 Welcome to the drum history podcast. I am your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm joined by Mr. Tommy Robertson, who is the owner of Fibes Drums and Tommy's drum shop in Austin, Texas Tommy Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Glad to be here. Yeah We've been talking for a long time about getting you on and that's just the way it goes with a lot of these I mean it well over a year and Before I forget I want to say thank you to mr. Eric Hughes Who a lot of people know for his involvement with the PAS the Percussive Arts Society? So Thank you to Eric for kind of letting me know about you and your involvement with Fibes. Yeah. Yeah, it's great guy Really good. So It's really neat to talk to someone who who owns this, you know heritage like just everyone likes Fibes I think Fibes is kind of has a Something about it. It's legendary So before we get to how you acquired this brand, which I think is great because you're keeping it alive What is the origins of Fibes Drums? Well, basically Bob Grasso a very talented player by the way and John Marina They cross paths and Bobby being a professional player in New York. He's a was Connie Francis musical director for years Played Vegas all over the country a lot of New York and so forth and He crossed past with a man named John Marina. Well, John also a drummer But he was a specialist in composite materials and molding and so forth so they kind of struck up this conversation and Over the course of time They decided that they would try to formulate Something different in the drum industry from what was already out there all the classic brands were all aware of and So they started prototyping Different shell formulations and so forth using John's expertise and Bobby's input as a player and So the end result was around 1965 late 1965 they They started what essentially was fives drum company the original branding was actually and there's a prototype drum Actually, no the person that has it They were gonna originally go with G and M for Grasso and Marina Which they subsequently didn't do obviously, but Bobby knew somebody A friend of his and he was talking to this gentleman about What he was doing and this guy comes up says yeah, man, that should be fives Bobby's going what are you talking about me says we're talking fiberglass shells and sound vibrations and that's where this whole thing came from was Kind of the marriage of those two words and that's where the the origin of fives come from fiberglass and sound vibrations Yeah, it's it fits it perfectly and it does it would does so it took somebody who was actually Not affiliated just a friend. It just by happenstance. That's how it happened. Yeah, sometimes I think with these brands and these stories You need that outside perspective because people are so close to it where some guy just comes up and goes it should be fives, man Yeah, and that's kind of what happy says fives man. It's it's it should be fives. Yeah He's going is like a light bulb went off, right? So he's going. Yeah, that's great. That's great. Thank you so much Man what a cool like marriage though of two people of their their skills though with Bob Grasso and John Marinas So do you know this is kind of a you know Specific question, but do you know what John Marino was doing before to have this Knowledge of composite materials was he like working on you know boats or building Corvettes? You know what I mean? There's fiberglass pretty you know It's funny you should say that and actually I just purchased a book. I spoke to John only once This was back in the early day my early days of reforming the company and I talked to him briefly So I didn't know John very well at all, but he was an author of a book about composite materials and molding and so forth So it's something he's been involved in for years and and now how he and Bobby linked up I'm not exactly sure on that You know, but Bobby was a player on the scene and I think John was maybe out. I'm just speculating here You know her Bobby play or saw him at a club or something and they struck up a conversation and and then it went on from there But so I'm not sure what John had gone part of that Bobby never heard John play according to him. So he wasn't sure how good or bad of a drummer. He actually was yeah, Bobby himself is very talented player and He would come to shows for us, but anyway That's that's kind of how they just got together and then decided on the name and then that was around late 1965 and then they had some prototypes and A lot of stuff Bobby would use for example Rogers parts and things That he liked to assemble and make some of these prototypes with What was the original prototype for the fives drums because the fives is both known as You know makers of really cool acrylic drums as we all know, right, but also I think of fives with having like kind of like a chrome look to them sometimes where it's Fiberglass well what they started with was a fiberglass and and so they had the the snare drum and all the toms, of course everything was traditional sized at that time and the fiberglass was the was the genesis of the whole deal and The the crystallite as it became known the acrylic shells And if you notice that name crystallite Ludwig shortly thereafter came out with this delight and and so forth and and That's where that came from for them But that that came a few years later on But in the original fives it was really it was really primarily focused was on fiberglass drums would they do a variety of You know different wraps and different finishes on these fiberglass drums I can't really think of that. I've seen too many of the early 60s fives I know I've seen a ton of like Like on drum archive comm like catalogs But what would be the finishes and the look that they would typically have on those early ones? well a lot of the early stuff you mentioned chrome and That was actually a metal sheeting It was actually there's chrome or brush copper and a few other colors that they had there were actually metal sheeting and with a finish on it and Brush copper and chrome were to two of the most popular ones. They also did Which I came to find out they would do black and white Which actually was a vertical for mica because a vertical for mica as opposed to regular laminate It's a lot thinner and a lot more flexible So you could actually use it as a drum covering extremely tough extremely durable So they had that and they did Butcher block for example and some other colors to agate and so they had they had quite a few different colors What I found is is the on the fiberglass with the chrome or the brush copper and other metal coverings Made the drums very heavy They weighed a lot they sounded great very loud that man They were heavy drums with that metal covering on it. Yeah, yeah I wonder if there were issues with it the covering kind of peeling off because I imagine you have to use some serious adhesive to get that whether we use in a Contact cement and there are issues