shadorne---I read Tom say that Steve came up with ideas that never occurred to him, ideas resulting from his technical training and experience, which Tom and The Heartbreakers don’t share with him . There’s an old saw amongst musicians, that one’s limitations determine one’s style. There’s some truth to that. There’s another, particularly amongst drummers, that drummers with advanced technique tend to sound alike, with no identifiable style of their own, only their technique. That I’m not so sure about, though Steve and Kenny Aronoff (University of Illinois training and degrees, Mellencamp’s original drummer) do sound alike. One guy with somewhat less technique but absolutely no style is Max Weinberg, Springsteen’s drummer. Boring.
There are drummers with technique who have/had a lot of style, starting with the incomparable Earl Palmer (New Orleans drummer credited with creating, single-handedly, Rock ’n’ Roll drumming---Little Richard, etc.), as well as Levon Helm (The Band), Roger Hawkins (Muscle Shoals studios---all those great Jerry Wexler-produced Atlantic recordings of Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, etc., Traffic), Hal Blaine (L.A. studios---a LOT of 1960’s hit singles, including those of The Beach Boys, Phil Spector, Simon & Garfunkel, even Sinatra), Jim Gordon (Joe Cocker, Derek & The Dominoes, L.A. studios), and Jim Keltner (Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Traveling Wilburys, studios), and Steve Gadd (Eric Clapton, Paul Simon---including his great part in "50 Ways To leave Your lover").
Then there is Ringo Starr, a drummer with very limited technical ability, but a LOT of style. Charlie Watts too.