Omar playing the drums on stage is as thrilling as
watching the sting that Pitbull gives to rhymes. Dynamic, powerful, commanding
and full of drive and passion.
Born in the city that is the Big Apple and based in
Miami, Omar’s teachers originally thought that he was on the straight path to
becoming a classical percussionist. Yet Omar went on to study Jazz and Studio
Music at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. From there he
went on tour with singer/songwriter, J.D. Natasha, a two-time Latin Grammy
nominee.
Having performed and recorded with some of the
music industry’s key players such as Jennifer Lopez, Lil’ Wayne, Lil’
Jon, Ying Yang Twins, Akon, Marc Anthony, T- Pain, Baby Bash, Enrique Iglesias,
Neyo, Paulina Rubio and Michel Telho to name but a few, Omar’s talents show no
boundaries. A very knowledgeable musician. Omar is versatile, entrepreneurial
and knows more about fitting into different kinds of hats than simply hitting a
high hat!
Omar has been is spinning around the globe with his
drum kit in tow on the Global Warming tour with Mr Worldwide. The dynamic
drummer is also busy programming, producing, writing music and developing
artists for his own production and artist management company, Dirty Southaners.
I had the great pleasure of speaking with the
delightful, gorgeous, multi-talented Mr OT Drummer while he was in London on
tour with Pitbull. Obtaining a refreshing insight and also learning a lot of
things along the way. Here Omar talks about touring, being a musician as well
as his exciting new business venture and up and coming new artist under his
production company.
SERINA: Welcome to London Omar
and thank you for seeing me. Wow! You’re really living the dream, drumming for
Pitbull – How did that happen?
OMAR: It’s a great story, I was playing in a
local band in Miami for about 7 months and around January 2008 Pitbull’s
management came in and took a look at the band and I think they may have
thought that they have possibly found some of the guys they need. They
approached me and asked if I could put together a small group, like me on
drums, a keyboard player and a percussionist. I took the keyboard player and
percussionist from the band told them what was going on and then a month and a
half later we were on the road with Pitbull! We did three rehearsals and
Pitbull came to the very last one and we had really, REALLY been practising our
butts off and Pitbull said something like “Cool let’s do it, we leave on
Monday”
What’s Mr Worldwide like to travel and work with?
OMAR: It’s a pleasure and honour to be on
stage, perform and work with Pitbull. To listen to him, his insight and
business approach to a lot of things. Pitbull has a lot of great mottos that we
all take on board. Many that I apply when I’m talking to people on the business
side. Pitbull is like the older brother that I never had, I mean that in the
way that you have an older brother that will look out for you. It’s more like
“Hey, you should do it this way. Did you make a mistake? Did you learn from it?
Good. Next time you know not to do that.”
So a bit of tough love?
OMAR: Exactly, there’s a bit of tough love but
it’s cool. It may not be for everybody but I’m fine with it. I have an older
sister and she was tough love but not hard core. With Pitbull it’s more like a
business ‘tough love’ approach - where we’re going from here on, having vision.
I have always been a person to have goals and it’s good that I met Pit when I
met him at the age of 23 and both being on the same page of wanting to go far.
Every year Pitbull tells me “we’re going to do this next year, and we’re going
to do this next year” and they have all been happening. If in 2015 Pitbull has
a vision for something to happen, I GUARANTEE it’s going to happen and I
believe in that.
Pitbull is a very wise man. Talking of mottos, has he ever parted with
other words of wisdom to you or the rest of the team?
OMAR: Pitbull is always pushing me to think outside
the box, and encouraging me to launch my business ideas. Pit understands
that I love drumming but also encourages me to think ahead.
Kind of like ‘Short steps,
long vision?’
OMAR: Yes, and to work hard for your dream ventures
so the dream, money and good fortune in all aspects also work hard for you too.
You mentioned
you were drumming about January 2008, you’ve obviously been drumming a lot
longer than that…
OMAR: I started playing the drums when I was 12
years old, took formal training when I was 13 and became a professional musician
when I was around 15-16 years old. I got paid to do gigs.
Were you one of those kids that did their folks heads in banging on
drums or anything that sounded like it?
OMAR: (Laughs) I did the pots and pans thing, but I
also had this really nice reclinable rocking couch. I would hit the panel on
the side of the bottom of the couch with a stick as if it was the bass, like
‘doof- doof’ (making a bass-like sound). I was about 4-5 years old, yes..
I remember that!
Aww it’s all coming back..
