WOW!! Things really started off with a bang in March. I was giving some of the artist relations people I spoke with at Winter NAMM 2015, time to dig through all the business cards and emails before I picked up our conversation from where we left off in person.
I had a couple of stick endorsement possibilities but I had always wanted to be a part of the Vic Firth family. The sticks sound, look and feel like what I need to play my best. I was about to pull the trigger on a different and very well respected company but I thought I should reach out to Vic Firth one last time. Well, the stars aligned and everything came together…they accepted me into their endorsement programs and I had now checked off a very important item on my career bucket list.
I then started thinking about the last couple of endorsements I needed to round out my stick endorsement with Vic Firth, my cymbal endorsement with Bosphorus and my endorsement with KickPort International. I was in my garage ready to load up my equipment and looked at my cases which I’ve had for 20+ years. I thought to myself, who would be a better endorsee then me!? These cases have protested my custom drum set for years…they’ve fallen off my cart loading in and out of gigs with zero damage to the drums inside.
I thought it was time to reach out to Humes & Berg giving them an overview of what I was doing, who I play with, how many nights I perform, listing my current endorsements and sending them actual pictures of my current cases and explaining how much I love their products and I would be honored to be an endorsee of their Enduro cases. Guess what!? You guessed it, I received an email with an application and a few days later, received an email welcoming me to the Humes & Berg family.
Yes, to say early March has been a great month for my drumming career and validity in the eyes of other players, manufacturers and artists, is a huge understatement. I can’t be more grateful to Bosphorus, Vic Firth, KickPort & Humes & Berg for their trust in me to represent their products.
Onward & upward!!
Joe