Gary James' Interview With Elton John's Percussionist
John Mahon



Since 1997, John Mahon has been Elton John's percussionist. Before that gig, he toured with Helen Reddy and Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night. How did John Mahon get to perform with these people? We'll let him explain.

Q - John, it looks like Elton John is through with touring, isn't he?

A - Yeah. I am going to say he is done with touring. I don't see him doing anything in the near future. I mean that said, he's a very creative artist. He's super creative and he's very active. He likes keeping busy. He kind of says, "No, I'm not touring again," but way in the back of my mind I wonder if he might just get the bug and have to get out there. But that said, there are no plans for any of that. There's nothing on the books. He does have an album coming out. I think it's coming out fairly soon. I don't know too much about it. They kept it somewhat quiet. So, I'm not positive when we're going to see that record, but I know he did most if it here in L.A. in studio.

Q - When you're not touring with Elton John, what do you do to pay the bills? Do you do studio work?

A - Yes. Right now at this very moment I'm mostly doing studio work. I work on projects of my own, writing music. I have other artists that I do drums, percussion and song writing for. So those are kind of my production assets, if you will. I can produce from top to bottom music. When people hire me out they're mostly hiring me out now to do drums, percussion and vocal parts. Sing a song. Write a song. I'm working with a couple of people now that I write a song with them, like a lyricist. They send me the lyrics and I create a song from them, from the lyrics. It's a little bit like Elton. I kind of learned that from Elton. With the Bernie Taupin lyric writing, he's kind of the starting point for all those amazing songs that Elton wrote. Without Bernie's lyrics, wow! I mean, Elton's written lyrics and songs, but Bernie's lyrics are iconic. So, I've sort of, by watching Elton in the studio, I see how he does it. He puts Bernie's lyrics in front of him and then he creates a song from there.

Q - A perfect team, wouldn't you say?

A - Oh, yeah. No doubt that's a perfect team right there.

Q - You've been with Elton John since July 8th, 1977.

A - That's correct.

Q - How did Elton John hear about you? Did he see you perform somewhere? Were you recommended by a mutual friend?

A - I was recommended. When I first came to L.A. I met a piano player, a friend of mine, this guy named Fred Stickley, and we did some gigs together. We put our own band together. We wanted to start our own original band. We were both writing songs and both singing. So we were kind of like a Tears For Fears band, if you will, two singers, pretty Progressive music. I guess that's kind of the best way to put us. We needed a bass player and I met this guy, Bob Birch. I think we did a wedding reception or something like that together. Just a little one-off gig. This guy is cool. He's from Detroit. I'm from Ohio. It's kind of like we hit it off right away. I said, "Hey, why don't you join our band?" And he was totally into it. He was so super talented. Great bass player. Great singer. Just a guy you want to have in a band. So, he joined the band and then that was in the late '80s when I came to L.A. Then around the mid '90s, Davey Johnstone asked him to play somewhere and Davey Johnstone asked him to be part of his original project that he was working on that was kind of outside of Elton's band. Then that led to the time when Dee Murray passed away and they needed a bass player. Dee Murray had been in and out of the band a couple of times by then and Davey asked Bob to join the band. Well, Bob and I continued to be friends during all this time while he was still starting his touring with Elton. Bob and I were still in the studio, writing music, hangin' out, whatever. Hey, as fate would have it, all of a sudden I think Davey Johnstone came over to Bob's house to work on something that Bob was doing with Davey and he heard a song and he said, "Who's that guy singing on that?" And he goes, "Oh, that's John. You net him. He came to one of our shows in L.A." I think it was The Hollywood Bowl or something like that. I met him backstage. He goes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." He goes, "Give me his number 'cause I want to hire him to sing on a couple of tunes." So, Davey calls me and I wind up singing in the studio on a couple of songs for him. Maybe a month later he calls me and says, "We're looking for someone to do this one gig with Elton in Germany. Elton is going to start touring again and we need someone like you who can sing, play percussion, and play drums if you have to." I know all about electronic sampling and playing samples and playing beats. So I was way on top of that. Basically I had all the skills prepared at the right time and place and I got handed an opportunity. So, yeah. I did these recording sessions with Davey and later on he says, "I want you to come on over and listen to you sing some of these background parts for Elton John songs." And I go, "Great. As far as I'm concerned I will do this gig and see how it goes." That was early 1997 and we had four rehearsals and set out to France and then one show in Germany and that was kind of it. I thought I did my one gig and who knows what's going to happen from then. So, it worked out.