with that from what I can tell from early because I've seen quite a few of the early ones Now and I really haven't seen any really any kind of let's say delamination or so forth, but what did or does happen to him is The chrome for example It starts to kind of either pit or you get rusting or you get some sort of blemishes in the finishes and And that's what would happen slowly over time if they weren't Wiped down or taken care of or something got spilled on it and so forth It's really You know this happens a lot, but I like the other day I mean two days ago three days ago I got a message from a guy named Peter Douglas who actually just sent me a message about hey I think a cool episode Topic could be about chrome and chrome drums and he's talking about how It used to be really really really common with a lot of I guess you could just say industries But now the drum world is one of the you know, I'm sure cars Motorcycles that it uses a lot of chrome, but he was talking about how you know musical instruments Particularly drums. It's still very common. You know chrome over brass and chrome this and that Where a lot of the chrome though has has not been as common in Other industries which so I'm kind of working on a chrome episode here in the back of my mind for later But it all it all dovetails, you know Yeah, and and you know whole chrome thing of course slinglanded chrome and Ludwig had chrome over wood I mean, yeah, so there's there's a lot of that going on, you know, and I Don't think there's as much happening now current speak. No is there used to be just because it's Expensive and it's not as you know, I mean in the long run. It doesn't hold up. Well Unfortunately, you know unless you polish it and you keep it clean, you know, things are gonna happen It's gonna it's gonna start to get blemished. Yeah And and I have to say he noted that he said quote him saying we premiere fans think that premiere made the best Chrome in history and there's a whole bunch of stories with that and chrome and the company who made did the same company make Rolls Royce chrome, you know and all that stuff. So well, you know, I have to agree with them on that I've seen premiere, you know back in the day when they were doing a lot of stuff in the house Including plating their chrome was absolutely positively gorgeous. I mean, you couldn't get any better looking chrome than what they had Yeah, for that that period of time for what they were doing. I mean, I agree with them on that. Yeah, sure All right, so Early 60s, so they started this company. I don't know if we if you said this where exactly is where are we? Geographically for the founding of the company. It was in Farmingdale, New York. Okay and that's where it started was in Farmingdale, New York and Matter of fact a few years ago, I brought up brought up on Google Maps and actually saw I think what was the original building it's something like 22 Murray Street or something I've got it in one of my documentation, but just out of curiosity But that's where they started up and they were there for about approximately five years Okay, and and they started producing the drums out of that facility and and And Bobby was constantly playing. I mean he's telling me, you know, he would he would be in and out He'd be why he said he stopped by the factory or whatever and he's in tux Because he's about to go out and do a show whether it's with Connie Francis or whatever he was doing at that time Very active player and so So he would he would come in and out of the factory just to kind of see what was going on and so forth I think John was there more often being more of a hands-on guy And of course they had they had a staff that was was working and building the shells and doing the laminations so forth pretty cool that he is such a True working drummer as they say because you don't have to be a professional drummer to own a drum Facturing, you know business right to work at a drum factory any of these things you you just you know You kind of take that for granted people think sometimes that people in these companies are actually drummers But you don't have to be you can just be a business-minded person who knows the industry But I think maybe that played obviously to his benefit to be a real deal guy out there in the field who can test it Know what he's know know what he likes Yeah, and I think that was I agree that was part of the passion of the deal because he was he was heavily involved in it from a Sonic standpoint and and and and so was John I mean they both they had this this kind of thing going on where he was a player He would check it out. He's playing it at night for gosh sakes And and and so they would tweak as they went along and make fine-line improvements and so forth. Yeah, so Five years first five years you said they were in New York upstate New York like that. What? What was the reception? Publicly did people kind of quickly? Just say these drums are great and fall in love with them or how how was the reception? You know, that's that's a really good question. I think they sold a fair amount of Drums in that time period, but you got to remember they were going up against the big boys Yeah, so here they were kind of the Bastard child as it were You know and and being a totally different animal being fiberglass and so forth and and I think they had some moderate success But you know, I think it's manufacturing is difficult in itself and then to try to Jump in the game where you have very well-established High-profile brand name companies. That's a tough call. That's a tough thing to do Yeah, it really I think they were making some pretty decent inroads in the market because they were unique They look great. They sounded incredible and and so it's kind of one of those things I think it was more kind of a grassroots kind of Interest that kind of went on from there. Yeah, and I Should probably know this but what other companies I because when I think of fiberglass early fiberglass I think of you know pearl obviously has a wood fiberglass kit Which is obviously a Japanese company. Who else would have been doing fiberglass that early in? 1965 when they started Was there anyone else doing fiberglass drums? Well, I'm not full sets But if I understand correctly and I'm not a hundred percent on this I think they may have gotten their hands on a blame our shell. Okay Because blame are Going back quite a bit He had he was making he was making some snare drum shells and so forth And I think that maybe one of the things were kind of a light bulb went off They said wow, we need to make full sets of this and we need to we need to take this and run with it Gotcha, and and so that's that's my understanding of it now whether that's exactly true or not I can't honestly tell you but that's but he did mention blame our he being Bob Grasso to me and how they had they had Run across a snare drum or shell and and mocked it up And they liked they liked the characteristics of what it was sounding