Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
#319: Zoro (Drummer and Percussionist) (pt. 1 of 2)
Today we released part one of our interview with Zoro. Known by musicians around the world as the “Minister of Groove,” he’s one of the world’s most respected and award-winning drummers. For more than thirty years, Zoro has been consistently voted the #1 R&B drummer and clinician by music industry publications such as Modern Drummer, Drum! Magazine, and Rhythm Magazine.
He’s toured and recorded with celebrated musicians, including Lenny Kravitz, Bobby Brown, Frankie Valli, New Edition, and Jody Watley. In addition to performing, he’s a teacher, author, and an inspirational speaker who’s worked with organizations such as Compassion International, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and the Head Start Organization.
You won't want to miss this uplifting story of a teen on the edge of homelessness who overcame adversity to become a performing artist who uses his experiences to help others reach their goals! https://zorothedrummer.com/ and https://www.zoroministries.org/about-zoro/
Hi everyone, nick Petrella here. This episode is sponsored by Steve Weiss Music, percussion specialist since 1961. If you're looking for a rare piece of sheet music, a specialty gong or anything percussion, steve Weiss Music will have it. Please visit steveweissmusic. com or click their link in the show notes. That's S-T-E-V-E-W-E-I-S-S music. com our percussion series.
Zoro:Sponsor.
Announcer:Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making Art Work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. Any reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heise and Nick.
Andy Heise:Petrella Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. My name is Andy Heise.
Nick Petrella:And I'm Nick Petrella. Zoro is on the podcast today. Known by musicians around the world as the Minister of Groove, he's one of the world's most respected and award-winning drummers. For more than 30 years, Zoro has been consistently voted the number one R&B drummer and clinician by music industry publications such as Modern Drummer, drum Magazine and Rhythm Magazine. He's toured and recorded with renowned musicians, including Lenny Kravitz, bobby Brown, frankie Valli, new Edition and Jody Watley. In addition to performing, he's a teacher, author and an inspirational speaker who's worked with organizations such as Compassion International, big Brothers, big Sisters of America and the Head Start organization. As with all our guests, we'll have his websites in the show notes, so please check them out to see all the great things he's doing. Thanks for coming on the podcast Z.
Zoro:I'm happy to be here. How are you guys doing Great?
Nick Petrella:Okay, well, can you give us a brief overview from your childhood in Compton to what you consider your big break?
Zoro:I would say my big break was in 1983, playing with the lead singer from Earth Wind Fire, philip Bailey. So Philip is still an original member, still in the group. He's the one with the beautiful falsetto, who sang September, shining, star, all the hits you know. And Earth Wind Fire growing up was my absolute favorite group. I used to actually have physical dreams about meeting them Like I would literally physical dreams, day, daydreams where I would imagine myself on a plane and I just happened to be sitting next to them and I meet them and they'd befriend me, and so it was a fantasy in a way. But, um, but that was my first, uh big break because that that gave me, uh, you know, and he did all that stuff like like Easy Lover and all that with Phil Collins, but that gave me like a lot of respect and street cred in LA. There were other bigger artists at the time, but every band loved Earth Wind Fire, like every musician, like they love Steely Dan. Earth Wind Fire you know what I mean, it was a musician's band, so that gave me like a lot of cred. And then, two years later is when I landed the gig that really blew everything open for me, which was the new edition and out of that they were like the jackson five of the 80s and out of that was bobby brown, bell, bib devoe, bb, you know all those yeah, uh, johnny gill, ralph tresvant, but yeah, 83 was sort of the beginning of that and then 85 was sort of what like blew it wide open and that's coming up on almost exactly 40 years ago.
Zoro:I got that gig. I got it in January of 1985 as I started rehearsing with them and yeah, when I look back, it's been so. My career really has been, if you count Philip Bailey in 83, it's been like about 42, 43 years. But I started playing professional gigs, whatever you want to call it. I played in a cover band that went down to score a gig at Disneyland in 1980. And that's kind of so I guess it's been 45 years that I've been doing this. Yeah, 45 years, that's unbelievable.
Nick Petrella:And later on we're going to get into the topic of longevity and things like that, so we'll unpack that a bit. Yeah.
Andy Heise:Yeah, Would you mind walking us through? So as a kid, how did you get interested in the drum set and playing and music and sort of walking us up to that 1980 moment going down to Disneyland?
