PERFORMING

My first band, in Caracas in the early 1990s, was Bachilleres Desempleados, a few guys from another school who needed a drummer. We rented rehearsal rooms when we could afford them; the rest of the time I practised on my legs at home. At the school party, my classmates joked about whether I could really play those songs. After the show, the jokes stopped, and for the first time I felt a kind of respect I had never experienced before.

A few years later, at design school, Dalton Rodríguez heard that I played drums and asked if I wanted to play a party with his band that same night. I didn’t even own a full kit, just a cheap snare and a hi-hat that my mother had reluctantly bought me: my parents didn’t want me to become a musician. He gave me a cassette, and I spent the afternoon learning the songs on my legs, with an imaginary bass drum pedal on the floor. There was no rehearsal. Someone counted one, two, three, four, and it worked. That night was the beginning of Royal: several good years of our own songs, first demos, radio, photo shoots and, finally, my first real drum kit, which I bought myself.

In 1996, Skabiosis, then on the radio with “Cuaima”, were looking for a new drummer. What they really needed from me was my drum kit for the auditions. I brought it, helped set up, and now and then played a part to show how a song went. When the last candidate had left, they asked me to join. Leaving Royal wasn’t easy, but within weeks I was playing mini-tours, television and show after show.

From there came festivals, radio, television and tours. In 2002, with Los Pasajeros, we played more than 20 shows in less than a month across Germany and Austria. Later came two months on the road with Los Javelin through Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Poland, then São Paulo, and two European tours with Big Mandrake. Other bands called me when their own drummer wasn’t available, including Desorden Público and Los Mentas. And in between, there were always cover bands with old friends.

Playing live taught me things that no book could really explain: how to keep going when you can barely hear the singer, how to find your place in a band you've just met, how to trust your ears when there is no time to think, and how much can happen around a drum kit before and after the music itself.

Some memories stay with me for reasons that have little to do with the music. After a show in Germany, someone stole my band shirt backstage, so soaked with sweat it could have come out of a bucket of water. I still wonder what they planned to do with it. Another night, at the musicians’ entrance, two enormous punks came towards me, both two metres tall, one with tape across his nose from a fight. I thought: well, this is it. They stopped in front of me. “Could we have your autograph?” And then there was Bogotá. After our show at Teatro Patria, I came down to watch the last band, and halfway down the stairs, the audience suddenly stood up and applauded. The band had already gone backstage. I froze, raised a hand, waited for the noise to settle, and found a chair among the crowd.

I've made a lot of friends and connections through playing, and looking back, I realise I have mostly good memories from those years.

Hundreds of shows leave hundreds of stories. The music is only part of them. The people are another.