1. What was the first musical instrument you attempted to play?
2. Do you still play that instrument?
3. What's the theme song to your pre-gig routine?
4. What are your three essential albums from three distinct genres?
5. The weirdest thing I've ever seen from the stage is?
Full disclosure: Aaron’s a former employee of this magazine. And while he was/is a fine writer, he’s taken his major talent – drumming like a mofo – to Nashville. It is there that he hooked up with the amazing Heypenny. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet and email, I got with Distler recently so he could participate in this month’s Soundboard:
1. I really wanted to play guitar. I remember being out on the playground in like 4th grade at St. Agnes. I was hanging out with Andy Moore (The Dang Heathens) and he was talking about this tape he had, it was GnR Lies and we talked about Wolfman Jack and all I could think about was how I wanted to play guitar. That never happened though. I got an alto sax instead.
2. Obviously not. I couldn’t get anything to come out of the instrument that didn’t sound like a duck being bludgeoned to death. So I switched to trumpet. That was horrible too. I ended up on drums. I got the little practice pad/bell kit thing in the 5th grade. By 6th grade, I’d moved to the east side and was attending Plaza, who had an amazing jazz band. I remembered watching them play Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon” at a pep assembly and the drummer, Wes Stoneman, and bassist, Brett Basham got to take a crazy extended solo and I was sold. At that point, I begged for real drums. I couldn’t handle hitting pots, pans and pillows any longer. A couple of months later, I had my first kit in the basement and it’s been glorious ever since.
3. Oh jeez. I have no clue. Maybe the theme song from CHiPS? Seriously though, I don’t think I have, or ever will have a theme song or a pre-gig routine for that matter. Usually I just want to hang out with friendly faces in whatever town we’re in.
4. The Beach Boys Pet Sounds, Neutral Milk Hotel In The Aeroplance Over the Sea and maybe I’m playing it safe here, but Miles Davis Kind of Blue.
5. There was a hemp festival in Vandalia, Michigan that Olive Lucy played and it was literally a mixture of 2000 metalheads and hippies all converging onto this farm. There was a “naked hippie slide” and all that jazz. Anyhow, we ended up letting like 30 people onto stage with us to dance around during the last few songs. There was an old man with a huge walking stick and a big headdress thing on, completely nude, shaved junk, looked like a shrunken monkey head. That was pretty gross. There was also this whacked out Asian girl who may or may not have tried to molest Fish while he was playing trombone. That didn’t go over well. She actually ended up falling off the stage.
6. Oh man, looking back over the years, I don’t think that I’ve ever done anything weird. Being a drummer, you’re always thrown in the back, hidden by drums. I don’t think there’s anything I’ve ever done on stage that sticks out as being particularly weird. Maybe I should work on that.
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Photo Courtesy of Aaron Distler
