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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nI graduated in 2012, and that was my fifth year of Drum Off where I went to the finals. Across all channels, the video of my performance has like 20 million views and it absolutely changed my career. Had I got to that point in the competition any earlier, I wouldn\u2019t have been good enough to deliver that kind of solo at the finals. Conveniently, I got my first tour (with Night Verses) a month after my graduation and have been touring full time ever since. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I was still working at the YMCA after school program near my house and I didn\u2019t make a single dollar on tour the first four years I was on the road. <\/p>\n\n\n
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We did four years of some of the hardest touring you could possibly do. No hotels, just sketchy places and sleeping on people\u2019s floors 90 percent of the time. We grew up thinking you just had to do that; we didn\u2019t know that you could ever skip that step. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One time, we had pulled up to a ferry terminal on our way to Ireland and had gotten there three hours early. It was like 3 am in the middle of winter and the building wasn\u2019t open yet. You know how when you walk into a public space and there are sliding doors on either side of a vestibule before you go into the main area? Since it was way too cold to sleep in the van, we all wrapped ourselves up in our sleeping bags around the vending machines in that vestibule. The guards inside the ferry office were laughing at us but didn\u2019t let us in. So we were trying to sleep while making fun of the situation, but we couldn’t laugh because if anyone said something funny, the motion would open the sliding doors and all the snow would come in and any warmth we built up would completely disappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Remember how I said I was a film major? A friend who had graduated at the same time as me got a job at Lionsgate Films. It happened during my first tour, and I wrote her a message, like \u201cCongrats, that\u2019s so amazing!\u201d Over the next 12 hours, I played a show, did a five hour drive, took an ice cold shower at a stranger\u2019s house, and got ready to sleep on a wood floor that smelled like cat piss. There was a dog barking and going crazy, just dying to get off his leash and bite me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I got a text back from Lacy: \u201cOh my God, I know, I\u2019m so excited! And look at you, finally out on tour. We\u2019re living our dreams!\u201d While I was lying on this floor with a dog who was trying to end my life, I couldn\u2019t help but laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a certain point, we\u2019d finally recorded with one of my favorite producers of all time, Russ Robinson (The Cure, At the Drive-In, Slipknot). We’d gotten three really good tours and had three more lined up. I told myself, you know what, instead of sitting at the YMCA for five hours a day, I need to be spending this time practicing or working towards my drumming goals. I can\u2019t expect to make this my full-time career if I\u2019m doing something else.<\/em> I decided to quit my job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Immediately after that, all three upcoming tours got canceled for different reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh my God…great. I\u2019ve worked this hard, I\u2019ve made no money, and I think I can make just enough from these tours to get by, and I\u2019ve just left my job.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n Immediately after that, all three upcoming tours got canceled for different reasons.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n\n\n Since I\u2019d been on tours where I didn\u2019t make money, I\u2019d saved up enough to cover me for the next four months. I noticed that Instagram drummers had just started picking up a decent following, so I thought okay, if I can\u2019t do this on the road, I\u2019m going to post a video every single day until my money runs out.<\/em> It was the only tactic I could think of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I set up a GoPro and I\u2019d spend as long as I had to every single day for four months. Sometimes I could get something I was proud of in 20 minutes, and sometimes it took five hours to get literally a 30-second clip. By the end of those four months, I had tripled my following, I got an offer to be an understudy for Trans-Siberian Orchestra (which I did for two years), plus a ton of other offers all through that process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If I didn\u2019t have the social media account I built up, it would have been a lot harder to find work. It only happened because those three tours fell through and I didn\u2019t have any other options. Going back to the patience thing, I could\u2019ve easily been like \u201cI need to go get a job\u201d, but I believed that this was what I was supposed to do. I just needed to wait it out and do all the right things and at least look back and say I couldn\u2019t have done anything else<\/em>. Once again, it kind of pushed me to the next level of my career in that aspect. I’d now finally gotten to tour, I\u2019d gotten signed, but I hadn\u2019t done anything that had really stretched any sort of online territory other than the drum-off video doing well.<\/p>\n\n\n –<\/p>\n\n\n Not too long after that, I was playing with my band, Night Verses, but because we hadn\u2019t toured, it was really hard for our singer. I\u2019d give him all the credit in the world because he did a band 10 years before we started touring and completely started over with us just because he believed in the music so much. When his band broke up, he heard us at a bowling alley show and was like \u201cI believe in this; I\u2019ll start practicing with you guys tomorrow.\u201d Just fully committed and went back to sleeping on floors for four years, didn\u2019t make a single dollar on tour. He was in it with us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But when those three tours got canceled – he was already married and trying to balance it with his relationship – it took a toll and he was like \u201cYou guys, I can\u2019t tour like this anymore.