Zoro:Yeah, I have this opinion, or I have this idea that the things that we end up wanting to do, they're already inside of us when we're born. It's not like suddenly you have a rhythmic ability, it's like you're born with it. Whatever you're drawn to is sort of in your DNA and I think the only thing that has to happen is that you have to be around it and it sparks that magnetic pull in you that wants to come out. So let's say, if you wanted to be an actor, if you have an actor inside of you, all you really have to do is see somebody acting and you're drawn to movies or theater or Broadway and you go. You can imagine yourself doing that. It's a God-given desire, because we don't give ourselves abilities and talents uh, we're just, we just discover them. Uh, we don't really do anything to get them, we just discover them and then we decide to develop them. And so for me, growing up in Compton, california, also known as the, I grew up around a lot of R&B music and then my family, my mother, was from Mexico City and she played like.
Zoro:She loved Frank Sinatra, big Band and Tony Bennett Frank Sinatra, I mean, and Dean Martin and then she loved her native mariachi music. You know from Mexico and in my household everybody loved different music. There was seven brothers and sisters so I listened to whatever they listened to, which was a lot of different stuff. It was the classic period of rock and roll and jazz and big band and pop. So I grew up with a lot of music styles that I liked and then I also, when I was about seven years old, I was taken to a concert and that really kind of sparked things. The neighbors saw that I had a propensity for rhythm and was always making noise with my hands on things and they took me to see the Temptations and Diana Ross and the Supremes in concert in Long Beach, which was a big Motown act. It was 1968.
Zoro:I think I was like six years old and after that night I came back just banging on the car seats and the next day I made a ghetto drum set, which a ghetto drum set would be like almond roca cans, folgers coffee cans, some Tupperware, some salad spoons, put it all in my red radio flyer wagon, drove that in the middle of the street in Compton Boulevard, put on the transistor radio with Wolfman Jack to the soul station. I think it was 11.90 or something, and I just jammed along with soul music and people started throwing coins in my wagon and that's when I thought, hey, this is the racket I want to be in, that's right, uh. And so it sparked it in the most uh, uh, pure, innocent way and then also, uh, in the most authentic way that, like, I didn't have any drums, so I just made do with what I have, which is what you would do if you were in the middle of africa and you and you see kids play on buckets, and so if that rhythmic desire is in you, you're going to find a way for it to come out, and so that's kind of what sparked it. But I wouldn't really get to play the actual drums until I was 16.
Zoro:When I was 10, we had a drastic life change. We moved from the urban jungle of la compton to a rural town in oregon called grant's, and Grant's Pass was like. It was like going from, like the sitcom, the 70s sitcom, sanford and Son, which is filmed in LA, and then going to Little House on the Prairie or the Waltons. It was totally another world. But up there, at 10, my mother bought me a Mickey Mouse drum set, literally Mickey on the bass drum, but it was paper heads. It was a toy from the Sears catalog. It was $9.99. I destroyed it Christmas afternoon but it put me in touch with that idea of and then I tried to get in the school band program every year after that and I was turned down every year because they said they have too many drummers already, they didn't need any drummers. So it wasn't until I was 16 that I actually played a real set of drums and my career started completely by accident or fate, as you would have it.
Zoro:I took an after-school job in my sophomore year in high school. It was a two-hour after-school job, the only job I could find, and I was the custodian at my own high school. I was the janitor. So I was literally the janitor at my high school. It was a humbling job. A lot of the jocks would make fun of me and call me all kinds of names and stuff. But at the end of the job, the last 20 minutes, my job was to clean the band room. So while I clean and vacuum the band room, put away the sheet music, put away the clothes, things and vacuum and all that then I would sneak on the drums. Now I never took a lesson. I didn't own any drums, I never played a real drum set, but there were sticks on the drum set and I would save the last 10 minutes for me just wailing on the drums.
Zoro:Um, so then one day my fate changed because the band director was in his office with his door closed, which he was never there. And then he came in and startled me and said hey, what are you doing? And I said I'm sorry, I'm just done cleaning, just wait right there. So he goes and gets another guy and of course I think he's going to get my boss clarence and fire me. But he comes back with another guy and he goes do what you were doing right there, do what you're doing again. So I did it and they looked at each other and they hemmed and hawed and they were were like kid, you got a real gift, you got real talent. He goes, we need you in all the school bands. The other guy was the swing choir director. He goes, I need you in the swing choir. We need you in the concert band, the marching band, the stage band.
Zoro:So I got in the school bands because I was a janitor at my high school. I couldn't get in the program the legitimate way, because every year I was turned down and then I just decided to stop trying because they're not going to say no every year. And uh, I never took a lesson and I I wouldn't say I was great, but obviously I could play. I could play from day one. From day one I had an ability and they saw it and enlisted me in all the school bands and that's where it started. So I was a very late starter. That was 1978. By 83, I was playing with Philip Bailey, so that was like five years. And a couple years later I was in working. By 1979, 80, I was in working bands in Oregon. Yeah, but that's, it was the craziest. That whole scene is like a scene out of a movie like Good Will Hunting.