Q - I guess so! That's a nice addition to you resume'. But of course you don't need a resume'. You're always working.

A - Yeah. That's true. It's weird because I did that one gig and I didn't really meet Elton 'til rehearsals. Davey pulled me in and I hadn't met Elton yet, which is kind of weird. He (Elton) couldn't have been any nicer. We got along really well. He was super cool. He was a little bit nervous. You could tell because there were new people in the band and he hadn't played in awhile. Bur right after that happened is when Gianni Versace, who was one of his best friends, was killed. Then that kind of put everything on hold. There was talk of doing some more gigs and then Princess Diana gets killed and she was his other best friend, and he took a serious blow, an emotional toll for him during that time. I just got the impression that this was it. After the Versace thing it kind of scared him a little bit when someone would just randomly shoot a guy in front of his house. We were kind of under the impression it was over and I was under the impression it was done. He went and sang at the memorial for Princess Diana and then he got a hold of everybody and said, "I want to go do some more shows!" He knew he had to get out there and play and not get caught up in a funk. So, that was kind of the beginning of it, the middle of 1997.

Q - I notice the one thing that's so important to get to play with someone like Elton John is personality. You have the skills but you have to have a personality that people like. You have to get along with people.

A - Yeah. I tell all these upcoming musicians, you have to be able to take criticism or you're in the wrong business and that goes with anything. I'm working on a song with a guy and I changed a lot of the stuff that he did with lyrics and he wasn't very happy about it. I said, "Hey man, that's why they call it a collaboration. If you want my input I'm going to give it to you whether you like it or not." With Elton, you have to be ready for him too, or any band. You've got to be ready for somebody to say, "Hey man, I don't like what you're playing right there." You have to be able to take their information, process it and use it. (laughs) I found out that fighting back never works. I've had my moments when I've been in rehearsal, tired and beat up. Just worn out. Some band leaders say, "Hey, can you..." "Hey man, get off my back," and then you look back and say, "Why did I say that?" I've had Elton tell me many things. Stuff like, "Are you singing that harmony right there?" And I go, "Yeah." And he says, "Don't do it. It's terrible." (laughs) One time I hit this big cymbal smash at the end of some section of his song and he goes, "John, are you doing that cymbal smash at the end of the bridge?" I go, "Yeah." He goes, "It's fucking horrible. Stop doing it." (laughs)

Q - Well, that's to the point.

A - It was very to the point. I tell my musician people that I mentor and give advice to, "Would you rather have somebody tell you they don't like something you're doing as opposed to continue to play it and then they hate it every time you do that, but they don't want to tell you 'cause they don't want to hurt your feelings?" I would much rather have someone hurt my feelings or say, "That's no good," then no, they hate it and find out later that somebody says, "I've hated that part since the day he did it."

Q - Since you're from Canton, Ohio, did you know that's also the birthplace of Dean Martin?

A - I did know that actually. I'll tell you a weird story. When I bought a house in another section of L.A., this older couple lived right next door to me. Turned out he was from Steubenville, Ohio, him and his wife. It turned out she was the President of The Dean Martin Fan Club. (laughs) We had a good laugh about that. A lot of people came out of Canton, Ohio.

Q - I see in your early days you were in recording and performing bands. Were you in bands that had major record deals?

