THROWDOWN Drummer Offering Private Lessons

Drummer Jarrod Alexander of the Orange County, California's hardcore/metal act THROWDOWN is offering private lessons. More information is available on the flyer below.

Jackson, Mississippi-born-and-raised Jarrod Alexander had an early instinct to wake the dead with his cranked snare. A graduate of Boston's Berklee College of Music, Jarrod's characteristic style is a visceral combination of raw power and technical finesse — giving his sound dizzying complexity and deafening clout. His drumming resume doubles as a who's who laundry list of early 2000's pioneer hardcore and punk rock, and as a blueprint of a young, prolific career, packed tightly with studio drumming and exhaustive touring with DEATH BY STEREO, A STATIC LULLABY and THE VANDALS, among many others.

Jarrod's professional drumming credits began in 1999 when he played on DEATH BY STEREO's debut album, "If Looks Could Kill, I'd Watch You Die", followed by GIVE UP THE GHOST's debut album, "Background Music", in 2001, and afterward segued into a European summer tour as drummer for THE VANDALS. Between 2002 and 2003, he recorded drum tracks for THE HOPE CONSPIRACY's "End Note", THROWDOWN's "Haymaker", THE BARS' "Introducing", and THE SUICIDE FILE's "Things Fall Apart" (as well as touring with the band),and in the years that followed, recorded albums and toured with A STATIC LULLABY, WHEN TIGERS FIGHT and MEAN SEASON.

Jarrod has an almost obsessive, connoisseur-like knowledge, love and collection of drums, as well as a set of influences that include Mitch Mitchell, Dave Grohl, Bill Stevenson and Matt Cameron. The inception, and evolution, of his style started when he was young. "I wanted to play the drums when I was sitting at my uncle's 1970s Rogers set at an age so young my feet wouldn't touch the pedals," he says. "I was fascinated by all of the different sounds that each piece of the drum set made…and knew I had to be a drummer."

Jarrod characterizes his own style as coming from a teenage desire to "play fast" and "throw in as many rudimental marching band licks as possible," and later loving "choking splashes and cranking my snare to wake the dead, and standing up on my throne and jumping off in the breaks of songs," which ended up with him driving himself to the emergency room after wrecking his ankle. The evolution continued after meeting AFI's Adam Carson, whose sound prompted Jarrod to "zoom in" on drum tuning and "let the songs breathe." With a combination of insane natural ability and a heart-breaking amount of work, Jarrod's honed his craft to exactly where he wants it, defined by "the finesse, the speed and craziness" that's the control aspect of his percussion, as well as "the Neanderthal face-smashing" that is always impressively powerful, sometimes awesomely so, to be in the same room with.