“When you play the ballads, you can feel the warmth from the crowd,” he says. “We play the same songs every night, the exact same show, but the feeling from the crowd is always special, you can really feel that each night.”
Asked to name another drummer he counts as an influence, Olsson’s answer raises an eyebrow: Stevie Wonder.
“Believe it or not, yeah, the way he plays drums is amazing,” Olsson says, grinning. “I worked with him on the ‘Songs in the Key of Life’ album because I was doing a solo record in the same studio complex (the Record Plant in Hollywood). He heard my drums that Slingerland (Drum Company) had especially built for me and said, ‘Can I borrow your drums?’ So I called the company and asked if it would be possible to make a drum kit exactly the same as mine for Stevie Wonder. They said, ‘Stevie Wonder? What?’ but stopped the production line and had them sent within a week.”
Olsson stops at that story and says, “Funny, isn’t it? Who you meet?”
I asked Davey about this. The '70s were pretty wild times, and being in the Elton John Band allowed you access to anything and everything. Did drugs and alcohol ever become a problem?
"Well, I used to smoke marijuana and took pills sometimes. I never got into sniffing or shooting anything. And, of course, there was the groupie situation. We don't get them anymore! [laughs] Go figure. But it all did get to a point where it was slowing things down - it certainly slowed me down. I couldn't handle it, and I didn't like feeling paranoid. Eventually, I stopped all that. It's a waste of time, really. You know what's funny, though? I didn't drink back then. You know what I used to drink? Milk."
Milk? You could have been an Osmond!
[laughs] "I could have been an Osmond. It was actually in our tour rider: a gallon of milk for Nigel."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann-Margret
Do you guys remember him. He was part of our academy around the time Tom Eisfeld and Gnabry were around. I saw him play last season playing the champions league, and now starting for Sweden, it’s good to see former gunners succeed.
