155 – Lemuel Hayes: Playing with Cindy Wilson, Recovering From a Serious Injury, Choosing Nashville Over L.A.

Lemuel Hayes is the drummer for B52s founding member Cindy Wilson’s solo project. Originally from Gainesville, GA, he didn’t set his sights on a music career until age 22, after a few years as a mechanical engineering major at Georgia Tech. After playing and teaching around Gainesville, Atlanta, and Athens for a couple years, he decided to move to Nashville. But he then began to think LA would be a better fit and made plans to relocate. Weeks before he was supposed to move, a broken arm not only kept him in Nashville but put him on the sidelines of music for months. While working at Guitar Center and rehabbing his arm, Cindy Wilson’s project got going and he also caught on with some artists under Jack White’s Third Man Records.

In this podcast, Lemuel talks about:

Hosting a jazz radio show in college

What made him quit engineering school to focus on music

Flying out to LA to spend a day with Josh Freese

What first brought him to Nashville, and the freak accident that kept him there

The physical and psychological challenges of rehabbing his arm

Working at Guitar Center to stay afloat

The random gig in Athens, GA that connected him with Cindy Wilson

Teching for Sterling Campbell

How Cindy’s band is a band, not a solo artist with hired guns

This episode is sponsored by Crush Drums.