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Ric Parnell, exploding drummer with mock-rock legends Spinal Tap – obituary
He was in Atomic Rooster before joining the fictional heavy metallers following the death of his predecessor by spontaneous combustion
Ric Parnell, who has died aged 70, was a British-born drummer who played in the hard-rocking prog band Atomic Rooster before achieving cult status as Mick Shrimpton, the ill-fated drummer in the spoof rockumentary This is Spinal Tap (1984).
The film “followed” a gormless English heavy metal band on a 1982 US tour to promote their album Smell the Glove. A running joke, and back story, was of the band having gone through several drummers, all of whom died in freak circumstances – the first in a “bizarre gardening accident”, the second after choking on “someone else’s vomit”.
Parnell’s character, supposedly a former house drummer for the Eurovision Song Contest – “As long as there’s, you know, sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll” – joins Tap as they regroup after the death of their third drummer Peter “James” Bond, who has spontaneously combusted.
“When I did join, you know, they did tell me – they kind of took me aside and said, ‘Well, Mick. It’s, you know, it’s like this...’ ” Shrimpton tells the rockumentary “director” Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner). “And it did kind of freak me out a bit. But it can’t always happen to every one, can it? I mean, really…”
“Because the law of averages ... says you will survive,” suggests DiBergi…
“Yeah,” Shrimpton agrees.
Towards the end of the film, however, Shrimpton mysteriously explodes on stage during Spinal Tap’s 1982 tour of Japan.
Parnell played drums on the film’s official soundtrack and remained involved with the band as Ric Shrimpton, twin brother to Mick, as they morphed from pretend to real. He played drums on their 1992 album Break Like the Wind and the spin-off singles Bitch School and The Majesty of Rock, both of which charted in the UK.
The same year, on tour to promote the album, Parnell broke his leg when he fell running down the stairs at the Los Angeles venue where Spinal Tap were scheduled to play, and after being patched up in hospital “Ric Shrimpton” appeared on stage with his leg encased in plaster.
Richard Parnell was born in London on August 13 1951 into a family of drummers. His father Jack Parnell was a jazz drummer who served as bandleader on The Muppet Show, and his two brothers, Will and Marc, also played drums. A great-uncle was Val Parnell, general manager of the London Palladium.
Parnell played with several groups before joining Atomic Rooster in 1970. He remained a member of the prog rock band until 1974, playing on their albums Made in England and Nice ‘n’ Greasy.
Later he played with the Italian rock band Tritons, who had a hit in Italy with a version of the Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction. He then played with the Italian prog-rock group Ibis, the pop-rock group Stars and the Italian-British jazz fusion band Nova, before becoming a session drummer, with credits including Toni Basil’s 1982 hit Mickey.
In an interview in 2007, he recalled being approached by the makers of This Is Spinal Tap: “The first question they asked was, ‘What do you think about a movie that’s going to tear your career apart?’ I said, ‘You should have made this movie about 10 years ago.’ They then asked me what other bands I’d been in, and I said, ‘Well, I was in a band called Atomic Rooster.’ They looked at each other and said, ‘Yep, that’s it, you’re our man.’”
Parnell left Spinal Tap in the late 1990s and in later years moved to Missoula, Montana, where he hosted a radio show called Spontaneous Combustion and enjoyed playing golf in his spare time. He described his marital status as “four swings, four misses”.
Ric Parnell, born August 13 1951, died May 1 2022