MN Music Note - Ep 30 - 9 Years Old Playing Rush Like a Pro with Maxwell and Bob Locke

What were you doing at 9 years old?

Because Maxwell is out here playing Dream Theater, Rush, and Mastodon…
and not just messing around… actually playing them.

In this episode of Minnesota Music Note, we sit down with Maxwell, a young drummer from the Minnesota music scene who’s already turning heads with his skill, discipline, and love for music.

But this isn’t just about talent.
It’s about what happens when passion gets supported early.

From getting his first drum set at 3 years old… to starting lessons at 6… to now practicing daily, playing local jams, and preparing for studio recordings…

Maxwell’s journey is a reminder that this scene isn’t just about where you are now… it’s about what’s coming next.

🎧 In this episode, we get into:
- How Maxwell got started playing drums at just 3 years old
- Why he was drawn to challenging music like Dream Theater and Rush
- His respect for legendary drummers and what he learns from them
- Playing at local venues and open jams around Minnesota
- The discipline behind practicing every day (yes… even for stickers 😄)
- His upcoming studio session and what he’s working on recording
- The role of family support in developing young musicians
- Advice for other kids who want to start playing music

👉 Tune in to hear Maxwell’s story and see what happens when talent, curiosity, and consistency come together early.

Resources:
https://facebook.com/MaxwellDrumsWell
https://www.instagram.com/maxwell_drumswell/
https://www.youtube.com/@MaxwellDrumsWell
Drum teacher:  https://davidstanochschoolofdrumming.com/
Drumr App: https://drumr.app/?fbclid=IwY2xjawRmSXtleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETEyaGhuelhnamphT0dNZkF6c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHn0UfG2pNlpMiSgva5ZnGGAVniIsi5FmATPH1gZAYEq0pSwtRBoPcnAnmR-6_aem_qAWXAT9DKXLbarLw1_q4DA

This is what Minnesota Music Note is all about.
Not just the artists you already know… but the ones you’re going to be hearing a lot more from soon.

If you're part of the Minnesota scene…
Whether you're playing shows, hitting jams, running sound, or just getting started, this is your reminder that you’re part of something bigger.

And we’re here to document it!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Welcome, welcome. Who are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:21

I'm Maxwell.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Cool. So what do you do, Maxwell?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Uh I like to play drums.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

I think I I think m many people in town would probably know that by now. You're a pretty uh pretty locally famous artist, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

What's kind of the what's kind of the coolest drum song that you're working on right now?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

I'd say Metropolis Part One from Dream Theater.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

You're working on Metropolis? Man, my mind is blown. That's a pretty tough song. Did you like the progressive stuff then? The really challenging drum parts.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Who would you say is kind of like maybe the artist out there that you have the most respect for, that you really want to be like?

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Neil Peart.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Is that right? And why?

SPEAKER_01 1:21

He's very deliberate when he plays. And he plays what fits the song.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Nice. Yeah, so so you mean he doesn't sometimes overplay? He plays what's what what's needed. That's pretty nice. What's your favorite rush song?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Limelight.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Limelight? Yeah, mine too. Mine too. I was just jamming that out when I was building some shelves with my basement yesterday. So that's a great tune. What do you like about it?

SPEAKER_01 1:57

I like that it has a big fill at the end and it has lots of dynamics.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Cool. Nice. So I read in the in the story that your dad sent me that you kind of like started out in drum lessons at what age was it?

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Uh was it six?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Maybe dad remembers. Six. Six six years old? Yeah. And he started at Rogers School of Music. Cool. Who was your teacher there? Or did you have several?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Russ.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Russ? Yep. Russ Hydrone. Nice. Awesome. So he started you on a path of just kind of learning the basics, and and very shortly you were kind of bored with the basics, I hear. And you wanted to take on some more challenging stuff. And now you're playing songs that most drummers are scared to play because they're really tough. That's impressive.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

What do you think of Mike Mangini?

SPEAKER_01 3:03

He is a really great drummer.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

I think.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Nice. So um you you you've gone out to play like the open jams before, is that right? Mm-hmm. What songs have you played there?