A - In Ohio I mostly did club work and recording work. I did a lot of studying there. I studied with this teacher, Bill Severance, who also moved to L.A. He kind of prompted me to come out and get out of Ohio. Canton wasn't a big city. So, I'd have to go to Cleveland or Columbia or Pittsburgh to get to play in bigger cities. I just thought I'd take a shot. It was wither go to New York or L.A. and I went out to L.A. to visit someone and it was like, "Alright, I'm going to California!" I just got married, went out there. In Ohio I didn't really play with any recording acts. Most of it was club gigs and original bands. When I moved to L.A. I started to pick up bands that had record deals, this band, Windows, which was kind of like one of the early Smooth Jazz bands, I was with them a little bit. Then they introduced me to this guy, Peter White, who's still a big Smooth Jazz recording artist, and then he introduced me to Al Stewart, "The Year Of The Cat" guy. So I played with him for a little bit. I played with Rita Coolidge for a little tour. I played a little tour with Helen Reddy. And just before Elton, I was playing with Three Dog Night singer Chuck Negron. I did kind of a year and a half, two years with him, touring on and off.

Q - To get to Helen Reddy and Chuck Negron, was it word of mouth?

A - It really does work that way. You play a gig with somebody and this somebody is in another band. This somebody says, "We need a drummer. What are you doing next month?" It really does come down to word of mouth. I'd done the auditions. I remember doing an audition for Cher. I auditioned for Journey. Those were cattle calls where it was like one drummer after another. The Cher audition was a line down the hallway where guys were waiting to go in and play. She wanted to know what astrological sign you were. It was one of those kinds of things. There were a lot of prerequisites. When you do things like that, there are drummers just piling into L.A. It's a giant melting pot of drummers from all over the world that come there to get famous. So, most of the gigs I wound up doing were referrals from someone I had either played in a band with already or had gone to see playing in a band and introduced myself. That kind of thing. It was more of a networking thing than it was show up at an audition and blow everybody's mind 'cause you're so great. It was never that.

Q - You're probably in a very small category of people that go on to perform with Elton John or Helen Reddy or Chuck Negron.

A - I don't want to be down about it, but it's such a small percentage of guys that come (here). I have drummer friends and musician friends that are so damned talented. If you asked me, way more talented than me, but it's just a matter of the whole package, being in the right place at the right time. But yeah, it's very difficult. I know a guy who's an incredible musicians, but he doesn't like to go on the road. He's got a little, quirky thing. He doesn't like being gone for too long. He'll go out for a weekend, but if you tell someone this tour is for two months, not a lot of guys want to go live in a hotel for two months, and ride in a bus, and eat a Subway every day. That kind of thing.

Q - It's got to be better than eating at Subway. Aren't the meals catered?

A - With Elton it was better than eating at Subway.

Q - I thought so.

A - But, I've been in plenty of bands where, no, it's not better. I've been in many bands on the road where you kind of fend for yourself.

Q - Don't you get a per diem?

A - You get a per diem. I've been in bands where there wasn't a per diem. I've been in some bands where there was. The lower the per diem, the more careful you are with where you go to find food. Usually at a gig they're going to have food for you. But on the days you're not playing you're fending for yourself. It really depends on the level of gig you end up getting. But back to what you were saying, I know guys that may not fit in perfectly with everybody. They might be too picky about what they want to have on the road. Bands nowadays are just going to tell you here's the way it is, this is what you're going to get paid, where you're going to stay. Here's your travel itinerary. You take it or leave it.

Q - With Elton John I wouldn't think you'd be traveling by bus. Doesn't he charter a jet to fly from gig to gig?

