Attitude matters more than ability. That’s what our special guest has learned over the years. Join Bree Noble and Ray Levier as they explore why talent is only one piece of the puzzle and the power of mindfulness in music. Discover how Ray has leveraged meditation, breathing exercises, and focused practice to elevate his drumming and personal growth. Learn valuable insights on resilience, finding flow, and staying present in your creative pursuits.Tune in for inspiration and practical tips on becoming a mindful musician.

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Beyond Talent: Why Attitude Matters More Than Ability With Ray Levier

 

Introduction And Episode Overview

I am excited to be here with Ray Levier. We’re going to be talking about his story, his new book, and some techniques that will help you de-stress. I’m feeling a little stressed right now, honestly. It’s the end of a long month and I’m looking toward a vacation. I’m thinking, “I wish I had some of these in my pocket to de-stress right now.” We’re going to talk about that but before we do, let’s get into your story, Ray. I’d love to hear how you got started in music, what happened along the way, and what brought you to where you are now.

I started playing the drums. I come from a musical family, first of all. My dad plays the piano. My sister has been playing the piano ever since she was little, single digits. My Aunt Barbara, my dad’s sister was quite an accomplished jazz pianist and studied with Chick Corea and Lennie Tristano. She was pretty heavy. There’s music in my family, but how I got to the drums, nobody guided me to the drums. I guided myself.

My dad had rehearsals at the house and he had an old crappy drum kit that he bought from somewhere so the drummer wouldn’t have to bring his drums to the house. These drums ended up in the basement a couple of years later and I just pulled them out one day and started banging on them. I didn’t know anything about time, keeping a groove, or anything like that. I just liked banging on these drums as most young children do.

My dad was listening to what I was doing on the drums and he said, “I don’t mind you playing the drums, but you got to take some lessons.” I started studying, but before I got to my first lesson, I got caught in a fire in the backyard. It was a chicken coop that we turned into our little hangout and we would stay there overnight on the weekends with a couple of friends. This particular night, a candle caught the wall of the structure while we were all sleeping.

 

Ray’s Life-Changing Fire Accident

My brother was the first to wake up and he ran out and tripped over my friend TR who was on the floor sleeping. He woke up and he ran out. As he ran out, that’s when I woke up and started screaming. I didn’t know what was going on. I just thought I was dreaming. I thought I was having a bad nightmare. I was totally in shock. He came back in and I heard someone saying, “Close your eyes and your mouth. Don’t breathe.”

The next thing I know, I’m out in the grass and I see flames in the grass from where I’d been rolling. I noticed there was a huge flame, a big fire behind me. I was just dreaming and I didn’t realize it was a fire or anything. I was in this weird state. All of a sudden, my mom showed up because we were in the backyard. TR went up to the house and banged on the door. My mom and my stepdad woke up. He called the fire department and the police immediately.

I’m still in shock. I have no idea what’s going on. I ended up in a burn unit in Westchester, New York. I spent the next six or close to seven months getting skin grafts. They’re basically saving my life just to put me back together. I was burned from my navel up, which they consider 60% of your body. My lower half was fine. What they needed to do was take skin from my lower half, put it up, and do skin grafts on the upper part of my body to cover me back up because I had no skin and my upper body was all burned off.

 

Finding Healing Through Drumming

That was a grueling torture process. I can’t even go into how painful that was but the fact that I was twelve years old helped me because I was a very resilient little kid. I sprung back and meanwhile, my dad was coming to the hospital and he’s like, “What’s going to make you feel better?” I kept thinking of the drums because I just started playing the drums. I said, “I want to play the drums. I want a drum set.” He was like, “We’ll set the drums up here in the hospital and you can look at them. When you get home, you can play them.” I was like, “Yeah, great.” The drums became a positive thing in my mind that helped me to get through those hard times. I found out later from my dad that one of the nurses heard him talking about, “We’ll get you a drum set.” She pulls him aside as he’s leaving and says, “Mr. Levier, I don’t think it’s a good idea to get your son all stoked up over the drums. His hands are almost gone. He’s not going to be able to hold a drumstick let alone take care of himself,” that whole thing.

