Hello everyone! It’s Ed Toth here, from the Doobie Brothers. I’m about to start my fifteenth year with the band! Pretty crazy when you add the fact that I first saw them when I was nine years old and when I was eleven I wrote a letter to their fan club!

I played with original Doobie drummer Michael Hossack from 2005 to 2010, and when Mike had to leave the road, I played with Tony Pia from 2010 to 2016. After Tony’s departure, the band decided to just keep it at one drummer. So I held down the fort for the rest of 2016 and 2017 and last year we added the fabulous Marc Quiñones from the Allman Brothers on percussion.

Marc and I have a really cool thing happening and he is a joy to play with. It will be a “percussion” heavy summer, as we will be touring with Santana. Cindy Blackmon Santana will be playing drums and Karl Perazzo and Paoli Mejias will be on percussion for Carlos. Advertisement

I’ve been playing DW Purplehearts for the last couple of years. As always, the folks do amazing work and it has become one of my favorite kits. I can play any music on it, which is good given that the Doobies’ music consists of so many different styles. My Zildjian setup has remained mostly the same over the years. The whole kit to me is like an orchestra, and I have my cymbals positioned where they are for very specific musical reasons. I could write a whole article on that alone! Evans drumheads help with the tonality of the wood and Vater sticks give me the tools to translate what is happening in my brain onto the kit.

Last year, I was a part of a cool project called Button. It’s myself, with John Cowan from the Doobies on bass and vocals and Keith Howland from the band Chicago on guitar. After jamming at Keith’s place for an afternoon we realized that maybe we had some songs in there. So we got together again and did some arranging, some melody and lyric writing, and lo and behold, we had an album! We enlisted the help of Jeff Babko, Butch Taylor, Bill Payne, and Dane Bryant on keyboards. It’s a cool snapshot of three friends messing around in a basement studio and playing music without realizing we were making a record. In fact, there’s only a click track on one tune; we were just playing! It is by far the most natural, organic music making I’ve ever been a part of and it was a joy to make. You can check out the full album at the link below.

I hope everyone is doing well and drumming like crazy! Thanks for reading and see you on the road! You can follow me on Facebook (www.facebook.com/EdToth) or on Instagram @edtothdrums.

 

Doobie Brothers “China Grove” live on GMA

“Nashville Drummers Jam” with Ed (featuring John Cowan) on the Police song “Roxanne”

Doobie Brothers “Another Park Another Sunday”

https://youtu.be/cVpPmwEFmEs

Listen to the Button album Topic at