TEEN’S WITH THE BAND
He’s just 14, but Joe Carpino III wields pair of drumsticks like a grown up for the aptly named hard rock group Years Apart
If the drummer for local hard rock band Years Apart wanted to have a drink when the group opened for Skid Row this past Saturday at The Chance, it would have had to have been nonalcoholic. He’s 14 years old. Joe Carpino III, a student at J. Watson Bailey Middle School in Kingston, said before the performance he was looking forward to the gig at the Poughkeepsie club.
“I’m really excited for the show, playing with a band and opening for Skid Row,” Joe said.
Joe, the son of Joseph Carpino Jr. and Kim Carpino, started playing the drums when he was about 5. He was hired by Years Apart last fall after three years
“I’m really excited for the show, playing with a band and opening for Skid Row.”
— Joe Carpino III
of playing covers with The Rock Academy in Woodstock.
Music looms large in the Carpinos’ large home in Hurley, where an acoustic guitar that Joe’s dad sometime plays hangs on the wall, and his sister plays the trumpet and piano and has also played the viola.
Kim Carpino shared the story of how her son landed the job with Years Apart.
She said she reached out last year to an online page that features job listings for musicians when she saw Years Apart was looking for a drummer.
She initially got kind rejections when the band members learned Joe was just 13. But she persisted, and the band agreed to give the boy an audition.
“They became impressed with his abilities,” she said. “They’re really welcoming to him.”
Kim Carpino said Years Apart was looking for someone who could play the
band’s existing songs and had extensive stage experience.
Joe had toured in 2017 with Rock Academy’s elite traveling Show Band, playing in Philadelphia, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area, Wilmington, Del., Alexandria, Va., and on a pier in Wildwood, N.J.
Locally, he’s played at the Bearsville Theater and Utopia Soundstage, BSP and Levon Helm’s barn with the Rock Academy. In addion, he’s played The Chance before with both the Rock Academy and his former school, the New York School of Music, Kim Carpino said.
She said Joe learned he was being invited to audition with Years Apart when he was coming off doing a Kiss tribute show, complete with makeup and sequins, at the Blackthorne Resort in East Durham. He had just three weeks to learn the band’s songs.
Joe rehearsed around Thanksgiving and he was hired soon after, his mother said.
Kim Carpino said she’s had to get comfortable with serving as her son’s manager, using Facebook and Instagram to promote him, and also working with her husband as a roadie, helping to set up and break down the drum set and other equipment at shows. This included learning about all sorts of equipment and cables and preparing for whatever hiccups might arise at any given gig, she said.
“We stay close by,” she added.
Joe is taking a break from The Rock Academy, but he and his parents agree they were grateful for the experience he got during his time there.
“They let him play all kinds of shows: ‘80s, pop, The Who and hard rock,” the teen’s father said.
Kim Carpino recalled when Joe took the stage for the first time with local party band Big Smoothies, when he was just out of kindergarten — playing Wilson Pickett’s “Mustang Sally” at Kingston Plaza after the annual Kingston Children’s Day Parade.
Seth Harman, Years Apart’s singer, conceded the band was, at first, skeptical about letting Joe audition.
“When Joe’s mother emailed me, and told me he was 13, the band was like, ‘No, absolutely not.’” Harman said.
But the band members already had auditioned 22 people to replace its previous drummer, who left for job in North Carolina, so the decided to give Joe a chance.
“I’m like, ‘Give the kid a shot,’” Harman said. “He came in and changed everybody’s opinion. After a couple of practices, we invited him in.”
The band was amazed by Joe’s creative abilities, Harman said.
“His music, his style works really well,” the singer said. “What he comes up with fits what we’re doing.”
Harman also said Joe was quiet at first, but soon became used to the flow of things.
“Writing-wise, it was very easy,” he said. “He still likes to have fun.”
Each member of Years Apart has a job outside of the band. Harman is a locomotive engineer for MetroNorth Railroad on the Hudson Line; and the band’s
bassist, Jeff Jones, and his son, guitarist Marshall Jones, work in heating and air conditioning.
But each Thursday is dedicated to band practice, with Harman being sure to schedule his days off around it. As for the band’s songs, Harman says he finds information everywhere.
“I’ve written a couple of songs from my experiences on the railroad and life in general,” he said. “I wrote a song about a homeless guy playing his guitar down in the city. Anything that pops out, I can write a song about it
Of young Joe, Harman thinks he has the chance to be an elite drummer.
“What he has at this age of 14, he’s got the potential to be one the best,” Harman said. “I know his heart is in aviation engineering, but if he wanted to make a life out of music, he easily could.”
Harman said Years Apart is working on their fourth album, the first that will feature Joe on drums.
“I say we should have it have it written within the next six months,” Harman said.