OMAR: (beaming) Yes, the son of our neighbour was a
drummer and he gave me a snare drum as a gift and I used to put the snare drum
on the reclineable couch and for the sound of the bass I would play on that
sound of the side of the chair. It had a really nice low-end so when you hit
it, it would reverberate the low and then I had the snare so I just played
beats. But I knew what I was playing. I would play what I heard on the radio,
for example ‘boom-boom-ka, boom-boom-pa-ka’ (makes sound of snare and bass) and
my mum was like “shut up!” and flipping out. That was when I was about 4-5
years old.
So you really started a lot earlier than the age of 12?
OMAR: Exactly. However, at the age of 12 my uncle
gave me a three-piece drum set and I call that my first time. (Omar shows a
reminiscent expression as he goes back in thought)
Who was your biggest influence growing up?
OMAR: I come from a very talented family of uncles
and cousins who are musicians. I have a sister and she is my biggest influence.
My sister is about 6 years older than me and she was in dance and I was in
music, both of which match together closely. My sister went to the Performing
Arts High School in Miami and there they had a jazz programme and every time
there was a performance, there was live instrumentation. There were no playback
machines. They incorporated the live music with the live dancing performance
and I thought “Wow this is amazing. I’m hearing this and I’m seeing this. I
want to be a musician and take this seriously” Seeing my sister perform at such
a high level at performance high school, and being at elementary/middle school
when she was already off to college meant that I spent a lot of my early years
watching my sister do her thing. She is awesome, she’s my backbone and she’s
super cool.
Touring must be quite demanding mentally and physically how do you stay
on top of it, look after and prepare yourself?
OMAR: Physically, I try to get enough sleep. I take
about 15 different vitamins a day to stay healthy. Majority of which are immunity
pills. Taking a lot of vitamin C and trying to eat right, such as lots of
greens and whole meats.
Is it hard to eat right when you’re on tour?
OMAR: It’s hard to limit what I eat when in London
because there’s a Nando’s here (Omar laughs) I love Nando’s…But yes, it is
important to watch what you eat.
What about exercises, do you need to do any stretches with all that
pounding away at the drums?
OMAR: There are some yoga stretches that I do, my
sister is a yoga instructor and so I do a little bit of yoga when I’m in LA and
take a class with her. However, on a normal basis I don’t sit for an hour doing
yoga in my room for example but I do certain stretches. I also do other arm
stretches and use a grip (machine) with springs. A lot of drummers use that as
it works your forearms and other muscles in the arm.
What is your most memorable moment on tour so far?
OMAR: The Hollywood Bowl. LA has always been a
market that loves Pitbull. I started going to LA in 2004. I didn’t work with
Pitbull until 2008 and when I was there in 2004 they were playing Pitbull like
crazy and in those four years in between, I used to go LA to visit family or
work and I hear Pitbull on the radio and I think this guy is from Miami and
they play him here a lot.
Lo and behold I end up being on Pitbull’s gig and
we just played the Hollywood Bowl for the Global Warming tour and sold it out.
For me, that was the biggest and most memorable show that we did.
Selling it out and playing the Hollywood Bowl
especially as a lot of great musicians have played there such as Herbie
Hancock. The site itself is very historic and one of the first amphitheatres
ever built and actually into the hill. It holds 18,500 people.
The funny thing is back in November 2012 I flew to
LA, and you can go to the Hollywood Bowl in the daytime and I sat at the very
top and I took a photo of the Hollywood Bowl for Instagram and wrote “Hope to
sell this place out one day.” A few months later we ended up playing and we
sold it out.
As well as spinning around the globe with Mr Worldwide, I see that you
also have a lot of other things going on. Tell me about Dirty Southaners…
OMAR: Dirty Southaners! (Omar’s eyes light up and
he gives a big, exited smile)
Dirty Southaners is a great collaboration between
myself and another great friend of mine who is also another
producer/musician/songwriter by the name of Aaron Fishbien. Dirty Southaners is
our artist management agency, where we not only manage but also produce music
for and develop talented artists. Where we also focus on the promotion of their
overall exposure and career path progression.
