Music is very personal to me.
The only thing that takes greater value and precedence would be my son but that’s for another post.
I’m unsure when I decided that I wanted to play drums and music, but according to my Mom I was banging on things with rhythm as a toddler. When she noticed that there was some semblance of pattern and syncopation to what I was doing she and my Dad decided to get me into lessons. I started formally at 5 and 35 years later I am still going strong.
@ Bethany Vineyards with CC 05.08.10
@ Bethany Vineyards w/ CC 05.08.10
I got my first “kit” when I was 11 or so and that was a practice pad kit. My Dad, bless him, wanted to see how deep I was bitten/committed and I’m here to tell you, that practice kit pad was as much awesome as it was torture for me. I would bang on that thing and imagine how the drums were singing when I would hit each pad. Instead what I heard was the “thwap” of a stick hitting a plastic head. It would be a few years before I finally got my first real kit but I’m glad my Dad opted to not get me a kit right away. It certainly made me appreciate it when I finally did. My first bands were hilarious. Well, back then they were dead serious but upon reflection they were funny. Like every kid, I cut my teeth on hard rock though my influences were much broader. With my first real kit in hand I got to work in high school in Miami Beach hooking up with like minded buddies. My first real band was a mixture of what was happening when I was in school (metal, metal and more metal). We had a our own rehearsal space above a fish market and were like loonies let loose in the asylum. We DID however take our practicing very seriously. My buddies and our assorted friends experimented with musical styles a lot. I’m glad to say I probably played everything you can think of in high school. All of the people I played with in high school made a huge impact on my musical development and without those experiences, what came after would not have been possible.
I took a year off after high school to figure out how to avoid going to college. I kept playing in various bands, worked a day job and plotted my future. After a year spent in Israel (for another post I assure you) I came home to Miami Beach and quickly packed. Next step: Los Angeles! Initially I intended to go to Musician’s Institute (MI), a sort of trade school for performing musicians. After arriving in LA, experiencing the overwhelming culture shock, and trying to get settled I started at MI. I quickly realized that 96% of my classmates were more interested in how their hair looked or what tattoo they just got (this was after all the time of Guns n’ Roses). Nobody cared about studying and only 4 of us were in our classes. After 3 weeks of pure frustration I got a refund and found myself without a job, a place of my own to live, or musical prospects.
Even though the future looked dicey, I still had my music. I still had my passion and my musical collection with me to keep me sane. As in most times of trouble, music was always there for me and in this case it was no different. Thanks to an impromptu visit from my high school buddy Anthony King, I met some of his family living in LA. In that visit I met his cousin Bruce who was in a couple of bands in LA and had moved from Miami a few years earlier than me. I knew about his band in high school. They were the biggest thing in South Florida when I was in Junior High and High School. We became quick friends and I was embraced by their social circle. I got a great job through Bruce’s mom Sheila and her connections and was immediately a changed person from this. And this my friends is how you survive a big city: meet good quality people.
Bruce and I would play in various projects together for the next 5-6 years. We wrote and recorded hundreds of songs, busted our asses in our various projects and truly lived in the studio or on stage. We rode the wave of pure joy and crushing depression when deals fell through. More important to me than name dropping and talking about our various projects and the people I met through these times is the musical development I experienced playing with him and our various band members. Playing with Bruce taught me how to play for the song and not for myself. This is a critical distinction that many drummers in particular never learn. Bruce was a great teacher and someone I definitely looked up to.
Practicing in 2009
Practicing in 2009
I played in numerous side projects while playing with Bruce and found myself needing/wanting a change of scenery in the late 90′s. On a whim, I got just and relocated to Kansas City, Missouri to play in a band with some friends that I had done some recording with. Initially that relocation was for a 3 month tour. That 3 month trip and change of scenery turned into a year and half adventure living in the Midwest and touring like a band on fire. I’m grateful for the time I spent in KC and living amongst the bands there. Musician’s in the Midwest play with a different passion and fire than you see anywhere else, especially in LA. They play because they have no choice. Its what they do, not what they decided to do. They get onstage and play from the heart and it was good to see that. It reinforced why I started playing in the first place.
While in KC, I recorded 2 albums worth of material that ended up as one single disc. The band I played with was on a mission to get to wherever they were going and I was on a different mission. I was burnt out. I had been touring, recording and playing music every day for the last 12-14 years and needed a break. While wrapping the recording of “Wonderful” with Moaning Lisa at Red House Studios in Lawrence, Kansas I got an offer to move back to LA to work for an internet start up and realized it was a sign. A sign that perhaps this “professional musician” thing might not be for me. I could still play, but this life, this grind, wasn’t for me anymore. So I took the job offer, moved back to LA, left the band and never looked back.
It’s been just over ten years since then and thankfully I have found the balance of musical satisfaction and professional sustenance. Thanks to my buddies in Dull Boy Jack, I am having the most fun I have ever had making music. Frankly I’ve never played better either. We play almost anything that appeals to us but have created a unique hybrid of blues, funk, and country-fried rock. All I can say is it has been some adventure. I’ve played places I never thought I’d see, met some amazing people, saw a great percentage of this great country and stored so many memories that fill my mind and heart with countless smiles. I’ll keep doing this until I can’t hold my sticks anymore.
Practice
Here’s a clip of me doing some warm ups.
I usually warm up with patterns around the kit before rehearsing or jamming.