Growing up it was very important to my grandmother (adopted mother) that I play a musical instrument. Now, it was her dream for me to play the guitar, seeing how she purchased me an acoustic one in fourth grade and signed me up for lessons that I didn’t really care about. It just didn’t grab me. I was done after a few months. Also, she supported my playing of the violin in elementary school, fifth and sixth grade, which was a good excuse to get out of an hour or so of classwork a day and perform, terribly, at the couple of parents concerts a year.

During all that, in the fifth grade, I discovered the drums. I don’t remember exactly how it went down, but I do remember being absolutely mesmerized by Eric Carr’s kit, the drummer from Kiss. A couple pics of his set-up are below.

Now being from Terre Haute, the home of the Kiss Army, I should be a bigger Kiss fan, but I’m just not. I do like some of their songs, and some are featured on Radio-N8, but I’m just not a huge Kiss guy. That being said I fell in love with that kit when I first saw it in the Kiss – Reason To Live video. A song I actually dig. The symbol on the drums is a Japanese symbol (Chikara) which stands for power. That symbol is now printed in the design of one of my e(lectronic)-snares as a homage to the kit that drew me in. You’ll see my kits in a subsequent post in the next few days.

For whatever reason I was just drawn to drums. In my household we got cable and MTV late as compared to my friends. A few years past everyone. However, one of my favorite memories is when my grandfather would let me commandeer the TV on the day they would do the top 100 videos of all time countdowns – think later ’80s versions of that countdown. A song that would always come up in the countdown was Simple Minds – Don’t You (Forget About Me), originally released in 1985, and forever aligned with the movie The Breakfast Club. I’ve embedded it below for ease of view.

I’ve never really figured it out, but something about this song made me want to be a drummer. I’m not sure why, but maybe its because the 16th note pattern or maybe there is some syncopation going on? I’ve never sat down to analyze or think about it. I just enjoy it for what it is, and every time it comes up on my playlist I have the same sense of reverie as when it first grabbed me. Sometimes the best analysis is just saying “this is it” and enjoying it.

In subsequent posts I’ll talk about drums, my kits, abilities, influences, etc… But for now just know the kit and the song that helped get me hooked.