“Shit.”
Maddox just laughed.
As it turned out, they weren’t kidding about Taylor waiting for us at the music store. It was a high-end store I had drooled over a few times as I had walked from jazz gig to spoken word gig to make some extra cash over the years.
I stared out the window. “Guys. I can’t afford this place…”
“We’re writing it off as a band business expense,” Dietrich said. “So, if you look at a price tag, I will stab you with a drumstick. Get what you need, get what will make you sound amazing. Something that will make Grig Petrovsky green with envy that he’s not as good as you are.”
Walking in, Taylor gave me a bro hug and pulled me toward the back. “What do you like? What brands?”
“Pearl, maple.” My answer was almost without thinking. “For large spaces, anyway. I’m just wondering if I should think about a full acrylic set for the stage.”
“Pearl has a stadium masterworks.” Taylor grinned. “Come on. They have a set of the masterworks here. Studio, but if you like it, they can get the stadium.”
“You’re going to need both,” Rand said, flicking his fingernail on a Zildjian cymbal.
“What?”
“After the tour we have that album to make,” Maddox said. “We flipped the order because we didn’t have you yet. Did you think this was a one and done thing? It’s not. You’re our drummer. Get yourself some drums.”
I stared at the drums around me. I had a goddamned degree in music, and I was going to put it to use. "Do you want just loud or sonorous?"
"There's a difference?" Rand asked.
"There is!" Taylor cawed.
"How big are the venues?" I asked.
"Indoor arenas," Dietrich said. "All of them."
"Do you mike the drums?"
"Do what now?" Ora asked
"Yes," Taylor said. "They need to resonate. Not classical drums."
"Right." I stared at the gorgeous maple Pearls in front of me, and then up at the salesman. "Can I try them?"
"These are the stadium versions."
"Fine."
He stepped back and motioned me to the seat. Taylor hurried over with the sticks he'd plucked from the wall and I tapped the snare experimentally.
Good God, that was beautiful. I tapped out a drum roll and nearly wept at the sound. A rich tenor trill followed the sticks as I bounced them off the drumhead, filling the room with a thrilling sound.
I looked at the little audience I had and took a deep breath, then let loose into a drum song I had written years before, and played on occasion at clubs.
The pure adrenaline of running the sticks over the drums was like nothing else. The very first time I made the sticks bounce in a drum roll, I was hooked. And I could get lost in the rhythm and the sounds so easily. Anyone who thought drums couldn’t make music never really listened.
“Oh, my God…” Rand whispered as the cymbal faded away in the room.
“Wrap them up,” Maddox said. “Just…wrap them up. And get us a studio set as well. Deliver it to Sonic Boom for when we get back.”
“Are these all the drums you need?” Taylor asked. “Nothing else, unusual, more?”
“I’m fine with this,” I said.
