He was the son of country music singer Paul Edward Whaley.

He played drums with a Davis, California band called the Oxford Circle.

Whaley is credited on the Oxford Circle album Live at the Avalon 1966.

[2] When he left the Oxford Circle to join Blue Cheer in 1967, the former band dissolved.

Whaley died of heart failure on January 28, 2019, two weeks after his 72nd birthday.