Metal Bulletin Zine: Paul Whaley(Blue Cheer) (1947

Paul Whaley (January 14, 1947 – January 28, 2019) - drummer for heavy metal pioneers Blue Cheer

Paul Gene Whaley was an American drummer best known as the drummer for the rock band Blue Cheer. He was the son of country music singer Paul Edward Whaley and grew up in the towns of Vallejo and Winters, California. He played drums with a Davis, California band called the Oxford Circle and is credited on their album Live at the Avalon 1966. When he left the Oxford Circle to join Blue Cheer in 1967, his former band dissolved. Whaley was the longest-standing member in Blue Cheer following Dickie Peterson's death. He died of heart failure on January 28, 2019, two weeks after his 72nd birthday.

The Doors' frontman Jim Morrison famously declared them the "single most powerful band" he had ever seen. Neil Peart, the legendary Rush drummer wrote a tribute to Blue Cheer's Dickie Peterson in Rolling Stone, where he referenced the common sentiment that they were "Louder Than God." They were famous for performing with six full Marshall stacks, a level of amplification that was unheard of for a trio at the time.

Formed in San Francisco in 1966, Blue Cheer is one of the primary architects of heavy metal. Originally a six-piece ensemble, the band famously condensed into a power trio consisting of bassist/vocalist Dickie Peterson, guitarist Leigh Stephens, and drummer Paul Whaley. This shift was largely inspired by the raw energy of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, though Blue Cheer pushed that template to its absolute physical limit and had reputation of the heaviest band of the era.

The band exploded onto the national stage in 1968 with their debut album, Vincebus Eruptum. Released on January 16, the record featured a heavy, thunderous blues sound that would eventually be recognized as the foundation of heavy metal. A major highlight was their high-decibel reimagining of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues," (1958) became a commercial and critical success, peaking at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Due to its crushing wall of distortion and aggressive delivery, music historians frequently cite the track as the first true heavy metal song. While firmly rooted in hard rock, the album itself peaked at number 11 on the Billboard 200 and remains lauded as a genre-defining masterpiece. Its influence is so far-reaching that Spin magazine ranked it number 22 on their list of the 40 greatest metal albums, famously declaring it "proto-metal, but also the birthplace of grunge." Their sound was so overwhelmingly loud that during the recording of their second album, Outsideinside, the band was allegedly forced to record parts of the record outdoors on a pier because their Marshall stacks were physically overwhelming the indoor studio equipment.

The classic lineup was short-lived, beginning a "revolving door" of members that saw Leigh Stephens depart due to the band’s lifestyle and musical direction, replaced briefly by Randy Holden and later Bruce Stephens. As the 1960s turned into the 1970s, the band’s sound transitioned from the raw, proto-metal of their early records toward a more commercial hard rock and psychedelic blues style on albums like The Original Human Being and Oh! Pleasant Hope. Beset by internal friction, issues with their record label, and the toll of their excessive lifestyles, the group officially disbanded for the first time in 1972.

Despite their early dissolution, Blue Cheer’s legacy endured through the decades as they became a cult symbol for underground rock. Dickie Peterson and Paul Whaley reunited periodically, most notably in the 1980s and again in the 2000s, releasing albums like The Beast Is Back and their final studio effort, What Doesn't Kill You... in 2007. The band finally came to an end following the death of Peterson in 2009. Today, they are hailed as "Godfathers of Stoner Rock" and "Pioneers of Noise," leaving an indelible mark on genres ranging from punk and grunge to technical metal.

San Francisco Chronicle

Paul Whaley, drummer who pioneered heavy metal with Blue Cheer, dies at 72

By Aidin Vaziri

Jan 29, 2019

Paul Whaley, whose thrashing drum sounds lifted the San Francisco blues rock trio Blue Cheer out of the psychedelic rock haze and into the realm of proto-heavy-metal, died Monday, Jan. 28, at his home in Regensburg, Germany. He was 72. The cause was heart failure, said Eric Albronda, the band’s co-founder and former manager.