My father, from what I understand, just looked at her and said, “You don’t know my son,” and just walked away. That was a powerful thing that I learned about later in life because when I heard about that story, I realized that no one can tell you how your life is going to end except you. It all comes back to what’s in our head, what’s in our mind, and what we feed our brain with in terms of thoughts. It’s either junk food or health food. That was a big awakening as a twelve-year-old to realize, “I’m the master of my ship here and no one can steer it except for me.”

 

No one can tell you how your life is going to end up, except you. It all comes down to what's in your head and what you feed your brain. Share on X

 

That was one of the epiphanies I had as a youngster because of the accident. I’ve had all these openings in terms of life and spirituality just based on the crappy situation I was thrown into. I started thinking positive thoughts and my mom, every time she came was like, “Think positive thoughts, think good thoughts.” I was practicing that.

Going back to the drums, it made me feel great. I would play and I sounded great in my head. I was on stage and I was playing in front of people. Everybody’s cheering for me. That was my positive affirmation that I kept going. The day came when I got home and my dad sure enough brought me to the store and got me that drum kit. We got the drums home and I couldn’t hold the drumstick with my left hand. I could hold it with the right because I still have most of my digits on the right but the left hand was like a mitten that got all the digits.

I have half of my digits on my hand, but they’re all frozen just the way the skin reconnected. I would duct tape this stick to my left hand and it would bleed and it wouldn’t work that great but I was playing the drums and I didn’t care. I started studying with some teachers and later down the road, one of my teachers said, “Maybe you want to get an operation so you can hold a drumstick with that left hand.” I thought about it and eventually, I took his advice. I went to the hospital and asked the doctor, “Can you please give me a thumb so I can hold a drumstick.”

The doctor was completely flabbergasted and was like, “I don’t get requests like that every day. Of course, we can give you a thumb.” I went up to the Shriners Burn Institute in Boston and they have incredible doctors up there. My thumb was embedded in the palm and they pulled it out and put a graft on it. Now, I have this digit of a thumb there and that was a complete game changer of how I was to hold the drumstick.

Now, I can hold the drumstick, but it popped out because it was just this little thumb holding it. Later, I perfected it by putting a rubber band around one side of the stick around the back of my hand and then around the butt end of the stick and it would hold it to keep it from coming out. Another adaptation that I came up with was wig glue. I found this wig glue that was tacky. I put that on the stick and it keeps it tacky and firm in there. That’s kind of how I came to where I’m at now and that’s the same method that I used as a drummer.

That is an incredible story and the fortitude to be able to do it but I love that your parents put this there as, “This is your goal.” When you’re in a situation like that, you do need a goal. It helps you move and press forward even when it’s hard and all that stuff. Kudos to your parents for doing that.

They were great.

It sounds like they were really in your corner at that point. You learned to play the drums. Did you start playing as an amateur? Did you have a band? Did you start playing professionally?

I was in high school and I was playing as an amateur. I was learning, getting better and better, and practicing. I didn’t take it very seriously. I just enjoyed playing the drums. When you’re that young, you don’t think about your future and your career and all that. I was just having fun with it. Around eighteen as I was graduating high school, it kicked in. I’m like, “What are you going to do with your life?”

I kept thinking and thinking of what I wanted to do for a career and nothing came to me except the drums. The drums kept coming up so I was like, “I’m going to be a drummer. I’m going to go to school and I’m going to practice as much as I can. I’m going to do that and be a lifelong musician. I went down that road. I went to William Paterson University in New Jersey and they have one of the best jazz programs in the country. I went there for four years. I got my butt kicked in a good way. I didn’t know how to play jazz when I went to school and I’d never played with any jazz musicians.

