Achieved cult status as Spinal Tap drummer
Few lines but key to 1984 spoof 's biggest gag
Ric Parnell, who has died aged 70, was a British-born drummer who played in the hard-rocking prog band Atomic Rooster before achieving cult status as Mick Shrimpton, the ill-fated drummer in the spoof rockumentary This Is Spinal Tap (1984).
The film “followed” a gormless English heavy metal band on a 1982 U.S. tour to promote their album Smell the Glove. A running joke was of the band having gone through several drummers, all of whom died in freak circumstances — the first in a “bizarre gardening accident,” the second after choking on “someone else's vomit.”
Parnell's character joins Tap as they regroup after the death of their third drummer Peter (James) Bond, who has spontaneously combusted.
“When I did join, you know, they did tell me — they kind of took me aside and said, `Well, Mick. It's, you know, it's like this ...' ” Shrimpton tells the rockumentary “director” Marty Dibergi (Rob Reiner). “And it did kind of freak me out a bit. But it can't always happen to every one, can it? I mean, really ...”
“Because the law of averages ... says you will survive,” suggests Dibergi.
“Yeah,” Shrimpton agrees. Toward the end of the film, however, Shrimpton mysteriously explodes on stage during a tour of Japan.
Parnell played drums on the film's official soundtrack and remained involved with the band as Ric Shrimpton, twin brother to Mick, as they morphed from pretend to real. He played drums on the 1992 album Break Like the Wind and the spinoff singles B--ch School and The Majesty of Rock, both of which charted in the U.K.
The same year, on tour to promote the album, Parnell broke his leg when he fell running down the stairs at the Los Angeles venue where Spinal Tap were scheduled to play, and after being patched up in hospital “Ric Shrimpton” appeared on stage with his leg encased in plaster.
Richard Parnell was born in London on Aug. 13, 1951, into a family of drummers. His father Jack Parnell was a jazz drummer who served as bandleader on The Muppet Show, and his two brothers also played drums.
Parnell left Spinal Tap in the late 1990s and in later years moved to Montana, where he hosted a radio show called Spontaneous Combustion. He described his marital status as “four swings, four misses.”