Check Out Luke Zajdel’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Luke Zajdel.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My introduction to playing drums was around 9 years old when I got the video game “Rock Band” My uncle, who is a drummer, saw I had potential and encouraged me to start working on rudiments and the basics. I got my first drum kit for my 11th birthday and began taking lessons with my future high school band director, Brian Tychinski. Within a couple years, I started playing full gigs with my dad and uncle’s classic rock cover band. Throughout the next 10 years, I continued to play with various cover/tribute and original bands across the Pittsburgh area, until April of 2022 I decided to move to Nashville. I immediately hit the broadway scene to find immediate work, with the hopes of getting more into the touring world as I got settled in. I was fortunate enough to get working full-time on broadway within a month, as well as start playing for various original artists in town and on the road. After 2 1/2 years of jumping around from one artist to another, making friends on broadway, and getting my name around through auditions, I’ve found a steady home with an artist named Walker Montgomery. I’ll also be going on my first real tour with an artist named Cory Marks, as direct support for Country-Rock artist “Dorothy”

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I don’t think any road is ever truly smooth, as mine certainly hasn’t always been, but it’s all what you make of it. I’ve lost gigs, turned gigs down that went on to become very successful, not landed auditions, all of which felt disappointing at the time, but I’d later find a silver lining in. I truly believe everything works out for a reason, and that I had a lot of growing and learning to do. I don’t think I was ready professionally or personally for a lot of the opportunities that came up early on.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a drummer, and I think generally speaking, rock music is my bread and butter, as that’s what I’ve grown up listening to and playing the most. I love drummers like Danny Carey and Neil Peart who are crazy precise, technical players. But as much as I love technical, challenging music, nothing gets me more fired up than playing a straight, 4 on the floor, high energy, driving groove in the likes of AC/DC. I feel like it’s as much of an art to make something so simple on paper feel so perfectly intense, yet swing so subtly, and feel and sound so great. I think a lot of drummers over look him, but Phil Rudd (AC/DC) is on my Mount Rushmore of drummers, and I take a lot of pride in bringing his spirit of playing to mine.

Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I think risk taking is an essential part of pushing yourself to reach your goals. So much of the spirit of rock and roll is about risk taking. No matter how big or small the risk is, seeing that chance you took pay off and turn into something bigger is one of the greatest feelings, and a big part of building self-confidence in my opinion. To me, in a small way, it’s going for that big stick toss in the middle of song that leaves an audience on the edge of their seat waiting to see if you land it. If you do, the audience goes nuts and it gets you so hyped up. If you miss it, you just own it and keep going without missing a beat. That’s rock and roll. That’s risk taking. On a bigger level, it’s moving to a city where you know nobody and seeing if you can make your dreams a reality. I’m proud that I’m one of the thousands of people that took that chance to move to Nashville and do it. I purposely came down with very little money to force myself to go out, meet people, make friends, and eventually find work. I didn’t give myself much room for comfort. I had to find work as quickly as I could just to survive and continue. That was one of the biggest risks I took and it paid off for me. You have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable to grow. I still check in with myself to make sure I don’t get too content. I’m super happy and grateful for where I’m at right now, but I still have so much work to do and things I wanna accomplish before I feel like I’ll be content.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lzajdelmusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lzajdelmusic/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJpbTIuT-gw