{"id":21951,"date":"2020-03-06T19:48:29","date_gmt":"2020-03-07T03:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/?p=21951"},"modified":"2022-08-19T12:19:32","modified_gmt":"2022-08-19T19:19:32","slug":"jason-sutter-be-kind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/jason-sutter-be-kind\/","title":{"rendered":"Be Kind"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I love London. I was just there for the 15th time to play two sold-out shows with Cher at the O2 arena, which is basically the Madison Square Garden of Europe. I was sitting in my hotel room, thinking <em>this is such a treat<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I remember the first time I stayed in that area. It was during my very first tour ever with Juliana Hatfield, who in the \u201890s was an \u2018it girl\u2019 all over college radio and soundtracks. I wanted to be a touring rock drummer, and this was my first experience. I\u2019d only been doing the gig for maybe three weeks when I flew to London to do a promo tour with Juliana. The friend who recommended me had said to me (an orchestral major at music school at the time), \u201cIf she doesn\u2019t look at you, don\u2019t take it personally.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was the shoegazing era of the mid-\u201990s. In those days, it wasn\u2019t \u2018cool\u2019 to like what you do in music. You\u2019d hear Dave Grohl talk about how Nirvana would play an amazing show and Kurt Cobain wouldn\u2019t say anything after. Same with Pearl Jam.<\/p>\n<p>I was brand new to this world and I didn\u2019t really know anybody. I\u2019m not saying the band members weren\u2019t nice&#8230;just standoffish. It wasn\u2019t what I\u2019d signed up for.<\/p>\n<p>I wish I could go back in time and tell that 25-year-old sitting in that hotel room, \u201cDude, you\u2019re going to have a career of a lifetime, do the coolest things, and make the best music with the best people, and you\u2019ll be wildly successful in your mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But with Juliana, I felt terrible. None of it was really satisfying or fun and I was confused and young.<\/p>\n<p>We were playing with Faith No More on a famous show called The Word, which was basically designed for drunk British college kids to watch after the pubs closed. It had that MTV kind of culture with guests like Oasis and Blur and a snotty host.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sJfq-QmV-jY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I was doing soundcheck and felt like I couldn\u2019t play drums. <em>What am I doing with my life? This is so weird, my band is super strange, no warmth anywhere&#8230;<\/em><br>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I was doing soundcheck and felt like I couldn\u2019t play drums. <em>What am I doing with my life?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<br>\nIt just sucked. I had this feeling of bleakness &#8211; and it\u2019s part of being a musician or anyone in the arts &#8211; where I was doubting who I was.<\/p>\n<p>I was mucking around with the rental kit on this huge soundstage and heard someone behind me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHey man, what\u2019s going on?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I turned around on the riser and there was a long-haired dude standing below. He started asking me all these questions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDude, you sound great! How are you? What\u2019s your technique?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was such a breath of fresh air. Someone was listening and gave a shit. He wasn\u2019t just into it, he was <em>really<\/em> into it, asking me how I held my sticks, who I was, who I had played with, and where I had come from.<\/p>\n<p>It was Mike Borden of Faith No More.<\/p>\n<p><em>Holy shit. Everything doesn\u2019t suck.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Everything that was black and white was suddenly in color again. <em>There\u2019s a light at the end of the tunnel. I am a human being and I can play drums.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I needed that push, and Mike came up to me not knowing how much his words were going to mean. It was such a cool thing. He was so sweet. It was one of those life-changing moments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre you going to the dressing room?\u201d he asked. \u201cLet\u2019s walk up together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11404 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.musora.com\/musora-cdn\/image\/quality=85\/https:\/\/drumeoblog.s3.amazonaws.com\/beat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/03135020\/HipstamaticPhoto-594478745.255105-e1583272268583.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"333\" height=\"400\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>As we went up four flights of stairs, we talked about what we were into and what our backgrounds were. He was genuinely interested in what I was up to. When we got to the dressing room, it was the opposite of what I expected. I walked up with the drummer of Faith No More, and the other members of my band were looking at me like <em>oh my God, who are you, and why does this guy care about you?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It was like a Cinderella story where the band was the shitty stepsisters. <em>How come the prince from the cool headlining band is talking to you?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This changed my perspective on where I was. It really brought me back to how cool of an opportunity this was. <em>I\u2019m good. I don\u2019t need them to tell me. I have this killer drummer talking to me.