Zoro:That's what I was just thinking it's a crazy thing, but it just goes to show that fate and destiny can be a very strong thing. I always felt like I was put in this world with a purpose, that God put me in this world for a purpose, and I've been living those multiple purposes out most of my life. One of them was to be a drummer, one of them was to be a speaker, one was to be a teacher and one was to be a writer. So those are the expressions that I was given to make a difference with was to be a writer. So those are the expressions that I was given to make a difference with, and somehow, against all odds, because every one of them has been an impossible dream, against all odds. I mean, to get my memoir that was just published, maria Scarf, was an impossible journey. To get a big gig was an impossible journey. To be a teacher at a college level, but yet I didn't. I never had a teaching degree and I never graduated from music school. I mean, everything I've done is like impossible really, and so I think of it as one destiny the grace of God combined with a kid who had an unstoppable work, ethic and faith, like there's a role we all play in our future, even those of us that are handed less opportunities than others. In other words, I feel like it's God's design for me to do these things, but they're not going to just happen without my involvement and without my faith and without my perseverance. But the gifts, I had them from day one. So it wasn't like I did anything to acquire these gifts, I just simply developed.
Zoro:I have this saying like mankind, we actually create nothing. We have never created anything in this universe. We create nothing. We have never created anything in this universe. We create nothing. What we do is we construct from what's already there. So, in other words, like who of us can say, oh, I created rhythm, I created these rhythms, rhythms in the universe, it's in the DNA of mankind. So we are actually creators of zero. We're constructors. Like if I look at my ring, you know, like somebody made this ring out of materials that were already in the earth. We're construction workers, but the raw materials God gave them to mankind and we form from those materials. We make beautiful things, but we never made air, we never made atoms, we never made music.
Zoro:Like quincy jones used to tell me he goes. You know, he goes when I make a record. You know he goes, I, we do the best we can and he goes. But then you got to leave room for god. You got to leave room for that magic that you just can't even figure out. How it happened. That groove just came out, incredible.
Zoro:And then he also said this he goes harmony and rhythm. We understand the construction of he goes melody. He goes, it's straight from God. Nobody knows where a melody comes from, it just comes into your head, it flies into your head. So there's a lot of mystery in terms of what we do creatively. And there's, and then there's the part we understand but nobody understands.
Zoro:How do we, how do we hear music? And all of a sudden you hear a hundred piece orchestra and you write it out like, I mean, it's a, it's a gift, you know? Yeah, so I, I've just been kind of, I've worked hard to develop the gift, but mostly for the purpose of trying to make a difference and not just to be a great drummer or a great writer or a speaker for my own benefit, but to benefit others. Because there's two ways you can do any of this stuff you either live a life of self or you live a life of service. If you live a life of self, you view all of these things in a way of how can I get the world to give me stuff and how can I get the world to suck up to me? But if you look at it as a gift and it's just passing through, you look at it as service, you go. How can I use all that I have to impart things and encouragement, inspiration and hope and love to other people? And also through when people meet you that are fans of yours, like I've seen and I won't name them because it's uh, but I've seen world-renowned drummers that were so arrogant and stuck up that when the kids came up to them they totally blew them off and I saw the sting in the kids faces or in their heart when they walked away and I thought god, that's such a misuse of that gift. And I've seen other people, like my friend, steve gad, who's I've been friends with since 1985, 40 years and I've seen him just, he's so humble and so gentle and so non-assuming that I've seen him inspire youions of drummers and musicians. Because of the kindness the gift hadn't changed. He still is who he is, he still did what he did. But that's the difference between how you use that gift. Sadly, a lot of the people that I grew up loving because I'm 62 now I mean those guys are 80s and we've lost lots and lots.
Zoro:So I mean you're here and then you're gone. It's so weird. It's like you make this racket and this impact, you do all these incredible. I was just listening to Buddy Rich yesterday and I just started on some old Buddy Rich and I was like God, he was a force to be reckoned with, like his playing was so insane and I to be reckoned with like his. His playing was so insane and I just kind of go here's buddy, and he did all these things and like the music he made was incredible, the big band arrangements, and then, poof, one day he's just not here anymore.
Zoro:Yeah, it's very, it's a very weird thing. You could be here and then you're gone. So it's like, and so people never really think about that. But then you got to ponder like what, what is this all about? And what am I trying to do while I'm here? Because you could be so short-sighted that you don't see the big picture of the whole thing and you don't realize one day you're going to be gone. So then what really matters in the end is the people you've affected. That's the only thing you're going to take with you.
