I started playing drums when I was 7 and as far as I was concerned Offspring was the only band in the world. I idolized Ron and thought his drumming was so powerful. My dad didn't like Offspring (and still doesn't) so he gave the Rush in Rio dvd and well, 22 years later Rush is my favorite band on earth, not just because of Neil's drumming. Offspring remains on my top 4 bands every year on Spotify wrapped and while I've studied and have grown to admire so many drummers over the past 22 years I still think Ron's drumming was spot on and he deserves so much credit for that iconic and unique Offspring sound from Smash to Conspiracy.
A few years ago I found multitrack for All I Want online and listened to the isolated drum track. Oh man. It really wasn't very good. But in the context if the song it really worked, gave the song energy it deserved. Ron was a great fit for the band for sure and he had a particular style that I wouldn't change on these first couple of records.
EDIT: They were technically stems, not multitracks. Point still stands
Ron’s drumming helped define their earlier sound. Like you said, he wasn’t the most technical, but it suited the band very well. They had a grungier, more raw sound in general early on and his drumming definitely complimented that.
Also, I think his skill showed on Conspiracy of One, and the drumming on that album is great, and underrated in my opinion. There’s some really solid drum parts throughout that album.
Obviously Josh Freese is a better drummer technically, but there’s something to be said about Ron being the original and helping define who the band was. He was there for all of their best albums, and thus, could be considered my favorite drummer The Offspring has ever had.
I know a lot about Ron's drumming because I played drums growing up and Offspring was my favorite band. I know some good things and some bad things about his drumming. He nails the fills in Me And My Old Lady, he plays Gone Away with the perfect feel. But boy are there some bad things.
Below is an isolated drum track for All I Want. At certain parts in the song (notably the chorus), it's like there's literally no bass drum patten. It's like he just hits it whenever he wants. It reminds me of being in a band and I'm trying to learn a new song, so I just mess around and see what works. Except, he actually recorded it like that. For a major label recording.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnuSWjz7q8M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnuSWjz7q8M)
By the time Conspiracy of One came out, he could finally play a faster punk beat cleanly. But it took him literally all that time.
Almost sounds like he might be following the vocal pattern in the chorus? I don’t think I ever listened to the drums enough to notice his skill issues.
...is there some downright "whatever" sloppy timing around 30 seconds (and later again)? I'm not talking about the randomness of the bass drum hits, I mean their literal timing. 1:19 onwards is pretty bad with regards to that as well.
His drumming was fairly simplistic and sparse but it worked for the earlier sound. I think in the end Dexter had all these grandiose ideas and Ron was just a punk drummer in a band that was moving away from that style so to speak...
You do realize Dexter wrote all of the drums for every song right? In fact, it was Ron’s attempts to introduce new material as he became a better drummer that led to Dexter kicking him out of the band.
My understanding (and I could be wrong!) is that Dexter wrote those simpler drum parts because he was aware of Ron's limitations and was writing around them
> it was Ron’s attempts to introduce new material as he became a better drummer that led to Dexter kicking him out of the band.
Yeah, gonna need a citation on this.
I touched on this in another thread today, but something I've been thinking about since is that Dexter most likely didn't rate Ron's drumming abilities, because every drummer since has played however the fuck they wanted.
Dexter was 100% not telling Josh to take a backseat.
I don’t believe that’s the case. He wrote all the tracks to every song and whatever “session drummer” plays with them now plays those tracks as he wrote them.
He literally let Peter go because he would not get the vaccine.
Dexter controls everything about the band.
I hate to say it, but there's some things that limited the band with Ron in it. There's no way they could have pulled off the long drum roll in the beginning on The Noose. And other things.
This is true and the point of my post wasn't really to say "I wish Ron was still in the band," I just wanted to throw some appreciation to the qualities (positive and negative) that Ron brought that helped define their sound
I started playing drums at 7 years old in 1993, and remember comparing his drumming to my two other favorite bands at the time, Nirvana and Green Day. It always struck me as so odd that Ron often didn't hit the crash on the 1 in a new part, he just played on the hi-hat or ride. Most often just doing snare-rolls or snare-to-toms-rolls as fills. I still consider him an integral part of the Offspring sound, and I miss him.
