Former Megadeth drummer Shawn Drover’s 23 year-old son Ryan has officially launched his music career with The Calming. His debut single “Return To Life” can be streamed below via the Soundcloud player and is available via Amazon and iTunes.

Ryan recently spoke with BraveWords scribe Carl Begai about The Calming, his new song, and his plans for the future. An excerpt from the interview is available below:

The Drover family name is well known in metal circles, associated first and foremost with Megadeth. Brothers Glen (guitars) and Shawn (drums) rose to international fame as part of Dave Mustaine’s strike force for four and 10 years respectively, but some Canadian metalheads were locked into the siblings back in the early ’90s when they launched their powerprog outfit Eidolon. Now, a third Drover has entered the fray, namely Shawn’s 23 year-old son Ryan. Working under The Calming moniker, Ryan has released his first full throttle song entitled ‘Return To Life’. One listen and it’s quite clear the proverbial apple doesn’t fall far from the trees in the Drover backyard.

“I worked really hard on it so it’s great to hear you say that. And yes, this is my first shot at recording my own music. I got my hands on a copy of Pro-Tools about six months ago and Glen was nice enough to show me a couple of beginner tips and tricks. I have loads of material that I’ve been working on and I’m really excited to share it with everyone.”

At this point of his budding career, Ryan is a solo artist lucky enough to have friends willing to help him move forward with the assorted musical madness rattling around in his brain.

“There is not an actual group,” he says. “That being said, I asked a couple of my good friends to help me out vocally and lyrically since I’m unfortunately not a vocalist myself. The screaming vocals and lyrics were done by my friend Jacob Kresak, whom I met in the local metal scene, and the clean vocals and lyrics were done by my other friend, Mike Motter, who has been one of my favorite singers/songwriters for a while now. I’m very happy with how the song turned out on their end and could not be happier that those dudes were nice enough to lend me their talents. As for the instruments, I played and recorded everything myself.”

Ryan does in fact have a passion for beating drums into submission, exactly like his father.

“I’ve actually been playing guitar as long as I’ve been playing drums, but it got to a point where I had to choose which one to focus on and it felt natural to become a drummer. I am definitely a much better drummer than I am a guitarist. I’m far too critical of my guitar playing anyway, so if I was in a band I would be the drummer for sure.”

Growing up with the bloodline Ryan has, it’s no surprise to find there’s a Drover offspring creating music. He had the added bonus of being on the inside of his father’s and uncle’s Megadeth experience to some degree, which Ryan says did indeed leave its mark on him.

“I started playing drums when I was about 12 years old, and my dad was always handing me random records and saying ‘Listen to this; this is real music,’ and I always did. One of the first bands he showed me that stood out was Rush, and to this day I will always say that Neil Peart is one of the main reasons I started playing drums, aside from my dad. I’m a huge fan of all of the Eidolon records. I think Shawn and Glen are some of the best songwriters on the planet and I’ve always admired that. Once they joined Megadeth in 2004, that introduced me to an entirely new style of music, and growing up around that was an awesome experience for sure. It pushed me to start a couple of bands of my own throughout the years. Needless to say, it’s made me the musician I am today.”

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Pick up “Return To Life” via iTunes here. The track is available via Amazon using the widget at the bottom of the page.