Eric Hernandez

For me, the hardest part is taking lessons, and it's hard teaching an old dog new tricks, so part of my re-teaching myself is opening my mind too. I just want to get better and I think there's nothing wrong with wanting to get better.

teaching dog thinking

It works for me, the way I play drums and the things I do but I also would like to know proper technique. Mainly for health - to last longer, be able to play longer.

able technique play

I am self taught. My dad threw me in with a drum set at the age of four and I figured it out!

dad self age

I watch YouTube and other peers of mine. There's a lot of things I can't do and also I'm very unorthodox, I want to work on my mechanics and technique.

unorthodox technique watches

As a musician, we should always want to strive to be better, we can always make improvements. It's easy to get comfortable and it's easy to find your voice and your sound, but I always wanted to be better.

musician voice sound

I immersed myself in the police work and I guess drumming wasn't even a hobby, just something my body naturally wanted to do, tapping stuff.

police-work drumming body

Playing drums or music, being a musician, is inside of you. So you would always see me tapping on something, playing on tables... I never felt the need to pull out drums.

musician tables needs

I pretty much isolated myself away from drums. I stopped looking at Modern Drummer, I stopped looking at websites.

website modern drummer

I was living in different accommodation and it was never in a place where I could set up my drums and play, so my drums would end up back in their cases and then in the garage. In the end I got used to the drums being locked up, I went a good eight years without touching drums.

eight play years

Once I became a cop and it's like when I got back into drumming; if I focus on something I become that, so I became a cop.

drumming cop focus

Once I became a cop. I dived into that career. I never wanted to be an LAPD officer because I thought 'LA is super dangerous, not the place I'd want to be a cop'. But as a boy of course I was into guns, cops and robbers, so that's why it was cool to me and thought 'Yeah I could do this job'.

gun jobs boys

Even though sometimes you feel like you're hand cuffed you're really not because it really takes skill to play the music properly.

skills play hands

As a drummer my job is to reproduce what made the people bop their heads when they first heard the album on the radio, or when they watched the music video.

albums jobs people

My dad taught me not to overplay, to think about my parts when I play, even in a live situation.

dad play thinking

Once I grew up and realised 'What am I doing?' I started re-listening to the music I was playing and I realised there was so much finesse - it was dynamic and simple but I wanted to be authentic to the original songs.

simple listening song

I shined off high school band, marching, jazz studies. At the time I was too cool for school, I had this professional gig and I was going home taking a shower and heading to downtown Hawaii, Waikiki.

band home school

I learned how to play the music working with my dad. Because in the beginning I was super excited, I had this gig, I was a kid, I got cocky and didn't want to take lessons.

cocky dad kids

My brother (Bruno Mars) is as smart as he is because a lot of things he's doing, creativity wise, our Dad used to do. Things my father used to do visually and musically. I see a lot of my father's influence in both of us.

dad brother wise

I moved out of my house at 17 and half, I rented an apartment... I pulled all the things off. It was pretty amazing and I lived a pretty good life, I had a car and I was making good money.

good-life car house