Beating the Odds

by Vickie Snow

Reprinted with permission from DailySouthtown.com

July 8, 2007

After smacking the skins to 22 songs by the likes of Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, drummer Kevin Laverty starts singing, too, without sounding one bit out of breath.

You never slow down, you never grow old.

The Tom Petty lyrics are appropriate for Laverty, a 56-year-old Burbank resident who picked up drumsticks for the first time at age 13. With combed-back white hair, a sleeveless black shirt and tattooed arms, Laverty sports a rockabilly look and a boyish charm that makes you feel like an old friend within minutes of meeting him. As he sings, his bandmates step to the side of the impossibly tiny stage at Rolling Lanes in Countryside. For the first time this Saturday night, the sparse crowd gets a good look at the guy behind the scaled-down drum kit and they realize the real kicker isn't that the drummer actually can carry a tune, but that he is sitting in a wheelchair and playing drums without using his feet. "I had no idea," said Anthony Parrino, of Western Springs, likening Laverty to soldiers who return from combat with missing limbs or other injuries and manage to bounce back. "It shows people look at their abilities, not their disabilities," Parrino said, nodding toward the stage. "They just have fun with each other up there." "For what I imagine he has to go through, I couldn't do it," said Bob Dwyer, from Chicago's Bridgeport community. "He's an unbelievable drummer and he sings great, too."

Kevin Laverty formed the rock band U Godda Wanna almost 20 years ago. Today, he books at least two shows a month. Playing drums is physically taxing for any drummer. But Laverty has endured constant pain since he was 2 years old. He knows he'll have hell to pay the day after a gig. But when he's drumming on stage, Laverty not only gets distracted from the pain, he gets to fuel his childhood dream. "At shows people will approach me and tell me what an inspiration I am to them," Laverty says. "That just makes my night."

In 1953, three months before a vaccine hit the market, Laverty contracted the polio virus, a contagious disease that attacks the nervous system and causes muscle weakness and paralysis. "My grandma found me in the crib, and I only could move my eyes," he recalled. Too fragile and off-balance to ever walk with crutches, Laverty has relied on a wheelchair ever since. He has never-ending pain -- mostly in his back -- and it's worse on damp, cold days. He takes four muscle relaxers a day to prevent arthritic inflammation in his neck from restricting bloodflow to his brain and causing dizzy spells. "Ironically, I feel the best when playing a gig and getting a nice sweat going," Laverty said. "But it takes me about a day or so to recover." Those days are worth it, though, considering what he's gone through to be able to drum.

Growing Up on the Drums

By age 9, Laverty's spine was so deformed that it pressed against his heart and surgeons had to fuse it using part of his tibia. He spent the next year in a body cast that started at his head -- with holes for just his face and ears. Handles extended from the sides of the cast. "That's how I got around," Laverty said, "being carried like a piece of luggage." Over the next decade, he underwent 15 more surgeries, including a second spinal fusion, and became somewhat of a local celebrity. He received cards from strangers and hospital visits from White Sox celebrities Minnie Minoso and Bill Veeck.

Influenced by Ringo Starr, John Bonham and Dave Clark, Laverty started playing drums in 1964 with just a snare and cymbal. His parents gave him his first complete drum set, a five-piece, pink pearl Kingston, the next Christmas. He didn't care that it had a bass drum, or kick drum, the largest drum that rests on the floor and is activated by the right foot. With no use of his legs, Laverty learned to improvise. Things got easier in 1986 when a hand-activated bass drum pad hit the market. Laverty, who has worked since age 19 and was profiled in Modern Drummer magazine in 2006, uses his stronger left hand to play the dinner plate-sized drum pad, a Roland PD-6 Single Zone Pad, to be specific. It's powered through a 200-watt bass head and two bass bottoms with 15-inch speakers. "People don't see a kick drum, but they hear one," Laverty said. "Other than that, it's a standard drum kit." Laverty's current set also includes a snare drum, three toms and five Zildjian and Sabian cymbals. Because his right hand is very weak, Laverty winds a rubber band around his index and second fingers, with a drumstick in between, for added stability. In case he drops a stick during a gig, Laverty tucks a spare under his left thigh.

