"If you've got a problem, take it out on a drum." - Neil Peart
Lying on the floor of my drum room. A dilapidated 8x12 room with a half sloped ceiling that I share with another drummer. It has all the accoutrements of a room like this that I have come to expect. Exposed piping, installation, poor second hand lighting, unvaccumed carpet littered with wood chips and ash…the smell of old groundwater and used drinks ever so slightly above notice.
A normal person wouldn’t lie down in this room. And here I am, so accustomed to it that I lie in an akward position leaving my skin vulnerable to the floor. An OCD I wouldn’t allow in a hotel room or next to a stranger, but my familiarity with this filth leaves me undetered. Crazy to think about the things that come to define you, and the arbitrary and sometimes obvious ways they come to you.
Drums came to me that way. Through a natural understanding they were cool, and chasing the two “hot” girls in school into the 4th grade band. I took a test, the rest is history. My Mom especially supported it. She was a lover of music and the arts and alternative people in general. I was a kid who’s parents just got divorced, who started playing in bands and spent the weekends looking for rare Queen vinyl in the expo halls of hotels off Rt. 22. I kind of had my fate sealed for me. Some would resent it…I don’t mind. And now that I’m raising children myself, a lot worse places you could be than fucking with drums or records and finding music and lyrics and art.
I have a soul determined to find itself on the outside of whatever its in. I’ve accepted this part of my nature as, my nature. From the first moment I recall until now, the world has looked as if I’m on the outside peering in. It’s a dangerous way to be, and now in hindsight, I recognize the freedom and push my Mom gave me wasn’t just random. It was intentional. She saw something in me that scared her, and she saw an avenue for it go. And thank fucking God for that. Those records and drums and songs gave me purpose, direction, community and almost everything leading to here. A grown man with a career, family and home. Pretty cool.
