Plum High drummers go head over heels in viral performance
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A pair of Plum High School percussionists have pushed the proverbial envelope and gained millions of views on social media with their performances.
Junior Nick Kinek and senior Devin Zerjav, both 17, literally bring the heat and go head over heels to deliver a good show for their fellow students and school supporters at Mustang football games.
The marching band members, with the assistance from fellow drummers, play their instruments upside down and have even lit their drumsticks on fire.
Videos of their performances were posted to the band’s Facebook page as well as several Instagram pages. One in particular went viral with more than 3 million views after it was picked up by WorldstarHipHop’s social media pages.
Worldstar, the content-aggregating video blog, tweeted it with the question “How do y’all think this Drumline did?!” with football, drum and eyes emojis.
How do y’all think this Drumline did?! ??? (via @colekelly12_) pic.twitter.com/JF32P2qkPp
— WORLDSTARHIPHOP (@WORLDSTAR) October 2, 2019
Nick’s been a member of the band for four years and Devin for five years.
“People go crazy over it, the whole upside down drumming thing,” Nick said. “It’s kind of the same (as playing right side up). It’s insane because I’ve been drumming a long time and every day I’m always watching stuff online. That’s the way I started (playing). Watching tutorials online. For me to be on there on that big of a stage is pretty inspirational.”
Devin said they tried playing upside down last year, and really perfected it this year. The drumline can often be seen in the student section during games.
“I like to do some cool things, so what’s cooler than going upside down playing drums?” Devin said. “We like to do something special for them because they support us. We also like to amp it up a little bit every week … I hope people are going to see that and (think) band’s kind of cool and more people are going to want to play.”
Devin said he would have liked to perform with the drums on fire. That may prove difficult because he plays on a quad or tenor drum set with four mounted drums.
The drumline performed for district officials at this month’s school board voting meeting at the high school library, and received thunderous applause from the board and guests. There were no fire tricks that time.
Band Director Bethany Loy said there are 140 students in the marching band including 11 in the drumline. She lauded Nick and Devin’s creativity.
“I give the kids credit,” she said. “They have the biggest personality of anybody I know, and I love that about them. I like to give them opportunities to interact with their students and do cool things. I think it gives them credibility in the community, and they’re cool kids.”
Loy said having band performances gain millions of views is great, but not as important as remaining focused and delivering a top quality set each and every time.
“It’s my hope that they don’t get their heads so deep in the showy part of it,” Loy said. “I want them to default to excellence and work at their craft and be the best they can be. It doesn’t really matter how many people view your page if it’s sloppy. It needs to be good quality and always good work in order for that credibility to actually mean something.”
The video of the drummers lighting their sticks on fire comes from an Oct. 18 performance. The fire ignites within the last two minutes of the post.