Let there be drums – An interview with Chris Slade

Slade Alive – Chris and Peter just before Thunder struck

I interviewed Chris Slade recently, drummer for AC / DC, Tom Jones, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Asia, Paul Rodgers, Gary Numan and many more.  Here’s what Craig Sclare, a fellow drummer and management consultant, had to say about Chris:

Chris is a solid drummer, I love his style, his power and drive.  His ability to ‘feel’ when the right time is to increase/decrease the energy is brilliant (great leaders in any field just know how to do this) – Craig Sclare – Management Consultant

Here’s some of what he Chris had to me:

Chris started playing drums on one biscuit tin with knives in Pontypridd – they were not rich enough to have more than one biscuit tin!  His first break in the music business came when he played for Tom Jones.  Although he lived near Jones, he did not know him.  One day whilst working in a shoe shop in Pontypridd, Tom’s guitar player came in.  Knowing that Jones had just lost a drummer, Chris begged the guitarist for him to let him play.  At that time Chris was a teenager and the guitarist in his twenties.  This was a huge gap, nonetheless, the guitarist agreed to introduce Chris.  He puts this down to luck, yet this kind of thing does not occur by staying in your bedroom as a musician.

Drum Lesson 1:  Ask and you may receive

Drum Lesson 2:  Make a bit of luck happen

Watch the whole interview from the lovely people at ME1 TV here:

Chris’ early drumming experience was playing jazz.  Without this experience, it is unlikely that he would have been able to replace Carl Palmer in Asia.  His life has included playing with solid rock bands such as AC / DC and with Progressive Rock bands such as Manfred Mann’s Earthband and Asia.

Drum Lesson 3:  To be successful, work from a wide palette of styles

The drummer is pretty much the most important member of the band.  You can get away with a bad lead guitarist but if your drummer is rubbish, you are in big trouble as everything else revolves around that. Asked about AC / DC Chris had this to say:

Drum Lesson 4:  AC / DC’s success is all down to having the best rhythm section in the world – Malcolm Young and the drum and bass combination

Drum Lesson 5: To improve your sense of time and timing in business, don’t hire a management consultant, hire a drummer!

Read the article on AC / DC and high performance in “The Music of Business”

Drum Lesson 6:  AC / DC’s success is all down to extensive preparation – there are no unplanned events in an AC / DC concert.  It’s the “Seven P’s” : Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance

Drum Lesson 7:  Excellence comes out of “Planned Spontaneity”.  Do the work if you want to profit from accidents

Heres a slice of Chris playing with AC / DC at Donnington:

I asked Chris about his time with Gary Numan – I’m aware from my friendship with Bill Nelson that Gary Numan was something of a perfectionist and that he has a ‘digital heart’.  That made him a difficult man to work with for Bill Nelson and I was curious about what seemed an odd combination for a rock drummer.  Not at all Chris replied.  Chris worked with Numan and Pino Palladino, the virtuoso bass player that is most famous for playing on Paul Young’s rendition of “Wherever I Lay My Hat”.  Chris said that the combination of Paladino and himself humanised Gary Numan’s sound.  That said, he found it initially hard to work with click tracks on Numan’s insistence.  This sounds a little familiar with Bill Nelson’s experience although this ended somewhat less profitably!  Here’s Numan with Slade and Palladino performing “Music For Chameleons”, later popularised as a symbol of 80’s music by Alan Partridge:

Drum Lesson 8:  Experiment with styles to get better.  Be an eclectic learner and don’t let notions of what is acceptable put boundaries around your work

Chris Slade’s music can be found at Chris Slade.  Here’s some of Chris’ Lessons for Life summarised:

Be nice to drummers – they might just save your life

Finally, here’s Chris’ tour schedule for 2014 and a bit of hard rock featuring one of my favourite drummers, Vicky Nolan, erstwhile drummer for my fictional Spinal Tapesque Rock group “Genital Sparrow”, who performed at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) many years ago, long before the institute banned enjoyment as part of the diet for HR professionals:

He’s a live wire – Chris Slade on tour

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About the Author:  Peter Cook leads The Academy of Rock – Keynote events with a difference and Human Dynamics – Business and organisation development, training and coaching. Contact via peter@humdyn.co.uk or +44 (0) 7725 927585.

More on AC / DC and business in “Sex, Leadership and Rock’n’Roll” and “The Music of Business”

Alive and Kicking

In recent weeks, I’ve been doing a number of live book launch events, some shorter, others longer.  I’ve attached the slide deck from one of these and have expanded on some of the points in the slides below

AC / DC and Strategy

1. AC / DC have surpassed their peers by ‘sticking to the knitting’ – developing a strong brand and reinforcing it through everything they do.  They have not ‘crossed genres’, wandering into hip hop or jazz fusion.  It’s rare for businesses and individuals to be able to keep doing the same thing and keep their customers in the current age.

2. When they have changed, they have built a strong bridge between the future and the past, which has allowed them to keep their audience and gain new followers.  This is a very transferable lesson for businesses and individuals.

Deep Purple, Creativity and Innovation

3. Innovation needs discipline and structure.  People think that creativity is enough for innovation to take place, but it takes discipline and structure to execute an idea.  We see this on stage when Deep Purple were jamming.

4. Innovative teams require strong leadership.  Deep Purple nearly imploded on many occasions due to creative tensions between the band members.

The Beatles and Creativity

5. Find ways to listen to ideas that seem ‘dissonant’ to currently accepted views.  The Beatles were masters of bringing outside influences into the world of pop music.

6. Delay evaluation of ideas for as long as reasonable, so that you can put distance between the novelty and a sober evaluation of the potential feasibility and impact of an idea.

7. Requisite diversity is essential if you are to have an innovative business.  Find ways to resolve tensions that build up by putting different people together, but resist attempts to sidestep conflict.  The creative leader utilises the tension between opposites whilst maintaining a focus on the goal.  The Beatles are an excellent example of this.

Lady Gaga and Innovation

8. Innovate within the familiar range of the customer’s expectation for maximum early impact.  Build on that for long-term sustainability.  Gaga has cleverly built her music on the firm foundations of Madonna and her peers.

9. Stand on the shoulders of giants if you want to innovate.  Be a genuine learning organisation if you want to stay in business for the long term.  What will be interesting is to see what Gaga does next, having established world domination.

10. Use innovative partnerships and joint ventures to enlarge your market share in ways that benefit all.  Choose your partners wisely and in ways that provide genuine win-win benefits.

For more detail on these points, mail me for your copy of The Music of Business.  Tomorrow, I give the final keynote at a large Pharmaceutical Conference – my title is “Innovation Lessons from the Past, Present and Future“.  If you want to perk up your next meeting, conference or keynote with a healthy blend of business thinking plus live demonstrations and the engagement that comes from live participation, give us a call on 07725 927585 or via e-mail peter@humdyn.co.uk

We finish with the title of this blog: