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 Despite rising to the upper echelon of Country music, drummer Mike Palmer still modestly refers to himself as "the road dog" for country superstar Garth Brooks. Palmer is currently backing Brooks on an extraordinarily successful three-year world tour. The sellout concerts have taken the Nashville-based drummer across the U.S., Canada, and Ireland, where Brooks' band recorded a live album that will be released this year, about the time the tour ends.
Growing up in Florida, Palmer listened to his older brothers' '60s and '70s rock albums ("everything from Jethro Tull to Santana"). After a fifth-grade aptitude test suggested he might be musically inclined, he started studying drums. He gigged almost every night for seven years with a local country band he joined in high school, then quit and moved to Nashville. There the drummer hooked up with country entertainer Clyde Foley Cummins, whose steel guitar player, Steve McClure, introduced him to Garth Brooks.
As if the Brooks gig doesn't keep Palmer busy enough, he also runs a small music publishing company. "I moved to Nashville, really, for the love of songs. And when I hear a good piece I want to get it out to people." Palmer remembers "rockin' out in eighth grade" when he encountered his first LP instrument, a cowbell. Today, because Brooks likes a lot of visual variety onstage, the whole band gets a turn at Palmer's LP gear: He stays at his kit, "usually playing an LP
Rock Shaker and Shake-It,
too" while his bandmates alternate on his LP
chimes, congas
(sometimes with mallets), and tambourine. When asked
why he keeps coming back to LP products, the drummer
is quick to reply: "LP has always had such great ideas
and innovations -- and variety! Why would you shop
anywhere else?"
Equipment list: LP
Tito Puente Timbales, LP
Classic Congas, LP
Double Row Studio Series Bar Chimes, LP
Vibra-Slap II, LP
Rock Shaker, LP
Shake-It, LP
Cyclops Tambourines, LP
Jam Blocks
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