Hello, Modern Drummer readers! This is Ethan Trekell, drummer with For All Those Sleeping, a five-piece hardcore/pop band from St. Cloud, Minnesota. I’m very excited to write a blog for MD, so here is a little bit of my story….

I started playing percussion in the school concert band when I was eleven years old. I always struggled with the mallet instruments, but that’s probably because I only practiced the drums. I always got to the snare drum first so I could play it. Looking back, I wish I had spent more time in the mallet section. A few years later I joined the morning jazz band. It was my first time playing a full kit, and I was pretty bad, but I fell in love with the instrument. I begged my parents for a drumset that year, and on Christmas morning they got me a Ludwig Accent kit. I spent the next couple years playing Blink-182 covers.

A few years and two bands later, I find myself signing to Fearless Records with For All Those Sleeping and recording our debut album, Cross Your Fingers, in Casselberry, Florida, with Cameron Mizell. Our goal was to make our poppy parts poppier and our heavy parts heavier, and I think we accomplished this pretty well. A lot of the drum parts are pretty straightforward and simple, while others are more complex and took some time to polish. I am very happy with how the drums on the record turned out. Advertisement

My kit is an Orange County four-piece that I got on eBay. I use all Zildjian cymbals—15″ Z Custom hats, an A Sweet ride, an A Rock ride, and a K Custom Dark China. I also use Vater 2B sticks and Evans drumheads.

We had an amazing year in 2010, releasing our album, playing the Pyknic pArtery Tour in the summer with Sleeping With Sirens, Abandon All Ships, Woe Is Me, Scarlett O’Hara, and Drop Dead, Gorgeous, doing shows in the fall with our boys A Skylit Drive and Motionless In White, and traveling to Japan in December to play with Breathe Carolina. We plan on making this coming year bigger and touring even more heavily—so be ready, we’ll be heading to a town near you very soon. Come hang out!

For more on Ethan Trekell and For All Those Sleeping, go to www.myspace.com/forallthosesleeping.