Nick Petrella:Well, that's really true. I mean, I can remember a drummer that you would know been on a lot of recordings, maybe he was having a bad day. A kid went up to him. I just happened to be standing right there. A kid went up to him and said, can I get your autograph? And he was actually kind of rude and said no. And then you think you know how did that impact that kid. Maybe that kid wanted to do something. Now he's like man, maybe not right. Yeah.
Zoro:Anyway, no, it's true, and I've seen it too at the PAS shows and the NAMM shows, and you just kind of go wow, what a missed opportunity. Most of our lives, all of us, are shaped by words, by words we've either said to ourselves or words other people said to us, positive and negative. Most of our lives are shaped by words. So I always say you know, people are one sentence away from doing something extraordinary with their life or one sentence away from committing suicide. When I was 17, I would think, yeah, I was 17,. Right after I started I had been playing about a year One of my favorite jazz fusion groups at the time. There were many, but one of them was a group called the Jeff Lorber Fusion and they were a jazz fusion group from Portland Oregon but they were international and out of that group was a sax player named Kenny Gorlick, who later became Kenny G, but when he was in the Jeff Lorber Fusion they were just a funky soul jazz fusion band with groove up, the yin-yang, but really pocket fusion. But anyway, they were one of my favorites. I had a few of their albums and I went to the concert in Eugene, oregon. At that time I was living in Eugene for my senior year and I went to this little hotel lobby not lobby the ballroom. They would rent out the ballroom and do the concert. And I worked my way backstage and I wrote a little letter to the drummer and was going to have the front desk deliver it to him. When he came and he just happened to walk up His name was Dennis Bradford and when he walked up I said, oh, I've been writing this letter to you, I'm one of your biggest fans, or whatever. And he took a liking to me, you know. And then he and the bass player were rooming together and they invited me and my brother well, why don't you just come out and hang out with us and come to the sound check? So we hung out in their room and they played us the whole entire cassette of the new album that wasn't out yet. It was called Wizard Island and it's a wicked record. So they played it and then they took us to the sound check.
Zoro:After the sound check I asked I was very bold, so I was always a bold kid. So I just said could I, could I, can I get on the drums and play for you guys so you can tell me what you think and they let. They were like kind of like, okay, kid, go, that's funny, yeah. And I just got up there and I wailed and I'll never forget. But the bass player his name was danny wilson and he was funky as all, get out on those records, gotta go check out the jeff lorber fusion in this late 70s, early 80s, Anyway.
Zoro:But he turned to me and looked at me, this big tall brother, and he looks at me and goes oh man, he goes, kid, you're gonna be one of the superstar drummers. And that's what he said. He said you're gonna be one of them, superstar drummers. Now, to this day, I don't know if what he said he actually meant or not, but I believed that he believed in what he said. And so when I moved down to LA a year later and began pursuing the music industry and was getting nothing but rejections and setbacks and disappointments for a few years, his one sentence rang in my head over and over oh kid, you're going to be one of them superstars. Like I convinced myself that I was going to be that because he saw it and said it. So that's a case in point where one sentence. But if he had said oh man, you know Exactly, dude. You need a lot of work, or like you know whatever, yeah, yeah.
Andy Heise:So, Zoro, when listeners of this podcast go and look at your website and see, um, see, you know your, your presence on on all, all of your different, uh online platforms, they're sure to see that you have a strong personal brand. So I I noticed that you have the hat and the scarf is sort of one of your signature looks. How did you start building that brand, especially and, as Nick said, as the minister of groove, which is another part of that, how did you start building that and what lessons might other musicians be able to take from that?
Zoro:Well, one. The first thing is just to know about my background. I was raised by a single immigrant mother who was from Mexico City. When she was younger, she was in the movie business and wanted to be an actress, but she was already doing little small parts and little extra bits in different things in Mexico. So I was raised solely by her and so she had loved Hollywood and she loved entertainment, and so I grew up watching all the old movies with her, movies that were way before my time, even though I was born in 62, I would watch movies with her from the 40s and the 30s and the 50s, and so I became very conscious of whatever Hollywood, of image, and I loved hats, and if you watch any movie from the 40s and earlier, almost everyone wore hats Like 98% of the population wore hats.
