Kerch checked out the demo, which included early versions of “Lacerated” and “Leave A Whisper.” Intrigued, he contacted Smith they set up a meeting along with the band’s original guitarist and bassist at Hooters. Why don’t you listen to them? He’s got an amazing voice.’” Chad said, ‘Hey, man, Steve is working with this Brent Smith kid, who’s putting a band together. He and I both knew Steve Robertson, who was living in Orlando. My brother had become program director at the alternative station there, Planet Radio. “I had moved to Jacksonville for that gig with Lake Doctors. “This was back in 2000 or 2001,” Kerch says. ”īut after meeting Brent Smith, passion got the better of sensibility. And my father and mother had taught me early on that being a musician isn’t always an easy way to support. “Drums got me through those years,” he says. While the band never attained its ambition of becoming the next Van Halen, Kerch did immerse himself in performance throughout and beyond his high school and college years. I couldn’t afford a double bass setup and double pedals were in their infancy at that time, so I studied him a lot.” Nicko was especially big because he didn’t play double bass but he had such a fast right foot. Drummers were huge for me: Tommy Lee and Neil Peart, of course, but also Nicko McBrain from Iron Maiden, Tony Luccketta from Tesla, and Rick Allen from Def Leppard, just to name a few. “I’d listen to whatever I could, but mainly my brother and I were metalheads. “I was a sponge at that time,” Kerch remembers. When he finally received his white Tama Swingstar kit, Kerch and his older brother Chad, a guitarist, decided to put a band together. The deal was that my parents wouldn’t give me a full drum set until I’d used that snare to learn my rudiments and focus on the basics. It came in a hard-shell case with a stand, sticks, and a practice pad. ![]() Shortly after that I got a CB 700 beginner snare drum. “I was just six or seven when my grandmother told me, ‘You’re going to be a drummer.’ I reminded her of her brother, whom I’ve never met. “Like many kids, not just future drummers, I banged on them,” he admits. He might still be down there, boating and spraying, if not for those pots and pans. It was fun to work out in nature with the snakes and alligators.” ![]() These weeds can choke out the water systems and keep the water from getting into the aquifer. My job was to go to different lakes, retention ponds, and other water features and spray for feral weeds without harming the environment. “I landed a basic biology-chemistry job with a company called Lake Doctors. By the time he’d earned his anthropology degree from the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Kerch was ready to devote his life to the environment, beginning with a job that involved eradicating invasive weeds in the Everglades.
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