Check Out Brandon Draper’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brandon Draper

Hi Brandon, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My family called me thumper because as a baby I started thumping my leg in the crib in time. I was playing drums from the beginning of my life and my father had a studio in our basement. Musicians were coming over for evening rehearsals. I grew up seeing dad record in his studio, going with him to load in sound checks and eventually sitting in on drum at age 9. My first sit in song was Old Time Rock and Roll by Bob Seger at age 9. The primary band dad was in when I was born was Midnight Flyer, who got inducted into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame, and the drummer was Dean Kranzler, a professor of percussion at Fort Hays State and Bethany College. I started lessons with Dean at age 5 and began learning how to read music while learning to read words in school. Music as a career was always encouraged and never doubted in my home. In 4th grade I started violin in school thanks to Kranzler’s insistence that I don’t play drums in school band because I would be bored and I was a very energetic young boy needing a challenge. At age 11 I started playing guitar and dad gave me a foster X15 4 track recording machine. The audio production bug started!! In high school I was an all-state timpanist 3 years in a row, which is the highest chair for percussion. At the time I thought I wanted to be a timpanist in a symphony orchestra for a career. I started doing short tours with bands my dad was in at age 14. He did not want me to go directly into full-time recording/touring and he and my mother created an passion for college in me. I went to college to study percussion, theatre, and voice. It was there that I met a percussionist named Teryn. We started dating and have now been married for almost 24 years. In college I had a band called Walrus where I played guitar and sang with my best friend Taton Tubbs on drums. We are still very close and text almost daily. Walrus had regional success winning a battle of the bands at Emporia State which allowed us the opportunity to open for Veruca Salt on campus, and have our music played in heavy rotation on the college radio station. Next, I went on to graduate school to focus on percussion in New Mexico where I had life changing opportunities performing with legendary artists. This skyrocketed my career immediately. Teryn and I bought a house in Sandia Park at 7,200 feet between the Sangre De Cristo and Sandia Mountains. We attended a workshop for drum circle facilitation training in 2004 and started our company Drum Safari in 2005 that continues today. In NM I played regularly with jazz pianist Kevin Hays and toured with Ottmar Leibert while keeping a high school teaching job in world percussion, guitar, jazz, and audio production. I started my first audio curriculum utilizing ProTools at East Mountain High School during that time. Upon relocating to Kansas City in 2006, I was working 5-7 nights a week instantly. I actually moved with a sleeping bag and a drum set 2 weeks before my wife arrived due to performance contracts. We were planning on a one year stay in KC and then off to NYC but, one year later Bobby Watson hired me at UMKC for my first college teaching job in jazz drum set at age 27. The music scene in KC had a wonderful energy during that time. I curated late night shows at Jardines with my pal John Brewer, bringing in Mike Moreno from NYC. I had my own quintet playing original music and we were packing the rooms everywhere we played. We released 2 albums, 1 studio and 1 live. John and I had a duo called Organic Proof and we were seeing success touring. I joined Quixotic as a drummer and music director assisting with live performance and managing their music publishing in 2007. It was a really amazing time!! In 2009 I also joined the faculty at KU part time. 2011 I started working with Particle and DJ Logic, US dates and multiple tours. In 2015 I stepped back from touring and developed the music business program at KU that continues today.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh no. It takes a lot of tenacity to continue and persevere in the music industry. Mike Dillon once said, “go on tour in your own car, play for 3 people on a Tuesday night, load out in the rain, don’t sleep and drive to the next town, if you’re still excited, then you have a chance at surviving the music industry!”

I never think about things being easy or hard. When I have a vision and see a goal, I just go for it. I get hyper focused. Working construction with my father in the summers as a teenager taught me a lot about hard work. Sitting in studios for hours and days watching the process teaching patience for quality.

I guess the hardest struggle has been trying to understand what people are actually value me for, if at all. Am I expendable or valuable? I have gotten this wrong a few times and that is always very hard to handle. Teaching on one year contracts can be a little scary if you want to plan long term for your career. Playing in a band can be terrifying when there is time off the road.

