Drum Role

Any musician can tell you there’s always a chance the crowd at a show might have fewer members than the band. “Playing in punk bands at smaller venues, you sometimes end up playing just for the other band members,” says construction lawyer and drummer Aaron Abelleira of Arthur Chapman Kettering Smetak & Pikala in Minneapolis. “However, the first show my current band booked was in a tiny room—affectionately called the ‘bingo room’—at a venue called Eagles #34. While we only had around 40 to 50 people in attendance, because the room was so small it felt packed. Sometimes the first shows you play are the best.”

His favorite venues to play include Cloudland Theater on East Lake in Minneapolis and, historically, the now-shuttered Uptown Bar & Grill, where Nirvana once played. Still on the bingo card: 7th St. Entry. “If I ever get a chance to play there,” he says, “I will hang up my sticks and feel totally accomplished.”

Abelleira started playing music in middle school, and decided on the drums for a very practical reason: None of his friends picked them before he did. “I bought my first kit about 20 years ago, and never looked back,” he says.