|
|
BiographyName: Kevin Laverty
Styles/Influences: Sandy Nelson, Dave Clark, John Bonham, Ringo Starr Charlie Watts. History: My name is Kevin Laverty, I was born May 15th, 1951 and my disability is Post Polio. I actually missed the vaccine by 3 months, which kind of sucks, but you play the hand that's dealt to you :-) The Polio left me with no use of either leg and a weaker right hand. Also, I am a full time wheelchair user. So after all this the question is "How does this guy play the drums"? Well, let me explain; The drums were actually my 4th instrument after failed attempts at the accordion, trumpet, and guitar. I could never get the fingering down on that damn fretboard :-) At the age of 13 I noticed myself tapping out the beats to the songs on the radio. The Beatles had just hit the scene, plus the whole British invasion thing. I was banging on everything with pencils and was driving my mom crazy. I finally convinced my dad to buy me a practice pad. Anyone who is not familiar with what that is, it is basically just a piece of wood with a round piece of rubber in the middle. It gives you great bounce on your sticks, plus it is very quiet which I believe is why my dad got it for me...lol. After maintaining interest in that for a few months my dad bought me a snare drum and a ride cymbal. That was an awesome day. I can still remember it. Now I actually had 2 different sounding instruments! I would come home from school everyday, go right to my room, crank on the tunes and play along with the likes of Ringo Starr, Charlie Watts, Sandy Nelson, Dave Clark just to name a few. My parents were impressed that I could actually play these two instruments and could keep time. That Christmas I woke up, rolled into the living room and to my surprise there was my first "complete" drumset! It was a 5 piece, pink pearl Kingston set with a hi-hat, crash cymbal, and bass drum (which basically just held my tom as I could not use it because of no use of my legs). It was everything I ever wanted. Now it was really time to develop my playing style. What I did was tune down my floor tom lower than usual and inserted the bass drum hits with my left hand after hitting the snare. So basically my left arm never rested as I went back & forth from the snare to the floor tom. This is how I played until around 1987 when the electronic pads came out. I bought a complete set of Tama electronic drums. Now I could get a pretty good sounding kick drum sound pumping it through 2 bass bottoms with a 15" speaker in each. The only problem I had was that I didn't like the way the electronic snare and toms sounded so I said screw it and went back to my acoustic set and only kept one pad and used it for my kick drum. Today, the technology is great and with my present set up people constantly come up on stage and tell me how good my kit sounds and ask for a demonstration of the kick drum. I am so flattered when they tell me how much they enjoy my playing. It's what keeps me going at the age of 53. Currently, I play in a band called "U GODDA WANNA". We a cover band that plays tunes from Blondie, Melissa Ethridge, Jet, John Mellencamp, Tom Petty, Metallica, The Pretenders, Black Crowes..etc. Check out our website at http://www.ugoddawanna.com for a list of more bands that we cover. ArticlesKevin has appeared in the following articles for other publications: • DailySouthtown.com - "Beating the Odds" by Vickie Snow. Reprinted with permission.MediaVideo #1 & #2 added 03-20-06 Video #1 (wmv)
Video #2 (wmv)
Audio #1 (mp3)
Audio #2 (mp3)
Audio #3 (mp3)
Audio #4 (mp3)
Listen to more Ugoddawanna MP3's at www.ugoddawanna.com Gear
Drums: Tama Rockstar in Black Finish (except where noted)
Cymbals: Zildjian (except where noted)
Hardware & Misc:
I also a Tama rack, Tama cymbal stands, and Rhythm Tech RT8100 Bar Chimes. The Roland PD-6 pad is run through an Alesis DM5 Drum Module, a Rogue 200 Watt Bass Head w/ 7 band equalizer, and two bass bottoms each with a 15" speaker. Heads: All Remo Sticks: Vic Firth 5B Nylon Tip |
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
