I am 29yrs old and ever since I was 15 I've been in a band some way or another.
When I was 15 I worked for a band called Johfra. I set up the light show and worked
the lights while they were playing. I also helped set up and tear down the big stage.
It was with this band I got (stoned) for the first time then sat down behind the drummer,
Larry Hall, and that's when it hit me this is what I want to do: Play Drums.
For a year, I secretly practiced on my bed with one pair of sticks and a walk-man playing
with anything I could get on tape. On my 18th birthday, my grandfather bought my first set of
drums: a five piece set called Mirage. You have to understand something before I go on; for
the past 17 years my family (which are all musicians) did everything they could to keep me
from this lifestyle.
After turning 18, I threatened to move to Orlando Fla., which is about 5 hours from where
I live. So they, my family, came up with a plan to get me to stay: they helped me get a new truck
and the drums. Plan was I'd have to make payments, that meant I'd have to stay and keep my job.
Well, I fell for it. I'd knew it at that time, but hey I got a new set of drums. Who could bitch? In the
end it was a good thing. I played for 3 days before I had to get me a double bass peddle. 3 weeks later I played with my first band.
Even though it didn't last very long, it was through that band I met my life long friend, Jtk, the best
bass player whom I've ever had the pleasure of playing with. Our guitar player is still a very good
friend of ours. The three of us, and a variety of singers, formed a band called Electric Ocean, or EO
for short, and we were off.
One year to the very day of my getting my first drum set, EO played it's first party (We SUCKED!)
But for some reason people liked us. I can remember causing a train wreck in about the third song. Picture this if you don't know what a train wreck is: You're on stage in front a couple hundred people; it's your first time ever being there and you're praying that you can remember how to play all the songs; then something catches your eye and you loose your concentration for just one second; You've lost your place in the song; you go to the wrong part and everyone in the band turns around and looks at you; this is not a good feeling at all. Later on a fight broke out on the first original song we played. Through all that we played on. A couple of weeks later we added an additional guitar player. From this we pushed on playing clubs, parties, or wherever we could when we could.
The band finally broke up like 2 years later, but the three of us still hung in there for awhile until one the woman I would one day marry didn't want me traveling so much just to practice, so I quit my band. I've played in many bands since that day. I even made it down to Orlando and lived down there for a while
and worked for an A-Circuit band as stage manager. But I regret the day I walk out on my band.
It's kind of funny how life works out sometime because now I'm working for Jtk and we still share the dream to once again do what it is we love: to make music for the sake of making music.
