Birth name Douglas Sandom Years active 1962–1964 Instruments Drums | Occupation(s) Musician Name Doug Sandom | |
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Associated acts The Detours (later The Who) Music groups The Who (1964), The Creation Albums Who's for Tennis?, We Are Paintermen, Our Music Is Red With Purple Fl, Rock Is Dead—Long Live Rock! Similar People | ||
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Douglas Sandom (often misspelled Sanden; born 26 February 1930) is an English drummer who was the second drummer for the rock band The Who. During the infancy of the band's music career, while they were playing as The Detours (around mid-1962), Sandom, a bricklayer, joined as drummer. However, while the other members of the band were in their late teens, Sandom was already in his early thirties, and the difference in age caused problems in the band. His wife also objected to him staying out at all hours of the night.
In February 1964, the band discovered that another band was also called The Detours. On Valentine's Day 1964, they changed their name to The Who.
When the band secured, but failed, an audition with Fontana Records in early 1964, the label's producer, Chris Parmeinter, said he didn't like Sandom's drumming (encouraged by then manager Helmut Gordon). Lead guitarist, Pete Townshend, voiced a similar opinion and suggested to the other members of the band, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle, that Sandom leave the band. Sandom gave a month's notice, and left in April.
Within a month of Sandom's departure, Keith Moon was hired after he approached the band at one of their gigs and told them he could play better than the session drummer they had hired to fill the vacancy left by Sandom. No recordings with Sandom playing with the band were ever released.
On his departure from the group, Sandom said, "I wasn't so ambitious as the rest of them. I'd done it longer than what they had. Of course, I loved it. It was very nice to be part of a band that people followed, it was great. But I didn't get on well with Peter Townshend. I was a few years older than he was, and he thought I should pack it in more or less because of that. I thought I was doing all right with the band, we never got slung out of nowhere, we always passed our auditions." According to Townshend's book Who I Am, Sandom was hurt by Townshend's comments that he should leave as a few months earlier, when The Who had failed an audition because a record executive thought Pete Townshend was "gangly, noisy, and ugly", Sandom had defended Townshend.