Loyal Bandmates

The rest of U Godda Wanna -- vocalists Kevin Douglas and Jenni Rook, guitarists Tom Sansone and Mike Jula and bass player Eric Reicher -- store much of the band's gear in Laverty's second garage and rehearsal space. The other guys load the equipment into Laverty's white Ram 1500 van, which has a remote start for the power wheelchair ramp and a license plate holder that reads: "I'd rather be playing my drums." At the recent gig in Countryside, the guys also had to lift Laverty, who weighs about 125 pounds, and his wheelchair onto the 18-inch-high stage. From then on, two hours before show time, Laverty was basically crammed into the back corner of the pie-shaped stage as the band buzzed around him arranging power cords, microphone stands, amplifiers, guitar pedals and other gear. Laverty adjusted his cymbals at the right height as Rook crouched in front of him and threaded more cords around steel rods supporting his drumset. "I plug things in wrong all the time, but Kevin's been really patient," Rook, 25, said. "He's such a positive person and very much the driving force behind the band."

Douglas, who founded U Godda Wanna with Laverty, said people attending the band's gigs often don't realize Laverty is sitting in a wheelchair until the second or third sets. "Then they're astonished and amazed," Douglas said. "But when people walk in the bar, they hear the band and that's the farthest thing from their mind, that he's not playing with his feet. He doesn't miss a beat."

Reicher, of Evergreen Park, said Laverty's drumming style inspired him to join the band in 1992. "He doesn't beat the death out of the drums," Reicher said, intensely waving his arms in the air. "He just plays them like a drummer should."

Jula, of Morris, recently joined U Godda Wanna. He saw the band's ad and listened to sound clips on its Web site. Like Rook, he didn't realize Laverty played drums in a wheelchair until the audition. "It was one of the most beautiful things I ever saw in my life," Jula said, as he stood on stage between sets at Rolling Lanes. "To see somebody go that extra mile to do what they want to do is fantastic."

Four decades of playing in various bands, Laverty still gets emotional upon hearing such kind words. "You really caught me off guard," he tells Jula, fidgeting with a drumstick and then shaking his hand. "That makes me feel really good."

Sharing the Stage

Modesty can be a hard thing to come by in musician circles. Laverty easily admits he tends to hog the attention from his grandkids. His wife, Chris Laverty, even prefers to travel separately in order to get quality time with the grandkids in Texas. But the family has been able to share the spotlight on stage. Laverty's grandson Dan Cunningham, a student at Andrew High School, played guitar with U Godda Wanna last summer during a block party. "I was nervous," said Dan, 15, a big grin revealing braces. "But we got a good response." Laverty's daughter Kim Stefanek, also of Burbank, sang with U Godda Wanna for six years. "That was probably one of the best chapters of my life," she said. "I'd ride with him to all the shows. We'd sing on the way. He's a big jokester."

After gigs, Laverty would be so exhausted from playing drums, she said, that he'd have trouble getting into the van. But he would make sort of a comedy routine of it, "as I'd be trying to not pee in my pants laughing so hard," Stefanek said. Laverty's oldest daughter Tracey Turcotte, of Tinley Park, said he was treated like a celebrity, not for his disability but because of his rock star credentials. "Growing up, it was huge that my dad was in a rock band," she said. "He played our graduation parties. Our house was the house." Neighbors gathered at their home in Chicago's Scottsdale neighborhood for Wiffle ball games and Pictionary tournaments. "We'd do MTV-like videos and stand on dad's amps," she said. "He's a regular dad who did everything and does everything."

Life With the Family

The daughters share plenty of fond childhood memories about camping and road trips. Sad memories are few and far between. For Turcotte, the saddest was perhaps shopping for her first bicycle. They arrived at Kmart only to realize his wheelchair didn't fit around the metal posts out front, bicycle rack-like structures common in the days long before the American with Disabilities Act. "I felt so badly for him because he was so excited to take me," she said, "but he couldn't get in the store." Still today, Laverty deals with problems typical of anyone with a disability. Traveling, for one, isn't so easy. His motorized wheelchair has been damaged by luggage handlers. Grocery shopping is another obstacle for Laverty and his wife, who also has post-polio syndrome and uses a crutch. They pay Peapod to deliver groceries to the ranch house they've shared for 18 years. "He's my Bon Jovi," Chris Laverty says of her high school sweetheart. She'd spent her Saturday nights back then riding a bus with a girlfriend from the North Side to the South Side to hang out at Laverty's band rehearsals. They dated for five years and were married in 1971. It didn't matter they both had polio. "I don't think we even worried about that factor," Chris Laverty said. "But a lot of people thought we couldn't handle three kids."

Whether it's household chores or playing drums or shooting hoops with the grandkids in his driveway, Laverty focuses on having fun and achieving his goals rather than complaining about his disability. "If you put your mind to it and want it bad enough, anything is possible," Laverty said. "When I started learning the drums in 1964, who knew that 43 years later I would still be the drummer in a rock'n'roll band?"

Vickie Snow may be reached at vsnow@dailysouthtown.com or (708) 633-5981.