DEF LEPPARD Drummer On RAVEN DRUM FOUNDATION

Metal Edge correspondent Gail Flug spoke with DEF LEPPARD drummer Rick Allen about his side project, the Raven Drum Foundation, the California-based organization which encourages trauma survivors to heal healing through drum circles. A couple of excerpts follows.

Metal Edge: How and when did you find out about drum circles?

Rick Allen: I found out about them through people that I knew, and I started actively doing them around the end of 2000. I had been to a couple of large drum circles across California before forming the foundation.

Metal Edge: It's no secret that you had some problems with drugs and alcohol throughout the years, as has been documented on VH1 "Behind the Music". Would you say drum circles helped you?

Rick: I think the human condition is filled with trauma, but unfortunately some of us are more traumatized than others by various life experiences. I totally believe, through my own experiences, that unchecked trauma in the body manifests new obsessions like alcohol addition, drug addiction, sexual addiction, gambling, you name it. And one of the things Raven Drum is trying to do at the moment is to help those who are coming out of a war zone through our Trauma and Resiliency Program. It is a comprehensive program of all different sorts of trauma therapy; what works for you might not necessarily work for me. I think a combination of different therapies under one roof might be able to make a difference. So along with a trauma specialist, we're putting these programs together, and I'm kind of going through all the different therapies just to show I'm not just reading this through a textbook. I'm going through the experience of it.

Metal Edge: I understand you started the foundation with your wife. How did you meet Lauren?

Rick: She was teaching at the Boulder College of Massage Therapy, and she was teaching what they call energy medicine, which is the study of the energy body, the part of the body you don't necessarily see. Attending some of her classes really gave me a language for many of the experiences I've been through. We kept in touch with each other for about six months, and then she made the suggestion that we get together and put this foundation together, so it's been a fantastic journey for both of us.

Metal Edge: Where do you do the drum circles?

Rick: We've done them all over the world. We used to visit a council ward in my hometown in Sheffield. We also get involved with various organizations, but mainly in California, more personal ones where people are going through cancer survival or alternative cancer therapy. We don't necessarily publicize the fact because that's not what it is about. It's about Lauren and myself showing up and offering them our experience of the drum and how we know that for such an ancient form, it could really help people on the road to recovery.

Read the entire interview at MetalEdgeMag.com.