\u201d So now I\u2019m in a place where I\u2019m a little more comfortable and we can get some more tours, and then our singer, for understandable reasons, can no longer work with us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At this point, I was still playing with my guitarist and bass player but we didn\u2019t know if we were going to find a singer. I had been jamming with my friend Jason, a great singer who we had toured with multiple times, and he was working on a brand new project with John Feldmann, who is the singer of Goldfinger, and Travis Barker. As Night Verses was trying to figure out whether we were going to find a singer or move forward as an instrumental band, Jason and I had been writing songs for fun. He was like \u201cHey, you know, we wrote these two songs together with Travis and John, and they like it and we want to make it a full time band. They asked me if I knew a drummer and I said yeah, I want you<\/em> to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was like, \u201cOkay!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI really want you to meet them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYeah, sounds good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d met Travis briefly at the drum-off five years earlier. He was super cool and said a lot of nice things about the solo, and that was my last interaction with him. I went to Musink, his festival, with Jason to kind of hang out and say what\u2019s up. Travis walked off stage, and recognized me and instantly started talking to me. He remembered things that we said in that one conversation five years ago, which blew me away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We were talking and I was like, \u201cWhat are you up to after this?\u201d because he\u2019d played with Goldfinger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell I\u2019ve got this<\/em> gig, the next day I\u2019m working on this, then the next day I\u2019m working on this\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was like, \u201cHonestly, money is cool – obviously – but that\u2019s the dream. To get to jump from project to project and have it sustained where your life is based around making art with your friends, if that\u2019s how your life goes, then that\u2019s what I hope to get one day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later that week, Jason said, \u201cHey, John (the producer) wants to meet you.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I asked him, \u201cIs there anything I need to learn? Do I need to learn new songs? Do I need to be prepared?\u201d Because I always over prepare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s like, \u201cNo no no, he just wants to hang out and say what\u2019s up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I drive up three hours to Calabasas, and when I get there, Jason kind of pulls me aside in the parking lot and shows me the three songs they worked on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll right, so John is kind of intense,\u201d he says. \u201cHe\u2019s a really cool guy, but he\u2019s just really energetic and works really hard, so just know that it\u2019s not your average producer situation. We\u2019re going to go in and it\u2019s going to be some work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was like, \u201cOkay, that\u2019s fine.\u201d So we get in there and instantly his engineers see us, and Jason goes \u201cWhere\u2019s John? I want to introduce him to Aric.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh, John\u2019s not feeling good. He\u2019s going to chill out upstairs.\u201d The studio is at his house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, why did he have Aric come?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe want him to record.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n And I\u2019m like great.<\/em> I had asked multiple times and I have no musical reference other than the three songs that I was shown in the parking lot 10 minutes prior to me getting to his house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, John comes in with a camera crew and says, \u201cHey guys, I know I\u2019m sick but I totally forgot that I\u2019m supposed to be shooting part of a documentary today. Hi I\u2019m John Feldmann, what\u2019s your name?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On camera, I\u2019m like, \u201cI\u2019m Aric Improta.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAre you ready to record?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So there\u2019s me, Jason, the engineers, John, his camera crew…and I\u2019ve got to record songs that I\u2019ve only heard once. \u201cSure, if we have time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got time. What song do you want to do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c…Animal?\u201d It was the only one I remembered the name of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll right. Have you heard the song?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve heard it once.\u201d So I went in and listened to the song. When I did the first pass, John was like, \u201cCool. Maybe do the chorus on the crash instead of the ride.\u201d He gave me a couple of notes and then I had to record and do everything on the spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was done, I walked out of the room and they had ripped up all of this tissue like confetti and threw it at me. They were really happy with what I\u2019d done. It was almost so shocking that I didn\u2019t have time to be nervous in the moment, but I remember after – when everything was all cool and we\u2019re hanging out talking and I\u2019d obviously done a job they thought was good enough to send off – that was when my heart caught up. It started going crazy, almost as if it was supposed to happen earlier and I was supposed to be nervous but it didn\u2019t hit me until a few minutes after.