Here I am in these ensembles and I’m scuffling but I learned quickly. I learned where I was at and I saw where I was at. I saw where other people were at with their level of proficiency. I was like, “I got to pick it up here.” I practiced my drums and music in general of arranging and listening. My life was just music, school, drumming, practicing, and that was it. I got a lot together in a very short amount of time because I was very focused. I wasn’t hanging out with anybody. I didn’t drink. I didn’t smoke. No drugs. There is nothing like that. Just completely dedicated to my craft and it’s amazing how much you can get done when you get very laser-focused like that.

I’m curious because I went to school for music but I was a vocalist. I played piano and all that. For people that are on a drum track, did they have to do music theory and all of that stuff?

When you say on a drum track, do you mean in terms of just playing?

Your degree is going to be in jazz drumming or what was your actual degree in?

I had a BA in Performance which is basically useless but no one’s like, “If you want to come to our gig, we need to see your diploma.” I had a couple of people who wanted me to go to school for a teaching degree because then you can fall back on that and the whole security of that. I had no interest at all in doing that. I just wanted to play and perform. However, to answer your question, I don’t think theory or anything like that but that’s conceptual stuff that should stay in the classroom. When you’re playing, you’re playing. You’re in the moment. That’s leading into my book.

One of the reasons I wanted to write this book was I noticed certain times when I’m practicing or playing with musicians that I’m super focused sometimes and then other times, I can’t get out of my own way. This befuddled me like, “Why does this happen one way? How come I’m in the flow sometimes? How come I’m not?” I realized it all comes down to concentration and being present and mindful. I was always into meditation and trying to quiet the mind and reading spiritual books and stuff like that but it was always something that I never merged the two worlds.

A couple of years ago and during COVID where things got weird for everybody. I started thinking about my life in a midlife crisis type of thing. I’m like, “What am I doing? Where am I going? Where’s the purpose and meaning?” I realized that you have to make the purpose and meaning and you have to be mindful. I’m speaking for myself. I had to do that for myself. Otherwise, I felt like I was floundering. I always thought about writing a drum book, but I didn’t want to put another drum book out there just because there are so many great drum books and what am I going to say that’s going to be different?

 

Mindful Drumming Techniques And Flow

I started after COVID. I started thinking, “I think the world needs to be more mindful, especially musicians. I think people can benefit if I can somehow merge together breathing, playing, meditation, neuroscience, and some Zen, I think people would benefit from that and get something out of that. That’s the premise and the goal behind the book that I put out called Drumming in Flow. If you can get with all those things and be more mindful, you’ll naturally be heading toward a flow state.

Flow happens when we’re mindful. It happens when our egoic mind isn’t going blah, blah, blah. We get quiet for that moment and it’s like the instrument always almost plays us. I know you’re a vocalist. That’s a tricky instrument. I sing too. Vocals are tricky because it has so much to do with what’s going on in your head. Even my vocal teacher said to smile when you sing and just by smiling, it changes the tone. It changes everything. Hopefully, people will be able to benefit from that, all musicians.

While we’re performing, that’s one of the hardest times to get in the flow state. Do the exercises that you talk about in the book, are they things you can use while you’re performing? It’s because I notice in myself, that sometimes it’s hard to even stay present while I’m performing because I start thinking about my grocery list.

It’s about coming back. You realize, “I’m thinking about my grocery list. I should be here. I’m not on the bandstand. I’m back in my house thinking about the grocery list.” You have this moment where your brain goes, “Come back, Bree,” and you come back and now you’re there again. You’re there and you don’t think about being there. You’re just there and then all of a sudden, you’re not there and then you realize, “I just thought about, did I turn the coffee pot off?” “Come back, Bree. Come back again,” and you come back.

