Time Out: Gerry Kearney

Gerry Kearney admits his reason for learning to play the drums is perhaps a little less than poetic. "It all started when I was about 12," he begins. "This little girl I knew kept pulling up her blouse and said that she was in the drum and bugle corps—so I knew that's what I should do, too." He laughs freely, adding, "My mother said that I was fidgety enough to be a drummer, so that's what I did."

What started as a hormonally inspired hobby soon blossomed into a serious pastime. Kearney, now a 30-year veteran of the music industry and co-founder/CEO/president of digital audio Internet platform LiquidAudio, went on to become a national champion in the corps, played percussion in a number of West Coast rock bands in the mid '60s—also doing a stint as a live sound engineer for the Grateful Dead—and, during the Vietnam War, joined the Marines, where he says he "spent the majority of the war in Washington, D.C., playing drums for President Johnson, then Nixon."

Afterward, Kearney taught drums on the high school and college levels, then stepped over to the pro-audio and electronics side of the music business when "I realized that a band only has one drummer." He didn't like the odds.

Today, Kearney remains obsessed with the beauty of the beat via his collection of three full drum sets and more than 100 drums, gongs, Indian tagos, clackers, and electronic beat boxes—he even has congas as end tables at home, to the chagrin of his wife. Some of the instruments came from a recent trek to Gambia, a country on the West coast of Africa. "I stayed in a village with African master drummers," he says. "It took me a week to be able to keep up. Eventually, I was competent enough to compete, but I still never looked as cool as they did."

Asked how his pervasive hobby helps him in the business world, Kearney deadpans that he keeps 10 conga drums in his office "to see if I can drum up any business"—which is, of course, followed by a rim shot.

CHUCK TAYLOR