Wednesday, November 21, 2007

"The girl drummer" from Tilt 360 shares her stories

By Katie Libecco

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HUBBARD – Heather Jurina says she's "never flaunted the girl thing."

The 23-year-old has been playing with Tilt 360 for 9 years.

"I was shy when I started. Everyone's shy when they start. No one knew I played [drums.] My best friend all through high school didn't even know," Jurina says. "It was awkward, 'cause you don't see girls who play drums."

Even now, Jurina says she's the only girl drummer she knows of in the area. She says she's heard of a few, and there's a couple national drummers [Lenny Kravitz and Kid Rock use female drummers, for instance] but has "never shaken the hand of another girl drummer."

Her own favorites are John Bonham, formerly of Led Zeppelin, Jose Pasillas of Incubus, Jeremy Taggart of Our Lady Peace and locally, Mark Grabowski of Ivet.

Jurina says of Grabowski, "I'm destined to outplay him," and describes him as a "huge influence." She met him when she was 16 and liked him right away since "he makes it look easy."

People react to her differently, she said. The most common responses she gets, Jurina says, are "I thought you'd be taller" or, "I thought you'd be bigger." The rock drummer known for aggressive fills and double pedal on the kickdrum stands at 5'2".

She says that people tell her she doesn't look like a drummer, and she usually doesn't tell people about her drumming the first time she meets them.

"That might be the next time or time after that. I'm not big on bragging. It's a waste of breath," she says.

Lead singer Mike Gaitanis of now-defunct Dim Star Shining says that's true.

"Heather doesn't brag. She doesn't have to. Everyone brags for her," Gaitanis says.

He considers himself "lucky" to have been in a band with Jurina because "She's so passionate, it's contagious," he says.

"She gave me the courage to put myself out there in front of a crowd. It's nerve-racking to put your thoughts out there and not know what people think," he says. "She gave me a lot of confidence."

As for being a girl drummer, Gaitanis says he never gave the issue much thought and didn't think she did either.

"I would never go up to her and say, 'You're a good girl drummer.' I would just say, 'She's a good drummer,'" he says. "But, it's a good gimmick. But she gets a lot more respect by being a good drummer than by being a girl drummer."

Jurina used to call herself Rain onstage, a "unisex name," but Tilt 360 lead singer Bill Smaltz asked to call her by her real name when they performed.

Jurina says Smaltz, business people and record label executives have encouraged her to embrace her image as a girl drummer, and now she wears make-up and more feminine clothing to shows, so people can tell she's a girl, even while she's hidden behind cymbals.

"People treat me differently," she said, but described it as "good attention," with people asking if they can buy her drinks and take pictures with her.

Drumming is in her genes. She says she found out last year at Thanksgiving there were 13 drummers in her family, including her grandmother, father, cousins and nephews.

Jurina said her family was always supportive of her being a drummer, and started playing her dad's set when she was 5. When she was 10, her parents bought her a drum set of her own for Easter.

She was also on the drumline at Union High School in New Castle, where she wrote the cadence the band still marches to. She started there, she says, on cymbals before moving to snare and quads. Jurina also played with now defunct Dim Star Shining.

Bassist of the band, and now for First in Space, Noll Hartman says she's a great musician and great to work with.

"She's easy to work with. She's always excited, very passionate about what she does. She wants to play and you'll always hear that out of her. That's a given. We always know that," Hartman says.

Hartman was also influenced by Ivet, and explains that's where some of his, and her, sound comes from.

"She's very hard, very percussive, that's her style," he says.

Smaltz also claims he and Jurina were influenced by Ivet.

"We watched them and they showed us a lot," Smaltz says.

Smaltz described his relationship to Jurina as a big brother, since they've been friends for eight or nine years.

"We'll always have a connection, no matter what the band does or what happens," he says.

Smaltz says he feels Jurina is the best local female musician — ruling out just a handful of others playing right now — because, "She's a drummer and that kicks ass."

Hartman says having a girl in the band is just like having anyone else in the band.

"She's one of the dudes. It's not one of those things where guys, or anyone for that matter, gets all weird around her. She's likable, she's herself. She doesn't pretend to be anyone she's not. She can't be. She's too damn honest," he says.

Jurina says in the future, she may pursue a studio drumming gig in Harrisburg, but that will depend on how Tilt 360's next album progresses. She'd also like to work with hip-hop artists making beats.

"It's great. I've had some opportunities to work with rap artists. Anyone can play angry music... but getting technical with it is more fun," she says, noting she's been studying Timbaland and Justin Timberlake.

"I love to dance, I love good beats," she says.

A 5'2" white girl making hip-hop beats? Jurina, unknowingly, is breaking down stereotypes with every beat.

Author's Note: After talking to friends about this story and searching MySpace accounts for local bands, I've found that Skull'rz Bane in Youngstown recently added a girl drummer, Rox.