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Uh I've played uh It's okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

If you don't remember, we can move on.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Far Cry by Rush and Pull Me Under by Dream Theater at Route 47.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Really? Pull Me Under is probably my favorite Dream Theater song. That's the one that got me into Dream Theater in the first place. Pretty cool. What do you like about that song?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

It flows.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Swells?

SPEAKER_01 3:56

It it flows.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Flows, okay. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

And uh it uh changes feel a lot.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Nice. You're very good at articulating what what the different things are happening in the music. That's pretty impressive too. I like that a lot. So, Dad, what's uh tell me about what you saw and when you saw it.

SPEAKER_04 4:29

So he was three and just destroying the house. It's banging on everything. So we wanted to have a constructive way to direct that energy a little bit. Um, so Santa brought him a drum set for Christmas that year when he was three. Three years old. Wow, that's awesome. So and then he just kind of took off from there. He was having a lot of fun sitting down and making some noise and banging on stuff. And then uh we wanted to wait until we thought his attention span was going to be there to be um mature enough to sit through a lesson. So when he was six, we thought this is the time. Then we signed him up and yeah, did uh pretty well from there. So he's played um Route 47 in town. He's played at Shaw's, he's played at um Ziggy's in Stillwater and Hudson. Um he's gonna play uh at Ziggy's in Hudson. It's Max's social house now on Wednesday this week. Is that right? Uh I'm gonna be there on Wednesday. Cool. Oh yeah? Yeah, Max, what song are you gonna play?

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Uh uh.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Did you forget?

SPEAKER_04 5:59

Uh it's the uh Mastodon song.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Uh Colony of Birchman.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Wow. Yeah, I've seen Mastodon play live, and that drummer is just all over the place. He's lucky as eight arms. That's a pretty impressive band, too. So he likes a Mastodon, huh? What's uh so first of all, can I can you pull the? I think, especially if you're gonna talk towards Max, just keep the mic maybe a little bit closer to you, which is fine. Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_04 6:30

No worries, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

So we'll pick up a little better there. Um, so what's uh you know, what's something new that you're into right now? Or is there anything new that you're into?

SPEAKER_04 6:46

You've been really getting into uh Daphn's Pareto lately. Um I wondered what that is. Uh Daphnis is a Cuban drummer, he's a jazz guy, he lives in New York now. Um, but he does a lot of so there's a classic drum book called Four-way Coordination. Um it's I don't know 60 years old. I don't know. It's an old, old book. Um, but uh instead of going through that, we've been doing some of the Daphness exercises. So working through different uh Latin patterns with um clave patterns, like three two clave, two three clave. What other things have you been working on? Doing some cascara and some da some call.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yeah. How often do you practice?

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Uh at least thirty minutes every day.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Is that right? That's some good discipline right there, sir. You try to do it more on the weekends? Depending on the weekend.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 8:23

Don't know. Sometimes. That's alright. Yeah. What happens if you practice for 30 minutes?

SPEAKER_01 8:32

I get a sticker on my chart.

unknown 8:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:35

Oh nice. How do you like that? Uh Working for stickers. What happens if you fill up a whole month of stickers on your chart?

SPEAKER_01 8:49

I get to go to Cheapo and pick out any CD of my choice.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Nice. Nice. So what's the next CD you you have your eyes on? Or do you not know yet?

SPEAKER_01 9:05

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Don't know yet? Okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:08

We got the Dream Theater 40th anniversary tour um CD Blu-ray last time, and we had to pass on uh six degrees of inner turbulence because we can only get one. So we'll have to save that one for next time. So maybe that one next time. Um Max has really been trying to find the Rush live in Rio. It has like a purple dragon on the cover, but that's the one rush album I think that's been elusive so far to track down.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

But do you guys like to go to other stores other than cheapo to search for these rare albums?

