Black Star Drum Academy Director Joey B. Banks on Max Ink Radio

Saturday night across the Civic Media Radio Network, happy to have you along with us, enjoying

the local, original local music from Wisconsin, said local twice there. I did that on Purpose

Rocker. No, I didn't. Hello, Jimmy. Hey, we want you to be part of the show. Give us a call

right now 844-967-2789. Call or text inside the Civic Media app rocker and our guest

love answering questions. They do. Jimmy haven't given us a call now. Joey Binks is one of the hardest

walking drummers in Madison. Wait, did I just say hardest walking drummer? Yes, I did. As a young

teenager, Joey Binks was walking and playing drums at the same time for the Madison Scouts that

famous drum and buglecore for Madison. Joey has gone on to create an impressive career playing

drums for dozens of bands from Steeley Dane, honor among themes, thieves to the funky JBs. But Joey's

other career is as a drum teacher and many of his students joined the award-winning performance group

Blackstar Drumline, a drumline of teenagers whose group had performed countless times at festivals,

fourthed July parades, and even half time for the Milwaukee Bucks. Blackstar Drum Academy was

founded by Joey in 2019 and it's a training program for youth who aspire to join the Blackstar

Drumline performance group. Here to tell us all about drumline and academy is director, teacher,

and mentor Joey Binks. Joey, welcome to Maxine Gradio. Joey, rocker and Jimmy, thanks for having me,

guys. Before you get into this rocker, I just got a point on two. There's one other important

fact about Joey Binks. Yeah, what's that, Jimmy? He has to two most amazing dogs ever.

And Ian's EG and you're my dog sitter. Oh, cross-streams here. I was just giving you your

dogs a shot out of that. Yeah, but you know, I'm actually another radio interview I discovered you

from another situation. I think it was it was a Maxine Gradio. You guys had the special dog,

special needs dog lady on there or something and I heard about that and well, we love them.

And then we hired you and thank you. You've been taking care of our dogs for a few years now,

so I appreciate that. We appreciate you. That's awesome. Every dog, you know,

needs somebody good to take care of them. You know what I mean? And I wore this shirt just for

you, Joey, the Atwood Fest shirt. Oh, nice. Because holy cow, man. Yeah, last year's Atwood's

Fest was incredible. V.O.5, see the day and crazy. Oh, in thousands. This year may be better,

but that's for another discussion. Before we get to Blackstar Drumline, tell us a little bit

about how you got into drums in your early years touring with the Madison Scouts. So my grandmother

won summer, sunny day and June, I think it was nine. Just took my brother and I to the Colosseum.

The Madison Junior Scouts were practicing and she just kicked us in there. She's dropped us off.

She said, you're doing this. And that was kind of the beginning of, and I didn't even play drums

my first year. They made me because I came in late. They made me a flag guy. I was a flag. So I was,

you know, and how old are you? I was nine. Okay. So the next year I played single tenor,

and that's when I started playing traditional and started learning how to play drums.

And then the next year after that, I played snare. And then I've just played snare pretty much all

the way through the rest of my career with with the organization, Junior Corps and Senior Corps both.

And I marched until I was 20 years old and didn't march my last year because I had a son. His name

was Trevor Banks. I think you guys might know that guy. You might know. And what was it like,

Marchin and 90 degree 80% humidity out in the field together with a big old drum on your?

You know, you get acclimated to the heat and it's different heat because we're all over the

country plant, you know, rehearsing and heat. But my first year was 14 with the Senior Corps. And

I remember, you know, specifically the East Coast tour where we went to Boston and New York and

Montreal and Toronto, Canada. And you know, they would just back in those days, they just, you

got a free day. They just drop you off in the middle of New York City. And they said, be back,

be back by midnight. The bus is right here. And that, you know, there's this subway token.

Yeah. Well, no subways. But, but yeah, it was, it was a pretty cool experience touring and

and playing in front of thousands of people. The show is just really like an underground like secret

activity. But the, the crowds are incredible. Like you, you playing in front of thousands of people

at every, every show. Um, so that, that part of it, like I don't, people ask me, do you ever get

nervous for shows? I was like, no, I played in front of a few thousand people over the years. And

you're used to it. I don't, I just don't get nervous playing in front of people. But yeah,

that was my grandmother kicked us in. And then I later found out rocker that her brother was the

first drum major for Madison Scouts ever. Oh, wow. So I was really like part of like a drum core

history that I didn't even know about. You were almost destined to do it. Yeah. I was born into it.

And my, my grandmother's brother, Edie Matthews was the first drum major for Scouts in 1938. So

wow. Yeah. Right here in Madison Scouts. Yeah. First, first African American, first drum major. So

there's a little history there too. Wow. That's, that's really incredible. Now, I know that, um,

you know, early on you had met Clyde Stubblefield and he had kind of a role in your, in your

drumming upbringing, if you will. Yeah. Tell us about, tell us a little bit about Clyde.

