I first encountered Rick’s voice in early 1992 when his insistent, melodic scream caused me to immediately reach for the phone and dial my college radio station, KUPS, to find out what was playing: Drive Like Jehu. That weekend, my friends and I made our typical 45-minute trek from Tacoma to visit several Seattle record stores in search of Drive Like Jehu’s self-titled debut CD. Seattle had many great stores at the time — Orpheum, Fallout, Cellophane Square, Bedazzled, Park Avenue — but none of them carried the CD. On the way home, we made one last stop at Silver Platters by the Tacoma Mall — a large store that seemed like a long shot. To my surprise, I found the homemade looking Drive Like Jehu CD sitting in the miscellaneous “D” section. The album, which I listened to non-stop, pulled me away from the Seattle bands I was growing tired of, and pushed me further toward more challenging bands like Fugazi and Sonic Youth, but with a heightened level of intensity, most of which came from Rick’s arresting voice. I still get goosebumps every time I hear the blood-curdling high notes on “If It Kills You.”

In the summer of 1992, I was lucky enough to see Drive Like Jehu perform live at Seattle’s Off Ramp where they opened for Sub Pop’s newest signing, The Supersuckers. As I entered the dingy, dark club — likely for the first time using my real ID — I couldn’t help but notice Sub Pop Records co-founder, Bruce Pavitt, an imposing figure with a bushy dark beard and a flat-topped baseball cap. I was excited that he and I shared the same taste not only in the bands Sub Pop had signed, but also in lesser-known, angular, dissonant guitar bands.

Drive Like Jehu opened their set with “Caress,” the first song on the album, and when the band kicked in after guitarist John Reis’ intro, I was floored. I’d seen plenty of powerful rock bands, as well as my fair share of nerdy, college radio influenced upstarts. Drive Like Jehu somehow encapsulated the best of all of them and upped the ante. John Reis had a muscular, relatively clean guitar sound, while Rick’s was more jangly and brittle, exuding a rawness that emanated more from his body than his mind. Rick and John’s guitars complimented one another perfectly with layers of complex interplay, and I remember thinking, as I stood close to the stage with each of their amps pointed at my head, this is why bands have two guitars.

Next they played sharp, frenzied renditions of “Bullet Train To Vegas” and “Hand Over Fist,” both from what is arguably the best 7” single ever to be released. Between songs I turned around, shocked to find only twenty or so people behind me. A momentary sense of dismay washed over me as I realized that the outside bar area was packed with people who were missing out on the best band in the world. Drive Like Jehu, however, seemed unaffected as they plowed through their set with ferocity. The band obviously had something to prove.

After the set, I mustered up the courage to place one foot on the stage. To my surprise, no one stopped me, so I hopped on stage and approached John Reis, who smiled as he wrapped his guitar cable. When I presented my CD and a pen and asked for his autograph, he seemed taken aback, as if I were the first person ever to make such a request. He politely declined. Twice. Rick, on the other hand, happily grabbed my pen and scribbled on the CD insert, perhaps swayed by my brilliant comment, “Great set, man.”

That was the only time I ever spoke to Rick. Years later, when he and I both lived in Brooklyn, I occasionally saw him at the Bell House or around my neighborhood. Each time, I felt embarrassed about my fandom on that Off Ramp stage in 1992, and despite having mutual friends, I never introduced myself. Now, I find myself wishing I’d expressed to him how profoundly inspiring that Off Ramp show had been for me both as a fan and as a musician. I wish I’d told him that I pursued drums instead of guitar partially because I knew I’d never be able to play guitar like he or John did that night. And I wish I’d told him about the enduring impact that his music continues to have on me more than thirty years later.

I got to see Drive Like Jehu three more times: during the summer of 1993 at Seattle’s Crocodile Cafe, where they mostly played songs from their yet-to-be released second and final album, Yank Crime; in the summer of 1994 at Salt Lake City’s tiny, packed Cinema Bar on the Yank Crime tour; and finally, at Brooklyn’s Bell House on their highly-anticipated 2016 reunion tour. Every Drive Like Jehu show made most other bands look like amateurs, but no show will ever surpass that night in Seattle in 1992, where Rick screamed, sang, and played to twenty people as if there were 20,000 of us.

* * *

I recently published two new pieces: For Fortune, I wrote about The Cure really giving it to the people on their recent tour. And for Shondaland, I wrote about Loving Day, the annual celebration of the 1967 Supreme Court ruling that banned laws against interracial marriage.

* * *

This summer is looking pretty calm for book events with just a few in August. Fear not, I’ll be back in the fall at some universities and other hot spots in Tucson, Detroit, and more. Event details and updates can always be found HERE.

