Dan

This is the brief story of me! I was born in Har­vey, Illi­nois, a sub­urb of Chicago. The hos­pi­tal was a mile away from the shop­ping mall that was trashed in the movie “The Blues Broth­ers”. I always attended church and have always been a believer. But I haven’t always lived the right life. Flash for­ward to the early 1980’s, St. Louis, Mis­souri. In high school, I started to drift away from attend­ing church due to “teenage years” syn­drome. One day my brother brought home an album (this was before CDs!) by a band called “The Police”. Though I had not been a music fan before, some­thing about the drum­mer made me take notice. That guy (Stew­art Copeland) could really play! I was a sopho­more in high school and two days before Christ­mas, my Dad signed me up for lessons and rented me a set. I went through my les­son book in six weeks, mostly on my own. I was hooked! Drum­ming is my gift from God, with­out a doubt.

In col­lege I met a guy who was start­ing a band, and after sev­eral years and over 20 mem­bers, we found the two other musi­cians who would go along with us to local suc­cess in St. Louis. We played all the hot clubs and were one of the most pop­u­lar and well-paid bands in town. In 1996, after six long years, we decided to retire the band while we were at our peak.

In 2000 I decided to get a dig­i­tal drum­set so I could play in the base­ment and not dis­turb any­one. After Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, I lit­er­ally ran back to the church I had attended as a young­ster. I have been there ever since. When our church stud­ied “The Pur­pose Dri­ven Life”, it hit me…I had to get out of the base­ment and use my gift to help show them the love of God.

Hob­bies– music, movies, old sit­coms, col­lect­ing toy cars, and bab­bling about musi­cal gear.

Favorite food– PIZZA!, Maid-Rite loose meat sand­wiches and Jack in the Box tacos.

Musi­cal Influ­ences– The Police, Mercy Me, Steven Cur­tis Chap­man, The Bea­t­les, Mr. Mis­ter, Beastie Boys and way too many oth­ers to list.

Equip­ment: Vin­tage drums (Lud­wig, Slinger­land). My favorite snare at the moment is a 1976 Lud­wig LM400 Supra­phonic. It’s pit­ted like a teenagers skin, but has what it takes to cut through Stephen’s amp.….