Give the drummer some, give the drummer some, give the drummer some. Um, I mean, I'm at Clyde at

club to wash. When I was 16 years old, um, when I would, you know, secretly sneak into the club

to wash Paul Black's blue Monday, blues jam with those guys and Bruce Canig and Joe Patterson and

like a lot of people that, you know, uh, were, were pretty, pretty high on the food chain of blues

back in those air now, especially now, but, um, he saw me play and, uh, latched on to me and,

and just was just saying, you know, they basically just encouraged me. He was, you know, I was really

technically really good at that age. And, um, so he just really kind of over the years encouraged

me to keep being who I was and to just like keep trying to have my own identity because we,

we get compared a lot, but we were really not the same people. You were different drummers. Um,

but because of my association, I got compared to him a lot, obviously. Um, but he, he was just very

encouraging and then, you know, obviously later in life, we became really good friends and, and,

uh, you know, played cards on Sundays and did things, you know, on Father's Day, we would Kelly and

I would take him to to Red Lobster and, you know, like, like, we were like family and he was,

he was more like a big brother than, than anything to me, but, uh, I watched and observed and then

I cop a lot of, a lot of his stuff. Yeah. Is try, you know, nobody's going to cop the feel 100%,

but, uh, I really, you know, was exposed to it so much that's like part of who I am. And, uh,

and it's really kind of still part of who I am, but when I teach, teach kids, I try to teach them,

you know, the, the, uh, the legacy of Clyde, his beats and tell stories to them about,

you know, our relationship and get them really drawn in and connected to, uh, to Clyde.

You have to be really happy and proud of Trevor doing what he's doing to honor Clyde's legacy

here in Madison too with the documentary and everything. Absolutely. I mean, Trevor has been,

you know, just diligent and, you know, his research, uh, his research on, uh, Clyde has been

outstanding and, and, and very in depth. Yes. Uh, and the movie is going to be great. And that's

another interview. Yeah. Yeah. We can spend hours talking about it. Definitely talk about that.

For a while. Joey B. Banks here on Maxine Crowdy on Civic Media. Joey, tell us about the Black

Star Drumline. How it started and where, where is it at right now? Uh, we started in 2008 and, uh,

a friend of mine who just recently passed Andy Davis came to me with a donation of a battery of

drums that was donated to him from Jackson State University and HBCU. And, uh, they had this

program at the Boys and Girls Club at the time called the Drum Program, which was, which was

defunct and it just didn't, didn't go. So I kind of picked it up. Uh, diversity, respect,

and unity through music was the concept. And, uh, it started there and, uh,

fast forward to today. We're at my, we're at my arts. Uh, fifth, this is, uh, actually,

the eighth is our birthday, our 16th birthday. Wow. And, uh, it's the first day of the academy.

Um, so now kids can come in and, uh, we have a core group of kids that, that exist, but now we have

kids that want to try to join the drum line. So we kind of do like a 12 week, uh, intensive,

technique building, uh, and then, you know, putting kids in sections and finding drums for them.

And, and, uh, and then after that 12 weeks, we start getting into material and start,

start getting ready for the summer for performances. But it's, it's been, it's been on a very

interesting road the last 16 years from, from the Boys and Girls Club to where we are now.

There was a time where we're just kind of floating around at different places. And, uh, but we,

you know, the kids do about 20 to 30 events a year. And, uh, you know, right now we're,

we're looking for new kids that come join a group. We can, we can come back. Your son can come back.

Rocker son. Yes. He played with black star drum line. That's correct. Well, black star academy,

when you were just talking about, it's once a week from January 9th through March 26th and

takes place at the Madison Youth Arts Center on East Mifflin Street here in Madison.

Uh, tell us about the academy. It's mission and purpose. Then it, you know, like,

so it actually starts at 8th and 9th is a typo, uh, unfortunately, uh, it's, it's, uh, um,

it's a program that introduces kids to marching arts. So we really just give them an

introduction through learning technique and learning material. But it's really, you know,

these kids eventually will have a pathway to the Madison Scouts, um, which obviously it's

very close to my heart and I'm not being alumni, but, um, it's really a training ground for kids to

discover marching arts, um, percussion in general, develop technique, um, and just learn how to love

how to drum. I mean, it's really more about teaching kids how to love to play the drums because

then we can get them to practice and then we can get them to, to rehearse and, and do things

that they need to do to improve. Hurting cats. Uh, the academy program's focus is to create a

diverse, equal and inclusive environment. Um, briefly comment on that. Uh, well, the drum line

is extremely diverse. Uh, you know, every, every, every type of person or kid you could think of

as in the group, um, we have, you know, we have kids with autism in the group. We have kids, uh,

uh, LGBTQ community in the group. We have a, you know, Asian kids, black kids, Mexican

kids, Indian kids is, it's just a really diverse environment. And I really stress, stress that

diversity, uh, because that's part of the, the, the, the drum program that started it was the first

word is diversity and, and, and, and respect. And it's really about respecting other people's

diversity and unity being together. All of us are one group, um, as a drum line, but as a,

as an earth as a, as a community. Um, and then the music, but I've changed the music to mastery

because it's really these kids are mastering how to play drums. So wow. Yeah. So that's it.

It's a great story. Congratulations on the success. Hope, uh, there's more on the way for you, Joey.

Thank you, Jimmy. Really appreciate your time. If people want to get a hold of you, uh, get

their kids involved in black star drum line. How did we do that? We have a website's,

www blackstar drumline.com. You can register. There's a registration link right on there. It takes

you right to a registration page where you can sign your kid up. We have three sessions. This

first academy sessions is 12 weeks. We have a, uh, uh, spring, uh, a spring session training session.

And then we have the summer performance session. You can, you can, they're all separate sessions.

You can join it. Any of those periods of time. That's awesome. Joey, you're awesome. Thank you for

your time. Good to see you tonight. Have a good show tonight over, uh, where were you playing

real quick? I'm at the majestic tonight with rare element. We're headlining the Wisconsin

funk fest tonight. Nice. I want to, like, I want to make Andy Ewing happy right now. I want to

play some, uh, some old honor among these. Oh, yes. Love this song is buggy with by Max

Inc. Civic Media. We are local music.