 

Mindfulness isn't just about meditation—it's about coming back to the present, again and again. Share on X

 

That’s the process for everybody. It’s training the body to come back and it’s no different than training a dog to come. You are like, “Come,” and the dog doesn’t do it at first and then you keep repeating it and eventually the dog understands that when I hear that word, “Come.” They don’t know what come means. They hear that tone and they know that that means the master wants me to come. It’s strengthening that part of yourself that goes, “Come back,” and you’re this puppy or whatever sniffing around and you’re lost in the moment of thinking about whatever you’re thinking about.

You get snapped out of it and then you’re back on track. That’s the meditation part of the book and that’s the real-world reason that I meditate. It’s thousands of years old and it’s esoteric and all that cool stuff. It can get you to deeper realms within yourself but I think the practical application for most people is being mindful. How do you get mindful? You got to practice it. It’s no different than playing a scale. You have to practice being mindful more than not being mindful.

Once it’s on your radar, you have to practice it and you have to keep it on your radar. It’s like any other practice of, “If I don’t go to the gym, thinking about having big muscles is never going to happen.” You got to pick up the weights and lift them.” Also, if you want to be a marathon runner, you have to put your feet on the pavement and you got to go out every day. You got to be consistent. That’s the theme is consistency. Whether it’s practicing an instrument or practicing being mindful, you have to be consistent and you can’t expect these things to happen overnight.

 

Consistency is key—whether in practicing an instrument or being mindful. It’s about showing up every day. Share on X

 

I’ve still practicing the same sixteenth-note triplet licks or whatever on my instrument ever since I started practicing. My mind is going, “Ray, you’ve been practicing this for the last twenty-something years on this instrument and you still don’t have it. Why are you doing this?” It’s like, “I’m just going to do it if it takes me three lifetimes.” That’s the idea. It’s consistency. Just keep doing it. Keep pounding it into the ground.

Also, there’s the neuroscience where you’re teaching your body to fire certain neurons in your brain. Again, if you don’t fire these neurons, they don’t turn on and off naturally. There’s a whole system that’s happening between your brain, your thoughts, and what’s being dumped neurochemically between oxytocin, feel-good chemicals, and stress chemicals. We’re training the physiological body. In a long-winded way, that’s what the book is about.

 

The Importance Of Consistency In Practice

It’s about training the body. It’s about training the mind. Do I do these breathing techniques on the gig? No, not really, but sometimes I do. If I’m having a hard time, I can focus on my breath and I seem to get out of my head. It’s about getting out of your head and back into your body. The coined term is that’s what it does. It gets you out of your head and back into your body. A flow state can only happen when you’re in your body and you’re not in your egoic thinking mind. Anyway, that’s the idea behind the whole premise of the book. I hope some people can utilize those key things that I pointed out.

Doing it in your practice will embed it so then when you’re at a gig and if you need to use it, then you can. I was curious. You’re talking about the dog and hearing the master say, “Come,” and all that stuff, but sometimes I don’t realize that my mind has wandered. Do you use anything like triggers?

The trigger is having the will and the want to get to that point because otherwise, we’re completely unconscious. When you’re unconscious it’s not your fault. If you said something rude to me and you didn’t mean to say something rude, you’re an unconscious person and it just came out of you. That’s forgivable. You weren’t malicious.

You didn’t premeditate this thought to hurt me or anything. You just said it because you’re unconscious. If you’re unconscious, you’re not mindful. You’re not there and you’re not privy to what’s happening in the real-world scenario at that moment. How do we even get there? Again, it’s the wanting to be there. Wanting to be the type of person that can be more mindful knowing what the benefits are.

It’s like a cycle. You’re more mindful because you’re mindful about needing to be mindful.

It’s like, “I want to eat better.” Maybe you eat at McDonald’s five times a week. You eat pizza and you eat all this stuff that’s not good for your body and you’re unconscious about it. You don’t even think about it. That was me with food. If you put food in front of me, I eat it. It wasn’t until eight years ago that my father had a triple bypass and almost died. They equated it to his poor diet, hardening of the arteries, and all that stuff that you get when you don’t eat right and you smoke most of your life.

