Drummer boy grabs the spotlight
Avery Molek is good.
Sure, it’s a novelty to see a 6-year-old behind a full drum set, sometimes in Kiss make-up.
It registers high on the cute-o-meter, no doubt about it.
But when you see Molek pound away on the skins, you have to feel genuine respect, particularly if you have ever grabbed a pair of drumsticks and attempted to maneuver your way around a drum set without the benefit of a lesson or two. Beating the snare and hi-hat, with an occasional detour to the tom-toms, is do-able for just about anyone with a passable sense of rhythm. But doing all that, while keeping time with the bass drum, is a good bit more complicated, like hopping on your right leg and patting your head with your left hand at the same time.
Molek, though, is a natural. He grabs the sticks, gets behind the drums and displays a level of mastery that people three to four times his age sometimes haven’t managed.
And it’s gained Molek, who will enter the second grade at Allison Park Elementary School in the fall, a good measure of celebrity. After a homemade video of Molek playing the drums in full Kiss makeup caught the eye of Eric Singer, Kiss’s drummer, it won thousands of views on YouTube. Another video of Molek playing drums along with Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” has been viewed close to 2 million times on YouTube. The spotlight shining on Molek became brighter in the spring when he played drums with country singer and Glen Dale, W.Va. native Brad Paisley on ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America” and followed it with an appearance on ABC’s “Live With Kelly and Michael.”
Then, a few weeks later, Molek renewed his acquaintance with Paisley by playing drums with him and his band when they stopped by the First Niagara Pavilion outside Burgettstown.
Still, Molek seems relatively unfazed by all the hoopla.
“I’m still a child,” Molek pointed out to a couple of visitors one day last month. “I love video games.” In fact, after he displayed his prowess with the sticks on a drum set in the Molek family basement, he started pulling an assortment of Kiss-related toys out of a box, stating matter-of-factly, “I have a bunch of Kiss crap.”
It was watching his father Ed’s videos of Kiss playing live that sparked Molek’s interest in drums. Once he started in, “he kept playing and kept playing,” his 41-year-old dad recalled. “He does really like the music.”
Along with the television appearances and the cameo with Paisley, Molek appears periodically at some festivals and events in the region. For instance, he’s due to appear with the regional country act Ruff Creek at the county fairs in Greene and Washington counties next month. Devon Allen Johnson, Ruff Creek’s leader, said he is struck by the depth of Molek’s talent and added, “I have never met a more charismatic 6-year-old.”
“I have honestly played with drummers 20 years older who didn’t play the songs as well,” he added in an email message. “But, more than that, you can see, hear and feel the passion that he has for playing music … He’s a great kid with a great family and we see big things for him in the future. We are simply glad to play with him while we have the opportunity.”
Along with his apparent imperviousness to the nerves that would typically strike adults if they’re about to appear before millions of people on television or thousands of people at an outdoor concert venue, he hasn’t been inclined to strut his stuff with his classmates.
“He doesn’t have one bit of ego,” said Ed Molek. “When he gets off stage, he’s happy, but he moves on.”
Both Ed Molek and Avery’s mother, Elizabeth Molek, are determined not to turn Avery into a full-blown child star.
“A lot of offers have come in,” Ed Molek said, and they’ve turned many of them down. “It’s (not) about getting him on every talk show,” he said. “First, he’s 6, and he won’t do it all. You have to realize how much is too much … We decided we didn’t want our kid to go into the entertainment industry.”