Aaron and I go back from when I was about 18 years
old, he was working as a producer/songwriter/guitar player in Miami with
professional producers in studios cutting instrumentation for notable albums
between 2000-2004. I met him through a mutual friend. My sister used to be in a
singing group and when the group, Edens Crush, dismembered in November 2001,
she moved back to Miami. Aaron was a producer here in Miami that wanted to work
with my sister and so they worked on some songs together. I was quite
young at the time and I was like “ I just got a scholarship to the University
of Miami and I wanna cut drums!” Cut drums means to record drums, by the
way! It was really great to hang out with someone that had a really great
studio and then a few years later between 2003 and 2004 Aaron asked me
“I’m producing a rock band, do you want to play drums in the band?” I was like
“Sure why not!” At that time you have to remember, we didn’t have iTunes
and as many platforms on the internet as we have today. There was Napster,
which was more for sharing and so we really just had My Space at the time. We
had labels interested, the CD was great and we put it out there and we were
really close to getting the project up and running. After this time, Aaron and
I kept in contact. Aaron became like my South Beach dad, like a role model.
Then a few months ago I said “Hey Aaron, there’s
this phenomenal singer, a phenomenal dancer. She sings really well, although
she doesn’t have any studio recording experience”
Is that Stephanie Heymann?
OMAR: Yes
Tell me more about her…
OMAR: Stephanie is a professional dancer from Miami
and has worked with Flo Rida, Pitbull, Marc Anthony, JLO and many more. Stephanie
had finished touring with Flo Rida around January 2013 so I asked “As you have
some free time, do you want to come to the studio and work on something?”
Stephanie, Aaron and I just clicked! We wrote our
first song together called ‘Get It Get It’. It’s an awesome song. Before we
went into the studio we asked Stephanie what genre of music she would like to
do, and what is her favourite style. Stephanie said she liked Country music, so
I said let’s do Country music. We can produce any kind of music, we’re talented
musicians. It’s not like “Oh we can’t do that kind of music you need to go to
see this other guy.” We then produced the first track and co-wrote it together.
Stephanie sounded great and we thought “Why don’t we sign her, sign her to us?
Let’s call ourselves the Dirty Southaners”. The name Dirty Southaners stems
from what Miami was known for in the ‘90’s.
We went ahead with the venture, signed Stephanie
and thought let’s see where it goes from here. It’s been great. It’s been the
best business decision I have ever made.
With us touring and travelling with Pitbull and the
collaborations with so many different artists from different genres, we’re also
dabbling with artists in the Country music world and looking forward to doing
business in the future.
Teach me something technical…
OMAR: (moves closer to the table and places both
palms on the edge of the table)
The paradiddle! You take both hands out and tap
Right (hand)-left (hand)-right-right and then left-right-left-left. (I follow
Omar’s lead and we paradiddle in harmony)
And now you got to put it all together
(We continue to paradiddle more fluidly
together…and as I break free and go faster it all goes to pieces!)
See that’s the common problem, everyone wants to go
too fast too soon! But you did well for a beginner.
Do you have any advice for
any serious aspiring drummers out there?
OMAR: If you want be a drummer these days it’s the
same thing as I went through when growing up.
I come from a city that’s a 'melting pot' of music,
Miami has people from Jamaica, Barbados, Bahamas, Dominican Republic,
Venezuela, other areas of South America, even Russia and more.
When it comes to being a musician in Miami you need
to be diverse and ask yourself “Can you play a compa beat? (Haiti) soca? (Trinidad
and Tobago) reggae? (Jamaica) merengue? Can you play jazz?” You’ve got to be
able to play multiple percussion instruments as well as a drum set. As a
drummer in Miami, being versatile expands your language of drumming. It makes
you understand where your instrument came from. It didn’t come from Miami or
Los Angeles, for example. It came from a different origin. For example 'talking
drums’ came from Africa and eventually came to meet other parts of the world.
Do you mean, not having tunnel vision or boxing yourself inside a
drumming-niche?
OMAR: Yes, for example if someone says ‘I just
wanna be a rock drummer’ that’s all good, But you would be a better rock
drummer if you learnt how to play a lot of other things too as that’s going to
grow your language. That is my biggest advice. Learn to be versatile, don’t be
narrow minded, stay humble, be patient and good things will come your way and
always have a goal.
Can I have a go on your drums please, it looks like a lot of fun?
OMAR: Yes I’ll try to let you have a go on there
before the show starts
For sure? You’re not going to leave me bashing a tambourine and standing
in the corner instead are you?
OMAR: No ( he laughs)
Thank you so
much for taking the time to talk to me Omar, it’s been an absolute honour and
pleasure meeting you. I wish you all the best with the tour and your future
projects.
Check out
By Serina Pitbull Fan Unleashed
@Serinapitbullfu
www.Pitbullfanunleashed.com