Fri Aug 4: Brooklyn, NY @ Prospect Park’s Lena Horne Bandshell in conversation with Brooklyn Mag’s Brian Braiker. 6pm

Wed Aug 23: Los Angeles, CA @ Reparations Club / in conversation with Traci Thomas. 7pm

Fri Aug 25: Port Townsend, WA @ Thing (music festival) / in conversation with John Roderick. time tba

* * *

My memoir My Life in the Sunshine is out now. I’d love it if you picked up a copy at your local independent bookstore. It’s also available at all the big places, and for your Kindle as well. There’s an audiobook that I spent 20 hours of my life reading (it’ll only take 7 hours to listen). You can listen to the 5-minute intro for free on Spotify.

I hope to see you somewhere soon.

Nabil Ayers / Brooklyn

Website Tweet IG FB LinkedIn

Order “My Life in the Sunshine”

Watch: CBS Saturday Morning Segment

Read: Washington Post Profile

Listen: BBC Outlook Interview

I flew from New York to Spokane, the easiest point of entry to Moscow, where I was scheduled to give a lecture at the University of Idaho. I’d never been to Moscow, but when I lived in Seattle in the nineties and played in bands, I made a few trips to Pullman, WA, which is just 8 miles from Moscow, separated by an unceremonious state border. On those drives to Pullman, I remember passing the Korner Koffee Kup, a restaurant in Colfax, WA that reigned for decades over a central intersection in the small town. Anyone who drove that road would have seen it — it was impossible to miss. Those three Ks placed me in a silent panic every time, and I took the Kup’s dominating presence as a warning that someone like me should keep driving and not return. Each time I passed through Colfax without incident, I felt like I was pressing my luck.

I’ve long been aware of the high concentration of white supremacist groups in and around northern Idaho, and as I crept slightly below the speed limit through a few seemingly deserted towns, I felt as vulnerable as I felt on those drives through Colfax — even more so without the shield of my white bandmates. I feared the police car that I might unluckily face at a quiet intersection. Or the beefy pickup truck full of bored men that might pull up behind me on the otherwise empty road. But mostly I thought about the recent murders at the University of Idaho, where I was headed. You know it’s a dark time when thinking about a local mass murder helps take your mind off a more imminent threat.

The morning after my event I woke up to the horrific videos of Tyre Nichols being beaten by five police officers in Memphis. As I watched from the safety of my hotel room, I thought about my impending seventy-nine mile drive back to Spokane. And I thought about my next driving trip: A week-long book tour that begins in Atlanta and ends in Memphis. I’m excited to reconnect with friends and family and explore the unfamiliar territory that I recently learned was home to my enslaved ancestors. But now I’m questioning the trip. Should I fly between cities? Should I hire a driver? Should I cancel the trip altogether? It feels unfair that I have to consider changing my plans for my own safety. I’m not going hunting or jumping out of an airplane, I simply want to drive a car.

A friend recently reminded me of the time he and I were pulled over in high school while I was driving. The first question the officer asked as he looked at my license — and undoubtedly my afro — was, “What race are you?” In my twenties, I was pulled over in Seattle for driving with expired tabs. Everything was fine until I noticed a second police car rushing to the aid of the first, blocking a lane of traffic. I’ll never know what the first officer radioed in, but my guess is that it included the word “Black.” In both incidents I felt lucky to escape with nothing more than a ticket.

When I visit my white friends in other cities, it doesn’t occur to them why I’d rather rent a car than borrow theirs. Of course I’d prefer to save money and avoid the hassle of a rental, but not at the risk of being pulled over in what could be viewed as a stolen car. Explaining this feels like work I shouldn’t have to do. And not explaining it feels like I’m being dishonest.

New cars come equipped with cameras that sense danger and computers that bleep robotic warnings. Our seatbelts snap into action at the lightest pump of the brakes, and if those don’t save us, the airbag hiding in the dashboard surely will. But not everyone feels equally safe driving a car, because there’s no sensor that can protect us from a bad run-in. Odds are that my drive to Spokane will be fine. I’ll take in some nice scenery, cruise slowly and safely through Colfax, and in ninety minutes I’ll drop off my rental car and sip a celebratory cocktail at the Spokane airport. Another event completed; another bullet dodged; another lucky adventure. But the fact that I consider myself lucky for surviving these trips is the real issue.