and playing like gotcha Okay Well, I'll find out about that soon actually because I've been talking with the Jenkins Martin guys about doing an episode About blame I or and they're extensively doing research to try and really fill out the episode and I met him at the Music City drum show last weekend and they gave me a blame I or t-shirt so Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why is funny? You know, I've got a story as you know And I used to order coverings and stuff from blame are and and talk to him and everything else I bought in some fiberglass shells actually for somebody what's many years ago But I kind of think that's kind of we're Kind of maybe the nucleus of that started got it got it and those were like spun Fiberglass. Yes. Yes. What you're just which which is Similar to what fives does on the snare drum, but the toms floor toms and bass drums are laid up differently Gotcha, which maybe we can talk about the construction here in a minute, but um So you said they were five years there and it and from what I can tell Looking at drumarchive.com where there's obviously I always talk about it. There's a bunch of great catalogs one of the first catalogs they have is in 1970 where there is a pretty serious roster of drummers already at that point. They had some some big names Yes Pretty yes. So so it had to you know the the word spread Where did so so first off? Where did they move in 1970? Well, that's that was the CF Martin Acquisition and kind of backped a little bit one of one of the key players was Alan Dawson Okay, because Alan Obviously at Berkey Berkeley and the master The player he was he and Bobby were good friends Because Bobby was a great player himself and and so they knew one each other Personally and professionally and so I think that From that point, you know getting you know, whether it's you know, Billy calm came on or Grady Tate and Arthur Press there was a bunch of different players that early players that Really came on board, you know, eventually Bobby Columbia blood sweat and tears and and so I think it's one of those things were you know You've got the credibility if you've got a player of that caliber like a Alan Dawson, for example I guess you some some pretty good credibility right there. Yeah Yeah, obviously and Billy Cobham. I kind of yes, I frequently think of there's just There's great videos of him playing this just monster huge Vibes kit which one of my favorite things is when you say that and I'm sure you've heard or seen at the Spectrum album Mm-hmm, Billy Cobham in the old album you open up that album Jack and then there's Billy looking Bad ass behind a double base Fibes crystallite set. Yeah, and that was that was you know, he was using that in the Mahavishnu days and I mean that was just that's just part of that history. Yeah Well, all right, so let's kind of like there's so many different things Let's pause there for a second and maybe talk about the crystallite stuff a little bit because it's you know I've heard it in other episodes. I did one on the history of acrylic drums and then one on the history of Ziko strums as well, right? It's pretty I think it's a pretty big deal that that Crystallite, you know was fives and then like you said soon after Ludwig thought that was such a great name and idea that they did Vistalite, right? Did you hear any stories about? You know fives being like hey That's pretty pretty similar to our name. Well. Yeah. Yeah There's a kind of a lot of that I heard over the years through Bobby and other people You know about people kind of Maybe kind of stretching things around a little bit. I mean even current speak pearl their acrylic shell drums are called crystal beat and So, you know, it's like everybody kind of puts their own spin on it But you know, I just have to laugh because you mentioned Ziko's and then fives I mean they basically came out with the acrylic thing and and I really haven't ever gotten a Total clear picture on that. I don't know who was actually literally first, but from what I can tell it almost happened Pretty close to simultaneously Yeah, that's so common when when I had West Falconer from yet explorers explorers on yes, he's obviously in that Ziko's kind of neighborhood over there He was he was kind of he said, you know that it would be Bill Ziko's But I could definitely see I don't I think that happens with in the world where if Multiple people can do in be doing things simultaneously. Yes. Yes, and but now fives has Not all of them are like this, but they've got something unique that has sort of that frosted Look to it. Yeah That's right. That's what's called frosted kind of the shower door look. Let's say yeah, which are really cool Yeah And that was I mean, let's face it, you know, was that you know late 60s 1970 whatever they came out with the frost. I mean that's pretty Wild stuff for that point in time, you know, yeah, absolutely. Do you know what they would do? Manufacturing wise to achieve that is it just kind of add like a like etch into it a little bit Or how do they do that? Well, I don't know exactly what the process But I think etching might be part of it or maybe putting some sort of either Chemical solvent and that may be part of the John Marina aspect on it. I honestly don't know but It was one of those things that they and they may just with the vendor that they were using at the time getting the material from them Could have just said hey, we've got this too and they said wow, let's give that a try Yeah, I mean obviously they had to cut the shell back So the head could lay on it right so there was that there was that cut that kind of countercut on the outside of the shell So you could actually put a drumhead on and do it up, you know, so so it had it it had its own kind of unique series of Dynamic that you had to work around using a shell that had that kind of texture on the exterior Yeah, now couple things here the lugs for fives are really cool and really unique What's the story with the lugs? Well, that was part of Anita. That's Bob Grasso's wife Anita Grasso and From my understanding she helped design what's called the diamond look. Hmm. That's what it's called It was the diamond look which is kind of another we were talking about companies kind of taking Pages from one another. There's other companies out there that use That term now, but I mean that was what the concept of Fives was was the diamond look and so that's something she kind of that was her brainchild and They liked it aesthetically and so that's that's how that developed. That's awesome And then one other thing I want to make sure we talk about is the connection between Buddy Rich and Fives particularly the snare drum because it is Okay, it is legendary. So so what's the story with that? Okay, well Bobby played in Vegas a lot and he became good friends with Louis Belson and So basically Bobby's telling Louis about what he's doing With the fiberglass snare drum and so forth and Louis is very very interested and so