Ed Ziehm took his singing and drumming show across the US on a motorcycle, thanks to e-drums.
I make my living doing something unusual: I sing lead vocals and play drums at the same time while running the rest of the production myself. Since launching Eddie Z – The One-Man Singing Drummer Band in July 2023, I have developed it into a full-time career, performing more than 200 shows each year. On a normal engagement, I use acoustic drums with an iPad running produced tracks, a compact mixer, microphones and a Bose sound system. I am simultaneously the drummer, singer, bandleader, sound operator and stage crew.
My acoustic set-up works well when I am travelling by car, but last year I crossed the United States on my Royal Enfield Himalayan 450 motorcycle. An acoustic drum kit was obviously not coming with me. If I wanted to play along the way, I needed to reduce an entire one-man production until every component could fit inside my motorcycle cases.
That is where electronic percussion made the performances possible. My road rig consisted of AeroBand PocketDrum 2 Max sticks (wireless, motion-sensing electronic sticks that let you “air drum” anywhere), an iPad, a Behringer XENYX 1003B mixer powered by 9 v batteries, a Shure SM35 headset microphone and one Bose S1 Pro+ speaker. With the tracks, drums, vocals and amplification packed onto the motorcycle, I had a miniature version of my show without transporting a single acoustic drum.
The first memorable test happened near Atlanta, where I sat in with my friend, Barefoot Geno. His act is already fascinating: he sings and plays guitar while performing bass lines with pedals under his feet. Next to him, I was striking drums that nobody could see. People watched us with disbelief and big smiles. The combination looked almost impossible, but it worked musically and was tremendous fun.
In Nashville, I tried busking near Broadway. All the desirable busking locations were occupied, so I found a spot just off Broadway and played for approximately two hours. I earned exactly two dollars in tips. Financially, it was not the tour’s high point, but it was a useful experiment. Passersby did not quite know what to make of a singing motorcyclist drumming in mid-air. Electronic percussion can make a performance extremely portable, but the audience may need a moment to understand what it is seeing.
The emotional high point came near Cleveland, at the adult community where my mother lives. I played for approximately 150 senior residents, and they were completely engaged – dancing, smiling and having fun. It became a wonderful family memory and demonstrated that the equipment’s novelty did not have to overshadow the music. Once the audience understood the idea, they reacted to it as a real show.
Later, in San Luis Obispo, I visited several bars on an off night and offered to perform primarily for tips. It was a slow, out-of-school-season evening in a college town, and only about eight people ultimately attended. Nevertheless, I performed a complete three-hour show, received some worthwhile tips and again saw the same smiles and disbelief. That performance proved the system was not merely a brief novelty. It could support a full professional-length engagement.
Electronic percussion gave me advantages that acoustic drums simply could not provide on that journey. The most important was portability: the choice was not between electronic and acoustic drums; it was between electronic drums and no drums at all. The AeroBand also allowed fast set-up, controllable volume and access to a range of sounds without carrying shells, cymbals, stands or hardware.
There were honest compromises. Air drumming does not provide the physical rebound, impact or visual authority of an acoustic kit. The performer must adapt to a different sense of placement and response, and some audience members initially struggle to connect the motion with the sound. My acoustic drums remain the foundation of my regular Eddie Z engagements because I value their feel, energy and stage presence.
The motorcycle shows taught me not to view electronic percussion only as a replacement for acoustic drums. It can create performances in places where acoustic drums would be impractical or impossible. For a one-man act built around flexibility, that is a powerful creative tool – and sometimes a motorcycle case can hold more of a show than anyone expects.
Motorcycle electronic performance rig
- AeroBand PocketDrum 2 Max electronic drumsticks
- Older-model Apple iPad for backing tracks and show playback
- Behringer XENYX 1003B battery-powered analogue mixer
- Shure SM35 headset microphone
- Bose S1 Pro+ portable PA speaker
- Two stereo audio breakout cables terminating in 1/4” connections, routing the AeroBand and iPad directly into separate mixer channels
- Direct analogue audio connection from the older iPad to the mixer, since the mixer did not have Bluetooth capability
- Audio/output cable from the mixer to the Bose speaker
- Supporting audio and power cables
- Royal Enfield Himalayan 450 motorcycle with equipment cases
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