At age 13, Derek started drumming on the living room floor until his very cool brother Coleman bought him a drum kit and introduced him to Jay Lawrence. Jay is not only a gifted player, but also a gifted teacher. Derek studied with Jay for a couple of years. Later, Jay introduced him to another great player and teacher, Dom Moio. They put him on the right path, steering him clear of the rock-drummer-in-less-than-a-week mentality and into the light of Ted Reed's Syncopation, George Stone's Stick Control, and Jim Chapin's Advanced Techniques of the Modern Drummer.
Armed with his used Reuther/CB700 kit, he played through high school where he won the Louie Armstrong jazz award, two years consecutively. During his junior and senior years, Derek was selected as the drummer for the Utah All-State Jazz Band. Also during his senior year, he was selected as a drummer for the McDonald's All-American High School Band where only two musicians are chosen from each state in the US. He even appeared a few times with the Mormon Youth Symphony where he actually played his Reuthers from the podium of the Tabernacle. Righteous! Then he attended college on a music scholarship and was selected as the drummer for Brigham Young University's Synthesis (jazz big band). While there, Derek toured with the band to Norway, Sweden, Finland, Japan, and China, and to jazz festivals in colorado and Idaho. While at the Lionell Hampton Jazz Festival, he was given the Best College Drummer Award in 1992. At the same festival in 1993, he competed as a soloist and won Best Soloist, 2nd Runner Up (beat out by a dang sax player from Albany).
Derek has recorded at Rosewood, Ventura, and a number of unknown studios and taught many students for many years, using the same method of teaching he learned from Jay and Dom. A few of his students are now gigging professionally--these, of course, were the students who actually practiced.
After college, he freelanced off and on for several years, taking any country, rock, pop, jazz gig he could dig up. He even worked on an episode of Touched by an Angel, serving as a drum technician and a double for John Dye who played the part of a drum teacher. But Derek was never truly happy until he landed a seat on the Party Train, the funkiest band in town. Derek digs Party Train's variety of music, and the great people and players who make up the band.