Lou says hey, I want to I want to take you to meet Buddy and So they arrange a meeting so Bobby meets Buddy Rich Gives him a snare drum to use which is the it's a five and a half by 14 SFT chrome covered fiberglass shell snare drum and Buddy just flipped out over it and And so he and Bobby Buddy and Bobby became very very good friends and hung out a lot Matter of fact just a little sidebar here Bobby told told me that buddy used to call him pans Pants because when they were in Vegas Bobby would cook for Buddy, you know He'd be there and be at their hotel or whatever. He just he'd cook and whip something up for buddy to eat Wow, that's how close they were and so Buddy just absolutely loved his SFT snare drum And that's where that famous thing where on the rich in London on the back cover shot That picture looking across the hi-hat you distinctly see that five snare drum on a stand playing it live which What I've told he was endorsing Buddy was endorsing Slinglin at the time and They were not too pleased when they found out about that and as the story goes and this is what I told and Sometimes you don't know how much is truth or how much is fiction But as a story is told, but he was in Vegas some of the Slinglin people came to visit him in Vegas and And and Asked Buddy said what's the deal with the snare drum? You're a Slinglin endorser and Buddy says to them Can you make a snare drum that sounds like this? And they say well, no He said then what are we talking about? We're talking about Buddy rich, you know what I mean? Yeah, so he said Any more questions? So I mean it's kind of you know, it's kind of like that thing where buddy's kind of in your face It's like Well, what are you gonna do about it kind of thing? You know, in other words, I'm buddy rich and you're not So I'm gonna do what I want to do. You got a problem with it. I'll move elsewhere It's kind of one of those deals, you know So they figured hey They still got the Slinglin logo on the front bass drum head and all the toms and floor time anything the Slinglin They figure nobody except other drummers are inside people. We even know any difference anyway. Hmm. Yeah Man, that's fascinating. And so you said with the snare drum They did do that kind of spun fiberglass technique typically or what was different about what makes a five It's a different process It's a different process on the the fabrication of the snare drum as opposed to the molding that they did for the the toms and Floor toms and bass drum and so forth and they did that because of the sonic properties they found that the The the the layup like doing it on the the toms the floor tom didn't really work It didn't have the same sonic quality. It didn't have the param projection of Doing a different type of molding formula and here again, that's that's a tip of a hat to the John Morena and his expertise in being able to formulate a Better better molding for for the toms and bass drum Yeah, and not settling and just getting the best result. Yeah, they they were into it man To get buddy's approval is is pretty wild and yeah I this this is probably one of those just like things like you said where it's just a story But I feel like I heard someone say once that he would take The hardware off of a slinger lens snare or whoever he was endorsing and put it on his five snare So he could still use it and not be you know getting trouble, but yeah, I don't know if that's just a story Well, I I don't I don't know if that's just a story either, but if I remember correctly From what Bobby told me is that some of the early generation fiberglass when the prototypes? I believe he was using Rogers hardware so like a beaver tail style lug or whatever and so that may be where that story kind of came from and and I Honestly, don't know that and but I wouldn't be surprised I mean if if he If he you know, but to me buddy if he's wants to use the five snare drum I can't see him or paying somebody to Install lugs on a fiberglass show with a different whole pattern. Yeah, he wouldn't I just I have a hard time I'm not saying it didn't happen because I don't know Yeah, that's I just think with buddy the way buddy is it's like hey if you don't like it screw you I'll go to the next guy, you know Yeah, because so anyway, that's just my take on that. No, that's great Did he ever play? I'm sure he did, you know here and there, but he never endorsed fives like as a drum set Is that right? He did briefly because what had happened is buddy being buddy He was falling in and falling out with different drum companies. He's it's centric, right? Mm-hmm, and He actually struck up a deal With Vox drums of all people yeah, okay tricks and well that was a very short-lived Arrangement with Vox because they were not really a player really in the game. So That after that Bobby made him a full set Full fire fiberglass set. I think this was just somewhere around 1966 if I remember correctly And that he used through the remainder of the tour and I don't know the specifics of that But he basically when he ditched Vox He went and play fives full set of fives for a while, but here again, that was that was and then I think from there But he went to Ludwig Gotcha and with a quick Google. I kind of found a drum magazine article through Don Bennett's website It looks like it's it's got a chrome finish on it, you know, which is in the the right style Right. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Looks like it's a 24 by 14 bass drum 13 by 9 mounted Tom to 16 by 16 floor toms and classic buddy and his 14 by five and a half snare Yeah, that's classic buddy. Oh, yeah, it says it has yeah, Walbur ganache Tom mount. Yeah, interesting That's right. Yeah, this is correct Uh-huh. Yeah. And but that that was a kind of a short lived deal as far as the full set Yeah, you know because Bobby wasn't in a position especially around that time, you know They were they were trying to make a go of it, you know, but he's you know was kind of a High-demand kind of guy, you know, that's where he got trouble with other companies he was constantly asking for more gear, you know and and You know, they weren't in the position they being Bob and John at that time They can just sit there, you know, buddy calls from Seattle and goes, hey, I need another kit They're going, whoa, wait a minute, buddy. You've got one already, you know, it's one of those kind of things Yeah, yeah, and and so I just think you know for buddy standpoint It's like I've got to be with somebody big enough that can supply me for my needs Sure, which his needs were were many from what it sounds like Yes, yes, but but beyond all that he was and Bobby told me and I actually met buddy once and he was very sweet guy He's just had a he had a very low threshold on BS Yeah, and insincere people and so if he any of that came up and then that's when he become the Quintessential buddy, you know what I mean? Yeah, but for his inner circle and people that he liked and respected And we're down to earth