We recently got off of a pretty incredible tour with Minus the Bear and Skysaw. Throughout the entire tour I kept thinking “I can’t believe we are getting to tour with them.”
About eleven years ago I got my first drum kit and entered the world of music. I set the kit up in my mom’s house and would play every day . I would put headphones on with my walkman (this was pre Ipod) and play along to CDs. A few of them included Smashing Pumpkins albums (Gish, Siamese Dream, Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness). That’s how I learned to play drums. Imitation. That eventually turned into my own style of playing. With that said, Jimmy Chamberlin, became one of my biggest influences. I probably imitated him more than any other drummer, mainly because the I owned more Pumpkins’ albums than any other band at the time…
Fast forward about 3 years… I got introduced to MInus the Bear by my friend Ben and buy “Highly Refined Pirates.” MInus the bear became one of my favorite bands over the next few years and I ended up buying all of their albums. My old band used to draw so much influence form them. Before our practices, I would play “Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse” on drums front to back. I even insisted that song be played when all of my friends and I had absinthe shots at the beach!
Fast forward to a couple of weeks a go…
We get to go on tour with MInus the Bear and Skysaw (Jimmy’s new band). I know they are all just regular guys doing the same thing that I’m doing, but I was so excited in a little girl way. I was getting to hang out with people that had a major influence on me as a musician. I got to talk about the recording process of the Pumpkins, different drummers, and clinics I had seen with Jimmy Chamberlin, the man i used to imitate when i first learned to play!! I got to have drinks and develop friendships with the band that my old band would cover, the band I would go watch, the band I listened to when I drank absinthe for the first (and only) time.
I feel very blessed to be doing what I enjoy and now getting to do it with people that have influenced me. Maybe, in ten years I’ll be on tour with someone that was influenced by The Constellations and we can talk about these times that I’m living now. Doubtful, but it would be cool
