Miracle daughter Zade is greatest production says Pink drummer

Jewish Telegraph, April 2014

MARK SCHULMAN has performed with some of the biggest music stars in the world.
Yet the drummer describes his four-year-old daughter Zade as his greatest production.
In 1995, Mark — who has performed with giants such as Pink, Cher, Foreigner and Billy Idol — was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
Despite beating the disease, he was told that he could never have children.
But four years ago, Mark and Swedish-born wife Lisa celebrated the birth of their miracle.
“I try to stay humble and grateful about my career,” the 52-year-old told me from Pittsburgh, where he was performing with Cher on her 50-date US Dressed to Kill tour.
“I look around the stage and absorb the moment. I think this is an amazing moment, right now.
“But it happens to me more often with my daughter. Because I’m an older dad, almost every day when I see her, even on Skype, I just stop myself and go, ‘this is my daughter. This is the most profound and amazing experience’. No matter how great people told me it was going to be, it’s better.
“I get so emotional just thinking about it. Most parents take for granted the process of conception and the forming of a child. I can’t take any of that for granted because it was so magnificent, so extraordinary for me to be able to sire a child in this life that I’m verklempt (choked with emotion).
Mark was diagnosed with cancer after suffering pain in his groin while on tour with Simple Minds.
“I was married before to Kelly, who is still one of my best friends,” he explained.
“Kelly had cancer for our entire relationship, including a stem cell transplant. And I went through it with her.
“Right in the middle of our relationship, when she was announced as being in remission, I was having pains in my crotch so I called my doctor, who said it was probably a pulled muscle or hernia.
“I went to see the doctor. He was checking out my painful right testicle and said it was a pretty common infection, but the left testicle felt lumpy and he needed to check it out.”
He discovered it was a seminoma tumour, which meant the testicle had to be removed immediately.
“I was in tears and thinking cancer, death. I was having all these horrible thoughts,” Mark said.
“It was an interesting moment for me because I left the office and thought, all we have is now, the past doesn’t exist. How we live our lives now is the experience of the future.
“I learned the importance of embracing the moment.”
Meanwhile, Kelly ended up getting sicker.
“After she was well, I knew it was time to get out,” he added. “And she couldn’t have kids, so maybe on some level I knew in the back of my mind that I wanted to be a father.”
Mark’s parents, Ben and Sandy Schulman, were born and raised in the Bronx.
After meeting at New York’s Hunter College, they married in 1950.
“In 1953, Jews were migrating to California for better weather, so they moved to the San Fernando Valley,” Mark said.
“They made it to 61 years of marriage before my dad died a couple of years ago.
“My mother has a boyfriend, a 92-year-old Holocaust survivor from Poland. They are celebrating this new love. It’s a lovely thing to see.”
Mark’s parents were professors at a college.
“I used to tutor while in college (California State University, Northridge). It was in my blood,” he said.
“My mum gave me my own English-as-a-second-language class to teach, even though she wasn’t supposed to do that.
“I only made it through two years of college because of music. The call of music was too strong.
“Two Jewish professorial parents and a son who wanted to be a drummer — and I was supposed to have the highest IQ in the family — so they were a bit crushed.
“But they always supported me. They were amazing.”
Mark had wanted to play drums since seeing The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show as a toddler.

