Dave Gee
Dave is exactly the kind of rock solid drummer needed to hold down the spare and tight Nick Mason grooves. A refugee from the 70's punk scene with some recording and chart success with Punk Pathetique combo
THE SHAPES (there's more about the Shapes Experience HERE courtesy of Brian Helicopter).
Dave is the engine room of the band, sometimes he even plays with his eyes open!
Curriculum Vitae
Name: Dave Gee
Role in Breathe: Band Mother, Drums, Promotion & Bookings, Website Admin.
DOB: 14 th April 1960
Born: Coventry, residing: Northampton
Personal Profile/Goals/Ambitions in music:
I’m the longest serving current member of this troupe. Aside from working with Breathe & a few other band projects I run a Recruitment Business in the Midlands & I’m now planning to add to the business portfolio by entering the leisure industry, so I’m looking for a Pub that would be suited to an honest, good value food offering & which has space for some live music too.
My goal in music is to continue having a fun time playing with, & for, as many people that time & physical deterioration will allow. I’d also jump at the opportunity to organise an unashamedly hippy-type festival for progressive-rock tribute acts in a meadow somewhere where I could bank on fine weather; India would be good & I’m developing some contacts in Kerala to see if I can make it happen. I’d also like to explore the possibility of doing a show that could be screened over the internet with collaboration from other Floyd shows around the world.
Finally, although I have two fabulously gorgeous daughters & I absolutely adore them equally, I’d like to eventually hand my sticks over to my youngest daughter Charley (my eldest girl Amy, plays flute so she’ll have to seek out a Jethro Tull tribute if she ever gets the urge to Rock). Charley started playing drums a year ago, she’s got great “groove” & she’s into Pink Floyd too, this handover can’t happen yet though because she has to be in bed by 8.30 on a school night – she’s nine years old – having said that, if I know Charley she’ll be doing her own thing in her own way when her time comes around!
Achievements:
I discovered that it is possible to pick up playing a musical instrument after a twenty year lay-off without having to resort to any major surgery. It’s probably even possible to START playing an instrument at any time of your life – just DO it!
Musical Career History:
Musical education commenced playing Keyboard at 10 years old, also tried (& failed miserably with) Trumpet & had a little more success by learning a few chords on Guitar (I still only know those few chords & I will irritate with 12-bar blues at the merest provocation). At around 11 years old I fell in love with a red sparkly drum kit in a music shop window in my home town of Coventry. Bought a pair of drumsticks & played a particularly resilient cushion whilst sitting in front of the TV watching TOTP for about 9 months.
1972: First second-hand drum kit – you never forget the first. A 4-piece Olympic (which had been finished in white swirl but was, by the time I got it, rather more yellow) with Krut cymbals. Also bought my first Album, Pink Floyd’s “Meddle” & went to my first gig – Deep Purple – awesome!
1974: Started School-Band, “Ample Parking”. Played first gig in St. Peter’s Hall in Leamington at which I also caught chicken pox.
1975: Joined another School-Band “The Mad Hatter Band” as one of two drummers – the other drummer was Pete Lawrence who went on to start the “Big-Chill” Festival.
1976: Moved on to the Pub-Rock scene with a band called “Jetison”, 1976 also coincided with being expelled for a relatively minor (I thought) misdemeanour from Public School. Working the pub-scene in the band enabled me to purchase a rather splendid & brand new “Rogers Londoner IV” drum kit & some equally splendid metalware.
1977: Played in various ensembles around Leamington, some were relatively coherent, some decidedly not but I was quite happy to go wherever the whim, alcohol, mind expanding substances (I confess that I DID inhale rather a lot as it happens) or the prospect of girls took me. Also at this time I was approached, or rather “cornered” by some chaps whom I knew vaguely from school & who had also been kicked out. They seemed to have discovered what to me (I was sporting hair down to my butt & had a penchant for patchouli, motorbikes & bands like Floyd, Yes, Caravan & Van der Graaf Generator) was an entirely alien sense of style; they were Punks & I was fascinated; for one thing they were much more colourful than Hippies. They needed a new drummer, they made me get a haircut & replace my flares & moccasins with drainpipes & Green Doc Martens. I already hated Margaret Thatcher so it was quite a painless transition.
