Scott Crago
Scott Francis Crago (born July 26, 1963) is an American session drummer, songwriter, and producer. He has worked with the Eagles as their backup and touring drummer since 1994.
Other artists he has played with include Venice, Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt, Bryan Adams, Stevie Nicks, Jackson Browne, Paul Simon, Bee Gees, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger and Chris Isaak. Besides drumming, he also works as a songwriter and producer.
Crago has a twin brother, engineer Jeff Crago. In his youth, Scott Crago was in a band with Trafton and Gardener Reynolds. Seeing him as less mature as a musician, his bandmates forced him to depart because he was not fit enough to be with them. This motivated him to progress as a drummer and a musician. He has no hard feelings however and remains friends with Trafton and Gardener to this day.
When he was in 10th grade at Greenfield High School, Greenfield MA, The Eagles broke up. He says: “Yeah – the funny thing is, the Eagles broke up when I was in tenth grade in High school. To think back then when I was a fan that one day I’d be playing with the Eagles, sitting in London doing an interview, co-writing songs, it’s like ‘Yeah, right! I don’t think so!’ But you know, the world is a crazy place, and the music business is even crazier, so you never know what’s going to happen…”
Crago attended Berklee College of Music in Boston for two and a half years. He left for Los Angeles after his dorm room burnt down due to a disgruntled student setting fire to various places around the college.
Crago became the drummer for Venice in the 1980s. In 1991-1992, he played drums on two of Bee Gees’ singles, “The Only Love” and “When He’s Gone” from the album High Civilization. He also played for the Bee Gees on the Size Isn’t Everything album; the song “Paying the Price of Love” features his drumming as well as four other tracks.
In 1994, the Eagles began a reunion with the “Long Run” lineup. They began auditioning for touring band members and Eagles mainline drummer Don Henley oversees drummer auditions wherein there were ten men on a list. In an interview with Vic Firth, Crago said that he was the tenth man.
As the band rehearsed, during “New York Minute”, after six bars into the song, Henley stopped the players with a wave of his hand, turned around to Crago and advised him to take a break and listen to the song again. An interview for Modern Drummer stated that Crago recalled of “turning white, almost contracted immediate stomachache with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea”. When the rehearsal ended, he thought that “even if they’ve got me here for a reason, I must have blown that song”. Taking Henley’s advice, he listened to the song six hundred times that night in his apartel (apartment-hotel) room to ensure that the mistake never happens again.
On the Eagles’ Farewell 1 Tour-Live from Melbourne DVD, Glenn Frey introduces Crago as hailing from Greenfield, Massachusetts.
Scott Crago and Jeff Obermeyer invented a drum muffling device (U.S. Patent # 5,088,376). Drum Workshop manufactures the device, the DW Pro-Cushion, for drummers to place inside their bass drums for a dampened sound.
Aside from drumming, Crago is also a very successful songwriter and producer. He has written many songs, one of which was Don Henley’s single “Everything Is Different Now”, which he wrote with Henley and Timothy Drury, the keyboardist in the Eagles’ 1994–95 Hell Freezes Over tour. The song is found on Henley’s 2000 album Inside Job. He also does recording and mixing. Crago also co-wrote “That Made Me Stronger” off Stevie Nicks’ 2001 album Trouble in Shangri-La.
Crago also produces songs as well as new artists and bands. He was, with Steuart Smith, in Don Henley’s touring band in Henley’s 2016 world tour.