A - When I first joined the band it's a little mix of how we traveled. There was a lot of bus travel. Bus travel is something you either love or hate. I'm in the middle with it. Sometimes I love it. Sometimes it's very difficult. It's nice to get on the bus after the gig and just kind of chill, have a little bit to eat and have a drink and watch some TV. Get into your bunk, go to sleep. But sometimes that bus pulls into the hotel at four in the morning and now you've got to get out of the bus and check into your hotel, which is really the case many times. That's not easy to do. And sometimes we'd base. There was a period of time where we'd base in the South of France because Elton was living there at the time and we would fly with him on his charter plane. We'd fly to go do the gig and turn around and fly back to Nice. So, we stayed in one hotel for a month, in the same hotel, the same room. That's the best. Not many people get to do that. That's the way to go, traveling on a jet, staying in the same hotel room all the time. That is a real perk we don't see very often. And then after that there were other times where we would bus because you couldn't fly in and out of these places. And of course plenty of commercial flights. More than what I want to count. I've had every possible scenario from flying commercial to where the flight gets canceled and you've got to go back to the hotel. We've had scenarios where charter planes have had mechanical issues. Those kind of planes can get delayed. Those planes are very picky with their mechanical issues too. In fact, we've had many times where we've had to wait hours and hours for them to get a plane fixed or bring in another plane. I remember one time we landed in the middle of nowhere. The plane was having some kind of an issue and they had to find some kind of vans to come pick us up. Somewhere in Germany I believe. They had to drive us to the nearest city. It was very strange. It wasn't Germany. It might have been Poland or Czechoslovakia, and then drive us to the nearest city where we had to wait for them to find another plane and bring it in and come and get us. So it can be pretty wild. I mean, it's always a little bit fun, but when you're tired and just want to get into your room and crash then all of a sudden your day has changed for you.

Q - When you moved to L.A. in 1983, wasn't it expensive to live there? And were you studying music in L.A.?

A - Yes to both of your questions. It was definitely a little bit of a culture shock. It was very expensive to move to L.A. Luckily I had one of my cousins who lived outside of the city a little bit and we crashed with him for almost a month, just 'til we could find an apartment to live in and figure out a way to do gigs. Right away that friend of mine, Bill, was kind of throwing some gigs at me. Really the first or second week I was in California I started going out and doing little club gigs, private gigs, or what we used to call casual where you just show up and it's a bunch of musicians you don't know. By doing that every week, that's when you start networking and meeting these people. I kind of tell people this story: I started doing these little gigs with everyone and meeting new guys. I did a lot of vocal study in Ohio with private teachers. I did some classes at a local college with a drum teacher. So, I was studying there. When I came to L.A. I was more focused on just trying to get gigs. But then one of the first gigs I did, I'm just sitting there, playing, and I'm thinking to myself I'm looking at everybody in this band and I've never met any of them before. We never played together but these guys are so good. I thought everybody in this band is better than I've ever played with before. These are just pick-up musicians. They're kind of in the same boat as I am now. All trying to land a job, make a living as a musician. But their level of musicianship was so high and I said to myself that night, "I'm going back to school." So I started to study with David Garibaldi, the Tower Of Power drummer. I started taking lessons from him and I also enrolled in the music school Dick Grove School Of Music in Los Angeles. From there I was taking like music theory, piano lessons, studying drums. Eventually I found a voice teacher and started studying vocals. So yeah, I didn't like sit on my heels and go home. I am in L.A. It was more of a shock, like wow! You got to stay up with everything.

Q - You were able to read music then, which meant you could play on a Country session and you probably had a cartage company to go around and set up your drums in a studio. You didn't set up your own drums, did you?

A - It depends on the gig. I can read drum music. I couldn't sit down and play piano music perfectly. I'm not very good at that, but drum music of course I can. But cartage companies, where someone comes in and sets up your drums, you have a technician that sets 'em up and gets them ready, it all depends on the budget of the recording session. To give you an example, I played a Jazz club last week and it was fairly low budget. There was already kind of a drum set at the club. So, I could use that kit. But I had to bring quite a bit of other gear to kind of make the kit up to my standards, make it fit me more comfortably. But there's been recording sessions you do that are more high budget and the bigger the budget then you ask, "If I get cartage, can you guys come pick up my gear?" It also becomes how much gear do I have to bring? Do I have to bring a huge studio setup? Then I have to have some kind of cartage because there's no way for me to do that. Some of my stuff is in big cases. I've done many little recording sessions where I just show up with a little bag of percussion stuff and maybe bring some congas. It's much more low budget and easier to deal with. Kind of an in and out thing. But I do have a drum tech and he knows my equipment very well and he can set up everything I need. It all comes down to who the artist is and how much money they have to spend and if they're willing to do that. It can be a tricky thing because sometimes you have to negotiate it. But it always comes down to the money. Everything comes down to money.