This band was “The Shapes” & as chance would have it we became very popular with John Peel & also therefore with a large proportion of his listeners, albeit only for a short while. We gigged all over the UK in some of the highest-profile venues, founded a record label, instigated the genre “Punk Pathetique”, produced & distributed our own EP’s & allegedly had a raucous time. We sold the record label to Terry Hooley who had founded “Good Vibrations” in Belfast & who was responsible for launching “The Undertones” & “Stiff Little Fingers” amongst others & then……. We never actually broke up, we just stopped playing with each other. I did do some other studio work for Martyn Bell in a band called “ The Rails”, Martyn went on to play with “The Wonder Stuff” as fiddle player.
The punk scene had moved onto more political & angry strata & there was suddenly even less relevance to be found in the “rather too witty for their own good” Shapes who had brought songs such as “I saw Batman in the Launderette” & “Wots for lunch mum, not B**ns again?” to the scene. Some of the guys continued pursuing musical or artistic careers. I sold my beloved kit & just came to a musical dead stop, moved away to the South West & started a career which commenced in retail down there & thereafter led me to the Recruitment Industry around the UK & eventually back in the Midlands.
2000: I had a inkling to play music again around the same time as I bought a hugely powerful motorbike; this was around the same time that I turned 40 & evidently lost control of my hormones.
To get back into some sort of shape I jammed around with various projects & did a handful of live performances in Pubs & Clubs playing various styles from Metal to Indie.
2004: Read an advert & auditioned for a newly hatching band that played a lot of Floyd which eventually went out as “Out the Flesh” & played local pubs & clubs, I recognised that the music was a whole lot of fun to play & that it had influenced me without me realising it; I wanted to take it a whole lot further. “Out the Flesh” was originally a 4-piece pub-rock outfit & I started looking around for some musicians to better recreate the Floyd sound & take the act to a new level & we ended up with a nine-piece act but frustrations were evident as not all the players were delivering consistently to the required standard – Floyd fans are VERY demanding.
2005: These frustrations led to a brutal change in line-up as various people were cut. The team was now down four players AND we had no PA or lights because these had gone with the original guitarist! We were now: Pete Thompson (Lead vocals), Jill Palmer (Vocals & Sax), Alan Lineham (Keys), Pete Worley (Bass) & me – slightly lacking in the guitar department when guitar is such a huge part of the Floyd sound! Some rapid recruitment was necessary so that’s what we did & at the same time changed the name to “Breathe” – The delicate sound of Floyd. Some of the new players could hack it & some couldn’t – this is the way with bands.
At around this time, a good buddy of mine Dutch van Spall, who runs his own studio & is the driving force behind “Teen-idol” (the antidote to cheap TV talent debacles), gave me a pep-talk. He had recognised that there was actually a whole lot of talent within the band & that it was likely that other talented people would eventually be attracted to what we were doing, how we were approaching it & who would also share our goals. He kept me focussed, he was right & I thank him.
It’s proving to be well worth the perseverance, we’ve evolved from that time to the act that we now present & all the guys who survived the “night of the long knives” in 2005 are still here giving their all; it’s my belief that each time there has been a change we’ve moved forward in some way & now I feel pretty chuffed by what we’ve achieved so far &, strangely, it doesn’t seem likely that the prospect of change will ever hold any fear for me – not that I’m seeking any more changes right this minute!
2006: Solid Air
What’s the goal now? I want to keep moving the Breathe act forward as far as it can go & I’ll keep investing time & energy into helping hone this show where fans of the music can leave feeling a warm glow from listening to songs that have touched them in some way, played live by a bunch of people who share that joy because they dig the music too & who get a kick playing it with each other. Undoubtedly there are more bridges to cross but we’ll never appreciate the view from the other side unless we keep moving on & find them!
I play a Yamaha kit with Zildjian metals, the pink hat that I generally sport at gigs is less an affectation & more very a practical way of keeping the sweat out of my eyes – I borrowed it from one of the children at an out-door show where the sun had made an appearance & never gave it back.