Charlie Moore

Charlie Moore on drumming for Taxi, Drinking Competitions and the Tambourine Incident!

So Charlie you’ve recently returned from a tour with Taxi. How many dates did you play?

This summer I think, we’ve still got a few more to go, all in all by the time the year is out we would’ve done about 40. We still have some pending.

What about venue size? Did you find yourselves playing to large crowds every night or were some gigs smaller than expected?

You get a varied turn out I think at every gig, we’ve played to crowds in excess of 7000 people and at the next gig we might play to 3 or 4 hundred. So it depends really you can’t say.

What was the craziest thing that has happened while on tour?

It’s all fairly level really, although last year there was the famous “Barcelona Taxi Incident.” I was enjoying the night before a gig watching a band in a small bar and it was so good we decided to stay the night and I would have to get up early in the morning but I basically slept past my alarm clock. I had to get to the gig because it’s my job and after trying a train and a coach the only option was for me to get a cab from Barcelona to Murcia or somewhere like that and I had to pay 530 euros. I don’t like to think about it much these days.

Have you ever messed up and just acted as if it wasn’t you?

I have messed up when I’ve been playing live but no I don’t pretend it’s not me.

Do fans tend to swamp the lead singer and guitarists only?

Yeah the ex-Melon Diesel members get a lot more attention than us session players mainly because their faces are better known than mine, Craig’s and David’s. They get all the attention but there’s still a little bit for us, we're getting there.

How hard is it to become an accomplished drummer?

I think its really hard, I wouldn’t consider myself to be good enough really to put myself on the national market perhaps, in Spain, and over here, I think there are better drummers than me. But then my reading skills are pretty poor so for me to at least go up and say that I’m a drummer looking for work I would need adequate sight reading skills. I don’t practice enough either. Personally I think you need to practice four-five hours a day and know all your rudiments. You basically need to be one of these flawless drummers and you’re only as good as your last session so if in your last session you’re crap no one is going to call you back and your career can take a bit of a nosedive so that’s something I’m going to have work on.

When Taxi played here recently you said that tambourines were welcome, in hindsight was that a mistake?

(Ha!) I didn’t have a problem with it to be honest. I got this anonymous text message asking if tambourines were welcome I said yeah thinking it would be a good laugh and obviously from where I am surrounded by very loud drum’s and a monitor I couldn’t hear it, but apparently the other members of the band were finding it hard to keep time - as was the tambourine player!

What is it like playing with Adrian Pisarello?

Really good fun, I love it. It’s very energetic, there’s a certain looseness to all his gigs and playing in terms of format and what songs we do, if we decide to go for a jam we can if we want and we generally go by what the crowd want, we feed off them because they’re only a few feet away.

Have the two of you ever had a drinking competition?

Not that I remember! (laughing)

What about arm wrestling?

We haven’t arm wrestled yet….not to my knowledge, but I don’t think id want to he'd beat me

You’ve got another project going on with Dylan Ferro, Anthony Martinez and Craig MacDonald. What are you guys called and what musical direction are you taking?

It’s a new thing were calling ourselves Volume for the time being, I think it’s going to stick although you never can tell with these things. And we are a covers band, having a bit of fun, playing we all always wanted to play but never had the chance really, kind of doing some songs that are well-known but no one else is doing.

You’re a sound engineer too. Do you ever take jobs that you regret?

Interesting question, I tend to be as professional as I can be, in terms of regrets it might have been better for me to approach a situation in a particular way, it could be microphone placements, amp choices, drums, etc, but generally I do my best as I see fit as so far I haven’t heard any complaints and people feel they want to come in and re-track stuff then that’s the artists decision and I’m quite happy with that.