The carpet’s synthetic stench clawed at my lungs, a cruel reminder of my new reality. I lay on a thin sheet, the damp concrete floor of a friend’s apartment seeping into my bones. Six months of mistakes replayed like a broken record—trusting the wrong person, losing everything—my income, my dreams, my home. In the deafening silence, shame whispered louder than defeat. I was homeless, broken, and alone. Yet, in that darkness, I found freedom.
Rock bottom came with a strange gift—it stripped away my fear. Staring into the void, I realized the prison I’d built wasn’t the floor beneath me—it was my own hesitation. I’d been playing small, by someone else’s rules, begging for a spotlight on someone else’s stage. That night, I vowed to change—not just my circumstances, but me.
Two years earlier, I’d arrived in Los Angeles, a Berklee College of Music dropout chasing stardom as a drummer. Berklee’s motto, Esse Quam Videri—“to be, rather than to seem”—haunted me. I hadn’t graduated, seduced by the myth that dropping out made you a legend. But LA’s music scene didn’t recognize this. “Pay to play” ruled the nights, bands shelling out thousands to gig at clubs like Whiskey A Go-Go, only to play to empty rooms while bartenders slung overpriced drinks. I refused to wait tables, hoping to be discovered.
I discovered a backdoor into the industry in a cramped Torrance office, working for a drum magazine called “Stick It.” I remember devouring drum magazines, scouring them for secrets to gigs with iconic bands. My job—shipping back issues, customer service, crunching numbers, selling ads—wasn’t glamorous, but it put me near the industry’s pulse. All this while teaching drum lessons to survive, dreaming of rubbing shoulders with the legends.
Then, the publisher sold Stick It to a competitor who planned to gut it. Emails flooded in from loyal readers, furious about losing their favorite (niche) magazine. Their passion lit a fire in me—why not start my own? I felt an obligation to those readers, to myself, to build something better.
In 2003, I launched DrumPRO, a digital membership with interviews (a summit), videos, and PDF drum magazine, because printing was beyond my budget. It was scrappy, born from necessity. I interviewed drumming legends and rising stars, giving them a platform to share their stories—a dream for many. I charged $9 a month for access to the audio interviews, magazine, PDF drum books that I wrote, and 60 video lessons on drumming fundamentals. Members stayed for years, even without updates. I’d stumbled into building one of the first online membership sites, maybe the first virtual summit in the music industry. That $1,000 a month in autopilot income wasn’t a million-dollar launch, but it changed my life.
That virtual summit wasn’t just membership—it was my stage. I’d spent years begging for a “come-up,” paying to play, but owning the stage flipped the script. I wasn’t invisible anymore; I was an influencer, connecting drummers worldwide, building authority in a niche I loved.
But the lessons went deeper…
Losing everything taught me that a bad partnership can leave you with less than nothing, on the floor; I’d never give away that power again. Owning the stage—my summit—showed me the leverage of authority over groveling for scraps. And hitting rock bottom? It decluttered my mind, forcing me to get creative, embrace grit, and rediscover my purpose.
The biggest lesson? Success is fragile. Today’s triumph could be tomorrow’s floor. That keeps me hungry, always building, always learning. This might be one of the reasons why I started the survivalist magazine years later, born out of an industry pivot—we can leave that for future articles.
