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When I was around 8 years old I can remember my brother playing snare drum in the marching band at high school, and thinking I wanted to do that! I can remember going with my parents to the football games to watch him march and see the band play songs in the stands. It caught my interest and it looked exciting! My brother was very enthusiastic about it and would share his experiences with me. I can remember going to the band room to pick him up after practices and football games, and hear other band members call him “Barney”. You know, from the flint stones, and they’d call me “Bam Bam” haha! I was proud of that nickname and I knew he carried a level of importance to gain his nickname as well. He would come home from high school band practice and bring home equipment that he’d alter. Like one time he brought a cymbal home to be able to play suspended cymbal on the snare drum to accommodate another person’s part since they weren’t able to. He’d bring the drum set home to play from the school from time to time as well. It was all really cool to me!

After having this influenced exposure from my brother with drums, I remember having my own experience for the first time at my babysitters house when I was just eight years old. I remember playing hide and seek with their daughter and running by the TV to see Metallicas video for their hit song “One”being played on MTV. This would have been in 1988. I remember seeing Lars Ulrich playing that double bass pattern with his feet during the bridge of the song in his black spandex shorts. I thought… I want to do that! There was something so cool about being able to play that part that I just had to figure it out.

At the time I didn’t have a drum set and neither did my brother so I had to cut my teeth on the snare drum which my brother had in his bedroom. It was an older Yamaha student model snare that came with a large black plastic case. I wish we still had that thing. I would sneak in there and play his drum when he wasn’t home. Since he was older, he had his license and was either gone to school, work, or hanging out with friends. He later saw that I took a liking to the drums and helped me by showing me how to play certain rudiments and taught me how to read drum notation at such a young age.

I can remember going to McFaddyn Music in Wilmington on 16th street to get my first pair of drum sticks. We walked in and I remember seeing multiple sets in different colors on the floor. There was a cymbal rack also and I can remember a guy in a black tuxedo trying them out, possibly before a gig. I went to the drumstick section and ended up grabbing a pair of Pro Mark 7A’s. Remember the ones with the Sumo Wrestler on them? That was my first ever pair of drum sticks. I think they also were nylon tip. I would use these sticks for a few years until I was old enough for 7th grade band. Not sure what ever happened to them but I wish I still had my first pair of sticks as a keepsake. Just a word of advise… If you’re just starting to play drums be sure to keep your first pair of sticks even if you break them. You’ll be happy you did.

In maybe 1995 I can remember sitting in the auditorium of my middle school for a seminar they had put together for students wanting to join band. This was a demonstration that was put on by one of the reps from McFaddyn Music. We sat in the auditorium while the representative walked onto the stage to play each instrument to entice our decision on which one we’d pick. Honestly I can remember him playing the Jeopardy theme on the flute and thinking “that was so cool” and wondering if that’s something I’d want to do.

You see, I knew the band director which was my brother’s band director. He was a very stern man that also had a great sense of humor. I remember telling him “I thought about the flute” and he said, “you get your butt outta here”. He knew I was supposed to play the drums just like my brother and he wasn’t going to let me live it down. Disclaimer… it is totally cool to play flute if that is your heart’s desire.

In 1996 I started middle school band where I had a Yamaha snare drum in one of those big black thick plastic cases, just like my brother’s, to haul around with my book bag. I remember it being an issue to carry around from class to class. I loved band though! I remember only being exited to go to band and not school. It was the highlight of my day. It was my “thing”. I felt like I was in my element and it was something I could work towards while being a part of a team and also without being a part of a team. It was my outlet as a teenager. Well… that and skateboarding.

Skateboarding and drumming

While I was starting my drumming journey I had picked up skateboarding. I can remember seeing the movie Gleaming The Cube with Christian Slater and thinking it looked so cool to me! I wanted to learn all the tricks and wear all the rad skater clothes and have the look. Ya know? Keep in mind this is when I was around 12 years old just hitting puberty and trying to find my identity…

I remember my mom taking me one day to get my first deck from hot wax surf shop in Wilmington NC. It was a Powell Peralta deck with one of the killer clowns from outer space on it. I had Venture trucks and Powell clear green wheels. I thought I was the coolest kid in the world. I took my board with me everywhere and would skate on sidewalks, parking lots, and anywhere else with a smooth flat surface. I had no clue how to do tricks and had nothing as a reference other than a few skate magazines.

One day in middle school I was asked to help a new classmate by showing him around the school and making him feel welcome. His name was John and he had came from another school just a town over. I quickly found out that John was into skating and playing guitar so we started talking about skating after school and playing music on the weekends once I could get a drum set.

