Ryan Van Poederooyen

I chose this person to interview because I have always been interested in music (making music, listening to music and learning music) so, when I was given this assignment I knew immediately who I was going to do it on.

I would like to introduce you to Ryan Van Poederooyen (RVP), local drum teacher and drummer for Vancouver metal band ‘Imonolith’. Contacting him was actually fairly simple as I used to be his drum student and my Mom is still good friends with him and it was as simple as asking her to message him, putting us in contact and having me interview him. We set up a time and I interviewed him.

If you would like to see how our interview went, watch the attached video below. If not, then read the responses to the questions under the video.

The Interview

 Can you explain your roles and responsibilities with your current position?

“I’m a self employed teacher, I’m a subcontractor so I teach privately. I also teach for Long and Mcquade in their education centres. So the role for me is to teach drums to students who come here (Long and Mcquade, private lesson) to learn drums.”

“As far as responsibilities go, I’m responsible for making sure my students learn proper technique and learn how to read music. I prefer to teach them how to write music as well. I also teach them how to count, how to play, song structures, so when I teach them songs they know what a verse is, they know what a chorus is, a solo section, a pre chorus, a bridge. It is important that they know what all those things are.”

“As well, part of my responsibility is to make sure that they walk out of every lesson learning something new, it’s not just about repeating, it’s about progress.”

“Another responsibility is showing up for all the lessons on time and sticking to the curriculum, as I create all my own curriculums for each student, and we set goals.”

“It’s important that not only is the student learning drums but they are also walking out happy and they’re learning something new every lesson and achieving the goals they set out for themselves.”

“Perfection doesn’t exist, it’s all about progress.”

What obstacles have you faced to get you where you are today?

“I’ve run into many tough times with being a teacher and professional musician. I’ve toured the world and played big shows in front of lots people in big venues. But in order to get there, I’ve failed many times.”

“Some of those obstacles might be that you think your gonna get a record deal with the band that you’ve been in for 6 or 7 years and then the deal falls through, which happened to me with one of my bands.”

“I played with a guy named Devin Townsend and when I first joined his band it was called ‘Devin Townsend Band’ and then after two albums the band broke up but it kept going. It was a really hard obstacle because your like “Wow, we just did this for 4 years and now the band is broken up.”  But then we stuck with it and kept in touch and next thing you know a couple years later we formed ‘Devin Townsend Project’ and went on for another 11 years. I ended up playing with them for 16 years total and through those obstacles and through those tough times, where bands break up or they don’t get the record deal or there’s band member changes or whatnot, all those things happen and they just made me stronger. There are plenty of obstacles you run into but I’d say those are the biggest let downs.”

“Recently one of the biggest obstacles I’ve come up against is with my new band Imonolith, which was made up of Devin Townsend Project members and another band called Threat Signal and Methods of Mayhem and just lots of experienced musicians to form this band and we released our album on March 27th 2020 right when covid blew up around the world and it canceled all of our tours, it cancelled everything. Thats the biggest obstacle I think I have ever had to face in my life, with my career, with teaching it changed everything.”

“There are three principles everyone needs, you need to believe in yourself, you must always take action and you must persevere, you can never quit and that’s what we’ve during the past few years in this difficult time and now my band is coming out of the smoke and we are about to tour the world and achieve our dreams.”

“The beautiful thing about it is all the obstacles I have faced helped me get to where I am today.”

What advice would you pass on to someone interested in what you are doing?

“I would say learn as much as you possibly can before you jump into it and prepare yourself. It’s also about being confident with what you are doing, think about this do you like going into something not being confident or not believing in yourself, you must be confident in yourself in order to achieve your goals.

“If you go into something saying “Im gonna fail” there is a way greater chance that you are going to fail, so self talk and self belief is very important and I think you should be confident. You should be realistic in the sense that obstacles and disappointments can happen along the way but it doesn’t mean that that’s the end, you keep on going.”

“To sum it up you need to be prepared, believe in yourself when you go into doing it (the career) and take action in as many ways possible for learning and anything that you want to do you need to reach out to different people, and never quit and remember that learning is always key and progress as much as you possibly can.”

“Learn as much as you can, be patient, believe in yourself, take action and never quit.”

“What I do (as a job) is amazing, it’s fun, it’s not even a job to me it’s like I don’t even work because I enjoy it so much.”

