Isabelle De Leon
Living up to the dream of her musical childhood, seasoned drummer Isabelle De Leon is pacing every new milestone to the cadence of her life’s crescendo.
Twenty years since her first time on a kit, drummer Isabelle De Leon has evolved her percussive versatility beyond ordinary musicianship, balancing an ambidextrous lifestyle of composing and performing for local gigs and global tours as well as teaching private drum lessons for her students at 7DrumCity.
I meet with Isabelle in her Petworth row home. The sitting room is graced with potted plants and handcrafted furniture, and afternoon sun shines through the window behind her like pastel stage light. It’s a quiet change of pace from the ferocity often seen in her performances.
Isabelle narrates growing up in a musical household, meeting legendary record producer Quincy Jones, and her philosophy behind establishing herself as an artist.
Do you remember your first drum set?
First drum set was a Tama Starclassic. You hip? [laughs]
Traditional five-piece setup and everything?
Yeah. And Zildjian New Beat hi-hats, which I still play today. I have a whole collection of broken cymbals that are just in a pile. I’ve seen people do really cool art with them. One of the bands that I play with, their previous drummer took a drill bit into his cymbal and made his own trash crash. I want to do that eventually.
You were brought up in a musical family. What was your childhood like growing up in that kind of household? Were your parents musicians?
My dad was a hobbyist musician, and his mom was a great pianist. He took classical piano lessons, did clarinet in concert band, and somewhere along the way he picked up bass and started his own jazz band with his friends. He’s always loved music. He told us this story not long ago about how when he was leaving seminary, he told the priest in his exit interview, “I feel like God is telling me to do music.” And what my dad told us was he realized it wasn’t necessarily for him to do music, but his family, and to use that to serve.
You formed a family band?
Yeah. My dad taught me and my sisters music growing up, and the first thing we did was play in church together as a family. He also built a recording studio in our basement. We were all taking piano lessons. He taught us guitar and bass guitar, and when I was seven years old he brought home a drum set. I remember it was very easy for me picking it up.
My dad taught all of us the basics of our instruments, and then he asked me and my sisters, “Which one do you want to pursue and take lessons with?” and I chose the drums because I heard someone say that girls don’t play the drums. So I was like, “I’m going to prove you wrong.” My older sister Kristine chose bass, and my younger sister Sarah chose guitar. My dad always taught us how to play together as a group, and he would also teach us pop and rock covers. I think our first gig was in a nursing home.
“My dad taught all of us the basics of our instruments, and then he asked me and my sisters, ‘Which one do you want to pursue and take lessons with?’ and I chose the drums because I heard someone say that girls don’t play the drums. So I was like, ‘I’m going to prove you wrong.’”
What sort of covers did you play?
We covered Britney Spears’s “Crazy.” My dad also really liked this one song by Staind—do you remember that band? [laughs] There was always music playing in the house, so he would pick random songs that he liked. Some of the first repertoires I learned on drums was Led Zeppelin because my dad was a huge fan and brought home this transcription book of all their tunes. Before me and my sisters could go outside or play with dolls or whatever, he would make us learn a song first. That’s kind of how I would spend a lot of summer breaks and free time.
Getting involved with music so early at just seven years old, was playing music a lifestyle that stayed constant for you between then and now?
My dad was really guiding us for a long time. It wasn’t until I was 13 when I started to really take drumming in as my own passion and initiate things myself. That was the same time I started writing music. I started doing my own marketing—hello MySpace—navigating the industry myself and taking it more seriously.
Around 18, my sisters and I all wanted to take our music somewhere. We cycled through a lot of singers over the years because none of us really had a strong enough voice to be a frontwoman—or maybe we just never tried. We met Martina San Diego who ended up becoming the lead singer of our band, Ivy Rose. We started performing in local Filipino-American events, got a lot of new fans, and became really popular in that community. We did a lot of touring. We toured in the Philippines, did college shows, did America’s Got Talent—we passed in New York but got cut in Vegas.
It was a cool experience, but it was a lot balancing music with school and what we wanted to do individually. Our singer moved to the Philippines, my sisters started focusing on their careers outside of music. I was a music student at the University of Maryland—I was also doing pre-med because #Asian—you know how it goes—but yeah, that was my upbringing.
And from that upbringing, what was your approach once you decided to take drumming to a professional level on your own? How did you pursue getting to where you are now?
I realized at 13 that this is my life, this is what I want to do—I want to make music and I want to share it with the world and I want to be able to connect with people. For a long time, that pursuit was through Ivy Rose. I always loved being a part of a band where we all have creative input, all working towards the same thing. When Ivy Rose fizzled out, I was like, “What do I do now?” I was a jazz performance major at UMD—not to become a jazz drummer per se, but to continue learning and getting better at my craft. I wanted to be versatile.
“I realized at 13 that this is my life, this is what I want to do—I want to make music and I want to share it with the world and I want to be able to connect with people.”
That’s respect. Jazz drumming is one of the hardest styles to do well.