Zoro:In fact, if you didn't wear a hat back then you were looked at as like, what's wrong with that guy? It literally was that strong in the culture, like, and so uh, and I always thought hats gave people, like, different personalities. Um, you know, because in the movies a different hat would give you a different character, right? But I, my uh, image came to me in a very organic, authentic, natural way, which is when I was doing like happy hour gigs in LA. I was doing like happy hour gigs, demo recording sessions, late night club gigs, and I would be running from gig to gig and back then I had long hair and it would get unruly. And then I was like I need to put a hat on because I don't have time to like comb my hair and shower. I'm running so hard and I never looked at I didn't like the way I looked back then in a baseball cap, but but uh, I had got this uh Zoro Bolero, uh uh gaucho hat from uh like Alvera Street in in LA. It was like a Mexican touristy area, you know, and I think my mother got me one from the bullfights in Mexico City, but it was a cardboard gaucho hat that looks very Zoro-ish, you know, and I just it was a souvenir on my wall with a tack on it, and one day I just took it off, put my hair in a ponytail and threw that hat on. Then I started wearing it to all my gigs and because my mother's from Mexico makes me half Mexican and I just started wearing it.
Zoro:And then here's the funniest story. I don't think I've ever shared this story. Here's the funniest story of all. So I'm wearing the Mexican gacho hat and I'm like, oh, this is kind of cool and I wanted to kind of come up with like a cool, memorable image. So I added to that sunglasses, but I took one eye out so I had a one-eyed sunglass. It was almost like I was a pirate and I'd be playing in this club in LA called Fantasia at the Bonaventureenture hotel. The hotel it's all glass cylinders downtown still there, and I remember like I was wearing it for months and then my eyes were kind of active weird. I went to the eye doctor and I was like and then he said, dude, you need to stop wearing that one-eyed sunglass.
Zoro:That's, that's messing with your vision switch the lenses, yeah, so I took off the one-eyed sunglass but I was on my way to something. I wasn't sure what it was but, uh, so what? What had happened was one day my mother, uh, and I always loved, uh, the show Zorro. You know the tv show with guy williams, it was a disney, disney thing. And she goes, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start calling you. And she would say with her accent you know, I'm gonna start calling you Zoro Zoro, because you know you're, you're like the real Zorro. You know, the real Zorro was somebody who had a heart for the underdog and fought for the commoners. He was a man of means but he became Zorro, kind of like Batman, and he fought for the people, the rights of the people. And so I always had that heart because of how I came up hard and no father and dirt poor. So I always had a heart for the underdog. So she's the one who kind of started calling me that.
Zoro:And then, when I got the gig with new edition, they themselves started calling me Zoro on stage because they were young and they saw the hat. They go yo yo, yo, Zoro, you. And then they just sort of just instantly, that's who I became to them Because they saw the hat and they go yo, yo, Zoro. So when they would introduce me on stage, they would introduce me with the rest of the band, and the rest of the band they all had normal names like John and Carl and Lewis, and then they would go and this next guy you play the drums, we call him Zaro. Well then afterwards the kids, the fans, would immediately find me. The name was so memorable and I literally then and there was like that's it, that's who I become Now. It worked for me because it was part of my Mexican heritage, it was part of my heart, and so it happened in a very organic, authentic way. And then I just legally changed my name and I never looked back.
Nick Petrella:Wow, I have a funny story to tell you and I don't think I've ever shared this with you, but this was years ago. I might've told Andy before we recorded. We're talking in the late nineties or very early two thousands. We were at an event together and we were staying at this hotel and it was a hotel I'm not going to name the name because people will know where it is, but let's just say it was in the middle of Illinois and we were there for an event and this hotel was like a castle and I was feeling grumpy.
Nick Petrella:I didn't want to do this. Right, I had to do it. So I go in there and we were going to meet for dinner. So we go to this hotel and I'm standing at the front desk, some kids standing there, and I said, uh, and I realized what it sounded like as I was saying it because even though, like I know you as Zoro, I've never had to, you know, to talk with a third party about Zorro. So I walk into this front desk and I said, hi, I'm looking for Zoro. Is Zorro right?
Nick Petrella:And he looks at me as if to say like the swashbuckling crusader, and I was just like, just look for the name and see if it's on there, it's going to be in the Z. He was like, oh, there is someone here named Zoro, tell him, nick's in the lobby waiting for dinner.
Zoro:That is hilarious because I have had more things happen with my name. I could fill a whole podcast with different episodes of my life that happened because I have that name and good things, complicated things, funny things. I had two policemen and I don't get pulled over often, but two times in my life I got pulled over and one guy you know looked at my one cop, looked at my thing and said, Zoro, huh, he goes.
