But I've always liked to be the kind of drummer and musician who likes to go outside of what's expected of me, and I've always been able to do more than you necessarily hear with every band I've ever played in.
I can't play anywhere near like I used to, and I was a hot drummer. It doesn't bother me, because frankly, if you get to that point where you can't hold a drumstick properly, there are many other things in life which are far more important, like cutting a loaf of bread or a piece of cheese.
In my last band, Soundgarden, I had a couple of different drummers sit in on some stuff and it was fun for me to kind of take a break and watch the band.
I think at one time every drummer wanted to play like Krupa or wanted to win a Gene Krupa drum contest. This is the big inspiration for drummers and naturally it has to be the same way for me.
With 'Iowa,' if you ask me, we really passed up a lot of things that we could have done with the two auxiliary drummers. I mean they hardly touched their drums on that album.
It was actually drumming that gave me the stamina to get into sports later. I started playing drums at 13, and when I got to the international touring level... I got interested in cross-country skiing, long-distance swimming, bicycling... things that require stamina, not finesse.
I taught myself how to play the guitar, I taught myself how to play the drums, and I kind of fake doing both of them. But drumming comes more natural to me, and it just feels better.
Drumming is a real part of my live show, and I like to do it because so many people aren't expecting me to go and do it.
According to my parents, I just started drumming when I was two. I traveled with them from five to seven on the road, playing percussion. Between 8 and 12, my dad sort of prepared me by teaching me every aspect of road life.
Everybody is always raving about the Rolling Stones, saying, 'The Stones this, and the Stones that.' I've never cared for the Stones. They never had anything to offer me musically, especially in the drumming department.
The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth.
I am the audience. I want to observe people. Even when I'm playing drums onstage, I'm watching people. I'm looking at them and their faces and their T-shirts and their signs. And travelling by motorcycle, especially, the world is just coming at me.
I've got my ideal job. I like to sing, I like to dance, I like to bang drums and dress up, and someone pays me - it's incredible.
I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.
It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth.
Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.
I'm nothing but a drunkard. Why do people expect me to be anything else?
If I were sufficiently romantic I suppose I'd have killed myself long ago just to make people talk about me. I haven't even got the conviction to make a successful drunkard.
To appear on the stage drunk, to have them leave there and remember me making drunken mistakes, that was death.
It's funny how all of this has worked out - I wasn't popular in high school, but now every drunken guy in the United States wants to be my pal. They all want to buy me a shot, and pretty soon I'm throwing up.
