From the very young age of six years old, Trevor Stafford began his musical journey that eventually grew into a career built from passion. What started with young Stafford listening in on his aunt’s boyfriend playing with his band in a garage later became him being the drummer of hard rock band Adelitas Way as well as a solo artist with his passion and spiritual project, ELEV8D.
Stafford was very interested in the garage rehearsal sessions, so his aunt's boyfriend gifted him with a drum set. From there, he would listen to songs on the radio and try to play along. His real music career started when he was in high school because he joined the band and learned how to play lots of different instruments.
Beginning with the clarinet instead of drums in band made Stafford grateful because he “learned how to read music and musical theory so I wasn’t just banging out stuff all the time.” He participated in concert band, jazz band, and marching band in high school. “It was just a lot of playing drums in all kinds of different academic bands and learning how to play and read music,” he said.
His family was also what encouraged him to take this musical journey. Being that they were the “if you can dream it, you can do it” type of people, they always supported Stafford and his dreams. Also, being flexible when it came to playing loud instruments in his parent’s house and hosting band rehearsals. “I don’t know if I ever thought of it being a career but I just loved music so much, I just always wanted to play music. So I just did whatever I had to do to play music and eventually one of the bands I played in, which was Adelitas Way, just got a record deal,” he said.
One drummer Stafford has always looked up to is that of Michael Jackson’s band. “Those grooves and really cool hi-hat work is what I like to do best, like rudiments on hi-hats because as a drummer playing in a band you can only get away with a certain amount of things before people think you’re showing off,” he explained. He also admires the drummer of Incubus, Jose Pasillas, as well as “all of the classic guys that were a brand of drummers in music that changed the game” such as Neil Peart of Rush and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin.
“It was such a blur because in the beginning, it was just so busy, like a different show every night and it never stopped. We never really went home. When one tour ended, it was another tour. When we were making songs, we were just driving anywhere to any producer’s house that would produce a song with us,” Stafford reminisced about the beginning of Adelitas Way’s journey, “We slept on the street in our van in Hollywood and L.A. We were just living day-by-day and whatever we had to do, we just did it.”
One of the hardest things Stafford and Adelitas Way has had to get over is the coming and going of people in their lives. A few people in the band have not always seen eye-to-eye and that has, unfortunately, resulted in ended relationships. Fortunately, however, there has never been bad blood. Also, Stafford and lead singer Rick DeJesus have luckily been on the same page when it comes to creating music and touring.
Stafford claimed, “The music industry is the most brutal industry you’ll ever work in because the people that are dictating your success, at least back when we were coming up, the record labels and the management were needed to have a career and they don’t care about you at all as a human being.” Then, he added with a laugh, “Not everyone, obviously I’m just generalizing, but it’s really tough trying to navigate that world...trying to be a creator but also kind of step out and wear a different hat to be more business oriented and not conflict those two worlds is difficult.”
As far as Stafford’s solo project goes, it is much deeper than music. The inspiration came from his wife, who is a very spiritually-involved person and ignited his own spiritual awakening. “She basically pushed me into a spiritual awakening as well just because you can’t live with someone everyday and not be awoken,” he commented.
Stafford visited Thailand, Buddhist temples and other foreign countries. Seeing how other people lived was also a part of that. His realization was that, “Music, to other people, is very sacred and they use the frequencies for healing. So the actual musical frequencies are studied and people use them to heal spiritually and I took a very deep interest in that. Now, that’s what I study and I involve myself in.”
All of his music for ELEV8D, a mixture of alternative, electronic and spiritual music, is tuned to specific frequencies that align with certain chakras. Words also have frequencies, and so his wife writes his lyrics aligned with certain chakras. After Stafford puts everything together, he does lots of mediating to the music to “make sure it’s in line with the healing that I want to put out in the world.” His aim with this passion project is to bring eastern philosophy into the western world and blend that of sound healing and what he enjoys, which is drums and percussion.
Not only has he developed a new project and found himself on his spiritual journey, but Stafford is four years sober. About sobriety, he said, “When you’re sober, time is very slow which is cool because you get to enjoy life...when you start to open your heart and live, this kind of music helps to really change how you live your life.”
A goal for Adelitas Way, ELEV8D, and Stafford as a person is simply to express love, gratitude, motivation, and positivity. “Especially in this time in the world, there’s a lot of shifts happening around the world with politics and economy. I think it’s really important for people to keep the ones that you love closest to them ‘cause at the end of the day, materialism or things you own or money doesn’t go into the next world with you.”
Adelitas Way and ELEV8D both have music to push people in that direction of positivity and enlightenment.
As Stafford continues on his musical and spiritual journey, he encourages others to remember the love, peace and unity that still exists in this world. What started with a hunger to play and a love for music grew into so much more: the opportunity to voice music as a symbol of harmony, sobriety, advancing his spiritual journey through music, and viewing life in a whole new light.
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