MÖTLEY CRÜE Fill-In Drummer HARVEY WARREN: 'A Lot Of This Still Hasn't Sunk In'

Gerry Krochak of The Regina Leader-Post recently conducted an interview with the lucky MÖTLEY CRÜE fan who got to fill in for injured drummer Tommy Lee on April 5 at the Enmax Center in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. Harvey Warren, a Calgary resident who manages a Starbucks by day, moonlights as a drummer in the Canadian MÖTLEY CRÜE tribute band BRÖKEN TÖYZ. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

On the media coverage of his one-off appearance with the group:

"A lot of this still hasn't sunk in. I'm more amazed at how everyone else is so up in arms about it.

"I thought it was only going to be a big deal for me. I couldn't have expected the media sensation, but it's the whole dream-of-playing-with-your-idol angle that everybody is playing up on. It's out of hand."

On the Red Deer show:

"A group of people met me at the venue and they took me right up to Tommy's drums. I went and played a few licks and the drum tech asked what changes he could make with the configuration of the drums.

"They told me the guys would be right out, so I watched the DVD on my laptop for a while and made some cheat sheet notes."

"At first it was just the [me, guitarist Mick Mars and bassist Nikki Sixx, before singer Vince Neil joined in about 30 minutes later]. They asked me what song I knew best, so I could get into it and feel comfortable. We played 'Shout At The Devil', which was funny because that record was the reason I got into MÖTLEY CRÜE.

"We started going over parts of other songs I didn't know so well and they were like, 'Ah, this will be fine!'

"I spent the next two hours with Tommy Lee going over some more cheat sheet notes and we hung out in his room until it was time to go on."

"The first thing was that I was paranoid of all the pyro going off, because, obviously, I've never played a big rock show with fire and bombs going off! Overall, I was comfortable because I had been there all day and the guys were so great."

"I mean, I play drums all the time. I'm 35 and I have been doing this since I was six. I was a little starstruck, but I got in the groove just like you would with sports where you're going to play for a new team. I was just being me, but at the same time I was in awe a little bit.

"The only time I'd get a sense of nervousness or panic was when I'd be in the middle of a song and I'd be thinking, 'How does this go again?' or 'Where do we go from here?' "

"There were things that could have been better. There was definitely stuff that I wasn't playing the way Tommy would play it, but he was sitting beside me the whole time yelling, 'You're killing, man!' He gave me tons of encouragement.

"It was awesome!"