Keith Moon joined the Who by wrecking a borrowed drum kit
At seventeen, dyed ginger and fortified by a few drinks, Keith Moon talked his way behind another drummer's kit at a Who gig, played one song and broke a pedal and two drum skins. The band asked what he was doing next Monday. He later joked he had only ever been filling in.
Moon was born on 23 August 1946 in northwest London and grew up in Wembley, a hyperactive boy who loved The Goon Show and explosions from home science kits. A school report called him idiotic, while his music teacher noted great ability and a habit of showing off. Finding the bugle too hard in a sea cadet band at twelve, he switched to drums, practised at a local music shop and paid ten shillings a lesson to Carlo Little, one of the loudest players around.
His playing ignored the usual role of a timekeeper. John Entwistle said he sped up or slowed down with his mood and swept across two sets of tom-toms in a zig-zag, arms pushing forward like a skier. He crammed fills where nobody else would put them, and with Ginger Baker he was one of the first rock drummers to use two bass drums regularly. Oddly, he hated drum solos, and when bandmates once stopped mid-song at Madison Square Garden to force one, he quit after a moment and yelled that solos were boring.
He also wanted to sing. The band banned him from vocal sessions because he made everyone laugh, so he would creep in anyway; Pete Townshend can be heard catching him at the end of Happy Jack. He sang lead on surf covers such as Barbara Ann and hammed up a character role on Bell Boy.
Offstage he earned the nickname Moon the Loon, smashing kits, wrecking hotel rooms and blowing up toilets. The 1970s brought the accidental death of his chauffeur, a failed marriage and heavy drinking, and he collapsed onstage more than once. He died in September 1978 after an overdose of clomethiazole, a drug meant to ease alcohol withdrawal. In 2011 Rolling Stone readers voted him the second-greatest drummer ever.
Source: Keith Moon
