Ron Bushy

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Ron Bushy (b. December 23, 1941) was a co-founder and drummer of the rock band Iron Butterfly.

He was born in Washington, D.C. on December 23, 1941. He grew up in a military family, living in approximately 34 states during his youth. He first learned to play the drums when he was in the sixth grade.

Writer; and legendary for his lengthy drum solo in "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," with his primal drum patterns, that set the standard for generations of rock drummers. Ron is also highly skilled in the graphic arts and has created most of the logos and artwork as seen on the Iron Butterfly merchandise and advertising.

Bushy is an avid outdoorsman, enjoying hunting, fishing and skindiving, according to the liner notes of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".

[edit] Other Bands

Magic: 1977 to 1978 rock band, with drummer Ron Bushy, drummer Walter Kibbey, guitarist Ron "Rocket" Ritchotte, former Iron Butterfly members bass player Philip Taylor Kramer and keyboardist Bill DeMartines.

Gold: 1978 to 1980 hard rock band with drummer Ron Bushy, guitarist Ron "Rocket" Ritchotte whose spot was filled later by guitarist Stuart Young, vocalist/guitarist John Koehring and former Iron Butterfly bass player Taylor Kramer. They recorded one album in Spring of 1979 that has never been released, although there is talk of remastering and releasing the album.

A former crew member of Iron Butterfly, Magic and Gold who also recently co-produced and mastered two CD's by former Magic drummer Walter Kibbey, has been periodically running the idea past Bushy about bringing out any tapes from Magic and Gold for transfer, mix, remaster and release. The possibility of any such releases of music from the archives from either band, is at this time only a possibility.

[edit] Trivia

• Ron Bushy is the only consistent member of Iron Butterfly.

• According to the liner notes of the Deluxe Edition CD of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Bushy disliked opening live shows with "Are You Happy?," because that song required him to immediately output a high level of energy, instead of getting a chance to build the energy up.

• A commonly repeated story says that the song title was originally "In The Garden Of Eden", but in the course of rehearsing and recording singer Doug Ingle slurred the words into the nonsense phrase of the title while under the influence of alcohol (wine). The truth (according to the liner notes on 'the best of' CD compilation) is that drummer Ron Bushy was listening to the track through headphones, and he just couldn't hear correctly; he simply distorted what Doug Ingle answered when Ron asked him for the title of the song.

• His drum solo in "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is not as long as people think. It only runs about 2 1/2 minutes, from the 6:30 mark to a little past 9 minutes, the organ solo immediately follows. It is much longer (roughly 6 minutes and 30 seconds) on the album Live. Ron once fashioned his own drum sticks as a youth from trees in the woods--the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida liner notes expound on this subject.

• He built his own acryllic plexiglass drum set and it is thought to be the first one built using plexiglass. It has a number of butterfly picture cut-outs taped to it. The bass drum is twice the depth of a normal bass drum, so it pushes a longer column of air. The air column was so strong that when miking the bass drum, small sandbag weights were used to keep the air column from pushing over the microphone.