Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider: “Cinderella’s Fred Coury was a child prodigy, classical violinist at 7 years old” – Wait…What?
Cinderella’s Fred Coury was a child prodigy, classical violinist at 7 years old. Accepted into the Berkeley School of Music…but decided to rock on the drums (amongst the myriad of instruments he plays) instead!
At age 5, Fred Coury started taking violin lessons. At age 6 he participated in his first public performance. Between the ages of 7 and 9, he studied at the Beirut Conservatory of Music in Beirut, Lebanon. At age 10, he added the trumpet to his repertoire. Finally, at age 12 he started to play the drums. By the age of 13, he was playing local bars with the band Sunjammer. As a teen, Coury was accepted to Berklee School of Music in Boston for violin.
Coury has played in other bands including London and Chastain and was playing with Ozzy Osbourne in 1985 filling-in for Randy Castillo who had a leg injury, before he joined Cinderella. He got into Cinderella when drummer Eric Singer (KISS, Badlands, Alice Cooper) told him about the gig and encouraged him to audition. Coury sent in a cassette and because, as far as everyone knew, according to Circus magazine, he was the drummer for Ozzy, that may have helped him score an audition.
Coury left Cinderella in 1991 and joined Stephen Pearcy of Ratt to form the band Arcade. He also briefly substituted for Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler in December 1987 when health issues forced Adler off the road. Coury also filled in for Rikki Rockett during Poison’s slot at the Comstock Rock Festival on July 15, 2009, due to the fact that Rockett having had baby the day before, and in 2017 he filled for Night Ranger when his friend Kelly Keagy took a brief leave from tour.
Fred Coury spends most of his time in his Los Angeles recording studio Double Forte Music composing for television and sports. A multi-award-winning composer, he has scored all four seasons of NBC’s hit series ‘The Night Shift’ (TV series), WGN America’s original series Almost Paradise and also scored the opening then for the NBC series ‘The Wall’. He composed and created the original musical score for the 2019 feature film FULL COUNT. An avid hockey fan, Coury combined his love of the sport with his musical skills to create the Goal Song and sonic identity for the Los Angeles Kings hockey team. In 2017, The L.A. Kings series ‘Black & White’, which Coury scores, was nominated and won an Emmy Award. He also provides the sonic identity for the Portland Trail Blazers NBA team, with whom he won a second Emmy award.
Who is the voice of the raven in the Munsters clock? Well, it’s my pal Fred Coury. Yep, bet you didn’t know the drummer from Cinderella is a master impressionist. 🦇🦇🦇🦇 #robzombie #themunsters
MORE READING:
David Chastain on ‘Mystery of Illusion’ Album: “We received a demo tape from a then unknown teenager named Fred Coury” – Read More on full in bloom
