PLANO, Texas — Battle of the Bands judge Bradley Chase allowed a desperate four-piece rock band to compete last night using a dog drummer, noting that no rule prohibits the use of non-human musicians, flabbergasted competing bands confirmed.
“It was five minutes to showtime, and one group backstage was yelling at a fella with both his hands in casts,” said Chase. “I told them they must have a drummer to participate — rules are rules, after all. So, the guitarist frantically scanned the room before pointing at a Bernese Mountain dog nosing around the refreshments. I pulled out my pocket-sized Battle of the Bands rule book that all judges carry and sure enough, there’s nothing saying a dog can’t compete.”
Rival musician Creston Heltzel was outraged by the judge’s ruling and assumed the dog must be incredibly talented for the band to even consider such an outlandish stunt.
“I was so pissed. Like, how would they even get him to play? Would they hang Beggin’ Strips from the toms? Or strap a drumstick to his tail and periodically call him a good boy?” said Heltzel. “Of course, all my fears of a killer canine drummer being their secret weapon melted away when the music started. Because, of course, a dog can’t play drums. Because he’s a goddamn dog. Realistically speaking, he shouldn’t have been so close to the amps — dogs are more sensitive to loud noises than humans.”
With their performance underway, guitarist Matt Bauchspies immediately regretted his rash decision to hire this particular drummer.
“I spent the majority of the song trying to stop him from humping an empty guitar case backstage. I don’t know what I was thinking… like, I was pretty high at the time, but I didn’t think I was ‘dogs can totally play drums’ high, you know?” said Bauchspies. Wasn’t there an ‘Air Bud’ sequel where he played drums? Maybe it was direct-to-DVD, or maybe just something I dreamed up. But I swear I heard somewhere that dogs naturally have great rhythm. Fuck it, man. Battles of the Bands are lame anyway.”
At press time, Bauchspies was hailing his cat as a “lofi hip hop genius” after it walked across his keyboard while Fruity Loops was open. He admitted, however, that it “may be the weed talking.”