When playing drums behind the beat, what instruments define the actual beat?

Question

As a drummer, I'm trying to improve my micro-time to put more feeling in the grooves I play. For certain songs (ballads for example), you usually try to get a "laid-back" feeling by playing slightly behind the beat. Then the question is, if the drummer is behind the beat... who is on the beat?

I'd be happy to get a more general idea how the timing within a band is perceived. Nobody in the audience knows where the real beat is. So whenever a group of instruments is played behind other instruments, it depends on the "perceived beat" whether the one group is behind the beat or the other group is ahead. Especially within the drumset, you sometimes play the snare behind the beat (in ballads) or the hi-hat in front of the beat (for uptempo songs). What defines the difference?

Update: To clarify my question I can give a small example scenario... Assume a typical four-piece (drums, bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar). They play a ballad and all have the clicktrack on their monitor. They are all very good musicians and bass and guitars play exactly on the click. The drummer wants to add some "feel" to the song and plays a bit behind the beat - all fine so far.

Now assume, to simply their cabling on stage, the band decides that it is enough if the drummer has the clicktrack on his monitor, the other instruments don't need it. The drummer still plays behind the beat, the others don't hear the clicktrack, only the drummer.

The question now is: can the other band members hear from the drummers playing that he is not on the click but behind? I guess so, but what defines the actual beat then? If they couldn't hear it, they'd have to play ahead (relative to the drums) to achive a laid-back feeling, which is somehow weird...

Update 2:

I found two nice references about the displacements within the drumset. A scientific paper from the International Symposium on Performance Science and an interesting webpage with audio samples.

Answer 1

All of the instruments can define the beat, but in order the most important (in a typical 4 piece) are - drums, bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar.

You can define a laid back beat just with the drums - if everyone else plays as normal, but you swing your beats, you will get a much more fluid feel to a piece. To do this well requires the band to work well together so they don't have to follow the swing.

As you mention, you can play your snare or hi-hat off the beat to clearly define this movement, or you can let it be inferred, by letting another instrument play around your rhythm.

update

Based on your update, the drummer will not play all his drums behind the beat, but will typically keep one of the drums on time and move the others around that beat.

A very experienced band can take turns leading or lagging the beat, but you really need to know each other well to manage this successfully.

Answer 2

Thought-provoking question! When the drummer pushes or pulls, the rest of the rhythm section tends to 'go with the flow' particularly when only drums have the reference tempo.In similar vein, I find if the drummer speeds or slows, maybe unintentially, then it takes bass AND guitar together to get him/her back into tempo, not possible for one on his own.