Episode 70: Caleb Spaulding - Find Your Rhythm

Caleb Spaulding is a drummer based in Brooklyn, NY.

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(00:00) Driving a 2004 Trailblazer to Williamsburg with the college band

(03:12) Prog-rock frat house: how the band formed and took over campus

(06:05) Older bandmates, Jersey staging ground & choosing New York as the dream

(09:02) Beginner’s mindset, Williamsburg boom & early social media band hype

(12:10) Singing before talking: family piano nights and a childhood built on music

(15:18) Political science major, miserable law firm internship & feeling trapped on the “normal” path

(19:08) Forklift summer: warehouse monotony, hourly work and craving real purpose

(22:45) Cardboard prison, secret lyric notebooks & discovering an allergy to monotony

(26:03) Sixth-grade band class, discovering drums & Colonial Williamsburg Fife and Drum Corps

(29:40) From rock stages to dance floors: first night hand-drumming with a DJ in Brooklyn

(32:55) World percussion deep dive & finding “Drumming at the Edge of Magic”

(36:22) The Ghana leap: Indiegogo, surrender experiment & flying in with no schedule

(40:05) Open-hearted Ghana: yes-and culture, communal groove & rhythm as everyday life

(43:18) Why Ghana: djembe roots, dense drumming traditions & choosing Accra as the gateway

(46:07) Kids, funerals, weddings & how Western culture shames adults out of musical play

(49:15) Everyone has rhythm: biology, entrainment & giving “no rhythm” adults permission

(52:08) Fela Kuti, Afrobeat, 90s hip-hop flows & the bands that keep him moving

(54:47) Rhythm of Happiness now: drum-powered breathwork, rhythm consulting & the next chapter