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Reuben Spyker is a drummer from Abbotsford, BC who is an employee at Drumeo and also just released his own album titled "Forward" as the Reuben Spyker Quartet.

This episode of the podcast focuses on Reuben's creative process with improvisation, and why he needs to be in "the zone" with his music. We talk about how this album came to be and the process in recording the album, which was totally improvised with a group of musicians that had never played as a complete group together before and was captured live off the floor in a continuous five-hour recording session. Reuben then chopped it up and made it into an album and the results are fantastic. It is highly textural, organic, and executed with a strong command from each of the four musicians on their respective instruments. The conversation we had regarding the creative process was fun and interesting, as improv is Reuben's preferred method of performance.

Reuben is also an employee of Drumeo. His title is "community manager" so he handles emails, communicating with the members, helping Dave with his workload, making the guest instructors feel comfortable as they stay at the facility, and quite a few other tasks including developing lessons and so on. How he got involved with Drumeo was over the course of many years, in fact, because Reuben and Jared both live in Abbotsford and have for several years, they have been associated for quite a long time. But over the course of several run-ins and Reuben's interest in the company, eventually Reuben found his opportunity with the company and this has made him very happy with his situation career-wise. But there was a big question surrounding this. Whether it is a cop-out to serve another's dream. Whether it is better for all of us to become entrepreneurs and be our own boss, rather than working for someone else. Both Reuben and I have our thoughts about this and the dialogue surrounding this may help others feel more at peace with themselves if being an entrepreneur isn't in your wheelhouse. It takes the focus away from the noise we all see online where it seems like a trend to be an entrepreneur and that we shouldn't fuel the dreams of others, but rather our own.

Overall, this is among the stronger episodes in the DrumGAB library, if you ask me. It is refreshing, thoughtful, funny, and certainly entertaining. Below are links to listen to Reuben's new album "Forward".