Sonic Spotlight

RICK HAWKINS

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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION COREY PERRINE/Staff

Rick Hawkins, a 40-year drumming veteran, says his talent is "a lot of fun and you can get paid doing it. You can always improve -- not just have a job where you're going through the motions."

Age: 53

HOMETOWN: Lawton, Okla.

BANDS: Plays drums for the Channelheimers Oompa Band (since 1995) and The Jazz Collective (since 2007)

HAS PLAYED WITH: All That Jazz, Air Apparent, Fresh Music All Stars, quietSTORM and Kari Gaffney

MEMORABLE CONCERT ATTENDED: Queen, the Omni in Atlanta, late '70s. "It was a huge production, and the crowd was really into it. It was great."

FAVORITE CONCERT ATTENDED: Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, Caribbean jazz cruise, 2008. "Jeff Hamilton is the drummer, and he does amazing things with brushes."

FAVORITE BOOKS: John Irving's The World According to Garp, John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities

MEMORABLE GIG: Bystander opening for the Four Tops at The Afterdeck, North Myrtle Beach, S.C., 1981. "I had to go out to my drum set 20 minutes before the show, and I walked out there and the crowd -- it was just packed. There must have been 2,000 people there, and they all started cheering when I walked out on stage."

WORST GIG: Bystander, club in Lumberton, N.C., 1981. "The power kept going down. ...They'd have somebody standing over by the fuse box switching it back on as soon as it went out, and it was pretty much a fiasco. I think I was the one who was doing it while the Four Tops were playing."

MAJOR INFLUENCES: Buddy Rich, John Bonham, Jeff Hamilton and Steve Smith

FAVORITE MOVIE: The Wizard of Oz and Brazil

MUSICAL ROOTS: "My mom was a piano player, and my dad was a percussionist in college, and he ... won awards and was highly regarded in Florida. And so they required all the kids to play instruments, and so I picked the drums, or percussion."

TV FAVORITES: Lost, The Simpsons, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report