I got my first drum kit when I was about 9 years old. It was Christmas Eve, and the family was in the living room about to open gifts. My dad asked me to go downstairs to get him a beer out of the beer fridge. I had no idea what was coming. Behind the bar was a red-speckled four-piece drum kit.

I stopped, and behind me were my mom and dad, who were waiting for my reaction. I was a bit stunned as they said, “Merry Christmas!” The memory is a little faded, but we pulled it out from behind the bar and set it up in the middle of the rec room.

One thing that remains clear, though, is the sound of the kick drum; it was loud and reverberant. I didn’t know I had to add a pillow to dampen the sound. Like every other kid with his first kit, I did a lot of drum rolls on the tom-toms. Mom and Dad watched as I clumsily made noise on the kit.

I played in elementary, junior high, and high school concert bands and jazz bands in the following years. Other genres I played were rock, blues, pop, and old-time music. I started playing in bars when I was sixteen. The bands I played in wrote originals and also played covers. I toured with various bands around Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Northwestern Ontario. So, playing the drums started that Christmas and continued into my mid-twenties. At that time, I switched focus to a film and television career.

That is the back story and context I want to share in this post.

One day, when I was about fifteen, my dad and I talked about music after supper. He said something to me that, to this day, I question what he meant. He said, “All music is the same.” Being a know-it-all hard-rock drumming teenager, I scoffed at him and said, “No, it’s not. It is not all the same.” Then, I left the room and lay on the couch in the living room without allowing him to elaborate on his statement. The conversation started and ended there.

After his passing, I regretted not reviving that conversation. It was an opportunity when he tried to find common ground and connect with me, and I shut him down.

Today, I like to think he was trying to get me to consider the spiritual nature of playing music. Meaning that all music is the same in the sense that no matter the genre, it comes from a place of surrender. A place where beauty happens when you trust your abilities, forget the technical stuff and let the sound flow freely from your instrument and your mind, body and soul. To me, in that sense, all music is the same.

What I would do to have that conversation with him now.

“Shuffle Step” is one of the first full-length songs I will release in his memory.

More to come.

Love to you,

Brian