A video of an elderly drummer flexing her chops at a drum store in the United States has amassed over 1.5 million views on YouTube in just two days. The video shows the senior citizen giving most younger drummers a run for their money with a short solo in the Coalition Drum Shop in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
In an interview with WKBT local news, the store’s manager Dustin Hackworth explained that the woman, dubbed “grandma drummer” and whom the shop know as “Mary”, comes in every two months or so, sits down at a kit and proceeds to do a Garth from Wayne’s World.
“Every time she comes in, we think, ‘Man, we should video tape this’ and we finally did,” Hackworth told WKBT. The station then identified the drummer as 63-year-old Mary Hvizda of Onalaska, Wisconsin. Hvizda told the station that she has played in over a dozen bands since she was 16, inspired by her brother to pick up the sticks.
Hvizda is also something of a pioneer, having been a member of The Shontells, La Crosse’s first all-girl rock group. About her new nickname she said, “I can’t get used to being called Grandma. I’ve never had children of my own and I never got married, but I am 63 and that is certainly grandma’s age.”
Grandma or not, she’s living proof that you’re never too old to rock and roll.
(Via NPR)
Watch: Grandma Drummer
Watch: Mary Hvizda interviewed on WKBT
