IRON BUTTERFLY’ S Ron Bushy
Words Jonathan Mover
Making History
It’s summer of 1968 and every day, from what seems like every radio and every record player in the entire universe, countless times you hear it: Diggy diggy dum dum, dum dum - diggy diggy dum dum, dum dum - da dum… And it seems to go on forever, burrowing its way into the reptilian part of your brain, way down deep where flashier stuff like Mitch Mitchell’s jazzy fills and rolls cannot penetrate.
It’s a simple but effective drum solo, one that every kid with a pair of sticks can play. Hell, you don’t even need sticks; countless kids pound it out on their desks in school: Diggy diggy dum dum, dum dum. But nothing lasts forever and eventually, time paves its way for something new. Which is too bad, because after all the hoopla dies down and some perspective is gained on the history (such as it is) of rock ‘n’ roll, Iron Butterf ly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” and its drum solo remains one of the most recognized moments ever recorded.
And it’s popular, too, as its multi-platinum status clearly shows. It may not have the snob appeal of, say, one of Jack De Johnette’s denser forays into advanced polyrhythmic sub-atomic particle physics, but a whole lot of people bought a whole lot of copies of it, and drum solos with that kind of social impact are few and far between. And while we’re at it, after you listen to
the “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” solo, doesn’t Ringo Starr’s solo on Abbey Road sound a bit, well, imitative? I’m just asking.
Ron Bushy, creator of said solo, currently lives in Los Angeles, and after a lot of ups and downs in the music business, is back drumming with Iron Butterfly in an effort to keep it alive and moving forward.
there was another band called the Palace Pages. The Palace Pages actually played at a couple of the same places we played.
From The beginning DRUMHEAD: You’re the reason I play drums. How many times have you heard that before? Ron Bushy: I hear that every time I go out and play a concert. It’s just amazing, you know. I’ve played drums since ‘ 66 when the Butterfly formed.
RB: Out in El Cajon, which is part of San Diego. I was in The Voxmen, and Doug Ingle, Danny Weiss and Henry Penrod were in the Palace Pages. We were just arch enemies; it was weird. But anyway, the two bands played a couple of dates together and then I didn’t hear anything about them for a while. Later I heard that they went to L.A. to “make it,” but I don’t think they had changed the name to Iron Butterfly yet.
I had an NSU Prince, a little red car. I could actually pick it up, lift it up and park it that way. I totaled that car, and from the money I made, I took my band, the Voxmen, to L. A.
So, we got up to L. A. and we found a couple of guys that I had known in the Palace Pages. They were playing this club called Bido Litos. Their drummer’s mother got sick, so he had to leave and go back to San Diego. The guys asked me to come and sit in, so I did. I sat in one night at Bido Lito’s and they all turned around and said to me, “you have to be our drummer.” Now, you know, I was really very loyal — I make a decision and that’s it.
But they just pressured me and pressured me to join the band. So I said OK. And what happened was the drummer from Butterfly – I think his name was Jack – he liked the music of The Voxmen better, so we just traded gigs and I joined the Butterfly. We played at Bido Litos six nights a week, five sets a night, and we got really tight.
DH: How did it come together? Were you schoolmates or neighborhood friends? RB: No, no. We were actually kind of arch enemies. I was in a band called The Voxmen, and
From there, the guitar player met this girl who did stunts in the movies. She had connections, and she hooked us up with Dave Winters, who was a dancer — he was in West Side Story — so he came down to see us. At the time we weren’t exactly living the American dream: we were actually living upstairs in Bido Lito’s; I slept underneath the desk in the office, Daryl slept out on the roof, Doug Ingle slept
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