SPEAKER_04 9:53

Sometimes if there's like a specific one that we can't find, um, we try to order it through the cheapo first because we like those guys. And if they can't get it, then we've tried half-price books and had some luck there. Um down in the valley in town. Sometimes we were trying to find um Grace Under Pressure, and we couldn't find it anywhere. But then um Down in the Valley was able to find a UK import copy of it. Um, so that was pretty cool. Um, but yeah. So he's collected all of the Rush studio albums now and most of the Rush live albums working on the dream theater. Sometimes we spice it up and add some jazz albums in there. You got a really cool uh Buddy Rich set. That was been pretty fun to listen to, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

So what what is what does this journey mean to you, Dad?

SPEAKER_04 10:54

Um, I think it's exciting. I mean, we want to support him as his parents and find opportunities for him to play, um, find ways to encourage him to keep practicing and you know, find different music for him to listen to that's exciting. Um kind of what started our our rush journey is you were working on songs and you were just kind of getting bored, and we were trying to figure out a way to get you excited about it again. So I made a playlist of like all the music that I grew up with, um, a lot of 90s stuff and all sorts of different bands, and then he's listening and not paying attention, and then limelight came on, and then he was like, Oh, that's the one. So we were like, I don't know, but we found a transcription and you worked really, really hard and drove us all crazy playing limelight six or seven times a day. But you got it down, right? Right, yep, you did a great job.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Nicely done, Maxwell.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

So do you you see uh being in a band in your future?

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yeah. Like how far out? Do you want to find some band members tomorrow, or you wait a couple years, or what are you thinking?

SPEAKER_01 12:25

As soon as possible.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

As soon as possible? Okay, cool. Might be challenging to find other young band members that are that are ready to take on some of the challenging songs that you've already taken on. So that'll be a lot of fun. And you read music as well, right? Yeah, I see a lot of times in your videos you're like peeking over the charts and then dry jumping right back into it, which is pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Yeah. Awesome. What kind of sticks do you like? What's your favorite sticks to hold?

SPEAKER_01 12:59

I like the uh ProMark Fire Green 7A's.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Hmm. Nice. And what what do you particularly like about them? They look cool and sound cool?

SPEAKER_01 13:16

They sound good, they feel right in my hands.

SPEAKER_04 13:24

Mm-hmm. Awesome. We went through a lot of different sticks, um bigger sticks, different tips, and things like that. And so he's very small, his hands are small. You know, six years ago when he started playing, his hands were very small. So the 7A uh diameters seem to just fit his hands better. Um so they're they're lighter weight, which is good for him too for his size, but they're still a full-size length stick so he can reach things.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Cool. What type of what's your what kind of type of drums are you rocking these days?

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Uh I play on Tama drums.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Nice, nice. And how big is your kit? Do you have drums everywhere? That's what I've seen in the videos.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Yeah. You keep expanding on that as you learn new new tricks and new tools and new songs.

SPEAKER_04 14:28

Yep. So you have a seven-piece Tama Imperial Star. Nice. It started as a five-piece, and then we expanded plus one higher and plus one lower drum to round that out. So he didn't have enough drums to play the Neil Pearrett feels, and that was that was a problem.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

For sure.

SPEAKER_04 14:48

And then what did you get for Christmas this year?

SPEAKER_01 14:51

I got Rototoms.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Yeah. I love Rototoms. I think Rototom should be in every song for some reason. What do you think? Maybe not? Rototom's and Double Kick should be in every song. No?

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Yeah? Yeah. Alright, I like that. Good answer. Awesome. So what's what's next for you? What's next on your journey? What do you want to take on next? What do you want to do next?

SPEAKER_04 15:27

I uh do you want to talk about you're gonna be in the recording studio again coming up in about a month? Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Which recording studio do you typically go to?

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Uh Split Willow Studio.

SPEAKER_04 15:50

Okay. Where's that? It's in Sartell. Sartell. Kind of up by St. Cloud.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 15:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

It is called what? Split Willow?

