Have you ever sat watching drum videos on YouTube for hours, gotten inspired by amazing drumming only to sit down and think "I can never be that good" or come to the conclusion "I guess I just suck"? Now imagine having no hands or feet and somehow managing to play 250 BPM along to a Black Dahlia Murder song, or other similar music!
We give you Kieren Schroeter from Southern Australia. Kieren has no hands or feet and does indeed play along to songs by bands like The Black Dahlia Murder, and very well we might add! He also plays in a progressive deathcore band called Tina Gray. So the next time you're having "one of those days", watch one of the videos on his YouTube channel or hit him up on Facebook and get your motivation back.
Huge respect to Kieren and all the other people out there who continue to inspire through their actions, attitude and dedication to things they love.
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About Kieren:
I'm 21 years old and with a organization called Prostek Prosthetics, who basically make limbs and arms for people missing them. They make the feet I wear in my shoes, and they make the arm bands I wear to play drums. The arm bands themselves are just wet suit material with velcro stitched on to them that wrap around my wrist and hold the sticks in place, but they also give me enough leverage to be able to bounce/roll the sticks, so I am able to do ghost notes etc.
I had to train myself incredibly hard to use my elbows as wrist, and yes, my arms are pretty huge because of it haha! Playing drums using your entire arm is draining as all hell, so I sat in my garage at home on the kit after school every day from 4pm until 10pm for nearly 3 years, and now my stamina has gotten to the point where I can blast beat for as long as I want. When I play using my elbows it feels like I'm using normal wrist movements.
I started out playing anything from Blink-182 to NOFX, then progressed to metal, then to extreme death metal. Now I've opened myself up to all genres of music and I mix every genre and make it my own. One thing most people don't understand is how much harder I have to work, due to not having wrists. But, I study drum videos and techniques of drummers and I work hard to learn new things.
Kieren's Gear:
I currently play a Ludwig Epic Black Charcoal Haze with black hardware. It's a 6-piece but I only use it as a 4-piece: 12" x 8" short tom, 16" x 14" floor tom, 22" x 20" bass and a 14" x 5" snare. I also use DW 9000 doubles and a 5000 Hi-Hat stand. My cymbals are: 18" Sabian AAX Studio and Dark Crashes, 14" Zildjian Quick Beat Hats, 20" Zildjian A Custom Ride, 14" Meinl Filtered China with a 10" Meinl Byzance splash for a stack. LP 9" Bell, 6.5" Stagg Bell, 16" Zidljian K Custom China, 10" Meinl Soundcaster Fusion splash and an 8" Zildjian A Custom splash.
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