For me, the hardest part is taking lessons, and it's hard teaching an old dog new tricks, so part of my re-teaching myself is opening my mind too. I just want to get better and I think there's nothing wrong with wanting to get better.
It works for me, the way I play drums and the things I do but I also would like to know proper technique. Mainly for health - to last longer, be able to play longer.
Even though sometimes you feel like you're hand cuffed you're really not because it really takes skill to play the music properly.
I pretty much isolated myself away from drums. I stopped looking at Modern Drummer, I stopped looking at websites.
Playing drums or music, being a musician, is inside of you. So you would always see me tapping on something, playing on tables... I never felt the need to pull out drums.
I immersed myself in the police work and I guess drumming wasn't even a hobby, just something my body naturally wanted to do, tapping stuff.
As a musician, we should always want to strive to be better, we can always make improvements. It's easy to get comfortable and it's easy to find your voice and your sound, but I always wanted to be better.
I watch YouTube and other peers of mine. There's a lot of things I can't do and also I'm very unorthodox, I want to work on my mechanics and technique.
I am self taught. My dad threw me in with a drum set at the age of four and I figured it out!
I was living in different accommodation and it was never in a place where I could set up my drums and play, so my drums would end up back in their cases and then in the garage. In the end I got used to the drums being locked up, I went a good eight years without touching drums.
Once I became a cop and it's like when I got back into drumming; if I focus on something I become that, so I became a cop.
Once I became a cop. I dived into that career. I never wanted to be an LAPD officer because I thought 'LA is super dangerous, not the place I'd want to be a cop'. But as a boy of course I was into guns, cops and robbers, so that's why it was cool to me and thought 'Yeah I could do this job'.
As a drummer my job is to reproduce what made the people bop their heads when they first heard the album on the radio, or when they watched the music video.
My dad taught me not to overplay, to think about my parts when I play, even in a live situation.
Once I grew up and realised 'What am I doing?' I started re-listening to the music I was playing and I realised there was so much finesse - it was dynamic and simple but I wanted to be authentic to the original songs.
I shined off high school band, marching, jazz studies. At the time I was too cool for school, I had this professional gig and I was going home taking a shower and heading to downtown Hawaii, Waikiki.
I learned how to play the music working with my dad. Because in the beginning I was super excited, I had this gig, I was a kid, I got cocky and didn't want to take lessons.
My brother (Bruno Mars) is as smart as he is because a lot of things he's doing, creativity wise, our Dad used to do. Things my father used to do visually and musically. I see a lot of my father's influence in both of us.
I moved out of my house at 17 and half, I rented an apartment... I pulled all the things off. It was pretty amazing and I lived a pretty good life, I had a car and I was making good money.
