Recently I have been making it a point to find things that I am thankful for. A moment of gratitude and celebration for the things that have given me purpose and fueled my ambition. I began to think about how far I have come along in my journey as a professional musician and educator and the people who have helped me along the way. I just turned 43 and I think to myself, man has time flown by just in the past few years. This year makes 23 years that I have been teaching private lessons in Whiteville NC. So, that's half of my life I have devoted to educating others on this instrument. It's the longest thing I've ever stuck with no matter how tuff times have gotten, no matter how tired I've ever been, mentally or physically. It's been my journey and the one I'm most proud of. What do you want to do In 2002, my senior year of high school, I was in a race to figure out what I wanted to do with my future. My dad had given me two options… "you can either go to Southeastern Community College and I'll pay for it or you can go find a job and get to work". I didn't want to do either one at the time because I was in limbo and didn't want to make a quick decision on my future. I knew I wanted to do something with drums and music but what I wanted to do they didn't offer at a University or local community college. Remember when colleges would visit the schools and you'd have a day of walking around to each table to see what each had to offer? I checked each school out and they all offered the same programs. You could either get a performing degree or a degree in music education and become a band director. I didn't want to be a band director because I knew there was high level of stress involved and I didn't want to be confined to one thing. I also had heard stories of getting a performing degree and it not being a great option. I had an idea of what I wanted to do but it seemed so far stretched, like it really is just a dream. I wanted to be able to wake up happy each day, knowing that I could play and teach drums and make a difference in peoples lives and not have anyone barking orders at me. Make my own path, my own way. In November of 2002 I woke up early to perform with the East Columbus High School marching band at the Harvest Day Festival in Whiteville. We marched in the parade early that morning and then performed at the railroad tracks. While we were playing our last piece I remember seeing this big dude across from my line of sight getting into what we were doing. He had one of those tour passes hanging from his neck and looked like he played in a band. He approached me while we were taking our drums off and told me how great of a job we did and how he was reminiscing on when he was in drum line in high school and college. He introduced himself to me as Mel Watts. He was there that day to perform with the band Exile. For those of you that aren't familiar, Exile had the song "I want to kiss you all over". It was in the Adam Sandler movie Happy Gilmore. Mel and I got to talking about drums and music and he eventually invited me to come hang with him while he was setting up his drums and equipment. We spent a couple of hours just hanging out and talking. He shared with me his journey as a working drummer in Nashville where he recorded drums for many artists including drums on the famous track from Deana Carter, Strawberry Wine, which is now certified 2x platinum. He proceeded to give advice on what I could do, living in a small town. He told me that I should look into teaching private lessons, learn to play with a metronome and educate myself farther on the drums. He also suggested I play with as many bands as possible and get some recording experience under my belt. While listening to his advise I couldn't believe that I had a professional musician standing in front of me giving me his time and knowledge for nothing. I wasn't paying for this conversation and he didn't mind at all. Just a great human being that saw something in me that day, a complete stranger, a kid with a snare drum and a band uniform. It was a conversation that would change my world of thinking and send me on a path that I was about to embark on, all on my own with no blueprint. Gaining Experience After having that talk with Mel I set out on a mission to play with as many bands and artists as I could. I had recently started playing in a band with some friends before this conversation that was called Unpaved. We were a Christian rock band and were playing at local churches, the county fair, and the House Of Blues restaurant. We were also getting ready to record our debut album so I had a chance to practice to a metronome and then gain some studio experience. Just a few days after I graduated high school we traveled to Six Flags Over Georgia to compete in a battle of the bands where we finished 4th overall out of many other bands. It was my first time traveling as a musician and playing in front of more people than I ever have. I was also still playing in church and just trying to get my name out there as much as I could. Besides Unpaved I connected with some friends from high school that were working in a southern gospel recording studio in Conway SC. I had the chance to record with them and their family band a few times there. I was learning as much as I could from the performing aspect of it and the ins and outs of the control room. I wanted to know everything I could about the recording process and get better at it. This was back in the day when they were recording to ADAT and not Pro Tools. These were the growing years of my drumming and they were some of the most fun and memorable moments of my life. Going to college After the summer of 2002 I proposed an idea to my parents that I wanted to take off the fall semester to work and to have a break from school to figure out what I wanted to do and they agreed to it. That fall I worked at Pizza Village in Whiteville and started brainstorming ideas for my business while I was washing dishes and cooking pizzas. I was trying to figure out how and where I'd be able to teach private lessons as a start to my plan. I also was having to think of a major to choose so I could go to school in January as a "backup plan". We'll come back to that later. On October 2nd I was working on a Tuesday night at Pizza Village. I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was busy. The back room where I was washing dishes was hot. The steam coming from the dishwasher along with a pile of dishes had me annoyed and frustrated with where my life was at the moment. I didn't want to work for someone else anymore and wanted to work for myself. At this point I made a not so smart decision to end the way I was feeling right then and there and I asked my boss to step outside with me. Once outside, I proceed to tell him about my business plan and that I would be leaving from the pizza business. He encouraged my plan and said "well… when are you thinking of leaving?" I said after tonight. He said oh… By no means was this a smart decision at all but I was following my heart and no one was going to stop me haha! I still feel bad about the way I did things that night to this day but you live and you learn. Mind you, I only had a dream and nothing set in place for my business and was solely going on emotion and passion. It's ok… you can laugh at how ridiculous this sounds cause it was. I went the next day to talk to my pastor, Lyndon Purifoy, about my plan and he gladly gave me a spot to start teaching from and even gave me some odd jobs to do around the church to make some money. I also went back to Pizza Village to ask my boss if I could come back part time to do some odd jobs to make some extra cash and he was nice enough to do so. He really was the best boss ever and I should have my tail handed to me for leaving him hanging weeks before. To this day we laugh about it when I go to eat there and talk with him. He's always supported my dream even after I left and we still catch up from time to time. After leaving Pizza Village and getting side jobs, along with my business plan it was time to start college in January. At that time I was still living at home and I decided to go to school for electrical engineering technology since my dad was an engineer. I figured if this musician thing didn't work out I could have a nice backup plan and make a good living. Looking back now, it wasn't a good decision to have a backup plan and I should have been honest with my parents about what I wanted to do and put forth the efforts for that to happen. Instead, I didn't want them mad or disappointed in me. I guess I wanted to feel some type of security by having that piece of paper… ya know? Back then you were told that to be successful you had to have a degree, so that was instilled in me that if I had that piece of paper everything would work out. The Idea In 2003 I started teaching private lessons out of my church in downtown Whiteville. My pastor and mentor at the time, Lyndon Purifoy, thought it would be a great idea and he helped pave the way for me to get started. Now I had a spot to teach out of but no-one to teach yet. That is until I met him at a job I was hired for. I met my first student while doing a side job for a local trailer park owner. I was hired to stain the decks of each of these mobile homes that had freshly been built. The owner had also hired on another person to assist me. We worked with each other for a couple of weeks and started talking about common interests in music and eventually got on the topic of me trying to get the ball rolling with my business. He mentioned he had always wanted to learn to play drums and he would like to be my first student. Just a very powerful side note here… I have never been without a student since he signed up that day 23 years ago… After he started I soon had more people to take interest from church, and from word of mouth. I then started advertising. I woul