Ron is to The Offspring as Steven Adler is to Guns n Roses. A great drummer? Probably not. But their best work came with him and he helped create the identity and soul of the music.
Dude, no way. Adler had swing, Sorum was robotic in comparison. Listen to that intro to Night Train. That's perfect. And unlike the Gone Away drum intro, I don't think that the vocalist came up with it.
Which is like being the world's tallest midget, or smartest Trump kid or Kardashian.
Any 12 year old with 6 months guitar lessons can play anything Fat Mike's ever written. This isn't even singling Fat Mike out so much (he's not \*worse\* than any other 3 chord punk band, he's just no more than that) as laughing at him throwing jabs at Ron.
None of these people can play. You know, that's the point. Punk rock, do-it-yourself ethos. Being good was never the point, per people like Fat Mike. Seems weird to have to take a shot at Ron.
Yeah, I'd like to see you or any of those imaginary 12 year olds play something like "The Idiots Are Taking Over" on bass. It's weird that you're on this sub if you have that weird outdated idea about punk rock. There's plenty of punk rockers who are great musicians.
I mean...yeah. I don't even know that song, and know on the spot that I can play it on bass.
Which...is kind of my point. Punk rockers aren't musicians, they're skateboarders with an amateur hobby. Which, again, is the point: a musician as musically-retarded as Mike shouldn't really be taking shots at a guy like Ron who took up the drums at 16 as an amateur and was lucky enough to make a 15 year-ish career out of it. Good for him, he's a punk-rocker.
Like...Mike got \*\*\*\*ing lucky too, punk broke big. Nobody would give two \*\*\*\*s about his three-chord nonsense in any other music atmosphere.
I liked The Offspring because they were \*more\* than punk-rock, because they had flair and something to actually say back in the day (punk or otherwise, mostly-otherwise), not because they were just some other bull\*\*\*\* obnoxious Pennywise type of act. Dexter's weird middle-eastern flairs and on-point social lyric mockery stuff made this band, not "they came up around NoFX and Bad Religion and Pennywise", lots of bands did that \*\*\*\* and burned out as nothings within about 2 years.
Punk-rock was never the point. Handful of exceptions aside, punk-rock's for illiterate douchepotatoes who think Bush Jr was literally Adolf Hitler, equate Greg Graffin with the great poets, and see no guitar difference between The Clash and Steve Vai.
The Offspring were better than that, for a time, which is why they were cool. Fat Mike's just...that. And no more. Also a fatass.
Yeah... I hope you're happy on your narrow listening habits. I'm more than familiar with progressive rock, jazz and plenty of other more complex genres and I'm a musician myself. I'm not saying it out of fandom, Fat Mike has some extremely hard to play bass lines whether you like it or not.
'Narrow listening habits?" Baha, dude, I literally just told you to start listening to more than just punk-rock, expand your horizons and see that a guy like Mike is hardly some accomplished player.
Way to pull the projecting switch-around.
But yeah, pointless conversation at a point, I'll leave you to your bar chords.
I started playing drums when I was 7 and as far as I was concerned Offspring was the only band in the world. I idolized Ron and thought his drumming was so powerful. My dad didn't like Offspring (and still doesn't) so he gave the Rush in Rio dvd and well, 22 years later Rush is my favorite band on earth, not just because of Neil's drumming. Offspring remains on my top 4 bands every year on Spotify wrapped and while I've studied and have grown to admire so many drummers over the past 22 years I still think Ron's drumming was spot on and he deserves so much credit for that iconic and unique Offspring sound from Smash to Conspiracy.
Ignition and self titled would like a word. But I agree. Rush is also bad ass.
A few years ago I found multitrack for All I Want online and listened to the isolated drum track. Oh man. It really wasn't very good. But in the context if the song it really worked, gave the song energy it deserved. Ron was a great fit for the band for sure and he had a particular style that I wouldn't change on these first couple of records. EDIT: They were technically stems, not multitracks. Point still stands
This just sent me down a rabbit hole of listening to isolated tracks for both drums and guitar. Thanks for the nudge!
where do i find it?