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember in that moment thinking if this had happened at any other time in my life, I probably wouldn\u2019t have been prepared enough to do this. But I\u2019d spent so much time learning music and I\u2019d recorded with so many people, and I was practicing five hours a day for the five years before that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I told myself when I sat down, this is why you practice five hours a day. There is no other reason other than to be able to handle moments like this.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That band ended up being Fever 333, which is what I got a Grammy nomination from and who I\u2019ve been touring full time with for the last two and a half years. Again, if any of that happened earlier in my career, I probably wouldn\u2019t have even got past that one day of studio because I just wouldn\u2019t have been ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because I was gone on tour so much, I never had my own place, so I would usually bounce between my parents\u2019 house and my girlfriend at the time\u2019s apartment. My grandparents were sick so they were going to move in to where I was living so they\u2019d have a place to stay and not have to pay rent. My girlfriend\u2019s lease was up, so it was kind of serendipitous and we decided to move in together. It made perfect sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The month I was supposed to move into a new apartment, I had no money saved up. I was preparing to go into the studio to do Night Verses\u2019 first instrumental record, by far the most difficult album I\u2019ve ever had to record. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Before going into the studio, I normally don\u2019t do anything except practice for two months. The week before I was supposed to leave, John Feldmann called me up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHey, Aric. Our drummer can\u2019t fly out of Florida because of a hurricane. Can you learn an hour-long Goldfinger set by tomorrow?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHonestly, John, I can\u2019t. I just have too much to practice. I leave in a week to record some of the hardest material I\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s like, \u201cSigh…all right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He calls me back three minutes later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAric, please – I really<\/em> need this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJohn, I can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He told me how much money he\u2019d offer me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI can\u2019t. I would love to help you but I can\u2019t afford to do this to my band.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We hang up, and he calls me ten minutes later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll pay for three months\u2019 rent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was like…all right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I learned an hour-long set, flew straight out, and played the first show in front of 800 people. John is a very \u2018in the moment person\u2019. Halfway through the set, I was still trying to remember things I\u2019d learned hours before, and John – I love him for this – said into the mic, \u201cOur drummer doesn\u2019t know this song, but I really wanna play it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I had to watch the audience air drum the parts to me and try to keep up. It ended up going really well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After that five-day tour, I pulled off the recording with Night Verses, my girlfriend at the time found a place for us to live, and I had money saved up. I kept touring with Goldfinger and that\u2019s how I paid my rent, for the most part, for the rest of the year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, had this happened at any other time in my career, I wouldn\u2019t have been able to learn songs that fast or I would\u2019ve blown the recording. I didn\u2019t know how I was going to do it, but I knew I had to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There wasn\u2019t really a plan, other than to do what you feel is the best you possibly can with what you\u2019re given. Every single time that something happened, when I\u2019d look back I\u2019d think this couldn\u2019t have worked had it come any earlier<\/em>, as bad as I wanted it to happen when I was 18 or 21. I always try and remind myself of that whenever I hit what feels like a plateau or I\u2019m coming to a wall with one project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re ever at a point where you\u2019re not sure what\u2019s supposed to happen next or if you\u2019re supposed to continue with what you\u2019re doing, if you know it\u2019s what you love, and what the end goal is, then you need to just work on what you can control and wait for those other things to come together. There were a number of times where I had to work on something and wasn\u2019t guaranteed a reward for it, but I just knew it\u2019s what I wanted to do and it was going to benefit my career even if it\u2019s just on a creative level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n More often than not, those things turned into a reward or a push to that next step. A lot of that came from me doing the only thing I knew I could with what I had in front of me to move forward, even if there was no reward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If I\u2019d gotten any of these opportunities earlier, it wouldn\u2019t have been the right time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\u201cOkay. Go in the door, adjust Travis Barker\u2019s kit to where you want it, we\u2019ll play the song one time through so you can hear it again, and then I want you to record it. We\u2019ll watch the video and send it to Travis and see what he thinks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.musora.com\/musora-cdn\/image\/quality=85\/https:\/\/drumeoblog.s3.amazonaws.com\/beat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/01163607\/img_5167-1024x683.jpeg\" "\\"\\"")
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<\/p>\n\n\nAric Improta<\/h3>\n\n\n\n