There’s a reason the Monkees’ Micky Dolenz plays drums that way: ‘I know it’s bizarre’
APRIL 30, 2015
BY SOMETHING ELSE!
[T]he unique set up the Monkees’ Micky Dolenz employs for his drum kit.
When he…began to learn the instrument, in his early 20s, Micky Dolenz taught himself to play using his left foot for the kick drum, and his right leg for the hi-hat. He then focused on the snare with his left hand….
“Yeah, half-right, half-left,” Micky Dolenz tells Bob Girouard of Modern Drummer. “The bottom half is left-handed and the top is right-handed. I play the kick with my left foot and the snare with my left hand.
“When I was a kid I had a leg disease called Perthes,” Dolenz adds. “My right leg was, and still is, weaker than my left. So, when I went to play conventional-style, it hurt. But since I was just beginning, [my first teacher,] John Carlos, said, ‘Hey, change it around.’ He put the kick on my left and the hi-hat on my right — which I still do to this day — and it worked!”
Scott K Fish 