Читать книгу Justin Bieber - First Step 2 Forever, My Story - Justin Bieber - Страница 15

Back in 1996, Mom says I was all about the beat. And I suppose that makes sense. Before anything else, you gotta have rhythm. She loved pop music and played the radio loud when we were in the car. At home, she’d crank her stereo listening to Boyz II Men or Michael Jackson. I’d wail on whatever was handy – pots and pans, plastic bowls, tables and chairs – with whatever else was handy. Like a spoon or the phone or my fists. She got me a little toy drum kit, probably to keep me from destroying the place, and I hammered on that until people started noticing I was actually laying down a pretty sick beat.

My mom is an absolute sweetheart who has this vivacious, goofy personality, so there were always a lot of interesting, artsy people hanging around our place. I think artsy people who can’t afford to go anywhere tend to hang out in the living room of the coolest person, playing guitars and talking about philosophy or whatever, and that’s the living room I grew up in. (I guess I just also realized that with my mom being single, a lot of those guys were probably hitting on her, but again: freakout factor. Not gonna go there.)

At the church my mom went to, there was a lot of music during worship, and most of it was backed by a contemporary praise band. The people in the band were friends, and, while we were hanging out with them, sometimes the percussionist would let me play with the various noisemakers. When he saw that I wanted to play – not just play – he’d let me sit on his knee while he played on the drum kit, and, after a while, he handed me the sticks and let me have a go at it.

By the time I was four or five, I could climb up on the stool and play the kit all by myself, and, about that same time, I discovered I could get up on the piano bench and pound on that, too.

Much to everyone’s surprise, it started sounding like actual music.

So here might be a good place to stop and say that if there’s an annoying little kid in your life – a little brother or some kid you babysit for – who wants to make noise and pretend to play music, I hope you’ll put up with him. Because, at some point, he won’t be playing anymore. He’ll be playing. Kids have to be allowed to do things they’re no good at. How else are they supposed to learn?

And, while you’re at it, you have to let yourself do stuff you’re not good at. Don’t get hung up on what other people think about what you’re doing. Dare to be a sucky skateboarder or a lousy video editor or a completely crappy golfer. If we do only the stuff we’re good at, we never learn anything new. Think of all the great possibilities in life that pass by because we’re too chicken to explore them and risk looking like a loser. Screw the haters who have nothing better to do than make fun of people who are brave enough to put themselves out there. Get out of your comfort zone and go for it. You never know unless you try.

‘Nuff said. Back to when I was five.

“You have to let yourself do stuff you’re not good at”

I was actually getting to be pretty good on the drums, and not too heinous on the piano. Mom and one of her musician friends Nathan McKay, who my grandparents called “the Lion King” because of his big, bushy beard, decided that I needed a real drum set of my very own. Nathan, aka “the Lion King,” and a bunch of his friends pulled together a little benefit event at a local bar, where they played music and collected donations to buy me my first real trap set with a kick drum, floor toms, snare, hi-hat and boom cymbal. I went crazy on it. Now Mom had to crank the stereo loud enough for me to play along.

Some of the church band people were playing at the fair that summer, and they invited me to play drums with them, but I was so little that the emcee couldn’t see me sitting there ready to play. He was like, “Well, I see you guys brought a drum set, but where’s the drummer?” I gave him a little tasty lick – ba-dum-bum-chhh! – and he stretched to see me back there behind the cymbal boom. Then he goes to the audience, “You won’t believe this. No way! There’s a little guy back there with his hat on backwards.”

I kept playing and getting better over the next couple of years. It got to be 2000, 2001, and you know what that means.

Beyoncé.

Destiny’s Child blew up out of Houston and killed everybody with “Survivor” and “Bootylicious.” That same year, I heard Alicia Keys’ “Fallin’,” and I still can’t get enough of that song. Usher murdered “U Remind Me.” Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliot did that crazy cool video for “Get Ur Freak On,” and there was that insane remake of “Lady Marmalade” by Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mya and Pink. Plus, we heard from Outkast, Nelly, Uncle Kracker, Mary J. Blige – all in all, it was a very good year for music.