ONE DRUMMER ONE QUESTION is a regular feature in Tom Tom Magazine. We get a drummer to answer one loaded question and ask an artist to celebrate them in a portrait. Lisa Schonberg curates this feature, and has so far focused on drummers from her stomping ground of Portland, OR. This installment features drummers from the recent Not Enough! Fest in Portland, an annual queer festival of new music and art collaborations. Portland drummer Elizabeth Venable interviewed the drummers for this installment, and local artist and musician Sarah Faith Gottesdiener created some wonderful portraits of them. You can see more of Sarah’s work at www.sarahgottesdiener.com.
MARIA BONACCI of The Craft
Maria Bonacci began drumming about a year ago, and by September she was playing the kit in the melodic metal band The Craft at Not Enough! Fest. The Craft is her first ever musical collaboration. Aside from playing the drums, the 32 year old spends a lot of time in the garden, copwatching, running around with her dogs, basking in the beauty of Portland, and holding on to the remaining shreds of her jock past through running.
Do you identify as a drummer?
In defiance of some of my music-playing comrades, I didn’t identify as, or feel like, a drummer until I started playing with other people (even if Kristina Davies, our bassist, has played drums longer than I have). Before the Craft, I was playing beats in a band of one, in the garage, to an audience comprised of my dogs. I didn’t feel like a drummer – I felt like someone who was aspiring to be a drummer. Not until other people were looking to me to put shit together for a song did I think, “Oh, right, ok, yeah, I am the drummer in this outfit. I guess I’ll write some drum parts.” There are so many ruling drummers in this town, people who inspire me, that it was hard to consider myself worthy of sharing that title. I think, though, that calling myself a drummer encourages me to work at being one, and will ultimately make me a better musician.
Top illustration by Kelly Abeln