Phantom Planet is starting to make some headway on the charts, but its drummer is already making his own name. Actor Jason Schwartzman, who stars in the movies “Rushmore” and “Slackers,” is the band’s drummer.
Schwartzman said he got into drumming because he and his friends decided to form a band.
“I remember talking to a bunch of friends like when we were in third grade and said we should form a band. And one goes ‘Yeah, I’ll play guitar.’ And another goes ‘I’ll play bass.’ And I was like, OK, you guys got the first two cool instruments,” he laughed. “I guess I’m the drummer. So I just kind of fell into it because that was the only one that was left. Kind of got stuck with it I guess. But then fell in love with it and got my first drum set. I loved them.”
He loved his drums to the point that he drove the neighbors crazy.
“I was playing one time, and my neighbor said ‘Could you please stop playing the drums all day long.’ And I was, like, ‘Sorry.’ So I, like, stopped playing the drums for like a month, I was so scared,” Schwartzman said. “Then he came over knocked on the door a month later and he gave me a signed basketball with Michael Jordan’s and Charles Barkley’s signature on it.”
With success on the big screen and in the record stores, Schwartzman said he won’t choose between acting and music.
“The way I want to do it is just not have any rules and just go for it. Like I say, one is my older brother and one is my little brother and I love them both. They both do so many wonderful things for me like, make me feel really good. I get a kick out of them,” he said.
“I don’t forsee a day for me to ever stop acting or ever stop making music.”