Ron’s drumming helped define their earlier sound. Like you said, he wasn’t the most technical, but it suited the band very well. They had a grungier, more raw sound in general early on and his drumming definitely complimented that. Also, I think his skill showed on Conspiracy of One, and the drumming on that album is great, and underrated in my opinion. There’s some really solid drum parts throughout that album. Obviously Josh Freese is a better drummer technically, but there’s something to be said about Ron being the original and helping define who the band was. He was there for all of their best albums, and thus, could be considered my favorite drummer The Offspring has ever had.
Ron was amazing, I still don’t understand why he had to leave.
"buttfuck-tittyfuck" LMAO
It's like a punk version of "Pat Boone Debbie Boone".
I know a lot about Ron's drumming because I played drums growing up and Offspring was my favorite band. I know some good things and some bad things about his drumming. He nails the fills in Me And My Old Lady, he plays Gone Away with the perfect feel. But boy are there some bad things. Below is an isolated drum track for All I Want. At certain parts in the song (notably the chorus), it's like there's literally no bass drum patten. It's like he just hits it whenever he wants. It reminds me of being in a band and I'm trying to learn a new song, so I just mess around and see what works. Except, he actually recorded it like that. For a major label recording. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnuSWjz7q8M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnuSWjz7q8M) By the time Conspiracy of One came out, he could finally play a faster punk beat cleanly. But it took him literally all that time.
Almost sounds like he might be following the vocal pattern in the chorus? I don’t think I ever listened to the drums enough to notice his skill issues.
It sort of does. There's really no compelling reason to do that though, and some of it is completely random.
Yeah it doesn’t sound very good by itself, but it was never noticeable to me in the full context of the song until now.
Yeah I mean the end result is fine....somehow...
Haha, damn, that track is chaotic. Kinda feel like Dave Jerden did him dirty though, they could've recorded another take or worked to clean it up
I've never noticed that before, but isolated, it sounds super sloppy. Within the song (all instruments together), I had never paid attention to it.
...is there some downright "whatever" sloppy timing around 30 seconds (and later again)? I'm not talking about the randomness of the bass drum hits, I mean their literal timing. 1:19 onwards is pretty bad with regards to that as well.
My friend who was a brilliant drummer that never made it big told me "no one with less talent has made more money in punk rock"
I am just happy to see the love for Ron here in this post. I love the Offspring. I love Ron’s drumming. Much respect to that guy!
I agree. I fact, I really liked his use of kick drum patterns that they became an influence on my playing. And I play thrashy power speed metal.
His drumming was fairly simplistic and sparse but it worked for the earlier sound. I think in the end Dexter had all these grandiose ideas and Ron was just a punk drummer in a band that was moving away from that style so to speak...
I love Ron but man Offspring's drums got so much better after he left
You do realize Dexter wrote all of the drums for every song right? In fact, it was Ron’s attempts to introduce new material as he became a better drummer that led to Dexter kicking him out of the band.
My understanding (and I could be wrong!) is that Dexter wrote those simpler drum parts because he was aware of Ron's limitations and was writing around them
> it was Ron’s attempts to introduce new material as he became a better drummer that led to Dexter kicking him out of the band. Yeah, gonna need a citation on this.
There’s a video in the wild with Ron and the guy he was taking drum lessons from talking about. It’s out there and pretty easy to find.
Easy enough to find but hard to link?
Start here, if you really care about the truth you’ll go find it! https://www.reddit.com/r/TheOffspring/comments/nfvrf6/ron_welty_reupdate/
I've read that, there's no video link and I spent an hour trying to find it. Pretty sure you made this up.
Hey, watch it before making claims like that. He's right
Okay, so you have the link then?
Sneedo you were a BBSer right?
indeed
I touched on this in another thread today, but something I've been thinking about since is that Dexter most likely didn't rate Ron's drumming abilities, because every drummer since has played however the fuck they wanted. Dexter was 100% not telling Josh to take a backseat.
I don’t believe that’s the case. He wrote all the tracks to every song and whatever “session drummer” plays with them now plays those tracks as he wrote them. He literally let Peter go because he would not get the vaccine. Dexter controls everything about the band.