Once I started skating with John he knew a plethora of tricks and showed me the basics that I needed to perform certain maneuvers. This was such a fun and exciting time for me because it not only opened a world of possibilities on the skateboard but it also opened up my world to drumming. The fact that you attempted a trick numerous times, falling and getting hurt and picking yourself back up and repeating the process over and over again. And then finally executing the trick perfectly. It was a learning process that taught you how to disregard failure. Failure was not an option, only repetition through numerous attempts until you got it. It taught me the most important lesson in life, never give up cause you never know just how close you are to getting it right. Keep going.

Getting my first kit

Through the next few years I would visit music stores and look at drum kits. Each music store always had those free drum catalogs from all of the name brand drum makers like Pearl, Tama, Ludwig, etc… I would grab a free catalog each time and eventually I’d have a collection of them by my bedside to look at and dream of having my very own one day.

My brother at the time purchased his first kit where he was playing with a traveling gospel band. It was a Pearl Export kit with a purple wrap with Sabian cymbals. I can remember going to see him perform and he’d let me play on his set and that helped me in my search for my first kit. Not sure if those of you listening remember the popularity of the Pearl export kit but they were everywhere and most drummers had one. I saw those kits in churches, school band rooms, and every music store I had walked into. They were one of the most well built kits for the price and sounded amazing if you knew how to tune. They also had a lot of color options for those of us with aesthetic cravings.

In November of 1996, I was in band class in middle school waiting for the bell to ring. The clock strikes 2:55 and the sound of the bell goes off. It’s time to get out of school for the day and go home. To my surprise though when I got in my mom’s car she said, we’re going to Wilmington to McFaddyn Music to get your first drum set for your birthday. I was more excited than anything I could ever remember. I couldn’t wait to see what they had and wondered what I would end up with as my first kit.

When we arrived At McFaddyn Music it was already getting dark and I can remember walking through the front door looking towards the drums section and seeing all the different kits. It’s kinda hard to remember exactly what was there but I remember there being a red Pearl Export kit and a Pacific Blue Export kit. I knew that’s what I wanted so I chose the blue one and a pack of Sabian B8 cymbals. The kit came as a 5 piece with a 16×22 bass drum, 12×10 and 13×11 rack toms, a 16×16 floor tom, and a 14×6.5 steel snare drum. It also had a hi hat stand, bass drum pedal, throne, and a straight cymbal stand and boom cymbal stand. I couldn’t wait to get home to put everything together and get it setup in my bedroom.

Once I got home I unloaded all of the boxes out of my mom’s car into my bedroom and began to unbox the shell pack. Each drum had to have the heads put on and tuned so I began unwrapping each drumhead and matching them to each drum. The best memory I have from this moment was the smell of the inside of the wood shells. You could smell the wood and the glue used in each ply. I’ll never forget that smell as long as I live.

After everything was setup I remember popping in a Metallica cassette into my boombox and jamming to a few songs. It was a dream come true! I felt right at home and in my element. I could close my eyes and imagine being on stage and backing one of the biggest bands ever. It was powerful! I was happy.

A period of growth and exploration

Through the next few years I would cut my teeth on songs I’d hear on the radio and whatever Metallica cassettes I had. I would spend a couple of hours each day after school playing along to all types of music using my dual cassette boombox to play music while I recorded these jam sessions to the other cassette. I would take these cassettes to school with me to show my friends and pass them along to some of the girls in school as well. Come to think of it, I think I still have one of those tapes lying around somewhere…

After spending hours in my bedroom shedding to different songs and albums I was ready to actually play music with my friend John that I mentioned earlier. The cool thing is that John also had a friend in Whiteville named Justin that played bass guitar so we started getting together regularly in my Dad’s garage.

The garage had three bays and used to be used as a paint booth where my father painted cars as a side job. We had the 3rd bay that hadn’t been used in years. It had a concrete floor with fluorescent light bulbs on the ceiling and the walls that stretched the length of the entire room. There was no AC or heat, so summers were extremely hot and winters were pretty cold. We did have a fan though and a mini space heater.

We would gather at the garage most Saturdays and learn to play cover songs like Zombie from the Cranberries, From whom the bell tolls by Metallica, and I alone by the band Live. Did these songs sound like the real deal? Absolutely not… could a random stranger make out what we were trying to play? Possibly… we were having the time of our lives and it didn’t matter.

For the next few years there would be different friends come to jam and play music, different iterations of bands and lots of experience gained in that old garage.

After putting a band together called “Flatline”, we started playing for our friend’s birthday parties and even got a chance to play at a grand opening for a local music store at the time, in Whiteville. If I remember correctly it was called Music Unlimited. A local Optometrist owned it and it was located right beside Taco Bell. We were living a dream, just playing music for the fun of it. Nothing serious, no money, just having a blast.

In 1997 I had a cousin of mine who was involved in a terrible accident with her son and daughter. I hadn’t spent much time with them since I was younger and at the time I think I was 14. She had passed from injuries due to the wreck and I became closer to her two kids that were my age. After time had passed since the accident they had invited me to go to church with them. At the time I had not been to church since I was 9 and I had never been part of any type of youth group. What was about to happen changed my life forever.