I think what makes jazz so difficult is—and this is something I’ve discovered in teaching it—there’s no set curriculum. Jazz is really a culture. A lot of learning jazz and playing it is knowing the history, the tradition, the artists. It’s listening to a lot of it, emulating the feel. But it’s also getting your butt kicked, getting schooled by the elders who are more versed than you or the bass player who says you’re dragging. That’s a big part of it.
The music industry can be progressive, but I know that female musicians still experience biases or disadvantages—you see it all the time on social media alone. How has your identity as both a woman and a minority affected your career as a drummer in this industry?
It’s always that novelty of, “Oh wow, a female drummer.” I’ve gotten used to it. I don’t let it determine me or bring me down. I hate comments like—and this is literally what someone has said to me—“You know, you’re not just a good girl drummer; you’re a good drummer!” Like, really? You wouldn’t say, “You know, you’re a good guy drummer.” Growing up wanting to be taken seriously, I felt like I had to be tough and not wear dresses when I play. But then at some point, I was like, “No. I like wearing dresses. I like wearing makeup.” So you just gotta be you.
What’s cool is a lot of companies are trying to be aware of having women drummers in their marketing, and that’s a big deal. When you see that the faces of these companies are the best male drummers of the world, you think it’s just a male instrument. That’s an old-school thought. Nowadays, especially with social media, you can access and discover all these great women drummers now. It’s been really cool. I never met another fellow female drummer until I was 13, six years after I started playing. I remember the first woman drummer I saw onscreen was Cindy Blackman, and that was really powerful for me because I was like, “Wow, here’s a really dope female drummer and she’s hot, she’s wearing a bikini, she’s fierce.” If we can show equal attention, it normalizes that anyone can play the drums.
How would you describe your playing style?
It all depends on my mood, what I’m going through, and what speaks to me. It can simply be keeping a two and a four or it could be everything. Music has always been an outlet for me, so drumming is my moment to let it out, whatever it is. I’ve always loved fusion drumming. That to me is some of the coolest stuff. Some of my favorite drummers are the masters like Steve Gadd, Dave Weckl, Dennis Chambers.
There’s a unique pressure on drummers when performing because you’re essentially carrying the song. What’s your preparation like before a show?
What’s fun about music is that anything can happen. One thing I tell my students—and I’m trying to be better at this, too—is when you’re on stage, at that point there’s nothing you can do to change what’s about to happen. All that practice leading into it is the work. Something I realized is that I always hear myself play a lot of the same stuff, so to me I’m thinking oh, everyone’s noticing me doing this again. But that’s not really true. People might be hearing me play for the first time, or maybe they’re busy being wowed by what’s being presented to them. I try to keep that in mind so I’m not self-critical all the time. I can get anxious always thinking about how I could be better, but I guess that’s part of the journey.
Isabelle performing at The Phillips Collection.
Tell me about some of the bands you currently play with.
My main project is this group called Prinze George, an electronic pop group. That’s been fun to do because it’s new territory for me in that it’s in the electronic world, so it’s a mix of electronic drums and acoustic drums. Because it’s a lot of electronic, pop, and dancing, a lot of it is not just playing but also thinking about textures. It’s been a good experience for me to get out of what I was used to doing.
I also perform with this group called Paperwhite, a synth-pop group. It’s a brother-sister duo. When we perform, it’s just me and the sister, and it’s really fun because it’s all electronic. I have a standing rig, we’re both in the front, and it’s all electronic triggers and drum samples. It’s a lot of jumping and dancing, which I love.
Isabelle in the studio with rock artist Lauren Calve and the band.
You’ve performed in Russia before, and are going back again this October. What had you traveling all the way out there just to play?
It’s a State Department tour. A lot of people don’t realize, but the State Department sends out artists to countries all over the world as part of their cultural diplomacy. My boyfriend Elijah Balbed, who’s an amazing saxophonist and composer, actually got scouted and hired by an agency that works with the State Department to go on this Russian tour. His group The JoGo Project does a fusion of jazz and go-go music. He asked me to come along so I can play percussion on the go-go stuff and the drum set on the jazz stuff. It was a great tour. We took seven flights in eight days. They loved it so much that they asked us to come back again.
“A big part of this is to be able to travel the world. And to create and release my own music that touches people. Music that people can connect to, find healing from, get inspired by in the same way that a lot of music has done for me.”
Is there one performance that you feel defined your career as a drummer?
I’ve had a lot of memorable performances, but compared to where I plan to be one day, what I’ve done is not really anything. It’s interesting because when I was younger, I had all these dreams thinking that the day they happen, I’ll be happy and know I made it. But I hit those milestones, and now I’m like, “Cool.”
I’d say that’s still a good thing.
I think it’s a good thing. It keeps you motivated and humble in a way to just remember where you come from, where you’re going, and where you are compared to where you want to be.
And where do you want to be?