Zoro:I love Zorro, have a nice day you know it was like maybe I didn't have a turn light or whatever, and then I got another guy who was Zorro huh, and then he writes me up. The reaction has gone both ways. But yeah, so as far as the image and identity thing, the scarf is because of my mother. So my mother wore scarves all the time and my mother carried herself in a very regal, royal manner. Because when you read my memoir, which I told you about maria's scarf that just came out, it's my story of going from the slums to the spotlight. It's a very beautiful, evocative, emotional, inspirational story that we're working on turning into like a movie. But it's got that heart of like Rocky the Blind Side, rudy Forrest Gump. You know it's about this kid with a dream, against all odds.
Zoro:But my mother, I, grew up dirt poor. We lived in a car at one point, seven brothers and sisters, no fathers. It was a struggle to survive, but my mother still carried herself very elegant even though she had no money and she wore scarves a lot. Carried herself very elegant even though she had no money and she wore scarves a lot. And part of what I discovered later in life is that she was the daughter of a Supreme Court justice in Mexico City. So my mother grew up in a very regal, aristocratic, diplomatic family, but I didn't. So she carried herself always that way, even though we were poor. So one you know. One day, when I was about to go in for my second grade school pictures, I looked at her and I said you know, there was a budding rock star inside of me.
Zoro:And I said, I said, mama mama, you always look so beautiful in your scarves. I said you know, you look like a movie star. And I said, can I wear your scarf for my school picture? She's like, no, mijo, you can't wear my scarf, the boys will beat you up. This is the us, this is not mexico, they don't do that. And I'm like I don't care, you know. And then I begged her and then I said well, elvis wears a scarf, and so does tom jones. And so she relented, she knelt down and tied her orange silk scarf around my neck and I have a second grade school picture where I'm probably the only kid in the world who is wearing his mother's scarf and I'm missing my two front teeth, and that picture is on the cover of the memoir along with her picture of her scarf.
Zoro:So I had always loved scarves, I've loved jewelry, and so I just incorporated that into my whole thing and I wear the scarf really most people don't know, know as a nod to her and in honor of her memory. And I have a huge collection of scarves, so the hat scarves, the jewelry, but I'm always mixing things up. But I was always, uh, uh, image conscious. I've always loved fashion, like if I was not a drummer, I'd be like a fashion director or a stylist. I enjoy putting an outfit together as much as I enjoy creating a groove. They're just different expressions. But when the Zoro thing came, I just decided to commit to that and then developed. But here's the thing about a brand, and this is what I learned early on Image, brand identity, all that stuff is good, all that stuff helps to a degree, but if the product itself is not great, then it's just hype. And so to me, I had always worked on the craft of the gift first, like the first idea was to be a great drummer, to be a great writer, to be a great teacher.
Zoro:Because if you've got this big name but you have no substance, well, we all see that all over Hollywood. Right, we go. She's got a big name but she can't act. He's got a big book but he can't write. You know, people see through it in a minute, you know what I mean. So to me, what perpetuates your name and what gives you a career you were asking about longevity what gives you a career is excellence, like when what you do, you do it on a high level of excellence. People want that product. Whatever that product is, we want to buy something that we know is really good. And excellence has a way of lasting past image past anything.
Zoro:Because uh, nick knows, because I did a bazillion clinics with him that he supported and my goal at every, you know, I went from not being able to get a clinic at all, like I was already a well-known drummer by the 90s. I was in all the magazines, I was a teen star in all the magazines, but I had not done clinics. And it was not easy getting in to do clinics because I had to prove myself in the whole educator world, which is different than the player world. So I equate it to like I was a pediatrician but now I want to do brain surgery Just because you do one doesn't gain you entrance into the other. So I had to prove myself to a whole new set of people. Right, and in doing that, my idea was I couldn't get one clinic and I finally got one guy from the University of Chattanooga I think His name was Monty Coulter and he was the first guy to let me do a clinic.
Zoro:And then after the clinic he said he goes. I got to be honest, he goes. I didn't think you were going to be able to do that much. You know, I see the hat and the image and I go this guy probably is a bunch of flash, it doesn't have anything, and then he goes. You blew me away. He goes. You are a true teacher, you have a teacher's heart, you have depth and wisdom. And I said well, monty, I said that feels, that feels like a million bucks. That means a lot to me. That'd be awesome if you could write me like a little sentence, a little blurb. He goes no, I'm going to do better. I'm going to write a full letter and I'm going to send it to six or 12 of my other educator friends saying they need to have you in. That's great. So that started the whole thing.
