By now, with the Blaine County School District's first trimester finished, you've probably heard about the musical sensation called the Wood River High School Drum Line. They make plenty of noise. They're hugely entertaining.
Led by drum captain and Wood River senior Brian Town, members of the Drum Line march in military precision onto the football field or basketball court and pound their instruments in unison.
You hear them before you see them. Then you can't take your eyes off of them. It's infectious. As you listen, your feet start tapping. When they finish a cadence, you yell like crazy in appreciation. It's fun stuff.
"It's been a blast," said Town, who made the creation of Wood River's Drum Line his senior project this school year.
He received an A-plus for a grade.
"When I said I wanted to do a full-blown drum line, I had no idea it was going to be so successful," Town said.
The tagline of the 2002 movie "Drumline" was "half time is game time." And that's when Wood River's Drum Line cranks up and lets loose.
They play four or five cadences in a quick four- or five-minute period at halftime of boys' and girls' basketball games. Lined up facing each other, they make a thunderous chute through which the players run in pre-game introductions. There are 16 percussionists—four snare drums, four bass, four tenors, two quads and two cymbals—all pounding like crazy.
Fans, students and players love it.
Wood River High band director Tony Randall said, "The drum line has brought up school spirit tremendously. They could probably play and entertain every day of the week. They're starting to do advanced stuff. Now they have up to 16 cadences, always doing new things—it drives me crazy. But the kids love to do it and the people like to see it."
The drum line instigator is Town, 18, the son of Floyd and Holly Town of Hailey.
He's a Pied Piper of percussion who has even enticed freshman sister Alison Town to be one of five girls in the Drum Line. He calls himself president, founder and captain of the Drum Line, but he adds that it's a total team effort.
Last year Brian and his buddy Lucas King were tapping around in the band room. They saw a video of a marching band and started improvising. Soon, he said, they "got eight guys to try it out at halftime of a basketball game. It was a cadence we put together real quick."
The impromptu performance was a success, said Town, who has played drum set for nine years. Expanding the Drum Line this school year called for new equipment, though. The school just didn't have it. When band director Randall arrived from Gooding to start his first year at Wood River, he made it a priority to secure funding for new drums.
Randall, who became Town's senior project mentor, said, "We had the possibility of a huge drum line, with no drums. I should say the three or four drums we had were in pretty bad shape. And trashcans were out.
"To get the drum line ready to go we had to buy four snares, four bass, a set of quads and a pair of cymbals. They all wanted to play snare, of course. We got two flutists out of the band to play cymbals—the two girls were just a hoot--and a trombone and tuba player to play the bass drums."
Securing $8,000 worth of drums from the School District set the project in motion.
"When the drums came in and we opened up the boxes I finally knew that the drum line was going to happen," Town said.
Added Randall, "I said to the kids, here are the toys, now go play with them."
Town outlined a number of goals for his drum line senior project. He designed a logo, ordered uniforms and found students willing to join up. The last part was easy. He said, "There were people wanting in, a lot of demand. We made it known it was open to whoever wanted to come."
One of his greatest satisfactions has been the collaboration with other students.
"It's like a team," Town said. "In a drum line each person has their own part and everyone has to be equal. I love to be captain and be the lead and to teach people. It's natural for me to be in front of everyone."
When it came to making music, Town pulled notes for cadences off a computer program named Finale that is used to write music.
"I put on the headphones and drag different notes and elements and write out the cadence," he said. "I print it out and show it to the others. They give me input. Everybody has a great musical sense. We trade ideas and come up with the final product."
Stylistically, Town said he's looking for three things in the music—a groove cadence, the traditional marching-band cadence and something that is more complex. While the drum line is performing, he watches closely to see what the audience seems to enjoy and prefer.
He said, "We try to mix it up, but I find the simple groove cadence is what people like. To us the complex cadences are really cool. Our goal is to make it complex and groove at the same time, kind of like a college drum line. Really, I wouldn't consider us a high school drum line now. I'd consider it a college drum line."
College is on Town's mind.
"I'd like to be in a drum line in college," he said. "I'd like to go for a bachelor of music in jazz studies."
He's got entrance and scholarship auditions at the University of Idaho just before Christmas, at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas on Jan. 25 and at the University of Oregon on Feb. 22.
Said Randall, "Brian is a very talented drum set player, whether it's jazz or rock. He's so self-motivated and driven to be successful. And he's a great person to be around—a lot of fun, helpful, working to help others be the best they can be."
Right now, with his high school graduation imminent, Town is focusing on the drum line's evolution. The group might play in the Hailey Independence Day parade or in the Wagon Days parade in Ketchum.
In the near future they'll try to inject more movement, facial expression and audience interaction in their performances, he said. Maybe even some vocals.
"We haven't had much facial expression, letting the music speak for itself. Everyone has been serious, for one reason because everything we do is memorized."
Bandleader Randall said the drum line could perform during district basketball tournament games. So far, only the visiting Filer parents have resisted the drum line's charms.
Randall said, "There was a letter sent to Mr. Blackman (high school principal) complaining about the drum line being too loud. To me that was a compliment. It meant they were doing their job."
Among the drum line members have been Sierra Brand, Andre Keys, Chris Campeau, Isaiah Garza, Alex Henning, Isaak Johnson, Kurt Yates, Ben Thompson, Ali Town, Brian Town, Rudy Kaiser, Jessica Hamilton, Marlen Morgus, Chris Clark and Sam Schwab.
They'll perform along with the rest of the school band at the Fourth District Solo Ensemble Festival in March. Randall plans to take 130 Hailey musicians, including three choirs and four bands, to the Heritage Festival "Best of the West" at Disneyland in California from April 10-13.
Next school year, Brian Town will be off in college, yet the future looks bright in Hailey.
"We graduate two seniors but we have five drummers at the middle school," Randall said. "The drum line could get much larger. We might have enough for a junior varsity drum line."
Nothing would please Town more.
"I really had high expectations of my senior year and this has exceeded all of them," he said. "I have to thank all the drum line members and Mr. Randall and senior project teacher Mr. (Larry) Barnes."
Wood River High School senior Hannah Ward leads her team through the Wood River Drum Line in pre-game introductions before her team?s girls? varsity basketball game against Filer Dec. 11 in Hailey. Photo by David N. Seelig