Here is a gem I learned from my dad and his Nashville friends, “touring is great, but when you step off that bus after the tour you’re instantly unemployed again. Managing finances and income streams is key. Lastly, The combination of FOMO and valuation are a constant struggle internally. Reality versus appearance in the music industry can be a true illusion.
The trick is to always have many irons in the fire so there is no destruction if something fails.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a Musician, Producer, Professor. I play drums and percussion, guitar, bass, piano/keys, didjeridoo, and sing. I write music and produce. I have played on over 60 albums and have produced 20 on my own label. I am a skilled recording engineer and music business exec. For the past 18 years I have been a professor. I started teaching drum set and now teach music business, audio production. I am most proud of my family, my daughters, wife, parents and and our businesses. I own a record label and music management company, Looking Up Productions Inc. with my wife Teryn. We book and manage a small roster of artists, Brandon Draper (me) Drum Safari, and Draper Family Band. We have a lot of fun together on the road with our daughters Eva and Ivy. Drum Safari tours heavily in the summer and performs locally throughout the school year reaching approx. 40,000 children and families across KS, MO, AR, IA, NE, NM, WY, and CO.

When I moved back to KC, I started writing and recording with my father Paul Draper, a renowned Hammond B3 keyboardist and KS Music Hall of famer. We released our debut album “Draper Family Band” in May 2024. See link below. The band includes both of my daughters on backing vocals as well as Teryn on a few songs with percussion and vocals.

My specializations and what I am known for is a high level of artistry and uniqueness, sight reading champion, and comedy. I am constantly trying to make folks laugh. I love connecting people that I feel will work well together in music and beyond. An amateur blogger in the early days of the internet once said of me, “..no doubt Draper is a rhythmic mastermind, but at times he can be a little manic.” I didn’t like that quote years ago, but I love it now! Spot on! I am very comfortable in classical music settings, as well as world music percussion styles such as Turkish, Arabic, Cuban, Brazilian, West African, jazz, hiphop, rock, etc. I am often the guy called to play all the instruments that would normally take multiple people.

What sets me apart from others is my diverse abilities and skills in a variety of genres. Playing a rock show for 20k people at a music festival in California, to playing Jazz at Lincoln Center in a tuxedo, to leading a drum circle in the woods at a festival in Arkansas, music meditations at a nursing home, to giving a lecture on Music Business at Loyola University in Chicago, to touring as the percussionist on Cajon with a flamenco artist, to making hip hop with my pal Johnny in the film studio, to skateboarding on my lunch breaks at local skateparks, riding motorcycles, to talking your ear off because you asked a question after a gig or a class!! I just have a lot of energy and I want to connect with everyone and everything all the time.

Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Family:
Mom Dad – constant encouragement, love, support, music skateboarding, and encouraging my comedy! My friends and students know how hard I try! Sometimes too much!
Aunt Connie – taking me to lessons when my parents couldn’t, coming to my concerts, always being my biggest fan.
My daughters Eva and Ivy for being the best!!
Teacher – Mentors – Dean Kranzler, Scott Ney, Glenn Kostur, Bongo Barry Bernstein, David Higbee, Doug Talbott – teaching me, challenging me, and as I progressed, treating me as an equal and that we are all on this path together in music. The biggest gift my teachers gave me was equality and respect. In turn that has made me respect them more every day and keep me grateful in situations full of egos.

Artists – Donna Summer, Mose Allison, Bruce Dunlap, Kevin Hays, DJ Logic, Particle, Quixotic, Bobby Watson, – seeing my talent and bringing me along for the ride.

Institutions – UMKC- Bobby Watson, KU – Dan Gailey – believing in my skills as a teacher/professor. I can’t thank these two giants enough for their support and continued mentorship.

The town of Lindsborg Kansas for having such a strong support of the arts. Growing up in Lindsborg was like living in a conservatory. I can’t explain the wealth of knowledge held within the people in this town during my childhood in the 90s. My big band director in college played with Stan Kenton. My vocal teacher sang at the Met in NYC. The list goes on, and the beat goes on.

Pricing:

• Music Business Consulting
• Recording Production and Mixing
• Drum Safari Booking – email [email protected]
• Brandon Draper and Draper Family Band Booking – email [email protected]

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.draperama.com/ and http://www.drumsafari.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/draperama/ | https://www.instagram.com/draperfamilyband | https://www.instagram.com/drumsafari
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/draperama5000 | https://www.facebook.com/brandondrapermusic/ | https://www.facebook.com/drumsafari/ | https://www.facebook.com/DraperFamilyBand/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-draper-2156a2167/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/oslobella
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/brandondraper
• Other: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/brandon-draper/1726021467