MY STORY

I must have been around four years of age when my dad fashioned my first pair of drumsticks out of blocks of wood. As I sat in the sandbox, I had this urge to recreate the drum parts and sounds of my most beloved cassette tape: Queen, Greatest Hits, vol. 2. The thud of the kickdrum was replicated by hitting a patch of encroached weeds in the sand with the thicker end of the larger stick, the snap of the snare came from whichever pot lid was available, and the sound of a syncopated kick and crash cymbal came from hitting a mound of sand in a swishing motion that sent grains of sand rippling down in the box, resembling the fading sizzle of a crash.

A few years later, I spent the best part of my free time recording my own songs and compositions with a cassette player, on guitar, a Casio synthesizer, drums… Genres be damned. Creating and recording music, listening to my playing and improving on what I heard through adjustment felt like an integral part of my life already at the age of ten. Around that age, I also started studying at music school, from where I eventually graduated as a classically trained percussionist, along with a sort-of-degree in music theory.

Throughout the years since, I’ve been connected to making music in a myriad of ways: I’ve been the vocalist for metal bands (the most notable being Medeia, whom I fronted from 2014 until the band’s dissolvement in 2024), been the performing and/or recording drummer in several groups (most recently the wonderful Under Arches, a semi-local post-doom-project), and recently started releasing various songs of my own under The Frans.

I’ve also made literal thousands of videos for my YouTube channel, the first ones dating back to 2006. The vast majority of my videos are covers of songs that have felt particularly significant to me, and a decent amount of these videos have garnered significant attention throughout the years both locally and globally.

Some especially notable people have reached out to me for musical cooperation through my YouTube videos, for example the late and very great Nick Menza of Megadeth, and the leader of legendary Canadian thrash metal giant Annihilator, Jeff Waters. The latter, as a matter of fact, asked me to join the band as the lead vocalist and guitarist, but I respectfully declined the pleas of my idol because of personal reasons relating to mental health and the general confusion of being twenty-something. Ouch.

Wrapping this up, I could try cramming in a clichéd aphorism about what a massive part of my life music is, but that isn’t quite it… Rather, my life seems to be a part of music. Music simply exists as a constant in the world, and I love partaking in it in all the ways I’m able to. I want to keep listening to, thinking about, vibing with, play and love music by myself and in good company, and working as a teacher in music has opened up so many new ways for me to do just this.