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I always wished I could tell that guy. I figured he&#8217;d probably never know what this meant to me.<\/p>\n<p>Sure enough, a few years later, I was playing a festival with Chris Cornell. Faith No More had reunited and they were in catering with us. Mike Borden was sitting across from me. When I was introduced to him, he said \u201cDude, you\u2019re the drummer? You gotta eat more than that. You\u2019re just eating a salad? You\u2019ve gotta eat carbs. You\u2019re gonna fucking wither away!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I wanted to say something, but I didn\u2019t think it was the right time.<\/p>\n<p>After our show &#8211; and after walking past Mike Patton, who was spinning around in a wheelchair and being super weird and artsy &#8211; Mike Borden grabs my arm and says \u201cDude, who are you?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Hi, I\u2019m me, we had dinner together.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, dude, I mean where did you come from? I\u2019m scared to go on after you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>You\u2019ve got to be kidding me. He\u2019s a bona fide rockstar drummer and he\u2019s scared to go on after <strong>me?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>I said, \u201cYou\u2019re not going to believe this. But we had this hang&#8230;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I told him the story. His eyes bugged out of his head and he was smiling the whole time.<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t remember it at all.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI always wanted to tell you. You have no idea how you changed my life by just being cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.musora.com\/musora-cdn\/image\/quality=85\/https:\/\/drumeoblog.s3.amazonaws.com\/beat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/03135011\/OriginalPhoto-603660184.360354-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>Even if it seems like all is lost, you gotta stay the course &#8211; because if you don\u2019t, it\u2019ll never get better and you\u2019ll never know. I\u2019m glad I did.<\/p>\n<p>You may not realize how you\u2019re affecting somebody. I\u2019ll never forget this story about just being cool, man. We\u2019re drummers. Don\u2019t think twice about reaching out and being friendly. This is what I do, no matter who I\u2019m opening for or who\u2019s opening for us.<\/p>\n<p>If a local cover band is opening for Cher in Ireland, I\u2019m going to introduce myself to that band and that drummer. If you hear someone and they\u2019re good, take the time to tell them. Nobody ever gets sick of hearing that you appreciate them. You never know who might need to hear it. That\u2019s what you do.<\/p>\n<p>Be kind. Say hi. Just be nice. It\u2019s a rough business. Don\u2019t be too cool for school because nobody\u2019s got time for that shit.<\/p>\n<p>You don\u2019t have much control in this rock and roll world. You can only control your playing and how you conduct yourself as a person. The rest falls into the hands of other factors: tour managers, artists, the record buying climate. But you should control what you can.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re in a position where you\u2019re feeling like shit, you\u2019ve just gotta keep going. Hang in there and make the best of it. Look at every step as a learning experience. Maybe you won\u2019t be able to see it when you\u2019re a 25-year-old sitting in the Cop Tara hotel in Kensington, but if you can stick it out and make it to the point where you <em>are<\/em> sitting in a hotel three blocks from where you started, and you look back on your career and go \u201cthis has been amazing, I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m playing two nights sold out at O2 with an artist I respect\u201d, it\u2019s a pretty cool place to be.<br>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It\u2019s not where you start, it\u2019s where you end.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<br>\nLife is becoming more clear in a good way. It\u2019s not where you start, it\u2019s where you end. As a human or as a parent or as a musician, it\u2019s what you do with it, where you take it. You can make a difference from here on out. Until it\u2019s over, you\u2019ve got a long way to go and you\u2019ve gotta stay positive.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-16495 \" src=\"https:\/\/www.musora.com\/musora-cdn\/image\/quality=85\/https:\/\/drumeoblog.s3.amazonaws.com\/beat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/03110138\/jason-sutter-signature.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"167\" height=\"178\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16546\" style=\"border-radius: 50%;\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/drumeoblog\/beat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/19111110\/DSC00019.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Jason Sutter<\/h3>\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<iframe class=\"email-form-include-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/weeklyemail\" frameborder=\"none\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When his career was just getting started, Jason Sutter learned a huge lesson. He now pays it forward as much as he can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":21970,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4019,4035,4039],"tags":[1795],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21951"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21951"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30647,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21951\/revisions\/30647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}