Gary Reimchen began his musical development at the age of 13 when he joined his junior high school concert band playing the clarinet. The following year he learned to play the saxophone and joined the school’s stage (jazz) band while continuing to play the clarinet in the concert band. At the age of 15 he discovered the drums by playing around on the school’s drum set during his lunch hours. In high school he focused on the saxophone for the school’s stage and concert band. After school he would go home and practice on his drums. Gary was also taking private lessons under drummer Randoll Stoll (former drummer for K.D. Lang).
In his senior year he started to study under drummer Dennis Davies (former drummer for the Stampeders). Gary stopped playing the saxophone so he could play drums in his high school band.
After high school he continued private lessons with Dennis Davies. Gary also joined his first working band called the “Hipwaders”, performing at local shows in and around the Calgary area. He also began to learn other styles of music such as reggae, funk, jazz, latin and country music to become more of a well-rounded player.
Gary also began studying under John De wall. John taught Gary more about jazz and a drummer’s main role in a band, to be the timekeeper. Gary Studied under John De wall for one year, he then stopped private instruction and began to learn on his own. Being a left-handed player on a right-handed drum setup, he began to experiment and learned how to play the drum set both left and right-handed.
In the early 90's Gary began to freelance in and around the Calgary area learning as many styles and playing with as many people as he could.This also taught Gary a great deal about writing and arranging music. He also began working with drum machines and electronic drums.
In the late 90's Gary decided to play music for a living. He travelled across Canada and the United States playing in country rock bands opening for artists such as Jim Witter, Trooper, Blue Rodeo and Alan Jackson. In 1996 Gary started playing a full electronic drum set and was one of the only drummers doing this on the country rock circuit.
