Today we’d like to introduce you to Zach Gordon
Hi Zach, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Sure!
I was born in Manchester, NH and spent my very early years moving all around the northeast of the U.S until I landed in the capital region of upstate NY where I spent the majority of time as a kid and teenager.
Like most kids, I had a lot of interests but once I started band in 4th grade something just clicked and I knew I wanted to pursue music seriously from that point on.
It’s funny that I ended up on drums though because I actually really wanted to play saxophone, but couldn’t because of the specific type of braces I had at the time so they put me in the percussion section and here I am however many years later.
It took me a while to fully commit to music being my career aspirations because I’m the only one in my family who plays any musical instruments, but the more I dug into the more I knew that I felt different about music then anything else in my life up to that point.
I spent most of my teen years trying to do anything I could to play around the Albany, NY area. I started my own bands and would play all of the local rock and metal clubs, I played in theater productions in the pit band, I was in every ensemble and class that my high school offered, basically just anything I could do to get around it more.
It was tough though because I struggled with the academic side of music for a long time just because I had a difficult time in school for a multitude of reasons and it took me a while to see the value of studying the more academic sides of music such as theory, history, and other advanced styles.
Eventually, I went to audition for music college at a few of the SUNY systems schools and was rejected from all but Schenectady County Community College. I was rejected there also, but fortunately they have a remedial certificate program that is designed to help students that wish to become a full music major get up to speed.
It took me a bit to “lick my wounds” so to speak of getting rejected from all of the schools I wanted to, but I decided to reach out to the director of the music program at SCCC and they let me try the certificate program over the summer of 2011 to re-audition at the end to enter the music program in full.
Fortunately, I passed the second audition and became a true music major and graduated from SCCC in 2013.
After that, I moved on to Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA where I studied from 2013-2016. While there, I formed an original progressive rock group named Chronologist with a few other classmates of mine.
One of the other members of the group had gone to UT Austin prior to Berklee and would always talk about how great Texas was. Up to that point, I had never been outside of the Northeast, so I had no clue what to expect with Texas at all.
As time went on at school, we started to get more and more of a following and decided we wanted to attempt to pursue Chronologist as a career. When trying to figure out where to move to, Texas seemed to make the most sense at the time.
It was actually kind of odd that all signs at the same time seemed to point to moving to Texas. I had met my now wife at school as well and she wanted to relocate to Texas before I met her and my Mom had also gotten a huge job offer in Dallas, so it just made sense for all of us to relocate down here and see what happens.
I spent 2016-2021 as a member of Chronologist and also tried my best to get into the scene at large here in Austin and Texas. During this time I was also working various jobs around town as a barista, drum instructor, rideshare driver, and eventually ended up working in IT as a day job as my degree from Berklee was a music business management degree along side my music performance degree from SCCC.
I played in a wide variety of groups as well from country, jazz, pop, I was even in a Rush tribute band that was based in San Antonio.
Once covid hit in 2020, my wife (then fiancee) and I weren’t sure if we wanted to be in Texas for the rest of our lives and were finding ourselves quite homesick for the northeast, so we decided to move back to the Boston area from 2021-2023.
It was short lived back in Boston because we both felt we had made a mistake moving back, and decided to move back down to Texas last June.
Since then, I decided to fully pivot into focusing on the great country music scene that we have here in Texas and I’ve been playing with David Adam Byrnes as well as other artists in the scene since. I also currently operate as a drum instructor and session musician as well as working my full time IT support job during the day.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I would say it hasn’t.
I think the hardest part for me is that there isn’t really a clear cut answer for how to make a career out of music. I’ve struggled with imposter syndrome a lot because I’m not “doing it the right way” and have had to sort of make my own way of pursuing this at my own pace.
It’s also been a lot of trial and error, which is extremely valuable after the fact, but when you’re going through it and just hitting wall after wall it becomes pretty discouraging.
The setbacks that I mentioned earlier were quite a blow to my confidence and I’ve sort of struggled with feeling “less than” as a musician ever since as well.
Luckily I have a pretty incredible support system that helps me push through feelings and I feel that things are on a very great upward trend for me and those that I work with now which is very exciting.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Sure!
So currently I am a session musician, a drum and piano instructor, member of the David Adam Brynes band, and a Senior IT Support Specialist for for a larger cloud based storage company.
It’s taken me a while to find the mix of things that works for me, but I am very happy with this mix as I am able to support myself through my IT job while I pursue my passions and dreams.
I am able to work remote while I tour with David, and being that my hours are the normal 8-4/9-5 I am able to teach afterwards as well as run my own drum sessions out of my apartment or at the various studios around Austin and all of Texas.
I’ve found a niche for myself in the country scene as I feel as though modern country requires a lot from the drummers and I feel through my broad background in a lot of different genres I’m pretty well suited to handle things in that arena pretty well.
That being said, I’m always looking to work with new artists in different genres.
On the educational side, I currently teach virtually on my own and in person at Eastside Music. I have students at all ages and skill levels and I’m always looking to take on as much as my schedule allows.
For more info on both sessions, lessons, and just more about me in general please visit my website at zachgordondrums.com.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
The main thing I would tell myself just starting out is that no one really knows what they are doing.
I used to study the paths of a lot of my heroes and thought I had to do things exactly as they did to be successful.
I think it’s great to study those that came before to get inspiration, but odds are that your story and experience will not match theirs for a wide variety of reasons and that’s how it’s supposed to be. Don’t get down on yourself if things don’t work out on your planned timeline.
I would tell myself to just stick on the path that you’re on, and just try to outdo yourself each day. In the age of social media it’s very, very easy to compare yourself constantly to others and to miss the strides that you’ve made and get into competitions that don’t actually exist.
The biggest wins I’ve had in my career up to this point have really just occurred because I’ve keep moving forward a little bit each day and not from any massive plan that I’ve tried to force.
I still struggle with this daily as well, but it’s the main advice that I tell a lot of my students and younger musicians or creatives.
Pricing:
- Session Pricing: $150/Track – Variable rate based on work requested
- Lesson Pricing: $60/HR
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.zachgordondrums.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zachgordondrums/
Image Credits
Photo Credit: Peyton Scout
IG @peyton.scout28
