BillRayDrums
Gold Member
Hello,
I've been a drummer for my entire life. Grew up in Jackson, MS in the 1970's and 80's and moved to California when I was 20. My upbringing was surrounded by musicians due to the fact my parents were the photography studio that Malaco Records employed for a lot of their album art. A lot of scary good drummers came out of Jackson! George Lawrence used to have a drum shop on Northview Drive and it was a hub of amazingness.
Anyhow, in my many years of playing I've had some interesting experiences in the drumming world.
I was Ike Turner's drummer from 2001-2007 and was there until the end. Even was present when he died in his house. Saw him take his final breath. We had a good run. Several memorable tours, met some hugely famous (and cool) people, played on a significant CD (2006 "Best Traditional Blues" Grammy) and got my mug in a Smithsonian TV special. (ep.1 Risin' With The Blues)
I decided in 2008 that I was going to try to "fly close to home" because I have a son (who seems to have a better concept at groove that I ever did at his age) and wanted to be part of his life.
For a time I was the webmaster for Supernatural Cymbals (2009-2012) then I moved on to run Not So Modern Drummer for about 3 years with George Lawrence.
So now I'm the web guy / graphic artist for http://stonecustomdrum.com and the story behind those drums is pretty awesome.
But while web development is something that I love and runs concurrent in so many ways to playing drums (the logic behind a lot of it) my first and primary function is to hit things with sticks and that's always gonna win out.
My band http://rdgrocks.com have been doing some pretty amazing gigs. Also, my website http://billraydrums.com has got a pretty large collection of the stuff I've done over the years. It's not a complete list of the albums I've done but a sort of "what can I remember?" list of projects.
Other things I do online for drumming- I'm in charge of the Facebook group "DRUM CHAT" (which I inherited, up to 3600 members now and growing) as well as I'm a moderator of http://reddit.com/r/drumming which is a "small but mighty" group of expats from the more popular /r/drums sub.
I'm always down to answer any questions.
I look forward to interacting with you guys here.
I've been a drummer for my entire life. Grew up in Jackson, MS in the 1970's and 80's and moved to California when I was 20. My upbringing was surrounded by musicians due to the fact my parents were the photography studio that Malaco Records employed for a lot of their album art. A lot of scary good drummers came out of Jackson! George Lawrence used to have a drum shop on Northview Drive and it was a hub of amazingness.
Anyhow, in my many years of playing I've had some interesting experiences in the drumming world.
I was Ike Turner's drummer from 2001-2007 and was there until the end. Even was present when he died in his house. Saw him take his final breath. We had a good run. Several memorable tours, met some hugely famous (and cool) people, played on a significant CD (2006 "Best Traditional Blues" Grammy) and got my mug in a Smithsonian TV special. (ep.1 Risin' With The Blues)
I decided in 2008 that I was going to try to "fly close to home" because I have a son (who seems to have a better concept at groove that I ever did at his age) and wanted to be part of his life.
For a time I was the webmaster for Supernatural Cymbals (2009-2012) then I moved on to run Not So Modern Drummer for about 3 years with George Lawrence.
So now I'm the web guy / graphic artist for http://stonecustomdrum.com and the story behind those drums is pretty awesome.
But while web development is something that I love and runs concurrent in so many ways to playing drums (the logic behind a lot of it) my first and primary function is to hit things with sticks and that's always gonna win out.
My band http://rdgrocks.com have been doing some pretty amazing gigs. Also, my website http://billraydrums.com has got a pretty large collection of the stuff I've done over the years. It's not a complete list of the albums I've done but a sort of "what can I remember?" list of projects.
Other things I do online for drumming- I'm in charge of the Facebook group "DRUM CHAT" (which I inherited, up to 3600 members now and growing) as well as I'm a moderator of http://reddit.com/r/drumming which is a "small but mighty" group of expats from the more popular /r/drums sub.
I'm always down to answer any questions.
I look forward to interacting with you guys here.