Whaley was part of the core power trio of Blue Cheer, the loudest band to come out of the Summer of Love era. He completed a lineup that featured singer and bass player Dickie Peterson and guitarist Leigh Stephens in 1967, coming into the fold a year after the group formed in the city’s Haight-Ashbury district with Albronda as its original drummer.

With Whaley on board, Blue Cheer — named after the band members’ favorite strain of LSD — quickly set itself apart from the peace and love affectations of groups like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane with its sheer volume. Managed by Allan “Gut” Terk, who rode with the Hells Angels, the group scored a hit with its riotous take on Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues,” which reached No. 14 on the Billboard charts and made them immediate outcasts on the local scene.

“Blue Cheer were very radical in their musical style,” Albronda said. “Most other San Francisco bands at the time were not fond of them due to their meteoric rise to fame.”

Playing against a stack of Marshall amplifiers in tight pants and shaggy hair, they often drove fans away with their unruly appearances at concerts like the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park — the living embodiment of the caveman rock band on “The Flintstones.” “We were the redheaded stepchild,” Whaley said in an interview with Perfect Sound Forever in 2006. “We were getting slapped around by everybody, the press, other bands in San Francisco. But, we did what we like to do.”

When the group appeared on “American Bandstand” in 1968, Dick Clark warned audience members, “You can see from the wall of sound behind them that it’s going to sound like anything but a trio.” On Steve Allen’s television program the same year, the host simply introduced them by saying, “Blue Cheer — run for your lives!”

“I think (Blue Cheer) were probably the originators of heavy metal because they didn’t really have traditional roots in the blues,” Eric Clapton said in an interview with Uncut magazine in 2012. “They didn’t have a mission. It was just about being loud.”

Bands from Led Zeppelin through Nirvana built on Blue Cheer’s primal template, much of which was derived from the interplay between Peterson’s scuzzy bass lines and Whaley’s savage fills. “At one time, he was considered the very best of the best rock drummers,” Albronda said.

Paul Gene Whaley was born on Jan. 14, 1947, in Vallejo. His father was the country musician Paul Edward Whaley.

Paul Gene Whaley started performing music professionally in 1964 as a founding member of the Oxford Circle, a garage rock outfit based in Davis that frequently shared the bill with Bay Area acts like Quicksilver Messenger Service and Big Brother & the Holding Company at the Avalon Ballroom. Following his initial three-album run with Blue Cheer — appearing on 1968’s dual releases, “Vincebus Eruptum” and “Outsideinside,” and 1969’s “New! Improved!” with new guitarist Randy Holden — Whaley quit the band, and Blue Cheer broke up in 1972.

“We started screwing around with drugs. And the wrong kind of drugs, too,” Whaley said in an interview with Classic Rock. “The money was going, there was conflict between me, Dickie, and our guitar player at the time, Randy Holden. The chemistry just wasn’t right. There were arguments, and we just didn’t want to be around each other. So we just decided to break it up.”

But the separation didn’t take. Whaley signed on for a reunion with the group in 1984, and continued to perform on and off with various configurations of Blue Cheer until Peterson’s death in 2009.

While cycling through various rehab stints, Whaley briefly worked at a bakery in Cornwall, England, and a pizzeria in San Francisco. He followed Peterson to Germany in 1992 to settle down with their respective romantic partners in Regensburg, a small town outside Munich, and because they believed they could find more consistent work as musicians in Europe.

They returned to San Francisco to perform a concert at Cafe Du Nord in 2006; and followed it with their final album together as Blue Cheer, 2007’s “What Doesn’t Kill You.” Whaley is survived by his longtime partner Elke Kandlbinder; and daughter Jana Indiana. A memorial service is set for Friday, Feb. 1, at Holy Trinity Church in Regensburg, Germany.

Blue Cheer - Summertime Blues (1968)