The late great Ginger Baker is considered one of the greatest rock drummers of all time. With that hefty label, many fans take what he would say about other musicians quite seriously. And sometimes, Baker really didn’t hold back. Let’s take a look at some of Ginger Baker’s most scathing but honest critiques of other musicians!
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1. Gary Moore
Few insults cut quite like being called “contrived”. Sadly, that’s exactly what Ginger Baker said about guitarist Gary Moore while part of the supergroup BBM.
“A tour was suggested; I’d get £50,000 a gig,” Baker once said in an interview with Classic Rock. “What I didn’t realize was that Gary Moore was playing so loud that he blew his ears – just as Jack [had] done to me. More gigs were canceled than played. And they were awful anyway. Unlike Cream, everything with Gary Moore was contrived. Every solo he played was the same.”
2. Hawkwind
Ginger Baker’s critiques were rarely censored, and he really didn’t hold back with his critique of of the space rock band Hawkwind. Baker performed with the outfit from 1980 to 1981, and his experience wasn’t exactly great. He went as far as to call the band, led by Dave Brock, the “biggest joke in history.”
“Hawkwind were more interested in their stage appearance and their lighting than their actual music,” he famously said. “And their music was fucking appalling. Atrocious. I hated it all. “
3. The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are so big that they seem like a hard band to talk smack about, but that hasn’t stopped contemporaries like Ginger Baker in the past. Back in 2010, Baker said that there were a few musicians that came up around his time that were simply not up to his standards. The Rolling Stones, unfortunately, made it to his unimpressed list. He even said that Mick Jagger was a “musical moron”.
“I hate the Stones and always have done,” said Baker. “Mick Jagger is a musical moron. True, he is an economic genius. Most of ’em are f***ing morons.”
4. All Metal Musicians
Ginger Baker’s critiques usually were directed at individual artists and bands, but he did once have something nasty to say about metal music in general. Cream, one band he famously drummed for, is often listed as one of several bands that could be deemed “proto-metal”, or at the very least inspired metal in the years after the band broke up. Baker, however, said that metal as a genre was “incredibly repulsive”.
“I’ve seen where Cream is sort of held responsible for the birth of heavy metal,” said Baker. “[…] I loathe and detest heavy metal. […] They don’t seem to understand I was thrashing in order to hear what I was playing. It was anger, not enjoyment, and painful. I suffered on stage because of that [high amplifier] volume crap. I didn’t like it then, and like it even less now.”
Photo by Colin Fuller/Redferns
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