Drummer has long bucket list
Montreal busker Richard Baxter dreams of some day playing with Black Sabbath
Montrealers banging pots and pans in the streets have been a regular sight and sound this year, but Richard Baxter was making noise on household items before it was cool.
His name might not ring a bell, but if you’ve wandered outside the Bell Centre after a concert, or have simply taken a stroll downtown in the past decade, chances are you know who he is by his informal nickname: the bucket drummer.
Bashing a big. blue bucket while flipping, twirling and throwing his sticks, Baxter has become a regular sight since moving to Montreal in 2000, even gaining a small amount
“I just liked drums. I was fascinated just hearing a beat.” RICHARD BAXTER
of Internet fame thanks to a YouTube video that has had more than 3 million views. But street performance is just the latest step in a music career that goes back to his days as a teenager in the ’70s, taking drum lessons in his native Ottawa.
“I just liked drums,” he said of his roots on the instrument. “I was fascinated just hearing a beat.”
With his thinning, long black hair, all-black wardrobe, and large silver cross around his neck, Baxter bears a more than passing resemblance to Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi. It’s hard to tell if that’s coincidence or deliberate, but it’s definitely fitting as a conversation with him inevitably leads to a long discourse on the bands he grew up on and inspired him to start playing.
“Sabbath, Rainbow, Dio, a little bit of Rush,” he recounted as some of his favourites. “Ozzy, April Wine, maybe Frank Marino.”
Like many people who have devoted their lives to rock ’n’ roll, Baxter is a storyteller. As he listed his favourite bands, seemingly all of them had a tale attached to it. April Wine’s drummer, Jerry Mercer, has become a close friend. A potential stint in Marino’s Mahogany Rush ended when Marino said he wanted to “challenge” Baxter on drums. Take a tour through the recording studio in his basement (named the Dungeon), and he’ll tell you about how he bought his mixing board from Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell in California. Talk about his favourite gigs from his career, and he’ll regale you with how he once played to 30,000 people while opening for Lynyrd Skynyrd in a Doors tribute act (cleverly named The Doorz).
If you ask him about the people who come up to him during his street performances, he’ll recount the story of the time he told a guy who handed him five bucks that he looked like Pantera and Heallyeah drummer Vinnie Paul, only to be told “That’s because I am Vinnie Paul.”
But his favourite stories are reserved for his heroes: the late Ronnie James Dio and Black Sabbath, such as the time he was accosted backstage by Dio’s drummer, who he says accused him of trying to steal his job by sending the diminutive vocalist unsolicited audition tapes of Baxter playing songs from his catalogue.
“My dream gig was Dio, anything to do with Dio was my dream,” he said. “In the past, I sent Ronnie VHS tapes, 78 songs, all his music from Rainbow to Sabbath to his solo albums,” in an effort to get invited to join his band.
He makes no secret that even now, he has not given up on one day being on stage with Black Sabbath, going so far as to recently start an online petition to get an audition for the band after original drummer, Bill Ward, dropped out of a recent reunion.
Despite his many other musical activities — the Dungeon studio, his founding of the Montreal Drum Line marching corps, his Dio tribute band Magica — Baxter says his income is still almost entirely from his street performance act, which was inspired by subway performers he saw in New York City. Though he does it for the cash, he feels he has become a vital part of Montreal’s cultural scenery. While he sometimes grows tired of the long days, sporadic money and loud drunks he has to compete with for people’s attention, he soldiers on, powered by the occasional great audience and a desire to keep getting better while he awaits a big break that he knows might never come.
“You’re always learning something,” he said. “Any drummer who’s out there, even a beginner, you can learn something. That’s why I love it.”