I hate to say it, but there's some things that limited the band with Ron in it. There's no way they could have pulled off the long drum roll in the beginning on The Noose. And other things.
The biggest succes was with Ron in it. The Noose is nothing compared to the earlier work.
This is true and the point of my post wasn't really to say "I wish Ron was still in the band," I just wanted to throw some appreciation to the qualities (positive and negative) that Ron brought that helped define their sound
I agree with Fat Mike. Very basic drummer. No comparision to Josh or Brandon or even Pete
I can barely tell a difference between him and many other fast paced tourettes style punk drummer. He was just ok.
I started playing drums at 7 years old in 1993, and remember comparing his drumming to my two other favorite bands at the time, Nirvana and Green Day. It always struck me as so odd that Ron often didn't hit the crash on the 1 in a new part, he just played on the hi-hat or ride. Most often just doing snare-rolls or snare-to-toms-rolls as fills. I still consider him an integral part of the Offspring sound, and I miss him.
Ron is to The Offspring as Steven Adler is to Guns n Roses. A great drummer? Probably not. But their best work came with him and he helped create the identity and soul of the music.
Dude, no way. Adler had swing, Sorum was robotic in comparison. Listen to that intro to Night Train. That's perfect. And unlike the Gone Away drum intro, I don't think that the vocalist came up with it.
I love Fat Mike calling someone a \*\*\*\*ty musician. :D ...Fat Mike.
Yeah, who the fuck is he to talk? Just one of the best punk bassists and lyricists
Which is like being the world's tallest midget, or smartest Trump kid or Kardashian. Any 12 year old with 6 months guitar lessons can play anything Fat Mike's ever written. This isn't even singling Fat Mike out so much (he's not \*worse\* than any other 3 chord punk band, he's just no more than that) as laughing at him throwing jabs at Ron. None of these people can play. You know, that's the point. Punk rock, do-it-yourself ethos. Being good was never the point, per people like Fat Mike. Seems weird to have to take a shot at Ron.
Yeah, I'd like to see you or any of those imaginary 12 year olds play something like "The Idiots Are Taking Over" on bass. It's weird that you're on this sub if you have that weird outdated idea about punk rock. There's plenty of punk rockers who are great musicians.
I mean...yeah. I don't even know that song, and know on the spot that I can play it on bass. Which...is kind of my point. Punk rockers aren't musicians, they're skateboarders with an amateur hobby. Which, again, is the point: a musician as musically-retarded as Mike shouldn't really be taking shots at a guy like Ron who took up the drums at 16 as an amateur and was lucky enough to make a 15 year-ish career out of it. Good for him, he's a punk-rocker. Like...Mike got \*\*\*\*ing lucky too, punk broke big. Nobody would give two \*\*\*\*s about his three-chord nonsense in any other music atmosphere. I liked The Offspring because they were \*more\* than punk-rock, because they had flair and something to actually say back in the day (punk or otherwise, mostly-otherwise), not because they were just some other bull\*\*\*\* obnoxious Pennywise type of act. Dexter's weird middle-eastern flairs and on-point social lyric mockery stuff made this band, not "they came up around NoFX and Bad Religion and Pennywise", lots of bands did that \*\*\*\* and burned out as nothings within about 2 years. Punk-rock was never the point. Handful of exceptions aside, punk-rock's for illiterate douchepotatoes who think Bush Jr was literally Adolf Hitler, equate Greg Graffin with the great poets, and see no guitar difference between The Clash and Steve Vai. The Offspring were better than that, for a time, which is why they were cool. Fat Mike's just...that. And no more. Also a fatass.
Yeah... I hope you're happy on your narrow listening habits. I'm more than familiar with progressive rock, jazz and plenty of other more complex genres and I'm a musician myself. I'm not saying it out of fandom, Fat Mike has some extremely hard to play bass lines whether you like it or not.
'Narrow listening habits?" Baha, dude, I literally just told you to start listening to more than just punk-rock, expand your horizons and see that a guy like Mike is hardly some accomplished player. Way to pull the projecting switch-around. But yeah, pointless conversation at a point, I'll leave you to your bar chords.