My Twenties Pt. 2

My time spent in Minneapolis was priceless. Besides being my first real world experience in the music business I met many great musicians and was honored to have played with them. But after several winters of touring and trying to keep a band together I decided that I wanted to go back to school, somewhere else.

So just as fast as I moved from Kansas to Minneapolis I was off to California to attend Musicians Institute.

Quick Story: I flew out to do my interview and entrance exam in March. It was -18F and when I got off the plane in Los Angeles it was 65F. That’s an 83 degree difference in less than 4 hours!

My decision to go to Musicians Institute was two fold. First I knew that I wanted to learn more about the drums. And I mean learn, not just weekly private lessons I wanted to get my butt kicked. Second, it was where I wanted to go to school originally. In hindsight going to Music Tech first was the best decision I could have made. I needed that year of school and experience playing to prepare me for MI, I just didn’t know it at the time.

I moved to LA in June of 1996 and it took a while to find a place to live. Luckily I had a place to stay while I was searching and I ended up finding a place in Pasadena. Not quite understanding the immense size of LA I had a job at Best Buy in Hawthorne (2 hour drive with traffic) and would attend school in Hollywood (30-60min drive depending on traffic). Once school started the job had to go because the drive was killing me. I had student loans so I wouldn’t be completely broke!

I spent the summer before school practicing to get ready for school. Honestly I didn’t know what to expect so I just practiced a little bit of everything. I love playing drums so it didn’t really matter what I practice just as long as I was playing and I knew that a lot of new information would be coming my way soon.

My year at Musicians Institute was a whirlwind of new information, new friends and a completely different culture. Not just moving from the midwest to LA but the types of musicians and the speed at which everything moved. It was a shock. But that wore off pretty fast and now it was time to get busy. Real busy!

And that, is for the next post.

25 Years of Drumming Part 1
25 Years of Drumming Part 2
25 Years of Drumming Part 4