That was a huge wake-up call for me. That’s one of the reasons I went vegan. It’s not that I’m going to live forever. It’s not adding years to your life. It’s adding life to your years. That’s the thing. I was completely unconscious and now I’m conscious of it. It’s to the point now where I can’t think that way. You have to train yourself like any other being like a dog or whatever to come back and to be aware.

I’m curious because it is hard as a musician to be healthy because of the lifestyle that we have especially if we’re touring or doing different gigs and stuff. How do you find that being a vegan?

It’s hard. A lot of what I do is I eat before I go to gigs or I bring my own food. It’s not that hard if you premeditate it. I have a lot of fruit. I eat tons of fruit. I’m a fruitarian or vegan but it’s hard because I try not to eat oil either because oil it’s not good for your endothelium. Your endothelium is the lining of all of your veins and we have 50,000 miles of veins in our body, which basically go around the planet over two times. Nobody thinks about their vein health, but your veins carry all the nutrients and everything to the rest of your body so it makes sense to take care of your body.

I don’t go crazy with not doing oil or anything. I’m not like this maniac about it. If I’m on a gig and they brought out penne vodka pasta and I know it’s got cream in it or whatever, but I’m like, “All right.” It’s once in a while and it’s no big deal. It’s the same thing with falling off the horse. You fall off the horse with being mindful and trying to do this breathing stuff and it happens.

It’s how things go as a human being. The important thing is that you find yourself and you get back on the horse again. Also, not being kind to yourself and not being so mean that you fall off the horse and you start beating yourself up for things. That can be a whole other conversation. A lot of how I got stuff done was not being nice to myself. I would be like, “No. You’re sitting here for the next six hours and you’re going to go over your rudiments. You’re going to practice and you’re going to do this.”

I would be like this taskmaster that wouldn’t get off my back. Even if I did six hours and I meant to do eight, I would be angry at myself for the rest of the night because I didn’t do those extra two hours. What does that mean? Maybe you’re not serious. I’d go down this rabbit hole, but I got a lot accomplished and I got a lot done because I was such a taskmaster but I don’t think you need to be so negative to get things done. Now, I try to be really polite to myself. If I don’t feel like practicing, I’m like, “Maybe it’s time to go for a walk.” I get much more out of my practice session walking than I do if I sat in my drum room practicing a paradiddle for the next two hours being miserable.

No, that makes sense. For me, sometimes I can practice in my head as if I’ve just had it. With singing too, you can only sing for so long and you’re going to hurt your vocal cords. I can mentally go through what I need to sometimes, as you said, on a walk and that can be as productive if not sometimes more productive. I know that you also do arranging. You create music for film and TV. Why don’t you talk a little bit about that because musicians are listening to this and watching this who are always looking for multiple streams of income? How did you get into those areas?

What you said there is key because we’re at a state where the music industry is not what it used to be. I used to be able to be a side man and you can make a living. My dad made a lot of money just playing music but I think being diversified in many different skill levels can help you. I got into writing music for television through my friend Rich Tozzoli who had been doing it for many years prior and he’s got hundreds of thousands of TV cues that he’s written.

He was doing these TV cues with drum machines and drum loops. I took a Pro Tools lesson to learn how to work Pro Tools because it was such a difficult program for me. He came over a couple of times and he said, “Maybe we can do a session. It’d be more fun to play with a drummer than it would to be to do these loops.” That’s how we fell into it together. He taught me the way of what makes a good TV cue, writing for TV land, and keeping things very simple and catchy.

I learned a lot about that. It’s a formulaic sauce that you have to give these people because you’re writing for the editor. You’re writing for this guy who’s sitting there watching the show and he’s trying to fill under bed music. He’s got twenty shows he needs to get to and he’s got so much time. If you make it easy for him, they’ll tend to use your cues more than other guys.

