“Jon
Brookes was one of the finest drummers ever. He drove The Charlatans from his
drum stool and you could hear his love for soul, heavy rock and dance music in
what he played. The Chemical Brothers went to Jon to record beats for their
tracks while the rest of the dance world was sampling James Brown and John
Bonham or sticking with a drum machine. He never stopped learning – he was
having drumming lessons while we were recording Wonderland in 2000 – but he was
good enough to impress Jim Keltner, who was first choice for Bob Dylan and John
Lennon. He got to play for musicians he was a huge fan of: Johnny Marr, Paul
Weller and Ronnie Wood, who all joined our band at gigs, and all became fans of
Jon’s drumming.
Jon ran
his own label, managed bands and played gigs drumming for harmonica legend Lew
Lewis. He was a music fan above everything else and loved nothing more than
talking with fans and other musicians about records and gigs. We’ve had
messages from all over the world from people sharing memories of Jon – kids
who’d borrowed his drum kit, drummers inspired by his style, but most of all
people saying he was one of the friendliest, funniest and thoughtful people
that they’d ever met.
In the last three years, since Jon collapsed
on stage in Philadelphia, he had three operations on his brain. There was not
much more he could take, even though he was tough – 24 years touring with The
Charlatans made sure of that – but he was talking with us only a couple of
weeks ago about songs he’d written for our new album. Last week we lost a
brother, a friend, a band member and a huge part of all our lives.”
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