Me and my big mouth

My family and I go to a relatively small Methodist Church, and I have learned a valuable lesson in the three years since we joined. And here it is – don’t ever let anybody there know that you have any skill at doing anything, because if they find out, they will ask you to do it for the church.

I learned this the hard way recently, when I accidentally let it slip that I once played drums in a band. Within the week I was being approached by people who had never spoken to me before, saying, “What’s this I hear about you being able to play drums?”

Our church has one of those new-fangled “praise bands” that plays at the early service every Sunday, with guitars and drums and bass and keyboards and all sorts of things that aren’t even mentioned in the Bible. The regular drummer is in the military reserves and often gets called away, so when word got out that there was another potential drummer in the house, they were on me like fire ants at a picnic.

Calling me a drummer, however, is a stretch. It reminds me of an old Henny Youngman joke: An orchestra is playing, and after the violinist does a solo, somebody stands up and says, “Tell that sonofabitch to stop playing.” The conductor turns around angrily and says, “Who called the violinist a sonofabitch?” And the guy answered back, “Who called the sonofabitch a violinist?”

Understand, I last played the drums in 1986, in a band in college in Athens, Ga. I played a very basic style, because I didn’t know how to do anything else. There were no fancy Keith Moon-like sonic explosions emanating from my drum kit. It was just “boom-boom-boom-bam, boom-boom-boom-bam,” over and over and over.

I remember once Michael Stipe came to one of our shows, and he was talking to us outside after we finished, and he looked at me and mumbled, “I really like the minimalist thing you’re doing with the drums.” And I said, well, Mike, you know, my philosophy is to not let the drums overpower the music, but to play a more subtle, supportive role, underpinning the lyrics and the melody. He mumbled something else and walked off. True story.

Anyway, after only one practice, I took the stage this morning, playing a set of electronic drums through six songs, all of them “contemporary Christian”, except for the Jackie Wilson song, “Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher.” This was really quite a leap for me to do this, because it involved a number of things I am against, including electronic drum kits, contemporary Christian music, and getting up early on a Sunday morning.

I guess I did OK. Nobody laughed or covered their ears, I didn’t drop the drum sticks, and they’ve asked me to fill in again next week. And truth be told, I actually had a pretty good time doing it and wouldn’t mind playing some more. Just don’t let anybody at the church know.