Nick Mason Helps Save Foote’s
Pink Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason has stepped in to help save Foote’s, the historic London music shop where he bought his first ever drum kit.
Nick – who has been a customer since the late 1950’s – has joined a buyout by the store’s long-time sales director, Rob Wilson, from the family who has owned the business since the ‘30s.
Nick says “After 40 something years of playing I still have great affection for a real drum shop. And Foote’s has a special significance for me. In 1958, I headed down to the West End of London to a basement in Denman Street where a kindly man called Sid, in a white coat (maybe that’s significant as well) sold me my original kit for £7.50.”
“Included in the job lot was a Gigster bass drum, a snare drum of indeterminate age and parentage, hi-hat, cymbals, and an instruction book on the mysteries of flam paradiddles and ratamacues (which I am still attempting to unravel). Armed with this devastating kit I joined my friends to form “The Hotrods.” The fact none of us could actually play our instruments seemed a minor problem on our road to stardom.”
The shop – which sells instruments ranging from woodwind, brass and strings to drums and percussion – is relocating from its old premises in Golden Square, Soho, to a newly refurbished shop half a mile away at 41 Store Street, in London’s Bloomsbury.
Rob, 48, from Tenterden, Kent, has been a key figure at the store for almost 30 years. He will carry the business forward with Nick providing part of the necessary funding.
Rob says: “At the eleventh hour, our business loan was turned down by our bank – it was a major blow to our plans. But Nick came to our rescue. Without him, and our collective of generous investors, Foote’s would be no more.”
Established in 1920 as Chas. E. Foote, the shop’s been at the heart of every music scene since – from the birth of jazz to the swinging 60’s of Carnaby Street.
Nick says: “My reason for wanting to retain a drum shop is simply that it’s more than an opportunity to buy an instrument. There’s an opportunity to catch up with any new ideas from the manufacturers, new sounds that you simply can’t appreciate online and, of course, to talk drums and equipment with an expert. There’s a surprising amount of new ideas constantly being developed for what must be the world’s oldest instruments.”
Few know that Foote’s history is entwined with the story of Premier Drums. Founded in a basement in Berwick Street by the Della-Porta brothers in 1922, they acquired Charles Ernest Foote’s shop in the late ‘30s and went on to build Premier Drums into a world-class brand.