The backstory on my new, old drums

I'm so psyched to finally have a kit of Slingerland Rolling Bombers (minus a snare) up and running. Been trying to piece one together for years. Below are some pix taken by John Ryan for Weathervane Music during a Jess Hale Moore Shaking Through session we did recently (the results of which should be available soon) And here’s the backstory on the kit….

About 10 years ago I did a little story about Jay Bellerose for Modern Drummer. Jay's an incredible drummer who's played with lots of folks (Ray Lamontagne, Beck, B.B. King, Allen Toussaint, Sam Phillips and many others), and he’s also a vintage drum enthusiast. At the time he was playing with Robert Plant & Alison Krauss for the Raising Sand album and tour. I loved the way the drums sounded on that record – so rattle-y and boom-y with a warm resonance. We got to talking shop and he broke down the finer points of the circa 1940s Slingerland Rolling Bomber kit he used for the sessions – drums I knew nothing about. The drums had rosewood lugs, hoops and snare strainers due to a metal ration the U.S. Government imposed during World War II. It was fascinating to me that a war and a subsequent government mandate would lead to the production of such amazing drums.

I saw the Plant/Krauss show with Jay on drums when it came through Atlantic City a few months later and I was blown away at how beautiful his Rolling Bomber tubs looked and sounded. All that extra wood where there would normally be metal on the shells really contributed to the warmth of the drums. I had to get my hands on a set. Much easier said than done, I learned. These drums were in short, short supply as I began to find out after scouring the Internet.

Weirdly, I lucked into a 26" Rolling Bomber kick pretty quickly. In the summer of 2008, a friend's wife found one in decent shape at a yard sale (??!!), and traded it to me for a sealed copy of the Soft Boys' Underwater Moonlight Matador reissue (??!!). Master craftsman Matt Gaither cut the bearing edges and replaced a couple wonky lugs and tension rods for me and it was in fine working order. I've never played out with that drum, but I've used it on some sessions, most notably, the last Clap Your Hands Say Yeah record, The Tourist. It sounds like a beast.

Years went by and I couldn't track down any other pieces. I talked to hardcore collectors like Bun E. Carlos and Steve Maxwell, scoured eBay, Craigslist, Reverb and the back of Modern Drummer with regularity, but nothing. Then in May, my buddy Jose Medeles at Revival Drum Shop in Portland got some Rolling Bombers in, including a 13" rack. SOLD! A few weeks later, my pal Freddy Berman (a great drummer who's been with Amos Lee forever) was over one night and said he had a 16” Bomber floor tom he was willing to part with. It needed some love, but it was salvageable. Swapped him a cymbal for it in the back room of the Dawson Street Pub in Manayunk, and finally, my Rolling Bomber kit was coming together.

Matt worked a little more bearing edge and lug replacement magic (we needed new hoops all around, too - the old ones were pretty warped), I got some Aquarian American Vintage heads for the toms (they're just the tiniest bit oversized - perfect for old, slightly out-of-round old drums like this), and my buddy Rob Walbourne (with whom I split the drumming in Clap Your Hands Say Yeah) got me a mounting kit for the floor tom (which had no legs or sleeves for legs to speak of) from his day gig at Noble & Cooley. Got some DW kick drum legs from Philadelphia Drum and Percussion, and after about 10 years in the making, I finally had 75 percent of a Slingerland Rolling bomber four-piece kit.

Hopefully it won’t take me another ten years to score the snare.

P.B., 12/18/17

Inside view of Bomber floor tom

After-market floating floor tom mount from Noble & Cooley - just like they had in the 1940s!!!!