Zoro:But my whole point of the story was I went around to every place At that time I was touring with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and so everywhere where I was going to be, I was looking for a college or a school or a drum show to try to do a clinic. And with his letter I sent, and then I would do another one and then they would give me a sentence or a blurb and I added, I put a whole sheet, all the things that people were saying and I went from zero clinics to eventually being voted the number one clinician in the world with the help of people like Nick from Sabian. But my point is, every clinic I did, whether there were six people or 600, I went and tried to bring asset and value and benefit to them and I came to serve. I never was there to be a prima donna. If they didn't have the right stuff, I said we'll make it work. Donna, if they didn't have the right stuff, I said we'll make it work. That spirit of that attitude of gratitude and servanthood took me from zero to where I remember.
Zoro:One year Evans and Sabian sent me on a clinic tour. I did 30 clinics in 31 days in a row. They were all B markets so that meant two flights every day to get to where I was going. It was a grind but I literally went from doing none to like 30 in a row.
Zoro:But my point was I was so busy as a clinician and that's when I had the commandments of R&B drumming books out. But how you build a brand is you make a superior product or you make the experience with the people hiring you as a drummer. Whatever they're hiring you for, you make that such a pleasant experience that they go man, we've got to have this guy back again. Or they automatically start telling other people about you. It's no different than when we watch a good movie or you go eat a good hamburger in your town. You go, man, that's the best burger. But if it's bad or they have bad service, you're quick to tell 20 people.
Zoro:Don't waste your time, it's a stupid movie, it's a waste of your life. You'll never get the two hours back. So part of it is image, but part of it is authenticity. And is authentic authenticity, sure, and then part of it is just pure work ethic. Uh, excellence will always demand attention and will always turn into more opportunities, and that's the thing that people are missing today is they just want a quick, fast image, but without any substance right yeah yeah, so let's talk a little bit about being an author.
Nick Petrella:So you've written drum set books and motivational books and motivational books, and we will talk about your latest book out here in a few minutes. But before we talk about that, can you tell us if there are different processes and royalty structures when writing in the different genres?
Zoro:Yes, well, first of all, different royalty structures. For sure, Like I, what you consider like an author royalty, and less like you're Stephen King, right, you know what I mean. The, the, the royalty, is very similar in all of that. But the process itself I remember I was telling you the story of how many of the things that are that we do at some point in life, they've always been in us. They've just been like, dormant, you know, uh, the writer was always in me, unbeknownst to me as a kid. I started a diary at the age of 10 and I wrote in that diary all the way into my twenties. Um, I wrote in it, just a kid, writing his feelings and and observations, and, you know, analyzing things in my life and and uh, but I didn't write them, thinking, oh, one day. You know, analyzing things in my life and and uh, but I didn't write them. Thinking, oh, one day, you know, I'm going to be a writer, it's just the need to write and express myself was in there, interestingly enough, in my memoir maria's scarf, which is 400 pages. Uh, and it just won a big literary award which is like a milestone for me. Like sure, I'm in there with like a bunch. It won most inspiring nonfiction book.
Zoro:Now, this is from a guy who I never went to school to write. I never took one class to write, but I studied intensely the art of writing memoir. I read over 300 books. If you looked at my library you'd go. You'd think I'm not even a drummer. It's just all books on writing and it's books on the craft of writing memoir over 300 I read, and then also on the business of writing and then also many memoirs themselves to learn how others told their story. So I have always had a work ethic. That was crazy. Whatever I'm into, the whole world stops and the focus is that thing right. So the process, the innate desire to communicate, started early. But there are many, many diary entries within my memoir from my 10-year-old self 12, 14, 18, 21, which make for this really, really beautiful story. Some of them will make you laugh your butt off. Some of them will make you weep because they're just really heartbreaking and wrenching. But the kid's not writing that to make you, he's just writing what he's feeling. And so it becomes so, in a way, when people ask me well, how long did it take you to write your memoir Number one? The process itself was probably like 15 years. But when I look back on where it all started, I was writing out one sentence, vignettes, like 45 years ago I would write tell the story of you raising chickens. Tell the story of digging your clothes out of a Goodwill drop-off box. Tell the story. It would start off with a sentence, then it would be like a badly written paragraph and then it'd be like a very elementary written page but the bones and the structure of all of it were being sort of documented and so I could say I've been writing my memoir for actually 50 years 5-0, because it started at 10 by documenting my life. Now that's the memoir, the drum books most all the books that I wrote were books I was looking for myself at a younger age, when I was 18, I wanted to find a book on R&B, drummers and the history of R&B music, because I mean, I loved everything.