It’s because a lot of people hand in songs with lyrics and all this stuff. They’re not looking for that. Vocals rarely get used in TV land because it’s distracting. You don’t want to hear somebody singing when you’re trying to listen to dialogue with some guy in a store. They want something simple that can go underneath all this and the guy comes in and says, “How you doing? I got an old rifle that I’d like to sell here,” and whatever’s going on in the show.

That’s what I learned in my endeavors with the music. It’s simple and I’m no genius writer. Arranging is something that was very hard for me and still is. I don’t need to do that but I keep it simple and I think that’s what helps me. The TV stuff was made for me by a drummer because I tend to write simply anyway, so it works.

That is true. Sometimes, we singer-songwriters, our stuff is too complicated to be used in TV especially. They need people like you. It’s great when you can find a niche that perfectly fits your skills.

The great thing too, is if you write for a TV commercial, a show, or something like that, you have executives that want to put their two cents in and then it gets complicated. They’re like, “We don’t want to hear that,” or, “We want to hear more drums,” or, “We want to hear less of this.” None of that happens with what I do. I hand in tracks in a certain BPM and genre. Most of the time, it’s uptempo because uptempo gets people excited and it’s pretty formulaic.

I know you mentioned that you’re doing an electronica project as well.

That is an exciting project that I got into with Frani Lugo, who is an incredible musician and artist. I found out that he’s good at doing CGI and I didn’t know that until I called him. I had this idea for a music video that came out called Uncharted Destiny. You can see it on my YouTube channel. This song came about before the video obviously. The song came about during COVID and during a breakup with my girlfriend at the time.

We had been living together and then COVID and the breakup happened all at once and it felt so dark and empty. I kept thinking about the cold darkness of space and how people were dying in hospitals and they couldn’t say goodbye to their loved ones. It made me think of David Bowie being in a capsule. I wrote this song about trusting the process and about we don’t know what’s going to happen. None of us know what’s going to happen.

It’s going with the flow once again and adapting to what’s happening. It’s also reflective of what happened in my life where everything was going fine as a kid, and then next thing you know, your life is completely thrown on end. How do you deal with that? You think your life is over. This character in the video thinks his life is over, but he realizes that there’s a whole other life and a whole other world for him on the other edge, on the other side of the galaxy where he meets these alien people that he’s related to.

It’s this play on David Bowie and that character. It’s basically this guy who’s me that crashes a jet airplane, a top-secret jet airplane, but he doesn’t know his whole life he’s part alien. He has these aliens that are monitoring and setting him up for his future. He has this crash and he thinks his life is over, but that’s when it just begins for him. They send this craft and it’s encased in a meteor and they don’t know how to get it out. It’s like the sword from the stone.

When I walk into the room, the thing turns on and the stone goes away. There’s a ship in front of me because it’s meant for me. It’s meant to take me back home. This ship grabs me and that’s when the song starts and the whole journey is. It’s about a journey. It’s about the journey of life and it’s about trusting the unknown and not knowing where we’re going. Regardless of how bad life gets for you, there’s always hope and there’s always a future.

It’s quite a backstory for that song.

I didn’t mean to go into the full backstory.

It was interesting because you’re saying all this stuff and I’m like, “How is this going on in the song,” but then that is all part of the video and then the song starts.

Back to Frani, he’s the one who did all. We did it all CGI and green screen. I can’t believe this guy manned this, one person. It took almost two years, but normally, you’d have a room full of hundreds of people like at Pixar doing this and this is one man. I was so blown away by it. I was like, “That’s incredible.”

We started talking about doing a duo project and how to project because a lot of what we do is visuals and we wanted to project this video on the screen and then we would play underneath it. We played with the click track and we plugged our computers in through Ableton Live. Everything sequenced. That’s where we started going with the song and then that ended up our writing process of where we’re going with the band vibe.

Is the video out?

Yeah. The video’s out. It’s on my YouTube channel and people can check it out.

