David Kuchera

Hi, I’m David. I grew up in Kirksville, Missouri and lived there a total of 21 years. I was mainly raised on a diet of travel, sports, and Nintendo games before I began playing music. My parents tell me I did the cliche’ "banging on pots & pans" thing when I was younger, but I sincerely doubt it sounded any good. If only they recorded it...At age 10 I was playing percussion in the school concert band/marching band, and desperately sought after something that resembled a drum set. On kits composed of shoe boxes, music stands, and stacks of pillows/dirty socks, I jammed along to my sister’s Ace of Base CDs. This was apparently annoying to most of my family (can’t imagine why), and to make a long story short (too late), I ended up convincing the folks to get me my first drum set.I attended High school at Kirksville Senior High in 1998, and played in the Marching Band, Concert Band, and Jazz/Pep Band. I was one of those guys with the letter jacket that sported all my medals for snare drum solos. Damn, I was cool... Anyway, my senior year I landed a gig playing with Wompus; a local college band that enjoyed as much success as my small town had to offer. This continued into my first two years at Truman State University starting in 2002.At Truman, I studied Pre-med Biology and Percussion Performance. I played with many groups during this time, essentially always saying ’I’ll do it’ to anyone who needed a drummer. This was beneficial, as I was able to gain experience playing a host of musical genres. And in a town with a limited music scene, I would often play five shows a weekend, sometimes being the drummer in both bands at the same venue. Unhappy with the curriculum at Truman, however, I transfered to Berklee College of Music in Boston in 2006.I’m currently wrapping up my second year as a Professional Music major at Berklee, and have been learning from a veritable mass of the industries top drummers. The name-dropping list includes Larry Finn, Teri Lynn Carrington, Mike Mangini, Bertram Lehmann, and Rod Morgenstein.Currently, I’m playing with Monkey Funktion, Babies in Danger, and Third Rail. However, I still have that ’I’ll do it’ attitude for anyone at all interested in making music.