and real he was a sweetheart Yeah, sure, that's just not the persona that most people would see with buddy, you know No, you've all and we've all heard those stories about like, you know, buddy with Johnny Carson and uh, Frank Sinatra and the friendship they had Oh, yeah, which was great. So and then one last thing about the buddy snare The listing ended but Don Bennett had it was it's on reverb buddy riches Five and a half by 14 sft 1970 snare drum, which has been authenticated. You can own for $14,995 Oh my god, plus 150 dollars for shipping the shipping is a little high for me. So I'm gonna I'm gonna pass I think I can't swing that extra 150 Well, if it's if it's any kind, I mean no disrespect to buddy, but I've got well, you know, I've got it I've got a chrome sft Five and a half 14. I'm sure sounds every bit is good. It's not better than with that $14,000 It just doesn't have the providence, you know what I mean? So exactly. Oh, that's awesome This episode is brought to you by dream symbols dream symbols is launching the tasting tour 2021 There's going to be tons of cool symbols members of the dream team on site and the recycling program will be in effect All day at these various awesome music stores around the country august 21st They're going to be at in stuff music in pittsburgh, pennsylvania september 4th They'll be at everything musical in columbus, georgia september 11th and 12th They'll be at epic percussion in williamsport, pennsylvania october 2nd They'll be at forks drum closet in nashville october 9th melody music in bloomington, indiana october 16th rhythm traders at portland, organ And november 6th. They'll be at rup strums in denver colorado. So go out and check it out if dream will be in your town So when we last kind of left off on the history stuff fives was You said in the 70s if there's nothing else before that cf martin Yes took over which they sold to martin cf martin organization Why did they sell was it just the right time where they offered a buyout? You know and they had to an offer they couldn't refuse I think they were having trouble and I can relate to this from a manufacturer standpoint It's a very difficult thing to do and I kind of developed this joke when we were producing fives time I said well, you know if you if you create a beast you've got to feed it And you've got to constantly feed it and it's got to be constantly fed in other words If you don't keep the pipeline full And you're not producing and you're not selling you've got serious problems And I think for bobby and john I mean they put all their heart and soul into it and they were in it for five years You know air hook line and sinker and I think they needed a little help Financially it's one of those things like hey, we've done what we can do as us We need to bring our bigger fish in here To make the saying go to the next level. Yeah, and that's where martin came in Uh Unfortunately, you know on the long term, you know, mine's guitar company and a very famous and incredible one, but I mean It's like the same old scenario and you've heard this with other companies, you know xyz guitar company buys out this brand drum company Well, they're kind of the bastard shot of the deal. Yeah, and unfortunately that's eventually what happened to fives And the first one the first things that when I first met bobby He said you got to change the lug I said, what the hell are you talking about? He said you got to take it back to the original lug And At first I didn't know he was talking about but sometime In the martin air They'd taken the flange The bottom flange that goes around the whole perimeter of the diamond lug and removed it And uh And so it seems like a subtle thing and it kind of is a subtle thing But if you put them two side by side or you even look at it on a A shell of a drum Just a pretty dramatic difference And so he hit me to that right out of the gate He said you need to go back to the original lug because he wasn't happy with martin Changing that up You know what I mean? Yeah, sure But you know they didn't own it anymore martin owned it And so is one of those things they only had so much pull. I mean bobby was basically his advisory capacity Really? I mean when it came down to it so at that point in time So so that that was kind of a little interesting tidbit that He educated me on right out of the gate Yeah, I see it if you if you look it up online you can see which I guess helps you date them Maybe that's something that you can kind of look at and go. Oh, that's Martin that's that which but right It is a kind of an extra touch to have that little bit of a flange. It seems oh it makes all the difference in the world Yeah, so I had a new I had a new dye made to replicate that. Yes But that's that's kind of one of those kind of subtle things that uh And i'm not sure at what point in time martin did that Uh because they had they had fries for about 10 years ballpark Yeah, or why they did it because it's like does it save that much money or it was more of a polishing issue because before you chrome plate Uh the raw part the casting needs to be buffed and polished So when you uh when you go to the cream plating stage Uh, you don't you take out as many blemishes as you can so the chrome lays down real flat and looks pretty And martin felt like you know this with that little flange or it's just a harder piece to work And uh, so anyway, they they did it for whatever reasons they have but that's that's that's the impression I got in talking to bobby about is they you know, they're trying to make it a little bit More cost effective let's say to to make these parts Yeah, that makes sense and then so so bob and john go from owners to like you said advisors So that had to be weird. I mean i'm sure they weren't Yeah, if I understand, yeah, oh, yeah, exactly. Oh, it was and and from that point and here again I don't know a point uh, john kind of drifted out of the picture at some point in time shortly thereafter Okay, because you know it was they were part of a corporate deal And bob was hanging on because you know, it's like he's still a player He's still using the drums and everything else and trying to trying to convince martin to do these things he wants them to do which In some cases was falling upon deaf ears Because they didn't you know to them. It's just a business hoarding. They don't there's not the passion there for them Yeah, it's just another acquisition here. We got a product. Let's turn it out. Let's sell it. Boom. There you go Um, and that's in pennsylvania. That's in nazareth pennsylvania pennsylvania, correct Yes, and you can see the different badges you can tell you talked about lineage you can see The original badge that has farming dale new york Then there's another badge that mentions. Uh, it says farming dale and then underneath it will say Uh, product cf martin organization and then there's the kind of the The copy of the uh, the reverse or kind of almost like the gretch stop sign badge where you