right now (it is change)
tough struggles and greater rewards. and drums.
***(Before the essay: This post is for everyone subscribing. If you have the time and the funds, consider throwing some cheese my way to help with the project. I would be eternally greatful. In the future there will be “subscriber only” posts and episodes. For now I am trying out this way so.. we’ll see how it goes).***
One song which has always stuck with me from the first time I heard it was “Right Now” by the band Van Halen*, from the album “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge”, which came out in 1991. Written by Sammy Hagar and Eddie Van Halen, the full sound of the song blew the top off of my skull with its mixture of classical piano, complex linear drumming, guitar work (which sounded like it was forged in a steel factory), warm hard-hitting bass, and topped off with Hagar’s scratchy, powerful screaming vocals, in perfect pitch. The production is as tight and as full as a 90’s stadium rock song can be. The last element that made the song so meaningful was the message.
It was simple, direct, and powerful: All you have is right now. Don’t wait. The influence of this song continues to reproduce itself in my life to this day.
Ever since I could remember I wanted to play the drums. My parents still have video (recorded in Beta-Max) of two-year-old-me, toe-headed and partly covered in tomato sauce from a spaghetti supper, wailing on the kitchen table with a fork and spoon, to “Invisible Touch” by Genesis. Head grooving from left to right, up and down, copying my dad in his mimicking of Phil Collins’s legendary drumming. I remember going to my great uncle’s house in a small town on the edge of Chattanooga watching my cousin and my dad pound the drums to the wailing guitar work of my uncle, playing some Zeppelin, or Molly Hatchet, Aerosmith, or any other number of foot-stomping 70’s anthemic powerhouse rock n’ roll. It was an exciting thing for a kid to see his dad doing something other than working. Dad? In the act of performance? For the sake of the music itself? It was an education, and I wanted to be him, to do that, and as well as he did it.
It was the inception of the creation of a lifelong dream, all of the intangible elements flowing together in my brain, the act of an alchemy of desires and virtue, fueling my actions for the rest of my life (with a badass soundtrack).
Right now.
As a kid I was always attracted to the music my dad listened to. I am not sure if this is true for most kids, or if they gladly throw away the tastes and influences of their parents for something closer to who they think they are as a person, even at a young age. My dad’s taste was mostly directed into one direction, to rock music of his early years; meaning bands like Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Rush, Pink Floyd, etc. For me a kid born in the 80’s, deep diving into the rock music of the 60’s and 70’s gave me a broad albeit rough understanding of the evolution of music from the eyes of a kid. I remember noticing how music changed from guitars, drums, pianos — real instruments, with real musicians, who had real skill- to the music of the 80’s and early 90’s, with the synthesizers and the glam and the drum machines. (Note: of course I was naive in this way of thinking about this, I had no idea the the same bands I had learned to love through my dad’s influence also used these computers to make music, but at that time I saw the world in the medium of music in a vacuum. We do after all, create our own subjective truths and memories, and we spend the rest of our lives having to rationalize, lie for, and eventually, if we grow more mature, admit our errors and correct ourselves).
Of all of the aforementioned bands (and of course many more), I remember during this period my dad playing mostly Van Halen. They were still very much present in the music world, one of the premiere current live shows, and still coming out with music that was both popular and good.
I didn’t know anything about the world of that time, but while all of my friends were listening to the New Kids on the Block and Kris Cross, I was blasting Van Halen in my Sony cassette walkman, as well as my Discman. My dad would put on this album and my sisters and I would listen in the car on our way to Tae-Kwon-Do (my dad air-drumming and pounding on the steering wheel while navigating through traffic), or blasting out of the speakers (which my dad bought from Hong Kong during his time in the Navy) in our living room. My mom never minded the loud music, she would jam out to it just as much as we did. Van Halen, it seemed, was a family band for us. I’ll take that over Pentatonix any day.
Sometimes when we would watch Saturday morning cartoons, we would turn off the sound of the TV and turn up the stereo, making our own soundtrack to the cartoons we loved. Watching X-Men, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Animaniacs to the sounds of Van Halen was a completely new experience (this was way before we knew about Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon/ Wizard of Oz mashup). Blasting “Right Now” when Wolverine was shoving his metal claws into the side of one of Magneto’s Sentinels gave an exciting new perspective on the cartoon, and it fueled my love for the music.
