Dave Kerman

Destined to become one of the strongest rock drummers of the '80s and '90s and the new millennium, Dave Kerman started playing with the drum sticks when he was six years old. Although he failed a percussion audition for the school band when he was nine, Keith Godchaux, a family friend and keyboardist for the Grateful Dead, saw Kerman's potential and encouraged his parents to buy him a set of drums. When he was ten, he joined with Chuck Turner (future 5uu's member) for his first public performance: an unexpected, improvised, and bizarre drum solo in Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." His lack of conformity had sprouted and became a strong influence in his musical training. During marching practice of the school band, he managed to bribe others into doing the opposite of the drum major's commands, and the percussion section would end up together in the local donut shop. During high school, Kerman formed a garage band with Turner and Greg Conway (also a future 5uu's), playing hard rock with a mixture of Deep Purple, King Crimson, and Lynyrd Skynyrd songs. Kerman's delight in the unconventional took root, and he surrounded his drum set with items such as a telescoping metal tubing that changed pitch, much like a trombone would; he created it from old-style fire extinguishers. Another creation bashed a bucket of marbles into a cinder block when he hit the bass drum pedal; and he strung a bass drum shell with 30 heavy-gauge strings, producing an un-tuned zither affect. In 1976, the group played the Greenpeace Festival in San Diego, where it was not a smash, but the band became influenced by the German band Faust and the English Henry Cow. For several years, Kerman investigated the compositional and musical theory concepts of progressive rock, wanting to explore how far and...