I felt trapped in my Moscow hotel room — like it was the only place I was safe. Google maps said that the fastest route to the Spokane airport passed right through Colfax. Uber said that for $207, I didn’t have to drive at all. But then what would I do with my rental car? Outside, I gave the car an unusually thorough inspection: the tabs were current: great. California plates: not great. I planned to set the cruise control for two miles per hour below the speed limit and I forbade myself from drumming on the steering wheel for fear of attracting attention.

As I considered my upcoming Atlanta to Memphis road trip, I told myself that as long as today’s drive was ok, the next one would be, too. And so would the one after that. I imagined a red target on the hood of my car as my foot pushed the gas pedal and I blended into traffic feeling cautiously optimistic. Everything will be fine. As long as I’m lucky.

Upcoming book tour dates: More info HERE.

Sun Feb 19: Atlanta, GA @ Criminal Records / in conversation with TaRessa Stovall. 5pm

Mon Feb 20: Athens, GA @ the University of Georgia. 4pm

Tue Feb 21: Tuscaloosa, AL @ the University of Alabama. 4:30pm

Wed Feb 22: Nashville, TN @ Grimey’s Records / in conversation with Allison Russell + Eric Slick DJ set. 4pm

Thurs Feb 23: Memphis, TN @ STAX Museum of American Soul Music. 6:30pm

Fri Mar 10: Cleveland, OH @ Third Space Action Lab / in conversation with Ari Washington. 6pm

Thurs Mar 16: Austin, TX @ SXSW / moderating Valerie June’s keynote. 4pm

Thurs Mar 16: Austin, TX @ Vintage Wine and Books / in conversation with David Wright Falade. 7pm

Wed Mar 22: New York, NY @ the New York Society Library / in conversation with Jami Floyd. 6pm

Fri Mar 24: Boise, ID @ Treefort Music Festival / in conversation with Margo Price. 12:30pm

Tue Mar 28: Rancho Mirage, CA @ Rancho Mirage Library and Observatory. 2pm

My memoir My Life in the Sunshine is out now. I’d love it if you picked up a copy at your local independent bookstore. It’s also available at all the big places, and for your Kindle as well. There’s an audiobook that I spent 20 hours of my life reading (it’ll only take 7 hours to listen). You can listen to the 5-minute intro for free on Spotify.

I hope to see you somewhere soon.

Nabil Ayers / Brooklyn

Website Tweet IG FB LinkedIn

Order “My Life in the Sunshine”

Watch: CBS Saturday Morning Segment

Read: Washington Post Profile

Listen: BBC Outlook Interview

I’ve moved to Substack, so I’ll be keeping things more up to date on that page. I hope you’’ll follow me there. This is my last post here (for a while?), and my first post there…

Hello, and happy belated new year! I see some of you nearly every day. Others — we haven’t emailed in years. If you’re receiving this email, you’re in my address book, and today I’m going wide (you can unsubscribe at the bottom).

I was hoping to publish my memoir before my fiftieth birthday, which is on January 23. While the book won’t quite exist by then, I’m thrilled to share a big announcement:

My memoir My Life in the Sunshine will be published on June 7, 2022 by Viking/Penguin.

I’ve been working on this for a while. My first published writing came in 2016, when Jason Hughes and I sold our Seattle record store, Sonic Boom Records. The sale brought up lots of great memories from the store’s early days, and I was lucky enough to publish some of those stories in The Stranger. That essay taught me that I had an unusually reliable memory, and that I enjoyed writing about my experiences. So I started writing more. And I started publishing more. I wrote for the New York Times about my rugged New York City childhood; I wrote for NPR’s Code Switch about discovering my enslaved ancestors; I wrote for Pitchfork and Rolling Stone about Bad Brains and Nirvana.

At some point early on, my astute and wonderful wife AJ said something like, “This is all great, now go write about your father and your race, because that’s what you’re really interested in.”

AJ’s was a much more difficult assignment, one that required me to confront the feelings and issues that I’d either ignored or swept under the rug for my entire life. But I wanted to give it a shot. So with no real goal in mind, I started writing about the handful of times I could remember meeting my father, the jazz musician Roy Ayers. Our first real meeting: a lunch together when I was in my thirties. The time when I was eleven and ran into him in a music store, and I had no idea who he was. The time in a NYC recording studio when our entire conversation consisted of only five words. Once I started writing, it all came to the surface, and recounting these interactions and the events that surrounded them allowed me to view my life through a wider lens. Spoiler alert: It’s been a great life and, if you’re receiving this email, you’ve likely been at least a small part of it.

