ELVIS ONLINE INTERVIEWS...
Drummer for The Elvis Presley Show
Jerome "Stump" Monroe
Joe Krein: How you doing, Stump?
Stump: I’m fine, how about yourself?
JK: I’m good thank you. Stump, where were you born and raised?
Stump:
JK: I have to ask you Stump, how did you get the nickname “Stump”?
Stump: Well that’s weird, I used to play in a band back in Washington and they just started to call me “Stump” and it stuck with me all these years. You know that was back
when I was fourteen or fifteen years old. I guess because I’m short.
JK: Is that what it is?
Stump: Well I guess that’s what it was, I don’t know, I didn’t name myself. The guys I played with named me that and it stuck with me. Elvis asked me the same thing.
JK: I’m sure he did. Stump, what were your early influences in music?
Stump: Well I was listening to music like the Four Tops, Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Dee Clark, Wilson Picket, you know.
JK: Wow great. So were you an Elvis Fan?
Stump: When I first started I wasn’t, no.
JK: You just didn’t like his kind of music?
Stump: Well it’s not that, it’s just I wasn’t playing it. I was playing R&B music. So that’s what I listened to. But after I got with the Elvis show, I used to watch his shows all the time. Whenever the Sweets got through performing I would watch the show and I would come to find out he was a very good singer, great entertainment. You know you’re not going to find one else like him. There will never be another Elvis.
JK: So how did you get into the music business?
Stump: That’s funny that you asked that. I started playing in my basement. I would take a 45 record like James Brown, but I would play it on a 78 speed. I would play along with it. My Mom bought me a set of toy drums and I used to be down in the basement banging on them all the time. I taught myself how to play.
JK: So when did you get your first drum set?
Stump: I guess I was around thirteen or fourteen. They threw me out into the garage.
JK: Because you were too loud?
Stump: Yeah, because the music was too loud. But then I would have all my neighbors come out and listen to me. So I just kept playing. So that’s how I started playing - by listening to records and the washing machine, had a rhythm to it.