In my room there was a bed, a desk and a royal blue drum set. The bed and desk were there for as long as I could remember and were just part of life, but the drums were special.
I begged for a drum set for months. Finally one day in December during my freshman year of high school, my father took me to Rainbow Guitars and bought me a drum set. He said it was my Christmas and birthday present.
Over the next couple of years, the drum set grew as did my love and talent for it. I kept adding more cymbals and tom toms. I even added a cowbell. The drums took up so much space in my room it required skill to maneuver around them. One false move and a cymbal would tip over and crash against the wall covered with posters of punk bands and rock stars.
If I wasn’t at school, I was behind those drums. I loved the feel of the bass drum’s deep thud, the sharp crack of the snare, and permeating ring of the cymbals. I loved the control I had behind the set, feeling in touch with my body and mind. I loved the feeling I got when I had a break through – not being able to play a beat at first, and then overcoming the mind-to-body barrier and slowly beginning to let the beat flow from me.
At school I would spend time in class softly playing beats by patting my hands on my lap and taping my feet. I had little interest in math or history – I was a drummer. Between classes, I would walk the halls wearing headphones, listening to my favorite drummers. All of the other instruments were just flare. For me, music revolved around the drums.
As an only child I was usually home alone after school and during the summer, which is perfect for an aspiring drummer. The first thing I did when I got home was hop on the set and bang away for a few hours. I would put a Green Day or Weezer CD into my portable compact disk player, slide the volume to full-blast and then play along to the entire album. I would picture myself in front of hundreds of screaming fans performing at venues around the world. After the show my fans would approach me and tell me how much they loved my music and how much it meant to them. Woman would throw themselves at me, all wanting to sleep with me. My band mates and I would party on our tour bus every night. We would be as close as brothers. I couldn’t picture my life any other way.
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