My Life in the Sunshine includes plenty of fun stories about New York City and Amherst in the 70s, being a bi-racial kid with a young single mother and moving to Salt Lake City in the 80s, living in Seattle and touring in rock bands in the 90s, and my time in NYC at 4AD. But mostly it’s about my struggle to connect with my father, whom I’ve never known, and the influence he’s had over me despite his absence. The process of writing this book opened up a wellspring of new connections — some familial, others simply by mutual agreement — and it taught me how to blur the lines that define family and race. I can’t wait to put it out into the world.

You can pre-order HERE.

I’ll have more news soon about excerpts, readings, and all that. I’ll send updates every so often, and I’m on all the social media platforms.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you’re well, wherever you are.

Nabil Ayers / Brooklyn

When I was seven, my mother took me to see Kiss at Madison Square Garden. I’d seen lots of live music as a child, thanks to my mother and my uncle, who’d brought me to jazz performances held in the lofts and clubs of New York City. But Kiss was a life-changing experience that contradicted the musicianship and intimacy of jazz with the bombast and spectacle of arena rock.

The sun-like intensity of the giant, lit up KISS letters caused me to look away, even though I didn’t want to. And when I blinked the letters remained burned into the insides of my eyelids. I can instantly recall the musty smell and taste of 20,000 people and the smoke and sweat that came from our mouths and bodies on the muggy July night. The volume of the band was sometimes dwarfed by that of the crowd, and my chest and feet rumbled. I felt at once overwhelmed, frightened and ecstatic. My mother loved the show, too, but she feared for our safety, insisting that we wear the cheap plastic baseball helmets she’d bought outside the show to shield ourselves against fan-tossed fireworks.

Now, forty years later, I’m taking my mother to see Kiss.

My mother and I both live in New York City, and the present-day version of our camaraderie exists when she takes me to Broadway shows. We’ve recently seen A Chorus Line and On The Town. She bought our Hamilton tickets months before it opened, claiming, “It’s going to be a big one.” No Broadway show has come without a series of questions and demands from my mother: Can we get an aisle seat in the back row? Which date will be the least crowded? But when I texted her my invitation to see Kiss, she didn’t ask about dates or seating options. Her one-word reply read simply, YES!

My mother raised me on her own. We bonded over seeing live music and constantly listening to music in our apartment, where John Coltrane, Donovan, Patti LaBelle, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder and Judy Collins provided an eclectic soundtrack. I’d started playing drums at age two, when my uncle bought me a drum set, and for as far back as I can remember, I wanted to be in a band. But as a racially-mixed kid, I didn’t identify with most of the musicians I saw or listened to. Even though I was exposed to a good balance of black and white artists, I didn’t look like anyone whose picture appeared on the albums we owned.

The Beatles had pale skin and straight, brown hair that I knew I wasn’t capable of growing. John Coltrane was a much darker shade of brown than I was, and his afro was tighter than mine. I knew I was somewhere in between these people, with no one to directly emulate.

I couldn’t change who I was, nor did I want to, but something about the four men in Kiss felt oddly attainable. I had no idea what they looked like in real life, and for that reason, there was nothing that stopped me from looking like them.

One Halloween I went as the drummer, Peter Criss. My official Kiss costume, purchased at the drugstore with saved up allowance money, was an abrasive mask that smelled of toxic paint and displayed a stark white face with black whiskers protruding from its mouth. While the face was spot-on, the hair felt like an afterthought; limp, frizzy yarn barely clung to the plastic mask, offering no assurance it would last through a full Halloween.

My mother and I thought we could do better, which meant that I’d remove the mattress from my wooden bed frame and replace it with my drum set, transforming it into a drum riser. It wasn’t as tall as Peter’s, which towered above the stage in the explosive, war-like photo inside Kiss Alive II’s gatefold album jacket. But it sufficed in our tiny apartment. To complete my transformation, my mother painted my face like Peter’s. After she applied a layer of white face paint, I felt unable to form any facial expression, my pores sealed with thick, white goop. How do they do this every night, I wondered, as my mother carefully applied my green and black eye makeup. When she finished my red lips, I put on my Kiss t-shirt, sat at my drums and blasted Destroyer at a volume that made our speakers sizzle with distortion.

“You look just like Peter Criss!” my mother exclaimed proudly.

Forty years after the first time we saw KISS, my mother and I will take the subway to the same venue. When the lights go down and the crowd noise intensifies, my stomach will recall the excitement of a seven-year-old at his first arena concert. We’ll take photos with our phones and sit comfortably without fear of fireworks hitting us. We’ll watch the band on larger-than-life screens with no smoke to obscure our view. My mother will remind me that as a child, I used to air-drum at concerts, and she’ll point out the other mothers who are there with their sons.

