Australian Musician editor Greg Phillips caught up with 14 year old Melbourne-based drummer Liam Bradford to discuss the amazing feedback he’s been getting globally for his Youtube channel drum covers.
The global pandemic has been devastating for everyone but particularly for those in the entertainment industry, with musicians unable to tour or play their regular gigs. Some however have seized the moment as an opportunity and have come up with innovative ways to get their music out to the world. One such musician is 14 year old Melbourne-based drummer Liam Bradford. Liam began playing drums at aged seven and has been obsessed with drumming ever since.
The real spark for Liam came at age 10 when he attended his first ever gig with his mum and dad. Twelve Foot Ninja, was playing at The Village Green in Mulgrave and while by law Liam wasn’t able to view the band from the band room, he was able to hear them while sitting in the restaurant section with his parents. Long story short, the band came out to meet Liam and four years later, the band’s drummer Shane Russell is now Liam’s drum teacher.
However, that was only the beginning of Liam’s journey. While in lockdown and being home schooled over the last eighteen months, Liam was also working on his own Facebook and YouTube channel, filming performances of cover songs. So good was Liam in covering some of his music heroes’ tunes that he began to receive feedback not only from fans of the bands but members of the bands themselves. Liam’s parents have been incredibly supportive of Liam’s musical pursuits and after hearing his cover of an Alter Bridge track, his mum sent the video than Alter Bridge online group.
“A few weeks later my Mum got a message from a man in the United States named Josh Prieb. He had seen my video, and messaged my Mum asking me to be a part of his collaboration project, by doing covers of Alter Bridge songs with people all over the world,” Liam told Yarra Range’s Council’s online magazine. “Josh’s original plan was to do some of their less well known songs. I was requested to play Twilight off the “Last Hero” album. I had never heard the song before, but I learnt it in three days. After I had done the recording, my Dad and I began to mix the song and add the video to the audio recording. At first, I was very nervous to see the finished product after Josh had put everything together, but it all went well and it was a huge success. The other people in my band for the Alter Bridge song were from Canada, the UK, and three people from the USA. The video got great feedback from all around the world, even the band itself shared our video on their Facebook page, and so did the lead guitarist Mark Tremonti! The video was posted on The Alter Bridge Collaboration Project YouTube channel.”
Liam’s accolades haven’t ended there. Spurred on by the positive feedback, Liam has continued to film performances on the Roland V-Drums kit that he adores, his latest being the ambitious cover of TesseracT’s entire 6 track EP Concealing Fate. This time word got back to TesseracT drummer Jay Postones, who actually live-streamed a reaction video to Liam’s performance.
Liam intends to continue his drum cover videos and has also joined his first band, Hereafter which has a debut single coming out very soon.
You can check out Liam’s YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT7_a7GNxSTTxVWwQwarhZg