Larry Kremer

I was born on 10/15/75 at Children's Hospital in Buffalo, NY. The first memory I have of playing drums was when I was 4 or 5 years old. My mother was painting in the living room mixing colors with multiple cans of paint on the floor. While she was on the ladder, I grabbed 2 spoons from the kitchen, put the lids back on the paint cans and started tapping on them, even though she was aggravated at the time, she knew I was going to play.

At 7 years old, I got a toy drum set for my birthday and every day after school I instinctively brought it out to the front porch and would play to whomever was outside. I couldn’t play much but the neighbors were always amused.

At 10 years old I got my first drum set, A black 5-piece Pearl Export with a couple cymbals and a set of hats. I took lessons from a guy in the neighborhood named Ted Chubbuck; he taught me the basics and gave me a good foundation of rudiments and coordination skills to play different styles.

By 12 years old my teacher moved out to the sticks and left the Buffalo NY area. We didn’t have a car back then, so I had to continue to learn how to play by listening to music, at the time (mid 1980’s). MTV was popular but I never was really into the GLAM Rock or Top 40 music that was played. Instead, I was being turned onto the underground music by the older kids that were into skateboarding. Punk, Early Trash and 90’s Alternative was the craze if you weren’t into pop music. Practicing how to play these genres developed my speed and stamina.

By 14 my brother stepped in, not liking the music I was listening to, he turned me on to Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, ELP, Jethro Tull, and Pink Floyd, to name a few. A friend of mine turned me onto Black Sabbath. That was it! I was totally consumed with all this music and compulsively compelled to master playing it, still trying to do so now.

By 16 I joined the high school jazz band and learned how to groove with swing. At the same time, I was writing music with original bands and playing out; gigging was always the goal. By my late 20’s I realized bands broke up all the time and I was tired of basing my life on “what if’s” so I put my sticks down and pursued a truck driving career. 

By 40 years old, I was yearning once again to play so I got a local truck driving job and at night started playing drums again. I went to open mic’s and went to clubs where cover bands played trying to sit in where anyone would give me a chance. It took a year or so but eventually I “made the scene.” I was fortunate enough to join a Judas Priest Tribute where I met Nat Peace, who was the lead singer. After being in the band 2 years, he confessed that he is actually a bass player and a Huge fan of RUSH! To my surprise, he knew how to sing and play (on bass) their entire catalog. Even though I hadn’t played that stuff in years, we jammed a few RUSH songs at Priest practice when the band took a break. However, we never pursued the idea of starting a RUSH tribute.

A year and a half later, Neil Peart died. I got a call to possibly be part of a RUSH tribute night and asked to put a band together and I immediately called Nat. We found a guitar player for the gig and learned 6 RUSH songs. It worked out very well, so we decided to keep the band going. Unfortunately, the guitarist could not commit to the project so we reached out to Joe Pinnavaia. He came down with half of our set learned (13 out of 26 songs) and was a perfect fit.

We have been a band for almost 2 years now (at the time of writing this) and are having a blast performing the music of RUSH. I feel totally blessed and extremely lucky to share a stage with these 2 master musicians. Being a huge RUSH fan myself and having the familiarity of their music makes it exciting to try and play, but still immensely challenging.

I am looking forward to taking our tribute on the road and sharing our love of RUSH with fans abroad!!