I began playing the drums at the ripe old age of four! My brother, who is six years older than me, received a drum set for his 10th birthday. I remember watching him play and was absolutely mesmerized by what I was hearing. The next morning I woke up and immediately went downstairs and started playing a beat. My mom came down and thought it was my brother, but much to her amazement (the look on her face), she saw little old me playing.

Moving on to my middle school and high school years, I was very fortunate to have incredible music programs that challenged and pushed me to excel. I still keep in touch with my middle school and high school band directors as they were paramount in my development. They’ve enjoyed following my career.

I’ve always had such passion for music and knew at a very early age that it was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I went on to college and received bachelor of music and the masters of arts in music performance. .

I’ve been fortunate to have had a career in music for about 30 years! I know, I don’t look that old!

My first taste of being thrown into a professional situation was actually my freshmen year in college. I went to school just outside of Los Angeles, which presented wonderful opportunities and direct contact to the industry. I’ll never forget that gig… It was with a big band based in Pasadena and all of the musicians were seasoned studio players. I remember looking at my stand and there was this giant book full of charts that were numbered. Once the gig started, the leader called out a number from the book, we pulled it out, he counted off an up tempo swing tune, and away we went, site reading on the gig! It was both terrifying and extremely exciting at the same time!

When I got to grad school, I won an audition that changed the trajectory of my career.

Again I have to give credit where credit is due, to my middle school and high school band directors, who made me sight read charts on a regular basis. That is probably one of the most important skills that I use constantly in musical situations – from the stage to the studio.

I think important skills to have in any creative industry, is the dedication it takes to constantly “perfect“ and maintain your craft. All of the hours spending at a young age practicing does pay off. I find when we get older, we can practice more efficiently in a shorter amount of time. One of the most important elementsI mention to young rhythm section players in master classes, is the ability to be musically versatile. I tell them that they want to be able to put themselves in any musical situation, covering any genre imaginable, so there are more options to bring in different streams of revenue.

Another facet of my career is music production. I have always had a love for soundand wanted to get involved in producing, recording and mixing. I have a studio at home where I record my drums for clients all over the world and will also mix and master projects for them as well. I’ve also been doing a lot of live recording for various clients in all genres of music. Some of those recordings are sent to Performance Today on NPR. Those skills came in handy during the pandemic, when touring came to a grinding halt. I lost over 2 years worth of revenue in essentially a few days, during the height of the pandemic. I was able to continue to bring in revenue during such a challenging time. In this crazy industry, you have to be nimble in so many ways to survive.

As a business, you have to look at a variety of ways to complete the “big picture.” It certainly can be a journey,vectoring through a variety of paths that are unexpected. One path that never crossed my radar was starting a nonprofit organization. I started Macon Pops, a 40-piece pops group that has the energy and look of a rock concert, with the finesse of an orchestra. We have covered every genre from R&B, hip-hop, country, southern rock and beyond. We are fortunate to have GRAMMY Award winning Matt Catingub as our Artistic Director & Conductor, (who is a musical genius) create custom arrangements for every show. This certainly makes us extremely unique. Our slogan is, “Macon Pops is not just a concert, it’s an event!” We have transformed the concert experience for our community and are extremely grateful for all the support. We are actually celebrating our 10th season!

I think for anyone in the creative industry, you must be resilient to succeed. I do think the pandemic certainly tested everyone’s resiliency.

Finding creative ways to navigate the industry, while still feeding your artistic soul is important. It can be easy to want to give up when an audition doesn’t go right.You hear a lot of “no’s“ when pursuing opportunities, but in the end, you have to persevere, keep your head down and believe in yourself and what you are doing is absolutely right! I have certainly had my fair share of disappointments, but for me, that fires me up to want to push through and overcome those obstacles.

I think locally, communities need to continue to work harder to open up more opportunities for local creatives to have a platform for them to show their work, perform, and have the ability to earn revenue at home. I also think that some communities feel that if something comes from outside, it must be better than the talent that is there locally, so they will pay more for that when in most cases, it isn’t any better. That is something we all must try to overcome – getting community and business leaders to get behind to support local artists. Communities need to understand that some of their local talent are doing things nationally and need to be supported where they live.