When powerhouse rhythm section, Mark Schulman and Eva Gardner gave a joint drum and bass clinic before a specially invited audience at Music Maker in Dublin, they showed just how crucial a part of any live band the drums and bass are. (Not that anyone present was in any doubt, but sometimes, it seems, frontmen/women along with guitar players, get all the glory!).

Appearing on behalf of Fender Guitars and Gretsch Drums, each spoke passionately about their respective chosen instruments and displayed incredible virtuosity. In fact, they made it all seem too easy. Latterly both have been a part of Pink’s touring band but they have each played with a long list of big names. Schulman has played with Sheryl Crow, Foreigner, Destiny’s Child, Billy Idol, Cher, Tina Turner and Simple Minds to name just a handful. He spoke about his decision to take up the drums after, as a three-years old, witnessing Ringo Starr playing with The Beatles. “I saw Ringo and something resonated within me,” he joked. “And then I saw the screaming girls and thought ‘I want some of that!’”
Gardner was the original bassist with The Mars Volta before going on to work as a touring bassist with artists such as Pink, Veruca Salt and The Charlatans’ Tim Burgess.
She described how she was first inspired to pick up the bass: “It was because of my dad Kim Gardner, who was a member of The Birds (not the American pyschedelic group) and The Creation, and who recorded and hung out with George Harrison,
Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood and Eric Clapton,
among others.”
She went on to recall how legendary engineer/producer Andy Johns (Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, Clapton) brought a bass guitar and an amp to her Hollywood Hills family home, handed the bass to the then 12 year-old, cranked up the volume on Van Halen’s version of The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” and said to her, “Now this is a solid bass line.”
She described some of her bass playing influences, and named James Jamerson, Led Zepp’s John Paul Jones, Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett from Bob Marley’s band, and Rocco Prestia from Tower Of Power as informing her playing.
“I’m so stoked to be a bass player and my dad continues to be one of the influences of my life”,
she beamed.
To demonstrate their chops they used backing tapes, and played a wide variety of styles and genres, including standards such as a rocking version of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, AC/DC’s ‘Highway To Hell’ and Marvin Gaye’s ‘Mercy, Mercy, Me’. “Every note you play, matters,” Schulman stressed. “And everything you don’t play also matters. It’s all about the groove.” One of the many highlights of the evening was an adaptation of a Bollywood movie soundtrack with a drum arrangement by UK sticksman Andy Edwards. Gardner’s’ muscular playing on her vintage Fender Precision bass was both dexterous and exquisite, while Schulman’s syncopation was a joy to witness. He even played Cher’s’ mega smash, ‘Believe’ to demonstrate the importance of percussion on a
pop song.
Throughout the evening, the two amiable musicians (who were making their last European appearance of their Fender and Gretsch clinic tour) took questions, cracked jokes and generally gave the lucky few dozen who were present, a highly entertaining, informative and inspirational couple of hours.