have Up and down facing logo. So there's there's these different generation of badges that happened over the time Okay, and then You know, that's all sort of behind the scenes publicly in the 70s They're then competing with the beginning, you know, and the the the happening of Uh, japanese brands coming in more which kind of went 70s into the 80s So the the market is getting A little more strange with it's not just Ludwig and rogers and gretch anymore. There's there's even more competition All right And like I said earlier pearl is making fiberglass drums. That was one thing. Bobby told me intent in the color that they were producing and Some of the people pearl asked if they could come over and take a look at the facility Well, lo and behold shortly after that they come up with fiberglass product Man And so and companies tend to kind of do that, you know, we there's I could tell you all kinds of stories just at the trade shows when we're exhibiting Of kind of things where people are scoping stuff out what we were doing at that time And I mean taking notes and pulling out the microscope all kinds of weird stuff. So Uh, I I that's that's just the nature of the industry. Yeah, I heard the same thing Uh, jim moritz who runs chicago drum his dad worked at slingerland. He would do stuff at slinger over the summer he said that um that his Dad mentioned that there would be uh, people from japan who would come over and get you know Yes, they would get into the slingerland factory and take pictures and and then what do you know? Boom, they're making all the mij kits that look literally identical to slingerland. Yes at a distance I've got one of the um, I think it's an apollo kit at a distance. It looks like a slingerland kit. Yes Yes, they pretty much they pretty much just copied The tension casing almost verbatim, you know And and that kind of stuff happens. I mean that's reality and and yeah, I have customers bring them in the store First you have to do a double take then you look inside the shell and see with the layup and Mahogany with the center band and so forth and you know, oh, okay. This is a japanese thing. Yeah, yeah that error I think for there's so many. I mean now Way after the fact I think you know people can look at it and go those are really cool drums I like the japanese drums. I think it's they're they obviously Gave all the companies over here in america run for their money, but there really are neat drums with a lot of cool finishes Oh, yeah. Yeah, so most of those retro finishes are Super hip, you know, yeah, that's great All right, so how was it with martin? You know through the 70s. What was it? What was the well? It was it was? Yeah, I it was in decline as far as fives was concerned and uh, just a kind of Somewhat funny little story I opened my store in 1979 Well, I didn't have any drums Because I wasn't a dealer for anybody at that time Well, I contacted martin Because they had fives and this is at the tail end of fives And the very first professional set I brought in was literally a five set five piece At that time and this was 1979 They only had two colors remaining white and black And a five piece 22 12 13 16 configuration with the snare drum and that's all they offered at that time And that was literally the first because before that I put my own drum sets that I owned on the floor So I'd have something to show they weren't for sale, but I had to put some on the floor as a drum shop for god's sakes, you know So I thought that was kind of an interesting little thing how my first set I brought in was literally a fives kit. Wow kind of uh Serendipitous a little bit is exactly. Yes. Yes. Well, I think like we said before a lot of companies were In decline kind of in that that era a lot of the quote-unquote heritage brands I mean you saw slingerland kind of starting to decrease then Yeah, and things were just Changing which I'm sure martin was like like all the you hear about steinway and all these companies who buy these other drum companies like Man, it never seems to really work out that great. You know, yeah, it's a tough. It's tough I mean it is because you've got It takes a lot of money to produce a really quality instrument. There's a lot of components Uh, you have to really so there's there's you got it You've got to have a pretty decent cash outlay to have the inventory you need to even just to build Yeah, and it's pretty labor intensive on top of that. So you there's a lot in there. So manufacturing Is is is a pretty interesting little beast in itself. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure Yeah, especially when you get into something that you don't Really, you know, you're not a you're not a drum company. Um, but so how long What was the time frame then of martin owning it then I guess unless there's any key things within You know then with players or anything, what was there, you know, how did that come to an end? Well, they had they had it for about 10 years. Oh, yeah, okay. So, uh, uh, so around 1980 somewhere They're about and here again, that was kind of funny. I brought in that set and that was 1979. Well probably somewhere within the next year or two uh the quarter family From huntsville, alabama came in and According to bobby, he had a handshake agreement with frank martin to buy the company back Um, and he was very bitter about that because he considered Frank martin a really a really nice guy and they were friends and All this kind of stuff, but he he felt like he got stabbed in the back on the deal a little bit Yeah, you know, I don't I don't know the total details about it But he did mention that to me that because bobby's goal was to get the company back because he hated what he was seeing what Martin was doing or not doing With the drums. Yeah with his baby. They really weren't putting anything into it at all And uh But uh So to speak behind his back, um He struck a deal with the quarter family And they moved all the fixtures tooling machinery so forth to huntsville, alabama Uh, but the fives mark The fives logo Was purchased by another individual because there were still fives drumsticks Sim set stay away accessory type of things and so this other gentleman Bought the fives mark so it was split out from fives the factory Because he had struck a deal with martin to go to keep on distributing the sticks and accessories through martin So that basically split that up. So the quarter family started quarter drums Um, and I met don quarter actually went down to huntsville and this goes back quite a few years this is back when I was looking to purchase the factory from darwin uh, and uh uh Basically they were in production for about 10 years as well But they were trying to make stands they were trying to do marching stuff and and here again That's a tough market, you know drum sets are one thing But you know try to compete in the marching percussion and yeah, you know how I have all your various size bass drums and your You know your snare drums and so that's