A truly unique ‘tub-thumper’
Playing behind Beyonce, Adele, Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber is all in a day’s work for Chris ‘Daddy’ Dave, writes Grant Smithies.
It all started with the drum. The drum and the voice. You sing, you bang on something, and there it is – music. ‘‘It had to be the first instrument, right?’’ says Chris ‘‘Daddy’’ Dave, a Texan percussion virtuoso who’s one of the most in-demand drummers in the world right now.
‘‘You could be in a cave or wherever, and you can bet somebody was hitting something with a stick and making a rhythm while the others would sing.’’
Beyonce. Adele. Lady Gaga. D’Angelo. Justin Bieber. Sonny Rollins. MF Doom. Erykah Badu. Wynton Marsalis. A Tribe Called Quest. Dave has made a rhythm while they sang, while they rapped, while they played.
He has drummed for all these people and hundreds more, on stage or in the studio.
Pop, hip-hop, R’n’B, country, gospel, jazz: it’s all the same to him.
‘‘It ain’t no thing, man. It’s what I do. Been doing it since I was a little kid in the church band back home in Houston.’’
And now he’s coming here, to Wellington, to do it for us.
Dave and his band The Drumhedz appear at next week’s Wellington Jazz Festival, an event that pulls more than 30,000 jazz fans from all over the land.
The Drumhedz will headline alongside United States jazz singer Gretchen Parlato, Philadelphia bass legend Christian McBride and former Miles Davis pianist John Beasley’s MONK’estra big band.
‘‘I ain’t telling you who I’m bringin’ along with me, neither’’ says Dave from his home in California, his voice all snuffly with the tail-end of a cold.
‘‘Drumhedz is whoever I feel like playin’ with at any given time. There’ll be six or seven of us on stage, though. The best thing to do with a Drumhedz show is to turn up with an open mind and a determination to party. Believe me, you’re gonna hear some things you ain’t heard before.’’
What style of music? He’s not telling us that, either.
‘‘Man, I listen to everything, and I play everything, too. Expect nothing, then you’ll be happy with what you get! It’ll be a party combining all sorts of music, live on stage, and we’ll be there to mingle with the people afterwards, you know.’’
He isn’t much of a talker, as it turns out. Dave is a man of high achievements and few words.
It’s not that he isn’t friendly; he just speaks in short sentences and they peter out quickly.
He’d far rather you listened to him play drums than talk about playing drums, and fair enough.
When Dave starts to smack and tap and tickle things, all of his limbs working, and his head ‘‘somewhere way up in the clouds, man’’, well… that’s when he’s at his most articulate.
When he plays drums, whatever he’s feeling flows out vivid and true, and you can feel it, without a word being said.
You would have heard him many times, without knowing it. He’s all over Adele’s world-conquering 2011 album 21, for example, a pop juggernaut where the songs were still getting thrashed on radio and in TV talent shows for years after release.
Does he feel gratified, to have worked on projects that turned into such monsters?
‘‘To be honest, I enjoy a tiny club gig as much as a big recording. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trippin’. When something becomes a huge hit, I feel satisfied. But, you know… if I had felt terrible about that song, I would have never left the studio. Your name’s on something, it needs to be good.’’
People hire him for what he can do, and he makes sure he delivers.
‘‘I give my best each time, you know? With Adele, she was real easy, real laid-back. I remember she’d like a certain little rhythm part or whatever, then we’d run with that to see what happens.’’
What happened was world domination, and not just with Adele, but over and over again.
Dave’s work also provided the rhythmic backbone for gigantic populist money-spinners by Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga, and Whangarei-born country crooner, Keith Urban.
And he’s been in the game for 25 years, so if you look back, you’ll find his name in the fine print on hit records by TLC, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, and Mary J Blige.
Dave is also a key player on a host of smaller, weirder releases – his