Review: Chad Smith e Jack Irons são listados entre os 100 maiores bateristas de música alternativa

Matéria publicada em maio de 2013 aqui no blog.

A revista Spin fez uma lista com os 100 maiores bateristas de música alternativa. Chad Smith e Jack Irons fazem parte desta lista.

#10

Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

When bombastic beatbat Chad Smith joined the Chili Peppers in 1988, he brought the rhino-level 

heavy-hitting of heroes like John Bonham and Keith Moon with a nuanced groove that no drummer 

playing at that volume should reasonably manage. "The one thing that he has that no one else has 

is this brutal power," RHCP bassist Flea toldDRUM! Magazine in 2011. "I mean, he's just a big guy 

with these long arms and he hits 'em so hard." But Smith is more than just a bulldozer: His funky use 

of Stubblefield-style ghost notes is unparalleled in the Lollapalooza set, and his tender-yet-propulsive 

double-bounced snare groove on 1999's "Calfornication" helped turn his band from a platinum band to 

a legacy act.

Most Booming Moment: Although 1995's Navarro-assisted amble "Walkabout" isn't exactly a canonical 

Peppers song, its highlight is Smith playing a confounding, turned-around groove on the bridge. 

CHRISTOPHER R. WEINGARTEN

#90

Jack Irons (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam)

Though he was the Chili Peppers' drummer when they started gigging around L.A. in 1983, Irons wouldn't 

appear on one of their records until 1987's The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, the only time the band's original lineup 

(including guitarist Hillel Slovak) can be heard playing together in the studio. A wildly expressive drummer 

who favored texture over power, Irons later bounced around from Joe Strummer's Latin Rockabilly War outfit to 

Eleven to longtime friends Pearl Jam — in 1991, he passed along an early instrumental demo tape from ex-

Mother 

Love Bone members Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament to a mostly unknown singer in San Diego named Eddie 

Vedder, and the rest is history. With Pearl Jam, Irons played on the most experimental records in their 
discography, including a collaborative stint behind Neil Young on 1995's Mirror Ball and the eight-minute 
freeform meltdown "Stupid Mop" on 1994's Vitalogy.

Most Booming Moment: The ripples of "In My Tree," from Pearl Jam's 1995 album No Code have
never been successfully replicated by his formidable counterpart, Matt Cameron. DAVID BEVAN