummer.” ~ Dick Dale
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“I think female drummers are great. I think there should more of them.” ~ Sean Kinney
- “But primarily, the drummer’s supposed to sit back there and swing the band.” ~ Buddy Rich
- “I’ve talked to some drummers who seem to have a very hard time staying in shape on the road, including some drummers touring with high-profile acts that don’t have to live on fast food every night.” ~ Matt Cameron
- “When I speak of natural drummers I’m talking about guys that are playing with the talent God gave ’em.” ~ Gene Krupa
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“I was a drummer, and I did a little singing too.” ~ Lou Gramm
- “I would like, with the sun shining through the window on a crisp early-autumnal mid-morning, with a sufficiency of Monster Cappucino flowing in my veins to prompt minimal sentience, to declare my view for the record that Drummer Jokes are a cruel and pernicious form of humour introduced to the world by under-humoured persons lacking in sensitivity and concern for other drummers.” ~ Robert Fripp
- “At this point, I think I would garner a lot of hate mail if I was now on the cover of Modern Drummer seeing as I’m not a modern drummer anymore.” ~ Jason Schwartzman
- “Michael Giles the first drummer of King Crimson, never agreed to the name King Crimson. But then, if you’d knew Michael, you would know he didn’t agree to the album cover either. So maybe Michael didn’t agree to the point of definition with many things.” ~ Robert Fripp
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“Age 10. I joined the school marching band as a drummer.” ~ Adrian Belew
- “In respect for drummers, see, I love drummers.” ~ Miles Davis
- “Most studios in Memphis had a house set of drums; the drummers just brought their own sticks.” ~ Steve Cropper
- “I’ve gotten hernias from drummers when they drop tempo.” ~ Miles Davis
- “The greatest contribution jazz has made in music has been to replace the role of the conductor with a member of the ensemble who, instead of waving his arms to keep time and convey mood, is an active member of the musical statement. That person is the drummer.” ~ Elvin Jones
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“I create my own lyrics. I have a great band. I have a drummer from East Berlin.” ~ Nina Hagen
- “Almost the moment he died, they put him in Playboy as one of the greatest drummers, which he was – there’s no doubt about it. There’s never been anybody since. He’s one of the greatest drummers that ever lived.” ~ Jimmy Page
- “We hear so many records these days that are done with click tracks, as opposed to a drummer.” ~ Wayne Coyne
- “But figuring out Saddam Hussein was one our greatest mysteries. He marched to his own drummer and frequently as this unfolded he made decisions which were sometimes inexplicable to us and sometimes didn’t look very smart.” ~ Brent Scowcroft
