My hands were constantly blistered or bloody; my ears were always ringing. I tore through drumheads and drumsticks like there was no tomorrow.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I remember in the early days when we played six nights a week for a month and I was doing my long drum solo every night. My hands were covered in blisters.
I'm always getting injuries like bruised and bloody knuckles from catching a cymbal or the edge of a drum.
When I was a kid, we went to St. Augustine, Fla., and I was lying on the couch one night with a Q-tip, cleaning my ear out after I'd taken a shower. I hit my arm on something, jabbed the Q-tip through my ear drum, busted my ear drum and couldn't get back in the water the rest of the time we were there.
My fingers used to hurt really bad when I played guitar. I stopped because of it.
I got really, really sick with a spinal infection that put me in a hospital for a couple of months, and it was touch and go. I had my guitar with me, and as soon as I got well enough to play, there was nothing else to do in that hospital. The nurses would come in and request songs.
In 1967, I found out I was losing my hearing. I went 10 years without any help. I had otosclerosis - hardening of the bone in the middle of the ear.
I had gone to a talent show - I was interested in American hip-hop music - with my older brother, to another town, and my town was attacked. I went from having an entire family to the next minute not having anything. It was very painful.
The end result of my personal story is that I became a really good drummer, and I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't have without this really tough conductor and this really cutthroat hostile environment I was in.
I just happened to wind up in a metal band when I was 15.
Playing the drums hurts my back.
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