610 - Chris Whitten: You Are the Company You Keep - Drummer's Resource: Conversations with the world's greatest drummers and music industry pros.
March 22, 2021

610 – Chris Whitten: You Are the Company You Keep

British session and touring drummer Chris Whitten has made quite a name for himself over his 30+ year career, finding early commercial success providing drums for the classic 80’s hits ‘What I Am’ by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians and ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ by the Waterboys. From there he went on to appear on Paul McCartney’s critically acclaimed ‘Flowers In The Dirt’ album and the 1989/90 record-breaking world tour. Two years later Chris embarked on the mammoth, 18 month long ‘On Every Street’ world tour with Dire Straits.

In the 1990’s Chris started collaborating with record producer Peter Henderson (Supertramp, Rush and McCartney) on several drum sample libraries, notably ‘Superior Custom & Vintage’ for Toontrack in Sweden, then ‘EZX Vintage Rock’ and ‘EZX The Classic’ and ‘EZX Kicks and Snares’ also for Toontrack. In 2017 they recorded at Real World and Rockfield Studios to produce an extensive sample library for Roland’s flagship hybrid drum module, the TM-6 Pro.

Since 2016 Chris has occasionally appeared as a special guest drumming with The Dire Straits Experience, filling stadiums and arenas around Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.Chris’ extensive studio credits include three Paul McCartney albums, two albums with Swing Out Sister, a James Bond soundtrack (The Living Daylights) with The Pretenders, sessions with World Party, ABC, Holly Johnson, Hipsway, Tom Jones and Johnny Cash, plus more recently, two acclaimed albums by soulful newcomers ‘The Beauty Room’. 

Chris Whitten talks about:

  • What he was doing before the pandemic
  • Moving to Australia and then back to the U.K.
  • Getting the gig with the Dire Straits
  • How touring with Paul McCartney compared to touring with the Dire Straits
  • His true passion as a drummer
  • Transitioning into making music for film and TV
  • His experiences with drum sampling

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