This week on Local Music Monday DeBraun Thomas profiles drummer Todd Copeland.
Todd Copeland is a native of Lexington who has been part of the local music scene for the last two decades. He comes from a musical family and grew up playing with his brother. When it comes to music, Copeland says he has never been afraid to step outside his comfort zone.
“The first thing that I actually got into that was busy, was actually a Reggae band called Living Eye, uh, funny thing was I didn’t know anything about Reggae, except for maybe the Police, that was my exposure to that, I really think that was a good way to start though, because I went in completely out of my element and kinda had to figure things out and I think that really kinda gave me a bug to learn new styles of music and play as many styles as I could figure out.”
Learning different types of music has made him a highly called upon drummer around town. His need to learn new styles has spread into his songwriting. He has been recording songs in his home studio says while he is a drummer, his favorite instrument to write on is not what you would think.
“Lately when I’m writing, I’m writing on the ukulele and I’m not writing songs that are gonna need drums, I’m kinda happy just, doing something different, for my whole life I’ve been a drummer and it’s really neat to do a project where, I haven’t done yet and I think it’s pushing me musically into another space that I didn’t have before, I had my role as a drummer and now I have my role as a songwriter.”
In addition to playing in many different bands, Copeland also does work as a session drummer. Over his career he’s learned many different things musically, but Copeland says, the best advice that was ever given to him, was to listen.
“Someone once told me, don’t play the drums, play the music, a lot of times people concentrate just on what they’re playing in a live or studio environment, but if you listen to everything around you, the whole idea of music is to combine all those sounds into one.”
Todd Copeland performs with A Tribe Called Lex, Born Cross Eyed, and The Other Brothers. More information about Copeland and his projects can be found here.
