Premier Royal Ace Snare Drum:

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This ad appeared in Downbeat magazine in the early 1960's. The Premier Drum company, like many if its competitors, did its best to tout the advantages of its flagship snare drum. And like many of its rivals, the company pictured a number of its endorsers in the ad. These endorser lists tended to change quietly and sometimes dramatically. Indeed, Barrett Deems, self proclaimed world's fastest drummer, seemed to move between Slingerland, Ludwig, and Premier at his whim.

In other cases, some endorsers claimed allegiance to one company while playing another company's snare drum. Rufus "Speedy" Jones played and endorsed Premier, but a number of his videos clearly show him playing a Slingerland Radio King Snare Drum. Eventually, he moved to Slingerland, lock, stock, and barrel.

Unfortunately, for Premier, Ringo Starr, who started out playing Premier, purchased a Ludwig kit in the early 60's. This catapulted Ludwig into the forefront of the British Invasion phenomena. American drummers took notice and sales simply skyrocketed for Ludwig, while Premier, along with other companies, were left in the dust doing their best to catch up.

Premier also had the added disadvantage of initially making their drums using the metric system of measurement. This was fine for England, but was problematical for American drummers who wanted to purchase replacement heads. Plastic replacement heads needed to be specially ordered for these drums. By the mid 60's, Premier dropped the metric system and began making drums that were compatible with the plastic heads that Remo made for Ludwig, Slingerland, Rogers, Camco and Gretsch.