First clue you’re at a drum festival: the prevalence of earplugs.
Actually that was the second clue. The first was the great thunderous clamour greeting visitors to the downtown Marriott Hotel last Sunday.
That’s where Victoria Drum Fest 2013 took place. And that’s where 17-year-old Zane Coppard won Victoria’s Fastest Drummer Contest.
His time: 803 beats a minute. That’s 13.383 beats a second. Which is pretty fast if you think about it.
In the banquet room, under those Smart-car-sized lighting fixtures you sometimes find in fancy hotel banquet rooms, sat about 100 people. A few guys stood in the back. Some had the sort of shaggy haircuts that say: “Hey man, I play drums.”
There were lots of moms and dads with their drum-student kids. Some kids munched potato chips. In an attempt to stave off hearing damage, most had jammed neon-orange earplugs into their ears.
A drum cover battle was in full roar when I arrived. That’s when competing drummers play to a recorded song.
There were two battlers. To facilitate maximum arm movement, each wore a tank top. Taylor Allum, a young man with only a few tattoos, slammed the skins with deafening force. Then came Jesse Manason, boasting full-sleeve tattoos. He, too, played with formidable vigour. Both played well, yet it was obvious the ability to pummel with testosterone-fuelled zeal is an essential ingredient in such drumming.
There was no winner. The master of ceremonies explained that beforehand, in the spirit of musical camaraderie, Allum and Manason had stipulated there could be no declared victor in their drum battle.
“We’d rather say they’re both just awesome,” the MC said.
Hanging out in a roomful of drummers is fun. During the lull before the Victoria’s Fastest Drummer Contest, I overheard a 40-ish, long-haired guy confide to a woman: “I’ve been trying to do 16th-note triplets. Holy!”
Victoria’s Fastest Drummer Contest made use of a Drumometer, an electronic gizmo used to count drum strokes. Drumometers, accepted by Guinness World Records, are employed at all fastest-drummer contests, which are now an international phenomenon. Essentially, drummers do a drum-roll for 60 seconds onto a pad that sends signals to the Drumometer.
“You can cheer along,” said the MC. “These guys are gonna try to beat some big numbers.”
Zane Coppard was the last of three finalists. The other two had each topped 700 strokes per minute.
Zane has a mop of curly dark hair and ruddy cheeks. He loped over to the Drumometer with the studied insouciance only a teen poised to compete in a fastest-drummer contest can muster.
Seemingly calm and focused, he appeared to expend only a medium amount of effort. As Zane rounded the 30-second mark, drumsticks a blur, people started clapping. When the 60-second Drumometer result was projected on an overhead screen, everyone cheered: 803 drum beats!
Afterward, I caught up with Coppard. He said he grew up in Victoria but recently relocated to Vancouver.
His father is a well-known motivational speaker, Edwin Coppard. Edwin was once a member of the Shockers, a flamboyant outfit that won the 1966 Battle of the Bands at the PNE. They’d buy $5 guitars and trash them Pete Townshend-style during shows. Now, Edwin, who is endorsed by Tony Robbins, helps people maximize their true potential by teaching them to sing and otherwise vocalize.
His son, Zane, said: “I grew up just with music playing around the house. Everybody in my family played music. When I hit a certain age, it was just like, what instrument do you want to play?”
Zane says he didn’t really prepare for the fast-drummer contest. He and his brother, Ulysses, have a rock duo called Smash Boom Pow! Of late they’d been rehearsing a very fast song, Hastings Funk, over and over. So that may have helped.
He won a music bag and gift certificates to a shoe store and a music store. And drumsticks.
Surely, such a prestigious win gives him serious bragging rights?
“Yeah,” Victoria’s fastest drummer said nonchalantly. “I mean, I guess so.”
