It’s sometimes easy to take the small blessings in our lives for granted. Things may be totally fucked, and we may not be able to attend concerts for a while, but most of us don’t have it that hard — certainly not as hard as, say, a metal drummer whose forced to play with only one arm. That’s why this video of a one-armed drummer just sonning the hell out of a cover of Slipknot’s “Duality” is so amazing — it reminds us just how strong the human spirit is.
The drummer in question is one Jack Thomas, who lost his right arm in a workplace accident when he was 17. The injury left Jack wondering if he’d ever be able to play music again, but he managed to soldier through and learn to crush Slipknot covers like a goddamn champion.
“I was working on a conveyer belt, and I tripped out,” Jack explains in the video, “and before I even had a chance to fight for myself, my arm was severed. I had to go inside to get some help, and that’s where I was told, ‘Sorry, buddy, your arm is gone.’ Hearing those words as a human being is not something you know how to react to…now, being a drummer, that’s kind of career-ending. You need all the limbs you have to play the instrument that you play.
“At that point, I realized, I can let this overcome me,” he continues, “or I can do whatever I can to overcome it, and come out of it as successful as I possibly can. So right there right then, I was patting on my chest, trying to figure out the songs that were playing in my head, and I knew that I could do this.”
Jesus, I’m not crying, you’re crying. Watch Jack prove that nothing is impossible below:
You can follow Jack on his YouTube channel and his Instagram.
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Words by Chris Krovatin