As the years passed my own tastes and interests branched out from the influence my dad’s music had on me. Before mp3 players we brought CD’s or tapes around with us everywhere. Sometimes even with the cases. This meant that you only had enough hand capacity to bring a few CD’s with you everywhere you went (eventually I bought a CD holder where I could bring dozens of CD’s). We didn’t have the luxury of putting thousands of songs on a single device; we had to hone our tastes to certain albums that would serve as the soundtracks for that day. Walking around school with a Sony Walkman or Discman (anti-skip function turned on) wedged between our shorts and barebacks, we became intimately familiar with every element of the albums we loved. Our choices weren’t abundant; they were direct and had impact. We made do with what we had. We became the music we loved; that music developed us. It was just as responsible for our upbringing as our math teachers, or books, or our parents.
We became the music we loved; that music developed us.
When I was around eleven I started mowing lawns around the neighborhood for some cash. I had about three lawns where I would get paid about $20 a cut, and that was good money for a kid my age. Growing up in Atlanta the summers were hot and humid. I would push the mower (there were none of the self-propelled kind) along with the gas can bungee-corded on top, about a quarter mile; cut the yard, then haul it back. Music came along with me.
One Spring while at jury duty my dad met an old work acquaintance who was selling a drum set modeled after a kit that Neal Peart (drummer from Rush) had in the 1980’s. A full set of red Slingerlands, double bass drums, with Zildjian cymbals. He said that if we gave him $1000, he would sell them to me, and would not advertise to anyone else. Dad came home that day with a photo of the drum set. I was entranced; that drum set was all I ever wanted.
Soon after, we were talking with our neighbor across the street, Frank, and we told him about the drum set. Frank looked at me and made a deal: If you mow his lawn when it needs it, without having to ask, and he’ll pay $100 a month.
I tacked the photo up on my desk where I could look at it every day, my carrot on the stick.
If I went back to my neighborhood now and I saw Frank’s lawn, it could be that it isn’t very large. But as an eleven year old kid, it was as big as Texas. Each mow would take about two hours. With that drum set in my sights, that yard could have been two football fields, I didn’t care. It made no difference. I was there every two weeks, shirt off, Spider-Man hat backwards on my head, aforementioned Walkman tucked away in my shorts, going from line to line, row to row, cutting down that grass, and “Right Now” was the soundtrack to my work. Along with other newer bands such as Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana, and Soundgarden, I was growing in my musical tastes just as fast as I was learning how to work.
After ten months I had the money. We made the exchange and my dad’s colleague brought the drums to the house and set them up in the living room, where they remained for about a week. There was the physical manifestation of what I had worked for, the fruits of my labor.
After that week I broke the set down to about half of its size and set them up in my room. There was barely enough space to walk around between the bed and the drums. And it was everything I had ever wanted.
Looking back, I now know that I was lucky. And luck, as my dad always told me, is the intersection between preparation and opportunity. I was prepared to do the work, anything it took, and I had the opportunity to buy a set of drums. I will not claim that it was the song alone which propelled me into wanting to cut grass or to endure in any kind of arduous endeavor. But as I grew older and listened to the lyrics, I started to understand and internalize the meaning of the song. It can sound commonplace in our age of superficial Zen belief, but the idea of “Right Now” is in fact a powerful war cry to ourselves, to realize that we have the power to change our circumstances. “It’s your tomorrow”, Hagar sings, “It’s everything”.
This was the first great lesson I had experienced in working for what I had earned, and I have never forgotten its importance. From time to time I listen to this song, even play it on the drums, and I think about how I have changed from a boy to a man. Now with my own sons, I can teach them from this example and along with many others about the importance of meaning behind work, having dreams, and living right now in the present.
There will never be a more important time than right now.
(*Note: In the war of opinions in the Hagar vs. Lee Roth debate, my opinion is of the sort that they are two different bands. Van Halen with David Lee Roth are undoubtedly one of the most influential bands ever, with loud, fast, expertly-crafted party music at the central point of their focus. Van Halen with Hagar are a refined group of professionals with meaningful songwriting at the center of their focus. So it’s okay to like both. Fuck the naysayers).
(Original post was on Medium)
I can picture all of this. Love you bro. We had an amazing childhood. Thanks mom and dad!