Angela and Justin Romack
Understanding your role in the mix. At StoryCorps, Justin Romack talks with his wife Angela about his love of drumming and music and how it informs his approach to life, including his work with disability services at Texas A&M.
- [Justin] I've loved music for a really long time. I remember being a kid and I tell this story cause it's funny to me, I don't know if anybody else finds it funny, but I remember I was obsessed with The Weather Channel as a young kid. Like, I'm talking obsessed. I remember being a six or seven year old kid and like, watching The Weather Channel incessantly . That's interesting, to say the least. And I remember their Local on the 8s always had this cool, like upbeat jazz music, which now I would probably say is elevator music. And I remember thinking the drums in the music, they're so cool, like there's nothing cooler than being a drummer in a jazz band. You just, you've got to be dripping confidence and like, I don't know, there's something cool about that guy. And so, it always made me really fascinated in the drums. And so, I played drums since seventh grade. I played for a lot of churches and things that we were involved with through high school. I was not very good. I was really actually pretty bad.
- [Angela] I thought you were good.
- [Justin] Well, I appreciate it. I was better than you at the drums.
- [Angela] Yeah, that's for sure, that for sure.
- [Justin] Perspective.
- But, I remember just working with a lot of people who were very wise and very patient. I was a pretty obnoxious guy. And so I just had people that were really willing to work with me. And when I was in school, when I was in college, I was studying public relations. My senior year we had a project to make a media kit for a product or an organization, and I picked a rock band that I had had [sic] a connection to through a friend. And they had a drummer at the time and I got to interview this band. They were really, they're very cool. It was a three piece. I just got to spend a lot of time with them, getting to know them, getting to hear how they came to be to that point. And I had played a gig with their bass player in an unrelated project and got to know him and when their drummer had to step away, I emailed him, I was like, hey, please let me have this gig. Like, I will totally I will totally make this happen. And we were living about two and a half hours away at the time. I couldn't drive, so you had to be in on this too. And we did it, like it was a lot of fun. I still look back at my Claremont days and think really fondly cause it was a cool band. We were doing some really cool stuff and we had a lot of potential. I think we were all at really interesting seasons in life where it just wouldn't work out. And there were some interpersonal things that I think, I personally was too immature to resolve. I wonder if 33 year old Justin would handle that differently but, I got to meet a lot of people. And truthfully, music is interesting to me in that I've gotten to meet so many awesome people with music that it's almost more enjoyable to meet the people than it is sometimes to play the music.
- [Angela] Yeah.
- [Justin] I just love story and I love, I love meeting people and hearing what excites them, what motivates them and how I can play a role in that. And so, I was always talking to the sound guy and you know, the guy cleaning up the bar after the show. Like that was, I enjoy that kind of stuff. So, I got to play with a few Christian artists, I've done a couple of projects in a studio, nothing like notable but it's notable to me because it was nothing I ever imagined doing.
- [Angela] Yeah.
- [Justin] I got to make some money with it. So, I guess I technically get to call myself a professional.
- If I got a paycheck in it, then I guess that's a professional. Right?
- [Angela] Right. I think so.
- [Justin] And I still play drums now, I actually, I think I'm a pretty humble guy. I feel like I'm a good drummer. I, I say that--
- [Angela] Did you really just say that?
- [Justin] Yeah.
- [Angela] Okay.
- [Justin] No, really here's why, here's why. Because I don't, I am by no means a master of my particular instrument but I understand how my instrument fits the rest of the sound and I think that that's what makes a really good musician. Is understanding what role you play in the rest of the mix. And truthfully, like we talked earlier about how music applies to everything. I think you could say that about life.