Zoro:I love jazz, I love fusion, I love rock and roll, but I had a particular love and affinity for R&B. But I could never find a drum book that there were like fusion-y drum books or linear, funky drum books, but it wasn't really R&B and I was like man. I want to find a book about who are the drummers from this band and that band. And there was lots man, I want to find a book about who are the drummers from this band and that band. And there was lots of documentation on all the great jazz drummers and all the great rock drummers, but never anything on the R&B drummers who the whole world copied and imitated. But they were like the bastard child of the music industry. So I was just looking for that book. It would be like 30 years later that I wrote the Commandments of R&B Drumming to honor all those drummers, to really do an in-depth expose and study on that style. And then that book became voted the number one drum book in Modern Drummer and all the drum magazines.
Zoro:But it started from a pure love of that music. I never wrote a book to fill a niche music I wasn't. I never wrote a book to fill a niche. I never looked at the market and said, oh no, drummer's got a really great memoir that feels like rocky or the blind side or no, nobody's got a book about how to make it in the music industry as a drummer. That's my book.
Zoro:The big gig yeah, 400 page motivational book on how to make it as a musician was the book I was looking for when I was 18. Yeah, I was looking for, like I was 18. I was looking for, like, how do you get gigs, or where do you go and how does, how do you get paid? Like I didn't know any of this stuff. And that book started. There's a scripture in the Old Testament that says do not despise the day of small beginnings, because what happens is people go. People don't want to start with something small, they just want something big.
Zoro:And so my book, the Big Gig, the 400-page book that Quincy Jones loved and endorsed and it won all kinds of awards started off in 1985 as an article in a black teen fan magazine where I was teen, centerfold of the month in black teen. And so put that math together centerfold of the month in black teen. And so put that math together, you know, and and and the article. Uh, they asked me because I was getting all this fan mail from kids going hey, how did you make it? How did you get to be a big time? So the magazine said, hey, could you write an article like, just give us some of your showbiz tips? So it was like a six page article with my centerfold in it. It was like Zoro's showbiz tips. I still still have the article In. That was the framework and the structure of what became the 400-page book, the Big Gig. It was all in that outline and then it became fleshed out with 30 more years of experience.
Nick Petrella:Well, maybe what we can do for the press because we do social media and things like that send us that centerfold. That's what we'll use for you.
Zoro:You'll crack up. I have it. You know you should put that picture and the picture of me now.
Announcer:Yeah.
Zoro:From then and now you know, but yeah, so with the writing it's like I'm a firm believer in you can learn. The information to learn anything is out there and it's way is out there, and it's way more out there now than it was when I started. Sure, sure, what enabled me to write these books actually what enabled me to do everything in my life and career was a spirit, and it's one word. It's called audacity. Like I was an audacious kid, you have to be audacious to think you're going to write a book, but you've never studied, I don't even know how to use a comma and semicolon, and I'm thinking I'm going to write a book. I just was immune.
Zoro:I used to travel with Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, bill Gates's partner, the fourth richest guy in the world, and I would travel on his $240 million yacht, the Octopus. Literally. This guy changed the world Him, steve Jobs and Bill Gates changed the world. And I was with him in his yacht because he had a recording studio in there and he would fly me in and I would record with him on his yacht in the studio, amongst the beautiful islands of the world, looking out at different exotic islands. And one day he said something you know he was talking about him and Bill Gates. And he goes. You know he goes.
Zoro:If Bill and I were just a little smarter and just a little older, we would have never launched Microsoft. He goes, but we were just dumb enough to think we could do it and just bold enough to do it. And it encapsulates a Mark Twain quote where he goes, all that's needed is ignorance and confidence, and with that, success is assured. That's right and that totally sums up my life. I was just ignorant enough to believe that the things I was pursuing, like being a drummer and making it and being a speaker and a teacher, and I was just ignorant enough to think, oh yeah, I could do that, but but had the, had the confidence, not the cockiness, but just enough confidence to just go for it. And and that's what's necessary Ignorance and confidence.
Nick Petrella:That's great. Before we get to Andy's question, here's a little podcast trivia. I'm almost positive you're the second person we've had on this podcast who's been on that yacht. Oh really, Mario Grigorov, I think, was on that yacht. I remember he said a similar story.
Zoro:That's awesome. Isn't that funny? I don't know, but that's amazing. Not many people have been on that yacht.
Andy Heise:That's what I was, yeah, but those who do tend to come on our podcast.
Zoro:Statistically.
Andy Heise:Two makes a pattern right.
Zoro:Well, two out of only 10 people who've been on it.
Announcer:Yeah, Thanks for listening. If you like this podcast, please subscribe.
Nick Petrella:Visit artsentrepreneurshippodcastcom to learn more about our guest and how you can help support artists, the arts and this podcast.