“I had this special awareness, unique ability to comprehend what was going on with the drummer,” he said.
One day I was playing in the street and I heard live music. I ran up the street and there were some teenage boys playing in a garage and I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“I went near the drummer and watched every detail of the drum set, every bit of dirt and how the cymbals were moving and every expression on the pimply kid’s face.
“Then they took a break and everybody left the garage. I couldn’t help myself. I started playing the drums. I can still remember the beat I played.
“I closed my eyes as I played, then I got pushed. The boy had come back in and tried to get me off the drums. So I ran home and I realised ‘I am a drummer’.”
Amazingly, Mark actually started playing the cello to a high standard “because my Italian godfather was teaching my brother Randy how to play violin and my parents didn’t want me to play drums because they were too loud.
“I became pretty darn good at the cello, but at nine I couldn’t stand it. So I came to an arrangement with my parents that my godfather would teach me drums after each cello lesson.
“Eventually they bought me a drum set when I was nine.”
He added: “I played my first professional gig on the night of my barmitzvah. I was still 12. I was more excited by the gig I was going to play that night than my barmitzvah — which was during the day.
“I was going to get paid $50 to play a professional gig.”
Mark joined a band when he was 14 and this showed his parents how serious he was about his music.
“My parents were incredible,” he said. “My room was next to theirs, but they let me practise drums all day and night.
“In as much as they wanted me to get a serious job, be an accountant, a lawyer, a doctor, they knew I had a passion and they knew I’d find a way to become successful because I was always very driven and worked hard.
“They were so proud when I made it. I ended up working in recording studios, learning how to engineer and produce.
“Then I moved away from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon, with my original band when I was 22 and I got my life skills together.
“I found an amazing mentor who taught me about life, philosophy and goal orientation.
“I moved back down to LA when I was 26 and got my first touring gig with Brenda Russell. I landed in England opening up for Billy Ocean in the land of The Beatles and I was ecstatic.
“I never looked back. From that point on I’ve been a successful touring and recording drummer and producer.
“In my own group I had learned so much about the whole picture, you know, communication, how to keep a group together, production, management and then the group got a demo deal with Atlantic Records, but we fell apart.
“Having a group is like having five relationships. It’s a lot of work. I knew I could be successful on my own, so I moved back to Los Angeles and networked and networked. My skillset was rather refined by that point.”
But he failed an audition for rock band Bad English because of his nerves.
“I used that as an impetus to really crack down and study hard on drums to solidify my internal sense of time,” he said.
He also vowed that he would “bust through my fears and anxieties. Bust them into submission”.
This has formed the foundation of his new book Nerve Breakers: Conquering Life’s Stage Fright which is published this year.
In the 1990s, Mark formed a group called Clock with Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell, but “we were so busy, we didn’t put in the time to develop the group.
“We would have had to give up everything else to concentrate on it. I had a wife and a mortgage, Vivian had Def Leppard. So we never put in enough time and energy.
“So it’s a dream and a goal I’ve always had, but never fulfilled. But I’ve fulfilled my goal to be a successful drummer, albeit ‘anonymous’.
“When I’m playing for Cher or Pink, the audiences’ eyes are on them. A few are on me, maybe.
“In my part of the industry I’ve done very well and I’m very proud of that.”
Mark — whose heroes include Buddy Rich, Ringo Starr, Floyd Sneed, Ian Paice, Stewart Copeland, Vincent Colaiuta and Gregg Bissonette — says he tries to draw influence from “anyone I see or hear”.
He said: “I tell my students that even if something isn’t to your taste or style, if you discount it, you don’t learn anything, but if you absorb it and try to take something in, there is always something you can learn. I try to be a constant student.”
Mark has also worked with Richard Marx, Billy Idol, Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crow and had three stints in megaband Foreigner.
“I’ve just continued to work and make a good living,” he said. “The Jewish upward mobility has always been caressed.”
But of all the artists he has worked with, he feels closest to Pink.
Born Alecia Beth Moore, the 34-year-old pop star’s Jewish mum is Judith Kugel.
“We were on the road last Passover,” Mark revealed. “Pink and I did a private lighting of the candles in her dressing room.
“She acknowledges that she is Jewish. Neither of us are particularly practising, but we do respect the roots and honour the roots. It was heartwarming to go in and say the prayer.
“She said the prayer and I was like, ‘I’m impressed girl. You know the beracha’.
“She was more raised with some of the Christian traditions rather than Jewish ones, but she does acknowledge her Judaism and she does talk about it with me. She has even mentioned it on stage.”
Mark added: “I’m an independent contractor. I make money when I’m working.
“When Pink is off the road and hanging out with her family, as she is now, and enjoying the new vineyard that she just bought, she’s not paying me, so I need to find gainful employment elsewhere.
“Cher’s manager is also manager for Pink. I actually worked for Cher first and he recommended me to work for Pink.
“I subbed for her drummer when he double-booked himself with an Italian artist for two weeks. She liked me so much I was offered the gig after the two weeks.”
Of his two main employers, Mark says: “Cher and Pink are really lovely people.
“Both have high ideals for what they stand for. They are both very strong, opinionated, witty, smart and nice to people.
“I’ve heard negative stories about other female artists and I feel blessed that these gals I’ve worked with have been lovely people.”
In addition to his drumming, Mark is a public speaker, runs drum clinics, has produced a DVD and a signature snare drum.
“These are all parts of my legacy and parts of my revenue stream,” he laughed.
“I love what I do, playing drums and touring. But I don’t get paid for that, I get paid for being apart from my family.
“It’s challenging. My daughter has just turned four and she has already been on 105 flights.
“You have a goal, a problem, a solution — GPS. The goal is to see each other, the problem is we are apart, the solution is they fly out or I fly home.
“My wife Lisa is an amazing mother and mate. I met her on the road in Europe. She would never ask me to stop what I’m doing. She knows that’s how I make my living. And I support the family.
“If we have to video chat five times a day, then we do, and I fly them out whenever I can. I miss them so much it hurts, but this is what daddy does and we make it work.
“Lisa is a rock. She’s a mensch. When my dad was alive she went to see my parents twice a week and made sure they were taken care of. She’s a balabusta. I’m incredibly grateful for her.”
Mark says his parents were very culturally immersed in Jewish tradition and synagogue life.
“When they moved from New York, they had no friends so they joined a temple,” he said. “Most of their closest friends were based around the temple, fundraisers and events they would hold.
“I was raised Reform so it was very much Jew-lite. I got very immersed in the temple youth groups and had a lot of Jewish friends.
“When I was barmitzvah, my dad was president of the synagogue at the time.
“A lot of the biblical teachings went in one ear and out the other. Even back then it seemed so archaic to me. I understand the importance of the culture and the lessons and I try to impart that on my daughter.
“She knows some Yiddish words. We try to keep the culture alive and respect my mother.
“If I wanted to be super immersed in it, I wouldn’t have married a Swedish gal who grew up with no religion whatsoever.”
Mark performed in Israel with Pink in 2009 — but his visit to the Jewish state was memorable for the wrong reasons.
“My experience with Israel is a little bittersweet. We went to the Wailing Wall and other areas of Jerusalem,” he said.
“We weren’t there for long and the weather was really bad, so I couldn’t go to any of the seas.
“Then I got sick. I went to hospital when I got home and I was diagnosed with an intestinal infection.
“I’m praying that I get to go back either on vacation or with an artist, because then at least a lot of the expenses are covered.”
markschulman.com