The Drums

I don't think I've ever felt pure joy in my life," says Jonny Pierce, laughing under a bright summer sun on a recent afternoon in New York City. "What does it feel like? Tell me all about it!"?? The fact of summer, that there is sunlight, that the man who says he has never known joy is boyishly-handsome, blonde-haired and laughing—if only this moment could be captured by a Polaroid and shown to him. Or, better yet, if the essence of it could be liquefied, extracted, and decanted into a test tube, you'd have the very substance that gives life to The Drums. It is a concoction of opposites. Not unlike the percussive instrument from which the band takes its name, it is the relentless beating down that brings out the music in them. ??Who will have the courage to let the laughing man know that he is laughing, that the feeling he might be a semblance of the joy he says he's never known?

It won't be Jacob Graham. He's had his whole life to clue in his friend. If anything, he's Pierce's enabler. Dark-haired, soft-spoken, and less prone to emotive outbursts, the other half of The Drums does his dutiful best to prop up his opposite, the miserable laugher who wears so much on his sleeve he's likely had to make room on his collar too. ??"Jacob and I were born losers and outcasts," Pierce says, recalling how The Drums were received upon the release of their debut EP Summertime! nearly six years ago. "We didn't really have friends growing up. We were both home schooled. We both grew up in poverty. We were both very confused little boys. We met each other and connected because we were losers, pretty much in every category. Suddenly, to be on the cover of NME and have The New York Times praising this little EP we released, you suddenly feel the opposite. I think we really enjoyed that."??abel.