In this kinda situation, it's been my experience that the first thing you hafta do is figure out WHY he's loud enough to be out of balance.
My initial test is to, out of the blue, play quieter than usual through a couple of songs. If he doesn't turn down so he can hear you along with himself, then he's not interested in hearing you. Along with being a working drummer, I'm also a working bass player and in my experience, no good can come from this on any level. I couldn't IMAGINE myself or anybody else playing so loud that they couldn't hear the drummer. How's it gonna be tight, fer crissake? It just ain't!
Another common phenomenon for a lot of instruments is the difficulty for some guys to make the transition from playing alone in their practice room to the actual playing-in-a band scenario.
The symptoms are usually:
- Playing at the volume that will re-create the unrealistic balance that they're used to when they're alone and playing to a cd or whatever...
...and/or...
- The inability to play in time because they're so used to keeping time for themselves. Unless they have a realistic sense of time or practice to a click or drum machine, they'll be relying on their muscular memory to execute their parts and ignoring the actual source of reference as to where to place their notes, i.e., the DRUMS. (This makes me CRAZY!)
Something else I've seen is folks crankin' up because in their minds, they know they're not cuttin' it and then comfort their own egos by drowning everyone else out so it wipes out any trace of those who aren't in line with him or her.
And finally...some folks just have not yet reached a grasp of the concept of the inner workings of playing in the pocket together and what that requires.
From what you're saying, the guy's higher than a Georgia pine anyway so it's quite possibly doomed from the git.
If this is happening in a get-together-and-jam-in-the-basement scenario, your options (IMO only) are either live with it or remove yourself from the roster. If it's in a gigging environment, it can be BAD for business. Then it's time for a conversation in search of some kind of solution.
Good luck.
