Bob Watson, Drums/Vocals
Growing up in Northeast Baltimore, Bob's first musical influence was his Dad, who always liked to try imitate the "big" drummers of the era, such as Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. Following his lead, he started on his musical journey in elementary school, continuing the play in the school bands through high school.
It was during the late junior high school days that Bob and the other founding members of MLC joined forces in their first band, "Skyline". A few years later, he departed the group to become a member of "Knight Train", a college band playing school dances, weddings and the "bull roast" circuit. It was this band with whom he first thought, "hmm... you mean they pay me to play music....? This is great!" He was hooked and went on to play with local groups, "Gratitude", "Step n' Blues", and finally, "Brandy", which eventually disbanded in the mid-80's. He then went on to play drums and percussion in some local dinner theater shows, combined with sitting in for an occasional "polka band" gig. That marked the "first" end of his musical performance days.
Devoting the next almost 20 years to marriage, family, and a career, he continued pursuing his passion for music, but only as a bystander, settling for lots of listening and catching the occasional live music band. His love of drumming has filtered down to his son, Jon who has his own band, Hope Lies Against. He considers his modern day influences to be the great session drummer, Steve Gadd, Ricky Lawson, the late Carlos Vega, and Dave Weckl.
Bob plays Pacific Drums, uses Zildjian and Sabian cymbals, Audix Fusion Series mics and Vic Firth sticks exclusively.
Kit update: Bob treated himself to a new drum set for his recent birthday (April 2005). He now plays a Yamaha Stage Custom Advantage Noveau set, using a mix of K Zildjian, A Custom Zildjian rides and crash cymbals. He switched to the ADX-90 condenser mics, manufactured by Audix.
Some quotes from the industry:
"... It's amazing... he can set his drums up in less than 10 minutes" - Percussion Quarterly
"... Bob has shown up at every gig even if something better came up at the last minute" - Various former bandmates
".. Can outdrink most of the other musicians" - Bar and Grill Magazine
You can email Bob at Bob@MLCrisis.net.