Playing drums for church

After attending Highest Praise Church for a few months and going to youth group with my cousins, I was approached by the pastor and he asked if I had ever thought about playing music in church. I thought… no, not really. I played scenarios in my head of being a rockstar and playing in front of thousands of people all the time but never in a church. He said I’d love to come over to your house sometime to hear you play. The Pastor’s name was Mickey Baysden. He was a great piano player with a background in soulful music, rock and roll, and hymns. He honored the church’s music and the people who played it.

Pastor Baysden eventually made it out to my house. He visited with my parents to talk with them about having me play for the church. They loved the idea and were proud of me for getting such an opportunity, so of course they said yes. Pastor Baysden walked with me to the garage, down the long dirt road that night to hear me play. I remember feeling nervous because the only music I knew and loved was heavy metal and hard rock. I wasn’t sure how this was going to go over with him…

Once we got to the 3rd bay where my drums were, he asked me to show him some grooves or if I wanted to play along to some of my music. I told him I could do from whom the bell tolls, enter sandman, and zombie, as I laughed nervously… he said “let’s hear it!” I was amazed that he didn’t care at all that I was about to try out for a church drumming position by playing along to secular music or what most country people call “devil music”.

We had a PA system with two 12 inch speakers that I had a cassette deck connected to. I popped in the first cassette and started jamming. I remember seeing him smile at me as he stood there dressed in a suit with a long black over coat, gloves, and a hat. I forgot to mention it was cold out at the time. Pastor Baysden was tapping his foot and bobbing his head as I thrashed away on my drums. The cement floors echoing the glassiest, brightest cymbals and the sound of taped up muffled heads of my drums. I played to my best ability as I performed this solo show that looking back now changed my whole life…

After I finished Mickey asked me when would I like to come to a rehearsal so he could start working with me. I told him as soon as possible. I was nervous because it was something brand new and I’d be playing in front of people for the first time, well other than a few small birthday parties.

After that audition that night, I began to play at church and gain experience through each session at Highest Praise Church. It was one of the turning points in my life that would set the tone for what my future would intel.

High School Marching Band and my first serious band

Once I got to high school I began playing snare drum at East Columbus High. I was following in the footsteps of my brother and gaining as much experience as I could. I loved marching band. It was one of the only things from high school that I enjoyed. It was a chance for me to be part of a team, doing something that I loved. I played all four years of high school and attended All County band each year placing first chair my freshman and sophomore years and 2nd place my Junior and Senior years. While in school I met a friend named Jon who was playing in a local Christian Rock band called Halogen. This was a different Jon than my friend in middle school. They were doing big things and had just won a battle of the bands at the House OF Blues in Myrtle Beach SC. We talked on and off about music and he shared with me that he had a song he wanted me to record drums on and I agreed to help out. At this point I had never had any recording experience and had never played to a metronome. We met up at a local church to do the recording where his music minister had equipment set up to do the tracks. I brought in my drums, tuned them, and started getting sounds for line check and then we got to work. I can vaguely remember it taking a few takes before I finished the tracks that I had wrote for the song. It was a fun process and it opened my eyes to what it takes to play as perfectly as possible to get a great take.

After a few weeks Jon talked with me about putting a band together with two other guys from church. He wanted to branch off from his band and create something of his own. So we did. That band was called Unpaved. We got together to write and jam on ideas that Jon had for songs and we performed worship songs that we had learned in church. We practiced for a good month and put together a decent setlist and got our first show at the County Fair in Whiteville NC. We played locally at churches for youth rally’s and even played the House Of Blues restaurant on Thanksgiving night in 2001. We had so much fun in that band learning the ins and outs of writing and recording songs, promoting our shows, and the business side of the music industry. It really was my first introduction into playing professionally with people that I loved.

After high school we played more shows until the beginning of 2003 when everyone parted ways and went off to college. Two were off to Oklahoma City, and one to Wilmington. I stayed back home and went to SCC. It was a tuff time wondering what I would do since my band was no more. What I didn’t realize is that my whole musical world was about to open up and I would set out on a path that I would never stray from to this day…

A moment of reflection and reverence

I think back to if I wouldn’t have been invited to church over such a tragedy of my cousins passing, if Pastor Baysden hadn’t of come over to hear me play that night and I would have chickened out what would have happened? What if I had chose the flute? What if my brother hadn’t of shown me how to play drums? I could have had a whole different life ahead of me. That series of events molded my life to what it is today and to dissect everything for this composition makes me very aware of just how lucky and blessed I was throughout these years. If one thing would have been different or changed I’m not sure I’d be here writing this for you to listen to today. We each have our very own special journey in life that makes us who we are. if You’re listening to this or reading this I ask for you to look back on your path and how you got to where you are at this very moment. Take a moment to reflect and show reverence.