Did they just look up your name to find you on YouTube?

Yes.

I think after that description, they’re going to want to watch it. I want to go watch it.

If you like it, comment and let me know what you think. I’d be interested.

Where can people find your book?

It’s on Amazon. It’s on Hudson Music. That’s their website. The publishing company is HudsonMusic.com. It’s in those two places that you can get it. There are videos of the breathing modality. There’s a code if you buy the book. They tell you what the code is and then you can see the videos.

That’s useful because you read about an exercise like that and you want to be able to see how to do it and stuff. That’s very cool.

One of the breathing modalities that are in there is the Wim Hof breathing method, which is rapid breathing. It gets you fired up. It induces stress in the body and adrenaline. What it does is it gets you used to being in that state and staying calm. When we get all jacked up and adrenaline starts going, most people lose their cool. That’s what that breathing modality is about remaining calm even though your body is going through this physiologically heightened state.

That’s useful. You can practice that instead of having to be in a scary situation first.

Also, there’s coherent breathing that I found out about where you breathe in for five seconds and out for five seconds. If you go on YouTube and you search coherent breathing, you’ll see these cool little things. The guides that go in for five seconds out, five seconds in and it goes real slow. You just follow the bell breathing in five and breathing out five. It stimulates your vagus nerve and your vagus nerve is your main ganglia of nerves that go down your spine to the other nerves.

Also, it synchronizes the electromagnetic field of your heart and your brain so they get in sync. That’s where the coherence comes from. They’ve done some crazy studies about this. When your brain and your heart go into sync, some weird stuff happens with energy, and people around you feel it. I try to practice this before I play with people because we’re all transformers that emit energy. If we can be in our best energy, I think people feel that when we’re around them.

Also, you’re bringing your best self to the group, to the gig.

 

Positivity And Professionalism In Music

That’s what it’s all about. At the end of the day, it’s not about talent, how good you are, and whatever. It’s like, “What am I bringing to the table?” I’ve been hired many times as a drummer not because I’m the most amazing drummer, but because I’m a cool guy. I’m a team player and I’m like, “How can I help?” Instead of like, “When do we eat? How much am I getting paid? Where’s the gig? That’s a lot of driving and traffic.” Who wants to put up with that regardless of how great you are? You want to know that you’re going to be there on time. You’re going to play nice, drive the bus, and go home.

 

Also, not be a prima donna.

I’ve been around that. It sucks the life out of you. It’s very unsettling.

That’s great advice to close out this episode just be someone that people want to be around.

That’s it, and that’s the best way to get a gig. Be responsible. Call people back. Don’t leave people hanging. The simple things that don’t require talent. There’s zero talent there. All you have to do is call somebody back, be courteous, show up on time, don’t talk back, and smile. Do your part. If I’m going to a jazz gig, I got to play jazz. If I’m going to my funk gig, I got to play funk. If I’m going to a reggae gig, you have to put on the right hat for whatever it’s worth.

Where can people find you online?

All the socials. I’m on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. I have a website at RayLevier.com. You can sign up for my email there and you get a free gift. I give away a breathing modality if you sign up for email.

Thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. I loved hearing your story and just the positivity that you bring to the world is so appreciated. I hope it rubs off on everybody that’s reading.

I hope so too because it’s important to stay positive and there’s too much negativity out there. It’s a choice. It’s like, “How do I get a better life?” You have to just switch your thinking and it’s always a choice.

Mic drop. Thanks for that.

 

Important Links:

• Ray Levier
• Drumming in Flow
• Uncharted Destiny
• YouTube – Artist Ray Levier
• HudsonMusic.com
• Facebook –Ray Levier
• Instagram – Ray Levier

About Ray Levier

Ray LeVier has turned tragedy into triumph through the power of music. He’s an in demand pro drummer in the NYC area and writes music for television. He’s an author with a new book, a song writer, and motivational speaker.