The Perception of the Copycat

In late summer of 2010 I took over drumming duties in TD from a friend of mine. He'd had enough of band drama and I think he wanted to take his life in another direction. I offered to take over on a whim. It was one of those odd moments in life when I didn't even question if I could do it or if I SHOULD do it...I just did it. I think just to keep the band from imploding, they gave me an "audition" and I got the job. This is strange because it happens every so often...I just decide to join a band on a whim and have no worries about it. Conversely, there are just as many or more groups where I fret and sell myself short...I say things like "I'm probably not good enough but if you wanna take a chance." Shockingly, I don't get call backs on those gigs.

Anyway, when I took the job my only intention was to copy the drum parts as closely as I could to the originals. This was a little tough, because I was stepping into the shoes of a self-taught, unconventional drummer. I'm mostly self-taught too...but I kind of operate in a very standard framework. Not so for my predecessor. But I tried my best to copy him. And I thought I did a decent job.

But all along the band has said things like "I really like what you've done with the drum part" or "this song has a whole new feel with you playing drums." This frustrated me because my goal was to just copy the old way. This meant I was either failing in that...or that someone was blowing smoke up my ass (my default assumption about all compliments...I HAVE ISSUES).

This morning I listened to the first album by the group because we are adding back in two old songs from that disc that I haven't done much with them. I was surprised to find that, yes, I DO play most of the songs significantly differently from the old drummer. I had no idea. There are parts that I would have sworn that I stole from him that just don't exist. And he plays stuff I've never played. Me skipping things he did doesn't surprise me, because it was hard unconventional stuff that I just couldn't pull off at the time. But the adding of things that weren't there to begin with surprises me. I know that I didn't do it on purpose. There was no grand creative vision. It just happened because it felt natural to do...and so I guess I assumed that it was already there.  Not to blow my own horn, but the upshot I think IS actually better than the original. I've left out busy sections that distracted from the vocal or other parts and I've added things that add interest (particularly on the bass drum). The bass drum is interesting, because the first album had no bass guitar. But when I came into the group, we had a pretty dominant bass player. My right foot naturally just did what the bass player was doing without me realizing it.

I don't know what to make of all of this except:
1) Apparently I have my own style even though I didn't think I did
2) Without trying, I seem to make "musical" choices that support the group. Whether this is because I can't play complicated things or if it is an instinct built on years of playing music I don't know
3) Now I'm super worried that all those Pixies bass lines that I thought I was playing note-for-note from the original could be TOTALLY WRONG. I can't decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing.