Fairspin - From school band to conservatory

Forum 3 days ago

Fairspin - From school band to conservatory

I've loved playing drums for as long as I can remember 🥁. According to my mother, I started playing drums before I started walking. One such childhood story is that when my mom feed me, after I ate the food, I started drumming on the little metal plate. Everyone had a lot of fun with it, and although there were signs, they didn't think drumming would become my lifelong passion.

I got my first drum kit for my fifth birthday and I used to beat it with great force to the delight of the neighbours. I played it until it fell apart. Then, when I started school, my parents gave me a slightly more serious drum kit. And from the third grade on, I was finally able to take drum lessons. A musician helped me learn, a family friend who had a grunge band. I remember I really loved going to drum lessons.

And when I was thirteen or fourteen I formed my first band, Fairspin. There were four of us in the band, two of my classmates and an older boy who also went to our school. We also played at the end of year celebrations, and were even invited to the Autumn Ball and smaller town events 🎤. Fairspin ran for about four years, then the boys and I split up after school. Everyone went to college, we didn't stay in town.

The first serious attempts

I entered music college with some experience, but my determination was bigger. Music theory gave me a lot of extra information, and I could finally put into context what I had instinctively been doing. I got on well with my classmates and the teachers liked me. When I finally got to the point where I could play music, it made up for everything 🎶.

It wasn't long before I was a member of a music band again. I joined an existing band who needed a drummer. The band was called Rabona, because two of the band members played in the university football team as well as playing music. The three guys were a year above me.

I quickly integrated into the band, and became friends with the guys. We cheered for the same teams, went to the same bars, and because they were a year older than me, they helped me a lot with my studies. We played melodic metal, a bit more abstract music compared to my old grunge band. But my tastes have changed over the years, so I could say that the boys and I really found each other.

Real music and true friendship

About six months after I joined, we started playing more serious concerts. We performed at university events, summer festivals, county events, and we got paid for it. True, not enough to support a four-member band, but we never had to pay extra or something.

We always had some money left over after the concerts. We didn't take it out, but used it to keep our band, Rabona going. We used the money to buy fuel, cables, amplifiers and for tuning our instruments 🎸 and what not.

Things were going better and better, and the local press started to take an interest in us. We gave interviews on local radio and were even invited to appear on public television. And the girls loved us. I thought, as much as I loved playing the drums, I'd never have anything to do with stardom. After the concerts in the county came shows all over the country, and then we got our first invitation to play abroad.

The first show abroad - a straight road to fame

When we heard that we had been invited to one of the biggest music festivals in Italy, we couldn't believe it. You could say that a long cherished dream had come true. Fortunately, we had months to prepare ourselves. We had enough time to rehearse, our instruments were in order, we just had to practice. By then we had two albums out, and we had put together the material for the concert from the songs on those albums.

There was also an improvisation part, as anyone who knew and loved us knew that there was always an improvisation part in the Rabona concerts. We would never miss it. And our fans love it too, it's actually the part where they completely drop their minds and give themselves over to the music in body and soul.

We took the preparation process very seriously, and when the moment came, we were huge on stage. Unbelievably, thousands of people were there, ecstatic, dancing and singing with us ❤️. It was an unforgettable experience for me, even though it's not like me at all, I was moved to tears. After the concert we signed autographs, took photos and were interviewed by the local press.

We didn't get carried away with the fame. We successfully graduated from university and I'm really proud of us. We've been playing music ever since, and we'll see you at world-class music festivals and at the graduation party of my small town high school.