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| Scott Devours and Zak Starkey |
Sometimes Facebook comes in handy. A friend of mine from years ago, Scott Devours, has gone on to become quite the drummer, globetrotting as Roger Daltrey's sticks man for the last couple of years. So when he recently got a call to fill in for the Who's drummer Zak Starkey on the band's current Quadrophenia tour, pretty much everyone who knows him lost their minds. It was like a collective high-five throughout the social networking circles. I was honored to tell his story.
Here's a part of it that I couldn't squeeze into the article, which ran in OC Weekly. That story follows this little blurb.
When Scott first moved to Los Angeles he was living the dream, sleeping in his car in Santa Monica for the first couple of weeks. This is especially funny because right now word is he lives in an old bus. Apparently, it's an awesome bus with flat screen TVs, but that is still ironic. He is on tour so much that it doesn't make much sense to put down roots. He has come full circle.
Anyway, from Santa Monica Scott moved to Hollywood. "I was thinking Hollywood would be a nice place," Scott says with a laugh. That didn't turn out as glamorously as he hoped it would. He was about to pack up again and accept defeat. But then he saw a flier for a Long Beach band called Speaker.
"I loved the way their ad sounded," Scott says. "I could tell the kind of guys they were from the way they worded the ad. It was very blunt. I could tell they had disdain for all the things about LA that I did, too."
Things went well, but Scott still didn’t feel like he could make things work on the West Coast and he was still considering giving up. He
walked into Fern’s, a legendary LBC punk rock watering hole on Fourth Street, and met the first decent,
optimistic person he’d come into contact with in Southern California, bartender Jackie Hayden. His entire destiny turned around.
"I didn't have anywhere to go, no friends, no money," Scott recalls. "I didn't know whether this band was going to pan out. I didn't think I could live in Hollywood much longer." He had money for one beer.
"I was totally considering hopping back in my car and driving back to Maryland because I was so downtrodden and had no hope even though the audition went so well," Scott says. "I know now that I was looking for a sign." Jackie was that sign. "As soon as I left there, I remember thinking I would give Long Beach a chance."
The guys in Speaker saw the "squalor" that Scott was living in and offered him a place to sleep on the floor, which everyone conceded was better than his situation in Hollywood. During his years in
Long Beach, he gigged with nearly every musician in the vicinity, known for
being able to jump in and raise not only the bar, but the intensity of the
performance from behind his kit.
"All that comes from
believing that when you are performing you give it everything,” Scott says.
“I know that sounds stereotypical and generic, but my favorite performers my
whole life when I see ’em play—and the Who are the absolute pinnacle of that
description to me, it doesn’t get any higher or more respectful than that—when
I saw my heroes play, it felt like they were giving it everything.”
Thanks to Jackie, Scott gave the Who everything, too.
Here is the original story as printed in the OC Weekly:
Here is the original story as printed in the OC Weekly:
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| Scott Devours with Roger Daltrey February 10 at the Joint in Las Vegas. Photo by Brett Bixby. |
OC Weekly
February 19, 2013
Scott Devours' friends nearly dashed his dreams. Long
Beach's 46-year-old drummer extraordinaire got a call February 5 from The Who—yes,
that Who!—to ask if he could fill in THAT night for their drummer who pulled a
tendon, Ringo Starr's son Zak Starkey. Devours' buddies surrounding him at home
advised him in no uncertain terms to politely decline.
They're not saboteurs. On the contrary, Devours' friends,
fellow musicians, were terrified for him and adamantly said he should refuse
because The Who--obviously one of the most famous rock bands evah--was going to
hit the stage at San Diego's Valley View Casino Center in front of more than
10,000 people in merely seven hours. Impossible.
Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend and crew were
to play the full version of the band's challenging 17-song rock opera Quadrophenia.
And Devours, until that day, had only played one song from Quadrophenia live
evah. He said yes.
"For all practical purposes, it could have been the
worse moment of my career," Devours admitted days after the
career-changing performance. "Instead it was the greatest thrill
ever."
The next morning, nearly every concert review led with the
substitute's miraculous feat. In hindsight, Devours' friends did him a huge
favor. "It made me fight them," he said, instead of caving to
self-doubt.
Townshend introduced Devours to the crowd fittingly on
stage, rehashing the famous Cow Palace night in 1973 when infinitely inebriated
drummer Keith Moon famously passed out on his kit. They plucked a young drummer
from the audience and obscurity to save the show.
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| Photo by Erik Kabik |
"His name was Scott," Townshend told the audience.
"As in the man who came in like the fuckin' cavalry and saved us
[tonight]!" The crowd went wild.
Reliving the phone call, Devours rehashed what made him
agree to the show despite his well-wishers' urging. "What became crystal
clear at that second was that they were right," said Devours, who grew up
idolizing Moon's bombastic chops. He also knew he couldn't refuse. "That
is the call I've wanted my whole life."
It's a drummer's evolution that started early, in a small
Maryland town called Middletown. To hear his mother Joyce tell it, Devours
started pounding skins early, his chest actually, to the family stereo while
still in diapers. He obliterated Snoopy and Ringo Starr drum kits soon after.
In fifth grade, Devours' school's music teacher asked if
anyone played an instrument. He bored classmates playing an obscure, complex
song. At the teacher's gentle urging, Devours played by ear a Bee Gees' song
overheard in his mom's car that morning.
"It was a silly disco song," Devours said
laughing. "But all the girls in the class stood up and screamed. I
remember thinking, 'I know what I'm going to do with my life.'"
At 25, with a 9-to-5 and a mortgage, he left the keys and
deed on his kitchen table and drove to LA to live in squalor as a struggling
musician. February 5 was not Devours' first ballsy move.
Nearly 30 studio recordings later with bands like Speaker,
Oleander, Ima Robot, Rocco Deluca and more, in 2011 Devours got the call that
paved the way to Whoville. Devours landed the drummer gig on Roger Daltrey's
solo tour, which included hammering out material like "Tommy." His
bragging rights already included sharing the stage at benefits with the likes
of Robert Plant and Dave Grohl and touring with Eric Clapton.
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| Someone pinch Scott Devours. His first Who show. |
Still, Devours didn't know Quadrophenia, not like he
needed to play it in front of dedicated Who fans. As his friend and fellow
drummer Chris Caldwell sped toward San Diego, Devours rode shotgun scribbling
notes while listening to a recent recording of Starkey drumming Quadrophenia.
The disheveled Devours wondered whether he was completely nuts or the biggest
egomaniac alive.
That night, Devours' standing ovation shattered the place
making his clan proud. There was one family member Devours especially wanted to
impress, but it was three weeks too late. His father, Hurshel, passed away
January 11 from lung cancer.
"Taking that bow on stage that night compared to the
depression and how low things felt earlier that morning," Devours said,
fighting through tears in reflection, "and then all the frantic pace, all
the cramming of the material, all the self doubt and all the nervousness--then
I am at the highest point of my life. How did that tidal wave come in and sweep
me clean?" He's still riding high.
As of press time, Devours told the Weekly that Starkey has
made a recovery and resumed his post with the band to finish out the last date
on the tour on Feb. 28. But even though the drummer's speedy recovery stamped
Devours' ticket home, that brief ride will likely live on as stuff of legend in
his household. "I'm still flying," he said. "I can without a
doubt say that nothing even comes close to being the highlight of my life like
that experience."
For video of Scott performing, click here:
For the original story in OC Weekly, click here:
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