Ezdrummer midi packs
We played great together! Unfortunately, we didn’t really click as people at the time and I didn’t really feel I fit into the crazy, rowdy Hatebreed scenario. I was ready for that and was hungry for it. Hatebreed has ALWAYS been a road band and the touring is constant and breaks are rare. A mutual friend hooked us up, I auditioned and we immediately hit the road.
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I didn’t know the guys, but who in the hardcore scene didn’t know about the band at the time?!!? They had been working/touring for a bunch of years at that point and the “Victory” record was out and making a lot of noise. Hatebreed needed a drummer and I needed a serious band. I was just about in the student teaching phase of a Special Ed/Elementary Ed degree at SUNY Plattsburgh in Upstate New York. My first stint in Hatebreed was in 1998 and it lasted for about a year. You have been in Hatebreed for years, but you actually quit for a bit to pursue studies and almost gave up on the whole music game. I started wailing on that old drum kit with friends from school, neighborhood kids, etc. My brain and body seemed to gel well together and I could make sense of it all. I took lessons from a guy named Mike Shapiro at a local music store in my area and I loved it. My uncle asked if I would be interested in drums and offered an old, beat up drum kit of his if I was willing to try lessons and see if I would stick with it. I don’t recall how long I lasted with this but it couldn’t have been more than six months before I quit. Also, she was teaching me “kumbaya” and these other folky type, religious songs that I had no interest in. I was told I was doing it wrong and said I had to play as a righty. First off, I naturally held/played guitar as a lefty. My mother noticed my interest, got me an acoustic guitar and signed me up for lessons with a woman from her church. I was twelve years old and was way into all the early metal stuff… Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Exodus, etc. How come you ended up behind a drum kit? Were you always drawn to drums and were they your first and only alternative? My sister and I used to put on little skits and shows when we were really young, lip syncing to Twisted Sister, Journey, etc. For a short time, my mother worked at a Poughkeepsie based radio station, WPDH, and sometimes the DJs would give me records when we went to visit her at work. My parents’ first date was a Rascal’s show in NYC (they were going by The Young Rascals then). Her youngest brother is a drummer and he is responsible for really getting me into the instrument.
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My mother’s side of the family are huge Beatles fans and she actually saw them at Carnegie Hall when she was a teenager. He actually wrote the “theme song” for Playland and was the MC at the opening of The Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY way back in the day.
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My grandfather later was a booking agent and even owned and operated the Funhouse at an amusement park in Rye, NY called Playland. This was in the pre-television era, before these acts made the transition to a larger entertainment medium and became huge stars. They were singers, dancers and skit actors and toured/performed with the likes of Bob Hope, Abbott and Costello, etc. My grandparents on my father’s side were Vaudeville performers. For as long as I can remember, music and performing has always been a constant in my life coming from both sides of my family.