a lot, you know, and plus they were trying to make hardware too. They were making hardware and I think it was kind of eating them up. So they only had it for about 10 years under quarter drums. Okay, and then uh Basically what happened from there is They decided they'd pull out of um and and try to sell Well a guy named sammy darwin uh From uh burnsville, mississippi and he's a rode radio programmer His hand was rusty walker and he was this is before a clear channel and any of these big Mega pro growers came through he was a pretty heavy hitting radio programmer nationwide Was he himself a drummer? He was uh, he was a hobbyist. Let's put it that way. Okay as far as I could tell Uh, but he bought the factory He bought the factory from the quarters. Look line and sinker everything all the fixtures to a machinery A whole load of tubing chrome tubing assembly parts for stands high hats Uh pedals all this stuff. I mean a huge amount of stuff and he bought the whole thing lock stock and barrel And moved it from huntsville, alabama to burnsville, mississippi And so darwin sammy sammy darwin Had it for about two years And he had uh, he had brought in ken austin as an industry veteran and uh ken After about two years and that's where john comings was working at darwin. John had come from Ludwig He's now the plant manager at darwin and basically After about two years and they were kind of floundering a little bit I get a call from ken austin because he knew I was shopping around I'd I'd mentioned I'd I'd approached field grant to try to buy gretch And he was consul, you know, he was working with fred gretch junior and which he was willing to sell the factory But not the gretch name which wouldn't do in a stitch bit of good I got a hold of joe hibbs when his oh, she know because I wanted by the camco name and they didn't want to do that either So they knew I was snooping around right I was kind of I was kind of looking and so anyway, uh I had a good friend in the industry. I don't know if you know who chuck mullin areas I think I've heard the name. Yeah. Yeah, well chuck was oh my god He was he was production manager at camco for quite a while. Okay uh up in chicah up in illinois and uh And chuck uh went on to do spectra sound Which was the bar team the the mark trees as they call them and he had percussion accessories in the mark trees And chuck and I became very good friends and we'd talk and chik chat and everything like that and And you know and now he would I would sound off of him. He was like a walking textbook of everything drums He's one of those guys. Fortunately. I was able to befriend him and al duffy too That's another story into itself as al duffy. I don't know if you've ever heard that name before either But al worked it when I met him. He worked at pearl. We used to work at frank at bellitos al Uh invented the chain of sprocket petal. Yes, yes for elvin. Yep jones the 5000 and all that stuff Yeah, that all came from al duffy. He's the one that invented that And also the ff uh, the free floater system for pearl as well because it's at pearl that time where I met out But going back a little bit with back to uh chuck malinari um I get a call out of the blue because he knew I was looking and he know I was talking to this person I was talking to this person. I was kind of beating the bushes a little bit and Chuck calls me out of the blue and he says you need to give you need to give ken austin a call So what's going on? He says, um I think this uh, this darman thinks for sale. He might be interested in it So I did it. I called ken austin because sammy had entrusted ken to try to sell the company and so I started negotiating with ken and he was he was sammy's point man on this and We kind of went back and forth and everything like that and And I could tell that sammy was very highly motivated. He was he was definitely a fish out of water You know, it's a lot of study of what to do. Yeah, even john comings at that time was pretty frustrated what was going on and Wasn't spending as much time there and flying back and forth to his home And so anyway, so I ended up uh Just basically going to bernsville, mississippi And actually I'd contacted john comings And asked him if he would meet me There and so we both flew into minthus And I had never met him before I talked to him on the phone john Cummings and so basically we met each other kind of hit it off immediately jumped in the car and drove down To bernsville, mississippi Because john knew the factory better than anybody and he could explain to me The various machines what was involved in the sale so forth everything like that. Yeah. Um, so basically We do to walk through everything like that and then Basically, then it was down to me and sammy and he wanted he wanted More money than I thought it was a worth and I knew he was kind of It's kind of point where he just wanted to kind of get out from under it because he was he was he was a big time radio programmer He didn't need to he didn't need the grief Yeah, drum company. Yeah, right, right, you know to me it sounded all glorious, you know until you get in the nuts of Both of them you go. Oh damn. This is a task Yeah, you know what I mean and so in any case Uh, we struck a deal Well, simultaneously to that Uh, and part of part of the deal was Uh, ken austin had located who owned the fives mark Because we're banding about names of a company There's this and that I said no I said It has to be fives or it won't work So part of the freaky thing about it for me personally was actually the acquisition Of the factory from dar one Happened prior to the acquisition of the fives trademark and logo Uh, they both happened within the same month, which was what uh, december of 94 Um And That's how rebirth the company. Hmm. Well, you're so right. You can't have one without the other You can't like well, yeah, because it's kind of like the quarter thing and the darwin thing It's like because everybody's oh, that's what that's what the fives used to be. That's the old fives. Yeah That's where that was, you know what I mean because of the highly recognizable The diamond lugs just you know the spurs the whole bit I mean It had that kind of history to it at that time even Where where that's where it's recognized. So yeah to me in my mind Nothing else would work in other words if I was gonna get this company. It had to be fives. I wanted to rebirth fives Which is it's good that it got in the hands of someone who actually you know Not that those other guys didn't care but that that someone wants to put it back all together. Um, yeah so That was what like 1994 ish Yes, and we moved we used to 18 wheelers Stuffed to the gills. I mean we worked day and night mud sludge just dirt filth Wrote up our sleeves john and I we just started packing everything up And at four o'clock in the morning on december 7th Close the door on the 18 wheelers and started driving down here to austin. Wow Exhausted absolutely freaking exhaust. I mean it was