About Ross Elder

Born and raised in Inverness, Scotland, Ross began playing drums at 15 after realising he wasn’t going to set the world on fire as a trumpeter or a violinist, both of which he painfully persevered with at school!

The lure of the Music Business was strong, so armed with nothing but ambition and his trusty Beverly kit, bought on credit, Ross headed down South at the age of 17, taking up base in Hayes, Middlesex where, by simply walking in and enquiring about vacancies, he got a job at the local record shop which allowed him to become influenced by just about all musical styles.

Through family contacts he joined a function/covers band within the first few weeks, playing rock’n’roll, pop, rock standards etc. in pubs and social clubs 2/3 nights a week, giving him invaluable grounding.

Moving into West London at 19, Ross began answering just about every ad in the music press and taking almost every gig on offer, gaining valuable experience on the, then thriving, London pub/club circuit while networking for contacts.

One of the bands that was to play a significant role in shaping Ross’ future was ‘Foxey Lady’, an established band on the circuit, gigging usually every night of the week, often playing two gigs in one night. Vocalist was Gary Barden, later to become frontman of the Michael Schenker Group.

By now a regular at London’s infamous musician’s club, The Speakeasy, Ross met former UFO and Heavy Metal Kids keyboard player, Danny Peyronel, and together formed his 1st professional band, The Blue Max.

Now established producer, Robin Millar, joined on guitar soon after. Signing to the Charisma label, the band recorded their debut album at The Chateau studios in France. Following the release of this album, 2 singles, including a Radio1 ‘Record of The Week’ and much promotional touring, the band folded and Ross soon found himself re-united with former bandmate Gary Barden and other former band buddies in a new venture under the moniker of ‘Frazer Nash’. EMI took the band under their wing. Much recording and many gigs later, the band fizzled out when Gary joined the Michael Schenker Group, however the remainder of the band stayed together for a while and were involved in many recording projects for other artists.

Since then, Ross has been privileged to have played, toured and recorded with many fine musicians of various levels and styles. These include legendary blues band ‘Chicken Shack’… ‘The Suicide Twins’ (Andy McCoy &Nasty Suicide from Hanoi Rocks) recording the album ‘Silver Missiles and Nightingales’… ‘The Heavy Metal Kids’ … ‘Van Morrison’ … ‘John Doukas’ (Earthquake) … ‘Mark Ashton’ (Rare Bird) … ‘Paul Vigrass’ (War of The Worlds songwriter).

Moving to Buckinghamshire around 1990 Ross has continued to play with various bands and became a member of three-piece classic covers band ‘Burn’ in 1993. Quickly establishing an excellent reputation on the live circuit, they have since worked continuously. For artist info and gig dates etc, their website is ‘www.burn-rock.co.uk’.

Soon after joining ‘Burn’, Ross also began teaching drums, rapidly becoming established throughout various schools in the South Bucks area. He set up his own successful teaching practice in High Wycombe which he ran, alongside school tuition, for 6 years before deciding to concentrate on schools, where he coaches beginners to intermediate players, both male and female, to grade levels or simply for pleasure.

The move to playing Mapex wasn’t a sudden one.

Ross has been an admirer for some time having previously attended various Mapex promotional events and had tried out their kits which he found very impressive, not only the sound but their appearance. Selecting a new set-up was difficult due to Mapex’s huge choice of components, however, his choice was finally the wonderful Saturn in Black Cherry Sparkle consisting of 22x18, 16x16, 14x14, 12x9, 10x9, 14x6½ Snare plus heavy duty hardware.

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