Five Minute Decision

Jesse has a new hobby. For years, his biggest passion has been playing football. But, he has recently discovered a talent and love for something he never imagined doing before. Jesse now plays the drums.

And, not only does he play the drums, he has now found himself in a band!

Let me start from the beginning, though.

Jesse has always enjoyed rocking out to his music and is known to pound on the steering wheel as he keeps beat to the music on the radio.

Out of curiosity and, for the fun of it, Jesse asked if he could borrow the djembe (you know, like a conga drum) from a guy at church. He took it home and taught himself how to play by watching instructional videos on YouTube. He grew tired of it, though, because of its simplicity. So, he asked the same guy (the previous drummer) if he could take home the full drum set. The previous youth band had dissipated and no one was in the band anymore except for the lone lead singer with his guitar. So, Jesse borrowed the drum set and made our garage his new practice pad. He spent about an hour each day practicing as he taught himself how to play. The kid has a natural knack for hearing beats, though. He quickly began to recognize bass beats, even hearing them in the background music of the decorating shows I was watching on HGTV. I heard nothing but narration of the show! As he listened to the radio, he began to realize that he could pick out the drum parts to the songs and, for many of them, had the skills to already play it.

Meanwhile, the lead singer of the former band, Jared, began teaching my brother David how to play guitar. David had gotten a guitar for Christmas last year and was slowly learning how to play something more than "Jingle Bells". Since Jared already played the electric guitar, he taught David to play the bass. The two of them began playing together on Sunday nights during our worship time at church. Knowing that Jesse had been teaching himself to play the drums, though, they invited him to join them in practice to see how they played together.

They started with simple chord progressions as they learned to all play cohesively, but found that they did pretty well together. So, they invited in a 4th member, Chad, to begin playing the acoustic guitar.

When the band had barely formed, they discovered that the church where Chad was originally from (First Baptist of Springfield) was going to start hosting concerts twice a month during the Spring and Summer. All of the sudden, the band was presented with the possibility of opening up for the mega-hit Christian girl band, Superchic(k). These girls play all over the country and have hits on the national radio station. We've even seen them perform at big concert festivals along with the biggest names in Christian music.

So, without any warning, these 4 guys now had to get serious about being a band together. They upped their practices to 3+ times a week. Then they were informed by the Baptist church that they needed to come up with a name for the flyers that would go out in a few months. We racked our brains to come up with something cool and creative. However, when the guys were called and told that they had to come up with a name and get back to the church in 10 minutes, they decided to finish playing their video game first. With 5 minutes remaining, they came up with the name "Five Minute Decision". While not the most profound name, knowing the story behind it gives it a bit of humor. So, aside from getting their songs down, the next most important thing is to get promotional photos taken. I, being the only groupie, became their official photographer!

A few weeks ago, we had a beautiful day. So, the guys dressed up and we set out to the park and I took pictures of them. Most of them turned out pretty cool, and there's some really funny ones too. With this group of guys, you have to allow them to do bizarre things once in awhile.

So, in a matter of months, Jesse has not only picked up a new hobby, but he's found a new passion. He told me that as much as he loved playing football, the way he feels when he's playing the drums is far more intense. He loves it! And, because of that, I fully support him. In fact, I support him so much that I allowed him to buy a $1700 electonic drum set with our income tax return (knowing that this particular drum set is worth almost twice that much and is in brand new condition). This will allow him to play at home at all times, day or not, and because he can plug headphones into it, it will not disturb me or our future baby. Additionally, he will be able to pack it up easily to play with the band AND it's high enough quality that he will be able to play it in performances despite it being electronic. He has been so excited. He talked about it every single day and checked our bank account at 7:00am in the morning to see if the tax return had come in yet. When it did, he obsessed all day about picking it up as soon as he possibly could. Since he got it, he plays any chance he gets. It's actually really cool. It has many various settings, allowing him to play African drum beats or techno sounds. It even has a beat boxing setting that goes, "Yeah," when you hit it in a certain spot. He's been having fun with it.

So, you're all invited to check out their upcoming concert at the Baptist church. Their band is not yet as loud and rocking as they hope to be someday, so if Christian Rock isn't your genre of choice, you're still safe. And the concert is free. And, now that my husband is going to be a rockstar with his drumsticks, I need to find some sticks off my own to beat the girls off.