You most likely know John Stamos from the absurdly cheesy ABC sitcom Full House as Uncle Jesse: the Elvis-obsessed, leather-jacket-wearing rocker who serves as a personality foil to Bob Saget’s strait-laced Danny Tanner. What you might not know is that Stamos is a musician in real life, most famously drumming with The Beach Boys at numerous shows since 1985. (He also joined that band to record a new version of their 1970 song "Forever" for the 1992 LP Summer in Paradise.) He recently stretched out even further for a video on the drum-centric YouTube channel Drumeo, presenting a colorful take on Papa Roach’s 2000 nu-metal staple "Last Resort."
The viral clip is part of a series where drummers link up with the Drumeo team, find songs they've never heard before, listen back to them with the drums removed, and create their own parts in real time. They’re given the freedom to approach the material however they want—some choose to carefully craft beats through repetition and writing out charts, while others improvise with little to no preparation. Stamos essentially chooses the latter route.
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Stamos opens the piece with an admission: that this task "scares the shit out of drummers." But he enthuses about the challenge, saying, "If someone walks away saying, 'He’s a good musician, a good drummer,' that means more to me than, like, 'You’re a good actor' or something." After determining that he doesn't know the song in question, he works out some beat options and runs through three takes, the final being the most fluid and confident. By the end, completely drenched in sweat, he listens back to the original song (drums included) and has no idea who the band is, even guessing, "Was that Ozzy Osbourne?"
His rendition earned some hilarious responses in the YouTube comments, including, "I had no idea seeing Uncle Jesse playing Papa Roach would be exactly what I need to start my Friday" and "Never in my 32 years on earth did I ever expect I'd watch a video of John Stamos playing Papa Roach on drums." The most notable came from Papa Roach themselves, who simply replied, "Epic! \m/."
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Stamos also took part in a special one-off Drumeo video where he worked at his home with the channel’s content director, Brandon Toews—an effort to craft a new drum solo ahead of a Beach Boys concert. "You guys have reignited my love for drums, and that’s hard to do for an old guy," he tells the crew in the intro. "The last few years, I’ve really been into being a drummer again. Without drumming, honestly, I don’t know if I’d even be alive because it gave me a purpose, gave me an identity." The drum solo also has an emotional component for Stamos, who includes a percussive nod to a late friend, former Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.
Drumeo, meanwhile, has become an Internet sensation, managing to transcend gear heads and reach a wider audience with creative content like the "Hears for the First Time" series. For another example, check out the hugely popular video where Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith goes nuts on a Thirty Seconds to Mars song.
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