SPEAKER_04 15:59

Split Willow Studio.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Split Willow. Okay. Okay. Sweet. And we'll give them a shout-out right here right now on the podcast. Yep. Maybe we can even throw their uh their uh website down below if somebody else wants to go out there. Would you like working with those the folks, huh? So what are you gonna do? What are you actually recording when you go to the recording studio? What songs do you want to work on? And is it more just more just about getting the experience of being in the studio?

SPEAKER_01 16:32

And uh I'm gonna be recording uh Limelight and Metropolis Part One.

unknown 16:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Awesome, man. Yeah. In studio. And how old are you now, Maxwell?

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Uh I'm nine.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Nine years old, and you're gonna record Limelight and Metropolis just because that's what you want to do on the weekend. That's so cool, man. I love that. I love that. Yeah. Very impressive. Well, what what advice do you have for other kids maybe around your age or a little bit younger that think they want to get into music?

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Um I'd say listen to different kinds of music and if you hear something that you you like feel free to try to play that.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Nice. Awesome. Do you want to add more?

SPEAKER_01 17:53

You should always uh play what you like and also try to learn other styles. Because the other styles might have things that you can add to the style that you're already playing to make it more musical.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

I like it. And make sure you have rototoms and double kick in every song, right? I guess that's my advice. Well, awesome, man. Um you guys want to add anything else?

SPEAKER_04 18:40

I would say maybe some goals for this year. We'd like to do more collaborations. So if there are other musicians that would want to play with Maxwell, that's something that we'd be really interested to know about. Yeah. Yep. Nice. Um, if there are any songs that anyone has been like, oh man, I wish I had a drummer that could play this song. I think I know a guy. So that would be something else that we'd be interested in, too.

unknown 19:14

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

And you have your own website, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Okay. So we'll throw that right in right in the bottom here as well, so people can reach out to you or to your dad and kind of set up those collaborations. But now that you've thrown it out there, I would bet that you're gonna have a bunch of people to be like, yeah, that would be a cool project to do, you know, this sort of thing and have Maxwell playing drums with us. So yeah, I think it would be a lot of fun. Looking forward to that? Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Anything else, guys?

SPEAKER_04 19:53

Um, I think that we're really excited for the studio experience coming up. Metropolis is gonna be epic. We've been working on that a lot at home with uh I think in the the studio there's some overdubs and um different sounds that happen in the track, but all of those sounds are gonna happen for Max. So that'll be pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Impressive. I look forward to hearing that and seeing that. You guys are gonna video it as well, possibly.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

Yep. Yeah. Um, the guy uh that we've been working with for that, Bo Allen Productions, he's out of Duluth.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 20:33

Um, but he does really a great, great job. Um, the last time we were there, they had a few different camera angles from the front. They had a camera above, so like the overhead shots and other cameras on his feet, so you can see the double kick pedal going and nice. That was pretty fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Yeah. And I think Metropolis has both Rototoms and double kick in it. Am I right? It does. I love it already. I love it already. All right, so I always wrap up with the same question for everybody, and I'm gonna even ask you the same question. Okay, who do you think, who do you recommend should be the next guest on our show?

SPEAKER_01 21:28

I think uh that should be Mike Pointly.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Wow, that would be a heck of a guess to get on the show. Well well that would be pretty cool, wouldn't it? Do you um do you uh subscribe to Drumio at all?

SPEAKER_04 21:54

Uh we we don't have a paid membership, but we follow them on YouTube and on

SPEAKER_00 22:00

I I l uh you've probably seen that they had like these guest appearances where they'll bring a drummer in and just like throw some crazy song at them and then challenge them to cover the song in like ten minutes. And Mike Mike Portnoy got given Numa by Tool, which is a pretty challenging song to play, and he only had like an hour or something to be able to try to put it together. Do you have you seen that one?

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Uh no, but I saw the one after it w where we got him back.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Oh, I haven't seen that one yet. That's funny. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 22:34

I think he had him learn uh Midnight Messiah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Uh there's some good drummers that come through that that uh YouTube page or that feed that they have. It's a lot of fun watching different drummers of, you know, you know, get a country drummer and they'll tell him to play like a death metal song or, you know, uh a death metal drummer and he has to play a country song. You know, just really uh funny switch ups.