Q - Is the music scene as vibrant in L.A. today as it was in the 1980s?

A - I did a lot of those gigs up and down Sunset Boulevard with the big Hair Bands. Covid killed that scene, but now it's come back. You can still pretty much go up and down Sunset Boulevard and all these great clubs, The Roxy, The Rainbow, Gazzarri's, those clubs have all come back. It's not that kind of music anymore. I'm sure you can find that Heavy Metal if you want, but not like a Van Halen type of band. But there's plenty of clubs and they're doing very well. The club scene is still a major component of bands trying to get signed to a bigger record contract, though a lot of artists just do it themselves these days. That's where you really draw your audience in. It's a younger scene now. I'm not in my young days where I would go out and hang out at clubs every night, which I used to do just to go hear a band. For me to go out and do that now is really not that easy anymore.

Q - Is it still "Pay To Play"?

A - Well, it depends. It depends on if you have a following. So. let's say the gig I did last week at the Jazz club, they paid us to play there because the singer had a following. He brought in hundreds of people. A couple hundred people I believe. They all bought drinks and the place made money. There was a small cover charge so they paid us. That Pay To Play is really for a band that is trying to break out and want the exposure and they don't have a great following yet. And that's who's going to wind up paying to play. Everybody hates to hear that Pay To Play. It sucks. I've done it. Not personally. I played with a girl, a singer / songwriter and basically the club said, "You can't start playing until she pays the bill." I didn't really realize it as the time. I was like, "What? Pay the bill?" Yeah, she's gotta pay us a certain amount of money." Wow! I never saw that before. I then realized all the bands that night were playing some cool clubs down on Sunset Boulevard that had potential for her to get a lot of people to come in there. I think it's the new way, but it's not everywhere. It's not all the time.

Q - You mentioned record companies. From everything I've been told, record companies are a thing of the past. And if you do get record company interest they want your masters, your publishing, your merchandising and if you hit in a big way, 50% of your live gate. What are you going to get at the end of the night? $50?

A - Yeah. (laughs) That's always been the problem with the music business from Day One. Everyone has always paid someone to do this dirty work for you to get you out there. It's like a booking agent. They take 15%. If an artist comes in and charges $100,000 to play a concert, the booking agent gets $15,000. See, the tricky part about the record company is they're going to get you out there. It's a balance of what they can actually do for you as to what they're actually taking from you. Most young bands, if they even get a record company to even blink at them, that's a good thing because to do it yourself and do all the promotion yourself and book yourself, that's a lot of work. To have a company do it for you is an amazing thing. But there's a price to pay for everything. I look at Elton and he charges a hell of a lot more than $100,000 to play a gig, but of course everybody takes a piece of that pie from him. The record company takes a little piece, the booking agent, the promoter, management. Everybody takes their little cut. As far as writing music, most songwriters it kind of gets split in two between publishing, which is the right to put that music out there when you want to put it out, and the writer's royalty, which is basically the songwriter. Most songwriters now give up their writer's royalties if they write the song. If they didn't write the song, and let's say Luke Combs did a cover of "Fast Car", he's not the songwriter. So, if he had to give the publishing of that song away to his record company then he's not making squat by doing that song. He will make his money from the sale of that record, the actual physical sale. It's very complicated. A lot of it I don't quite understand sometimes because of streaming. The way an artist makes money is a lot different.

Q - I was reading an interview with a Marketing guy for a State Fair. He said the price of a band has sky rocketed to upwards of a million dollars a night, and many Fairs just can't afford those prices.

A - For "A" level bands that's probably true. Somebody like Billy Joel, Elton, those prices are up. But you're talking about big concert arenas, those kinds of bands that are pulling in the big crowds. Paul McCartney has to be a million dollars. Some of these oldies bands, I bet you can hire for twenty to fifty grand for a show. So, that's why you see these bands touring all the time. They're on the road all the time. They can't charge a lot of money because of the size of the venue and how much they can charge for tickets. But those big acts are a million bucks to do a big concert.