I’ve always told people I would love to play for Beyoncé. She is so fierce. Her all-woman band is incredible. I remember seeing their performance at the Wynn Hotel on TV. They did this stripped-down performance of her music and it was so beautifully arranged and I was just fascinated by the musicality. So one day. Something of that caliber. Getting an arena tour worldwide. A big part of this is to be able to travel the world. And to create and release my own music that touches people. Music that people can connect to, find healing from, get inspired by in the same way that a lot of music has done for me.
You don’t personally have a kit set up at home. How do you practice?
I do most of my practicing at the studio, at 7DrumCity. I teach private lessons there three days a week and have close to 30 students right now. I base my teaching style on what I wasn’t getting when I was learning drums.
Is that the reason why you wanted to be a teacher?
I actually resisted teaching for a long time. I had done it during the summers sporadically, but I didn’t want to teach because my priorities were to perform, tour, and gig. I started as a substitute at 7DrumCity doing marketing, and then at some point I transitioned out of that. To compensate, the owner was like, “I’ll give you some students to teach.” So I started doing that. Teaching is a lot of work, but it’s also very rewarding to see the progress that people make. They start to see the confidence in themselves and what they’re capable of.
“Teaching is a lot of work, but it’s also very rewarding to see the progress that people make. They start to see the confidence in themselves and what they’re capable of.”
You’re planning on making your own music soon. Are you composing songs? Or will you be doing full production this time?
I’m trying to figure that out. [laughs] All the music I’ve written before was for a full band. I’ve written rock songs, jazz songs, funk tunes. Who I am and what one sound defines me I’m trying to figure out. A lot of times I just do what the gig calls for. After working with electronic music for the last few years, that’s where I learned production. I’ve been practicing just to get used to the process, but as far as my own music, I just think, “What would Quincy Jones do?” I’m inspired by big, collaborative work.
And you met Quincy Jones not too long ago. What was that like for you?
Oh my god, it was surreal. I’ve always known who he was and what he’d done, but a few months ago I watched the Quincy documentary that gave me a lot more insight into everything about him. When I watched it, I was like, “I have to meet this man before he goes.” He turned 86 the night that we met him.
Isabelle meeting Quincy Jones. (via Instagram)
What was so surreal about meeting him wasn’t just that he’s an icon—he’s someone I’ve looked up to as the musical genius he is. He isn’t just an amazing musician, but a songwriter, arranger, and producer. He established himself as an artist that started out as a musician, so I think about, “How can I as a drummer really establish myself as an artist—as a household name that people know?” Like Sheila E. and how she’s not just a drummer, she’s a great singer and performer. Same with Questlove.
You think about everyone Quincy’s worked with as far back as Frank Sinatra and of course Michael Jackson, and what he had to go through because of the racial tension in this country during that time. Despite all that, he was so gracious and so kind. You know, I always get nervous meeting someone I admire, because what if they end up being a total jerk? But Quincy took the time to really connect with everyone. He made me feel like I deserved to be there. He was ultimate goals of what someone of that caliber should be like.
“[Quincy Jones] established himself as an artist that started out as a musician, so I think about, ‘How can I as a drummer really establish myself as an artist—as a household name that people know?’”
Having come a long way since your early years in music, what are you aware of now that you weren’t aware of when you were younger?
Being a musician is not easy. You’re essentially your own business owner and you have to have good marketing and social networking skills. You have to do all the paperwork. So much of it now is not just focusing on your craft, and I think that’s the big difference. When I was young, I was more focused on making art, practicing, playing, and writing music because I had the time and space to do that, but when you’re an adult and you have to pay rent, bills, student loans, and afford a car so that you can gig, you’ve got to make money. You’ve got to take gigs you don’t want. You’ve got to make sacrifices.
The challenge has been finding balance in everything—making sure I’m maintaining my fitness and eating healthy, making sure I still have family and social time. But also making sure that I have time to create. I don’t have as much time as I did back then to sit on the piano all day. People say I just don’t make time for it, and maybe that’s true. But I’ve always wanted to live a balanced life. It’s finding that balance between wellbeing and creative wellbeing.
I’m going to quote your own motto: “March to the tempo of your own beat.” As a teacher, what does this self-taught lesson mean for you?
It means to do your thing and do it well at your own pace. Doing the things that are best for you and what makes you most happy. One thing that I have been trying to be better about is not comparing myself to other people who are in similar trajectories as me—not the same, similar—because everyone has different goals, every drummer has different goals, every artist has different goals. And of course there are people who I consider influences as far as what they’ve done and accomplished and how they play, and especially with social media it’s easy to see those people accomplishing things faster or getting certain opportunities that you’ve always wanted and to feel resentful or jealous.
I used to think I had to do this or that by the time I turned 25, and when I turned 25 realizing I hadn’t done those things, I was like, “What am I doing with my life?” But I’ve always believed that things happen if they’re meant to—at the right time. So it’s having faith in the journey and the process, and trusting you’ll accomplish the things you set your mind to when it is the right time.