SPEAKER_04 22:59

They had I can't remember who they had do it, but it was that kind of a situation. They had to play a weather report song, um, like old 70s jazz, and it was pretty pretty funny. Um but we'll see if we can get uh Mike Portnight to to come here. Max got to meet Mike very briefly last year.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

So that would be pretty pretty awesome. Well what about any local musicians? Do you guys have any ideas of some local musicians that might be good on the podcast? Anybody you've met out there that you thought was just really fantastic and a great person and thoughts?

SPEAKER_04 23:49

Maybe for uh for local people, John Sonic. He runs the Ziggy's Jams. Um that's been a fun experience because you've had Mr. Mad Mike on.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

I've had him on, yeah. I've invited John a couple times now, and he keeps saying he's gonna schedule. So here there it is, John. Now your name has been thrown out once again.

SPEAKER_04 24:09

Yep. Um some other bands locally that would be really fun to interview. Uh Megan and the Bird Watcher. I don't know if you've if you're familiar with them. No, that's that's a new one to me. Um but uh she's great. Um they opened for uh Weezer last year. Um and they uh she's kind of like an Americana artist, but really great singer, and um she has a large band with banjos and fiddle and really cool instrumentation, good music.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

I'll have to put it to boundaries with her then. She can't bring the whole band in because I can't getting five people around this table yesterday was already tough, so I can't imagine having like 17 people in the studio. So that's cool. That sounds like a fun one to watch.

SPEAKER_04 24:59

Any other thoughts? No, we're just gonna keep rocking.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

So on a scale uh one to six hundred and forty-seven point two, how cool was it to be on this podcast?

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Decadilian.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Decadillion, wow. Decadillion with rototoms and double bass. I love it. Thanks so much. This has been fun. First podcast was a pretty cool. Yeah? You want to do it again?

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

I actually know a couple other b uh uh John uh Stunner was in here. He was Stunner stage, and then I actually got reached out to by again Greg Chilton today, who's got one of the oldest music podcasts in town. So Yeah. If you're really into it, then we'll throw your name out there and get you on to some more some more camera time with different people talking about your craft. And I look forward to you forming together this super group of musicians around you to see what happens. So I can think of many people already that that would be like, yeah, let's do that, you know.

SPEAKER_04 26:16

That's actually why we did the Route 47 jam the first time, is they're the only place in town that I could find that had any rush on their we can play the song set list. Um so he got to play the Spirit of Radio there last April when he was eight. Or nine. You were like just barely nine. And then everyone was like, What?

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Yeah, I think I saw you play Walk by Pantera, the Ziggy's jam. That's was that you? Nope. No? Okay. Maybe it was a different young drummer.

SPEAKER_04 26:53

Must have been. Yeah. We're gonna keep practicing and find some other fun things to do.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Awesome. Well, I guess I'll see you guys again in a couple of days at Ziggy's. That'll be fun. Which is soon to be Max's. Actually, they're coming on the podcast too. The new owner and Megan are gonna be on uh I think next Saturday. Nice. So yeah. So it's not just about musicians. I like to talk to everybody who's involved in music at all out here. Maybe I'll get the owners of Jeebo Records on here too, you know, the music lovers, music people. So yeah, awesome, man. Thanks for coming.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Yep, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

You're welcome. Hey there, Minnesota Music Family. If I haven't personally reached out to you yet, consider this your 100% official invitation to join me on the Minnesota Music Note. I'm Will McLeod, co-founder of the podcast crew here in beautiful Robinsdale, host of the show, and the guy behind the kit for the band Hits and the Misses. I started this podcast because I want to get to know the people who make our scene tick. Whether you're fronting a band, spinning hip-hop, running sound, booking shows, running shows, or teaching the next generation of talent, your story belongs here. We've had everyone from videographers to festival organizers on the mic, and we're just getting started. It doesn't matter if you're playing arenas or just making magic in your basement. If you're part of the Minnesota music community, I want to chat. Slide into my DMs or hit the email below and let's hang out and talk shop.