Q - That's what Aerosmith was paid for a 15,000 seat grandstand appearance at the New York State Fair some years back.

A - Let's say you got 15,000 seats times $250 a ticket, which is probably what it was, or something like that. That right there is three million, seven-hundred, fifty-seven thousand dollars. Then you add the merchandising on top of that. Parking. You pay Aerosmith a million bucks, you still got two million dollars left over. If you can sell those tickets for that much money you're doing pretty good actually. You take a stadium that we played, let's say Dodger Stadium, which is 15,000 people, which let's call it $200 a ticket on the average and that's ten million dollars. It's not cheap to go to a concert anymore. It's not like you go pay the $35 ticket. When we were young we'd go up to a stadium and I remember seeing Journey, The James Gang and Ted Nugent on the same bill.

Q - How much was the ticket price?

A - It was like $15.

Q - Now it's $1,500 for a Meet And Greet with Willie Nelson.

A - I think that's what it is for Elton's V.I.P. tour and you don't even meet Elton, but you get to go up onstage and get a picture sitting on his piano. That kind of stuff. There's no ticket to meet Elton and never has been. He doesn't do that kind of thing. I used to talk about this when we played in Vegas because I'd meet people who came to Vegas all the time. Some people would tell me we're $300 a show. It's kind of like $250 is the limit they set for entertainment and entertainment didn't necessarily mean gambling. I met plenty of people who said, "No, we don't gamble. We came to Vegas and we'll go to a show or we'll go to some really expensive restaurant," and that's kind of their entertainment and how much they're going to blow to be in Vegas. That's kind of what people do now. It's an event. If you spend that kind of money, it's an event to come and see a big show like Elton John. You got a lot of stuff involved. Transportation, Parking. Food. People go through a lot of work to come and see us play and spend a lot of money. And the beauty of Elton is he knows that. So, he's going to give you 150% every night. That's why I have no patience for artists that are late. They don't come out onstage. They cancel a show because they don't feel good. I heard people were suing Madonna because she was so late. They were suing to get their money back. I went to see U2 in Vegas and they were forty-five minutes late because they had technical difficulties. I was like, "C'mon boys. Get out onstage and play. You're a band." Elton, if anything we start early. He's like a racehorse. He's chomping at the bit to get out on that stage and play. You have to make him wait because you can't start before the ticket time. You can't start before the time it says on the ticket. He's been sitting there, waiting to play all day. I have no patience for that Guns N' Roses guy. He used to always be late. He used to make people wait for hours. You're paying for entertainment. I don't care how big you are.

Q - You'll miss going out on the road with Elton John, won't you?

A - Absolutely. I'll definitely miss it. I like being on the road. I love seeing new places. Being on the road has given me an opportunity to see a lot of friends that are spread all over the country. See a lot of my family that's spread out. It's given me an opportunity to do some incredible things, but mostly to be in touch with people and meet new people. Of course, playing the music is fantastic. If anything that's the cheery on the cake or whatever they call it. But, I'm going to totally miss it. I miss it already. There's a thing about being out on the road and going from city to city. When else are you going to have an opportunity to do something like that? I mean, I'm so lucky to first land this gig and to stay with it this long. A lot of artists, I see them when they always want to change the band a little bit. With Elton, he's very loyal. If he likes you and gets along with you and he likes what you do musically, then he doesn't have any reason to send you packing. All these people you're on the road with, the crew, your other bandmates, all these people become a really big family that you tour with. That last tour, the Farewell Tour, we had over one hundred people traveling with us from city to city and that's a big crew between video, stage, audio, lighting, the band. Elton doesn't have that big of an entourage. He doesn't carry too many people with him. I mostly am going to miss all the people I got to know and got to be great friends with. The music of course, sure. There's nothing like getting up there and standing up onstage and watching people bawling their eyes out when you're playing "Don't Let The Sun Go Down". A lot of people have special meanings for that. But absolutely I am missing it. (laughs)

Official Website: www.JohnMahon.com

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