Ginger Baker Named Craziest Drummer

The Cream drummer tops a list that includes Keith Moon, John Bonham, Topper Headon and Tommy Lee. Perhaps surprisingly it also features Lars Ulrich.

Baker is the subject of a new documentary movie “Beware Of Mr Baker”, which opens with the 73-year-old recluse assaulting the director, ClassicRockMagazine reports. Esquire say of the veteran musician: “He introduced a level of complexity and fearless experimentation to the form that he more than matched offstage. The only addiction he’s had that’s cost more than drugs is raising polo ponies. He’s the most interesting – and possibly craziest – drummer in the world.”

Some of the magazine’s other comments:

Keith Moon: He is drumming talents were immense, and his capabilities for wreaking havoc were even greater. He one-upped Pete Townshend’s guitar-smashing by periodically rigging his kit with explosives and detonating them at unexpected moments. He was the first person in recorded history to throw a television out of a hotel-room window.

John Bonham: Led Zeppelin was by most metrics the most massive band in rock history, and Bonham the most massive drummer. His playing was matched only by his ability to hold his liquor. On the last day of his life, Bonham drank an estimated forty servings of vodka before, during, and after rehearsal for a planned American tour.

Topper Headon: During punk’s early years, when it was actually kind of threatening, the idea of getting kicked out of a punk band for bad behaviour probably seemed like a conceptual contradiction. But the Clash drummer managed to achieve the seeming impossibility when the rest of the group gave him the boot in 1982.

Tommy Lee: A complete account of his most outrageous behaviour would fill several thick books of their own. He was a contender for the world record for number of supermodels a rock star’s been involved with, and with his wife and costar Pamela Anderson he accidentally invented the celebrity sex tape.