DRUMS Austin Davis
[ WM ] Tell us about how you got started playing drums ?
[ Austin Davis ] Well , my Dad was a worship pastor in Maui , HI ( where I grew up ) for most of my childhood . When I was 11 , my Dad needed a drummer for a new campus that the church had just started in Oahu . I don ’ t know why , but he just said , “ I don ’ t have a drummer for tonight , so I ’ m going to teach you .” ( Not his exact words , but something along those lines .) He taught me one beat for the fast songs and one beat for the slow songs . No fills , no crashes or ride . Just hat , kick and snare … it was pretty rough , and it was on an electronic Roland V-Drum kit , but I loved it so much . I continued to play that service every single week for a whole summer and I started to notice rapid growth . Up until that point , I had never seen myself truly excel at anything , so by the
end of the summer , I was obsessed . It became the thing I wanted to do .
[ WM ] Who were your main drum influences ?
[ Austin ] I ’ ve had so many different players that influenced me throughout my childhood and career . Some of them influenced me directly and some indirectly … What I mean by that is : I grew up listening to almost all black gospel music . Kirk Franklin , Fred Hammond , BeBe and CeCe , etc . It ’ s what my parents loved . It what was on in the car every day and it ’ s what we played at church most Sundays . So naturally , I was saturated in that style , and had to learn the feel and groove from it .
But around the age I started playing drums , I found out about pop punk and rock music . I took to it , and those players were the ones I knew by name . Travis Barker being the main dude . I , and every other drummer of the early 2000 ’ s , wanted to play just like him .
On a church music note : not long after starting to learn drums , Hillsong United had just started and it was really the first time worship music and worship in general clicked for me and became something I loved . I was probably 12 or 13 when we started playing those songs and their drummer , Luke Munns , definitely played a role in how I approach worship music today .
In high school I started to graduate to hardcore / heavier music : Underoath being my favorite band . So Aaron Gillespie played a huge roll in my journey . There are still things I do and apply today that I learned from listening to Underoath albums .
When I started touring , and moved away from Hawaii , I was 17 and on the road with 30-yearolds . They started showing me “ indie ” bands and what they would call “ more mature ” music , as the hardcore scene started to fade .