“Make sure that it’s a passion of yours. Everyone should have a passion that they follow.”

Why are you passionate about your job or role?

“Because it’s what I love to do. I was 10 years old when I first picked up drumsticks and I started playing. I got my first drum kit when I was 12 years old but from 10 years old to 12 years old, I just played on a practice pad and when I did that, my parents taught me discipline and they said “learn your rudiments learn your beats do all those things and when you’re ready we will get you a drum kit”. When I got that drum kit it changed my entire world, I just became so passionate about everything. Once you have that burning desire and that passion it never goes away and as soon as you achieve success, I achieved success by playing big shows around the world, I achieved success by being a drum teacher. I was on Drumeo as a teacher (the biggest drum education platform in the world), I was in Modern Drummer (biggest drum magazine in the world) and they did a 6 page feature on me. I’ve done it all and that passion has just continued to grow. The big thing about passion is everyone has a passion, just a lot of the time they are scared to follow it because they think it’s too hard or they hear rumors that it’s hard to make it in the music industry.”

“Never let anyone else’s opinions affect your passion. If its a passion and it’s something you love, than do it”

“One of my favorite quotes is “do what you love and love what you do everyday” and that includes your passion and that’s why i’m so passionate. Because I love what I do and I do what I love every single day.”

“I haven’t worked a day in my life for the past 20 years because I’m doing exactly what I want to do and that’s just it. That’s my passion, that’s how I approach it. I think everyone should follow their dream and follow what they want to do with their life.”

What is the most rewarding part about your job?

“For example when I first taught you and we learned our first song together and seeing the smile on your face. You must remember, you were so stoked you were like “this is so awesome” and then we learned a System Of A Down song and all these different things and I think that when you have finished a lesson and your student has realized they have improved or they finally accomplished that fill or they finally were able to learn how to play their favorite song and all that was done through my teaching and just showing them the way but letting them accomplish the goal. It has nothing to do with me I just teach but it has everything to do with the student, they are the ones putting the work in they are the ones practicing they are the ones doing all the hard work. That’s super gratifying when you see your student walk out of the studio with a big smile on their face because they are able to achieve something that they love and you can’t get a better feeling than that because you are helping someone and I enjoy helping people, so the biggest thing is just helping people, putting a smile on their face and hopefully guiding them to something they can do with their life.”

What is the most memorable experience you have had with you job

“I’d say there’s 2. A couple of my drum students went on to do exactly what I’ve done, tour the world, play in front of large crowds in festivals and they went on to do exactly what I’m doing, they have become teachers and that is amazing. It just makes me super happy. The other thing would be Drumeo. Getting on to Drumeo, which is the biggest online platform in the world for drum teachers, and to be asked to go on there and do a course is a pretty big deal and those accomplishments were pretty cool. To see your students going and doing what you are doing, it’s pretty awesome. It’s very cool and gratifying, it’s a cool accomplishment and just makes you feel good, and then to be on something like Drumeo where it’s shown all over the world and being on the biggest online drum lesson hub and to be on that and to teach the things that I teach all of my students but on a much bigger platform is a really cool accomplishment.”

“I’ve already achieved what I have achieved and that’s great but when you can help others and help them live their dream through your teachings, those are massive accomplishments for me and I am very grateful for those.”

One of the aforementioned Drumeo lessons that Ryan taught

My take away

My takeaway from this interview is that you should never give up no matter how hard the work is and no matter what the circumstances or what people say. You should never let go of your passion. Another thing I learned is, sometimes what you want to do with your life is going to be hard to achieve and is going to require a lot of hard work but there is always a light at the end of the tunnel and you should never give up because chances are you are almost there.

Throughout our interview Ryan made a big point of talking about following your dreams and never giving up. Because of this, I have decided that I am going to prioritize doing things related to music more often. I have always intended on eventually picking up the drums again and this interview has inspired me to do so. My drum kit is being unpacked in the next few weeks!

I would like to thank Ryan once more for his time, as he is a very busy man and the fact that he probably encroached on his own free time just so he could talk to me and help with this assignment means a lot to me.

If you would like to see more of Ryan’s work you should go check out his band Imonolith, here he is playing their song “Hollow” off of their debut album “State Of Being”.