about five days of the most intense Physical labor work you can imagine god. That's so it was just unbelievable. I mean I couldn't it's hard to even express What we went through just to get it done. Yeah And so anyway, that's That's kind of that's kind of the short story on at all. Yeah Yeah, wow, but all right, so then you You then started creating drums, correct? Yeah, what we did is we got we had to set up obviously. So this was uh, what december 94 uh, the first order of businesses obviously we found a place Uh started setting up had to do a little bit of remodel on the building had to get some three phase electrical in Uh, so for to run these machines because there's a full machine shop for wood shop Uh, because a lot of parts are made in-house um and so It was a matter of putting all that together so Hired a few workers Got it all put together and uh So by the time We actually went to the show the nam show the winter nam show Just kind of running joke that ken austin did is is we didn't have me We didn't have any product yet, but I was so bold and brazen about the deal I went ahead and ran to booth anyway, and we went out there with directors chairs They had the five logo on the back and a big oak table and we're just sitting around greeting everybody This is you have to come this is coming around the corner cool But everyone would be excited everybody like whoa, I mean that that gets some buzz and well, it did it did It was it was kind of a precursor to coming out. So literally by the uh nashfield show Uh in july, I think it was july at that time the summer show as they call it We exhibited in spite the first set we had completed that was Is a ruby red kit and That's that's what we showed at the first show in nashfield I've heard I've never played one myself personally, but I've heard that people really like the as they call them the austin era Fives, so I think you've you know, you've carried the brand on well. Did you so obviously same manufacturing type? I mean you're still it's fiberglass. It's All that same good stuff. Well, the the fiberglass is on the snare drums only. Okay The rest were wood shells and then we Started doing the crystallite shortly thereafter because everybody's going well, what about the crystallites? What about you know, it's like you start doing one thing and everybody starts So well, what are you going to do this? What are you going to do that? Well, there you go You know, so that was kind of the next wave that we were doing fiberglass snare drums and wood and complete wood sets too and But because the molds for the tom floor tom and bass drum molds were Not in good enough shape in what worth Even you know using sure and and matter of fact when I did the the molds that already gone Down to Florida, I believe or something even before quarter even got a hold of it because they just they were in such Disrepair that they weren't worth carting around. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah interesting now It's 2021 now Are you I mean, I'm sure things have probably slowed down a little bit and there's been covid and all this stuff I'm not exactly sure when was the last You know batch of fives drums created can people still order them today or or how does no because I'm not in production That's another I could probably go in for three hours. I'd burn your ears up on stuff. But basically um, um Our last production was uh in the first quarter of 07. Okay, okay, and uh That was that was when we stopped production and What happened is I ended up selling We had moved the factory once from the original location and uh So we moved to where my drum shop used to be And I moved my store across the street. So We had to go in and do remodel get the electrical drops do all these things To get that building prep so we could move the factory The landlord at the original place we had moved to Was getting kind of squirrely and I was trying to trying to swing a deal so we could do an owner finance anything So I could retain that property. He wasn't having it and the writing was on the wall I better get the hell out of here Because I've got I'm sitting on all this machinery and equipment And pretty soon they're gonna tell me to get out and give me 30 days or whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah, sure. So uh, so that's why I made the moves and And so I moved I moved just well just literally about three blocks away from where the original factory was in Austin Because that's where my store is located. Yeah, that makes sense Yeah, yeah, jeez. Well, what a amazing Journey of fives and you know, I never take for granted that maybe people aren't as you know They're newer to the drums and they hadn't heard of fives because it's not a household name like Ludwig or To drummers to reach to most drummers. It is a household name, but you know what I mean where it's a little more Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, you know specific of a brand So it's really cool to get this and and and you know, it's been on my My list for a long time. Um, so I'm just super Pumped to have you on here to share the story. Now. Oh, yeah Tommy if you have some extra, you know an extra 10 minutes or so I would love to do our Bonus episode this week, uh, which people pay a little extra and they can join on patreon And they get them I'd like to talk to you for someone For someone who's owned a drum shop for so long About what that's been like and the ups and downs and there's some younger guys now and girls who Want to start a shop. So maybe you can give some advice on that I think that'd be that'd be neat if we can after we finish this episode if you can share some of your Your drum shop knowledge if that's okay. Oh, yeah, of course. Of course. Um, yeah, that's no problem at all Okay. Well on that note, um, let's just uh, close it out there and I want to again thank eric hues For uh, ech eric c hues. I should say for um, kind of recommending you erics an awesome drummer A texan as your such as yourself and uh, kind of got us connected. So Tommy, thank you so much for being here. Uh, before we go Do you want to tell people where they can find your shop online so they can check out your inventory and all that Good stuff. Yeah, that's actually, uh, I the my website is basically identity website that needs to be retooled So that that really it is Tommy's drum shop dot com As far as that goes, but the best thing to do is do it the old fashioned way and give us a call Sounds good Perfect. All right, Tommy. Well, uh, thanks for being here and if anyone wants to check out the patreon bonus episode You can go to drumhistorypodcast.com and there's a patreon link there and you can join up and get these bonus episodes. So Tommy thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it If you like this podcast find me on social media at drum history and please share rate and leave a review And let me know topics that you would like to learn about in the future Until next time keep on learning