Back in early 2008 I purchased a video game called Rockband, and it completely changed my life. I started banging away at those cheap, plastic, piece-of-crap "drums" that came with the game and I couldn't stop. I was completely obsessed with playing the drums on Rockband. Of course I was terrible at first, having never played the drums or any other musical instrument; I was barely able to make it through the songs on "easy" without failing. But, eventually I made it through all the songs on "easy", then on "medium", and then on "hard", and pretty soon, I was making it through most of the songs on "expert". I was even able to get gold stars on some of them (hooray!). Then, at some point, I had the opportunity to sit down at a real drum kit, and it turns out that Rockband drum skills actually translate into real (sort of) drum skills! Long story short, I bought a real drum kit, took a year-and-a-half of real lessons, and for the last two years I have been playing the drums in a real band with a bunch of high school friends. I'm having a total blast!
Now, in a couple of days my band, Intra-Venus & the Cosmonauts, will be heading into the studio to record a proper album, and in a crazy and surreal turn of events, we have managed to secure David J, legendary bassist of the amazing and hugely influential post-punk/goth bands Bauhaus and Love and Rockets to be our producer! Seven years ago, if you had told me that I would end up playing the drums in a rock 'n roll band I would have thought that you were completely crazy! Seven years ago, if you had told me that I would be playing the drums in a rock 'n roll band and would be recording an album with David J as producer, I would have thought it more likely that I would grow wings and fly myself to the moon! I should point out here that I have always been a huge fan of music and am very passionate about the music I listen to. I have also always thought it would be fun to play the drums but was sure that you needed to possess supernatural powers to do so, and I knew that I was definitely lacking in these powers. So as you can imagine, I'm incredibly excited about this amazing opportunity!....and terrified! I mean, let's face it, I've only been playing the drums for about 4 years (almost 7 if you count my time playing Rockband) and I'm definitely not the worlds greatest drummer. Heck, I would describe my drumming as barely adequate. So I'm doing my best not to freak out and crawl into a hole because I'm terrified of failing in spectacular fashion in the studio....with David J! *freakout*
I would also like to mention that my band is running a kickstarter campaign to raise the money to record, manufacture, and distribute this album. So if you feel so inclined, a donation would be greatly appreciated!
So now you know why I'm terrible at updating my blog: I have a new hobby that takes up most of my create-artwork-for-my-blog time. I guess you can also blame some of it on this, but in the end the *real* reason is that my heart is no longer in my art, it's in my drums!
Don't worry, I'll post some more art eventually.