And I’ll remember why we’re there. Not for the music or the spectacle — neither of which will ever feel as powerful as they did in my youth — but to allow Kiss to refresh memories that only a mother and her child could create.

This Kiss tour is billed as The Final Tour Ever. The band played a Farewell Tour in 2000 and 2001 but later announced that it was only a farewell to its full original lineup, making it the last tour to include drummer Peter Criss and guitarist Ace Frehley. Though I find myself listening to Kiss occasionally, I haven’t followed the band in quite some time. I know that Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons are the only remaining original members. But I have no idea who plays guitar or drums in Kiss. It could be anyone.

“What are you gonna do about that hand?” The sound engineer looked down at my puffy, pink hand. Then he looked back up at me. His face curled in disgust.

“Ice and bourbon.” My right hand throbbed after hours of drumming, and when I gently poked at it with my left finger, it felt like a very thin hot dog skin about to burst into a dripping, oozing mess.

This was two years ago at Nashville’s Mercy Lounge where a group of musicians performed Nirvana’s debut album Bleach live from start to finish. The show featured a rotating cast of vocalists and players, three of whom were drummers, including myself. We raised thousands of dollars for MusiCares, a charity who helps musicians without health insurance. Fortunately, I had health insurance.

This Friday night, we’ll do it again with a different album and slightly different cast of musicians. This time it’s Devo’s Freedom of Choice to be played Exit/In.

I’d played drums my entire life, but since moving from Seattle to New York in 2008, I hadn’t played with any regularity in eight years. I was in good physical shape, but my right hand — the body part that bears the most impact — was not at all prepared for this test of endurance.

We practiced for one very long day, during which I played nearly fifty songs including some later Nirvana material. I played the tom-heavy, caveman stomp, “Scoff” and the machine gun fills of “Breed.” I played the slow, heavy dirge, “Paper Cuts,” in which the wide open spaces encouraged me to hit as hard as I possibly could. In the moment, I felt invincible.

After practice, my right hand began to swell and I felt it numbing as I maneuvered my fork around my dinner plate. Constant wiggling of my fingers didn’t help, but it comforted me to know that they were still attached to my hand. Adrenaline got me through the show the next night, but it took days for my hand to deflate and weeks of physical therapy for it to feel right again.

Everyone knows who played drums in Nirvana: Dave Grohl, the sweaty-haired, open-mouthed basher. While Grohl hadn’t yet joined the band on Bleach, we’d all heard him bring those songs to life. At the Mercy Lounge, I didn’t have the hair or the stamina, but I wanted to be Dave Grohl.

This Friday, I want to be Alan Myers, the lesser-known drummer who played in Devo from 1975 to 1985. Myers, who passed away in 2013, was not a bruiser. He’d started as a jazz drummer and without bombast, brought rigid, palpable energy and precision to Devo. This is good news for my right hand.

Devo was known for its schtick: Five look-alike nerds from Ohio who wore matching hazmat suits and funny hats while playing stiff, scientific new wave. Despite a long and influential career, the band is often written off as a one-hit-wonder thanks to the 1980 hit, “Whip It,” a song that makes you smile when you hear it in a karaoke bar or an eighties movie.

Before and after “Whip It,” which came seven years into the band’s career, Devo built a large and devoted fan-base that views them as much more than a one-hit-wonder. At least a dozen compilations of rare and outake recordings exist in addition to their nine studio albums released between 1978 and 2010. Over one hundred artists from Soundgarden to Bonnie “Prince” Billy have paid tribute to the band over the years by recording their own versions of Devo songs.

Devo shifted boundaries, transitioning from guitars and drums to synths and drum machines. The band’s most exciting work occurred when they were caught navigating this transition. Freedom of Choice documents the band sprinkling synthetic bleeps, bloops and blasts over a meticulously-tight yet very human backbone of real people playing real instruments. Devo occupies an important space in the wide gap between German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk and Nirvana, who once covered Devo’s “Turnaround” in a John Peel session.

“Whip It” has a drum intro as recognizable as the drum intro to Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean:” An anxious, hyper-kinetic, new wave spazz out — replete with sixteenth-note hi-hats — that does not rest for the song’s entire two-minutes-and-forty seconds. It might not make you shake your ass the way “Billy Jean” does, but it’s call is just as beckoning: An alert that the song with the authoritative vocals, tiny synths, and that classic whip sound has begun.

I have known and loved Freedom Of Choice since I was a kid and I’m looking forward to Friday’s show: One at which I can play drums like a normal human being. And where I can wear my glasses and still feel like I kind of look like the real drummer.