From Rock Stardom to Street Theatre

I love this story about a "street theatre" percussion collective formed by a group of punk/rock drummers. Sounds like so much fun!

No Doubt drummer Adrian Young has a gig on January 20th -- at Chain Reaction in Anaheim, California -- but no idea what instrument he'll be playing. "It's going to be a little bit of a spontaneous thing," he says. "I could drive there and pull a hubcap off my Cadillac and bring a drumstick and be a participant."

Young will be performing as part of Bang!, a percussion collective that leans heavily on alternate forms of percussion crafted from recycled aluminum and plastic materials. Items used as instruments include oil drums, garbage cans, paint buckets, satellite dishes, fire hydrants, kitchenware and car parts. Bang! is the brainchild of the Start drummer Frank Zummo and got underway after an late-night, impromptu, all-percussion jam session. "My friend said, 'I want all of us to jam right now,' but there was only a DJ in the bar -- there was no band," says Zummo. "So he tells the staff we all wanna jam, and the staff brings out buckets, kegs, et cetera. They cut the music off, and we started playing to this packed bar for a half-hour. It was amazing! People went crazy!"

The members of Bang! -- which also includes Jamie Miller of Snot, Bobby Alt of S.T.U.N. and Adam Alt of Circus Minor -- pride themselves on being street performers, and the crew recently completed a four-month engagement at the Los Angeles-area amusement park Magic Mountain. They've also launched their own merchandise line, filmed an episode of the A&E network's reality show Ink'd and hope to open a street-performer-themed show in Las Vegas.