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Drums - Ben Gray (Narco)
FiFest Main Stage - Late afternoon slot, following on from Toploader, with These Certain People
Ben Gray (Narco), Buckinghamshire based, accomplished drummer with many years experience and very intent on many more.......
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Currently the drummer of Band ' These Certain People'
Always taking enormous pride in the recognition and complements of an absolutely solid, tight and driving style of playing.
The band originally formed in 2013, with several other well experienced musicians and began to work on a vast catalogue of their own original material, performing all the usual music venues, mainly on the London circuit. After many years, the decision was made to fulfil the desire of increasing the opportunity with live performances, which continued to develop and heighten the band's level. Now an almost 'two in one act' - an ever growing list of covers, are performed to a very high level.
As the success and following is constantly growing, the band are performing at a whole host of venues, pubs, corporate functions, regular headliners at festivals and also adding some 'higher profile' festival events including several appearances at PennFest (including main stage), Rewind Festival South, Fifest, Pub In The Park - sharing the stage with some very big acts in the industry. These Certain People have also worked with Sky TV studios on various projects.
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Performing live however, had began long before this, in a whole host of regular original and covers bands , Dep work with varying bands (live and studio)
Although the drums had always been a life long passion, this was taken a stage further after a successful audition for Les 'Fruitbat' Carter's (Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine) new band - Abdoujaparov. This gave the opportunity for a year of UK dates and also a six week tour of Australia ...........
'On The Big Screen'
These Certain People - Penn Fest
Abdoujaparov @ The Amplifier, Perth - Western Australia
Huge importance and dedication has always been a priority. A constant desire to take any available chance for practice, advancing techniques and experiencing varying styles/genres of playing. The very diverse range of music tastes and a mass of influences certainly benefits. The complete love for playing, welcomes any new challenges and keep pushing progress.
Full line up of quality equipment, to cover all requirements.
Ben uses - Yamaha, Zildjian, VicFirth, Remo, LP
and gets fuck all for telling you that!!!
The very first kit.
Much to the horror of Ben's late Mother Christine, a local toy shop was having a closing sale and a miniature drum kit with an excited 5 year old, was suddenly in the corner of the living room! A passion for music was already showing and it quickly became evident there was a strong ambition to be able to play them like drummers on TV and attempt to copy what they were doing. Christine's opinion was starting to change, a support which only grew throughout the years, to the point in July '24, although very poorly, sat for an hour in the rain, to watch one last performance before losing her battle to cancer just a few weeks later. After many refusals from drum tutors in the area, apparently it was considered too young to be a worth while for either party, a local drummer, Phil Martin, reluctantly agreed to just a one-off lesson. After over coming the first issue of the drum stool being too tall to be able to reach the floor, a cardboard box was found and so it began. Amazingly, things went better than expected and Phil continued to tutor, teaching also to read drum music, the first full size kit also arrived. Progress was coming along quickly and after a couple of years, a local highly acclaimed tutor Ross Elder, took over and advanced drumming further. The lessons continued to around the age of 15. Just previous to this, due to a family contact, a great opportunity to learn, came from several sessions at the home of Deep Purple's drummer - Ian Paice.
Fairly early into secondary school, the first chance of playing in a band came. The Soul Band seemed more the passion of an English teacher, for him to fulfil his musical interests, although this provided great experience of playing in a band enviroment and a few live performances. Within a year and despite being much younger, Ben was approached by a group of sixth form students and invited to audition for their new originals project Ego Trip. After some months rehearsing, the first gig was at hometown High Wycombe's White Horse, a well known venue on the circuit for emerging touring bands (apparently the White Horse was one of the first UK dates for Kings Of Leon) A Monday night and already very nervous for the first 'real' gig, things only got worse when Ben was refused entry to the venue. A strictly over 18s policy but he's in the band?! The door staff had management come out and it was decided that so long as the drummer stayed in the dressing room until the performance, the band could play. Afterwards they were offered a weekly slot for the coming weeks. Eventually the time came and fellow band mates all left for various universities around the country and things came to an end, it had been enough though to confirm being in a band was the way to go.
The next band followed soon after but after a huge brawl during a gig the other members quit before things really got going. Mainly down to being such a young age still, it was proving difficult to find something new. A huge regret now but for around three years, Ben had almost stopped playing. An out of the blue phone call, following on from a drummer recommendation, it was time to go again and hasn't stopped since.
Many bands and projects followed over the years - originals, covers, dep work, studio/recording time, radio interviews, tour buses, signing merch and the biggest passion of all - performing live!
