Chadd Ifill has put cookware to unusual uses, turning mundane household wares into his musical wonderland, transforming them into drums long before he was capable of making music.

Seeing his innocent child beating away on his “drums”, Chadd’s father Vere Walcott Ifill, who also plays drums along with bass, keyboard and guitar, took that desire to play and helped develop it into something Chadd hopes can provide a sustainable career in the future.

When Chadd was seven, his father began to put things in place.

“My dad took me to church one day, put me behind the drum set and taught me different drum beats,” he says.

Subsequently he came into contact with drummer and steel pannist Andre Forde, a teacher at his alma mater St James Secondary School.

Chadd said Forde helped refine his technique and his understanding of how to perfect the art of drumming.

With this new knowledge, he continued playing at church and for the school’s steel pan orchestra.

Currently the drummer for pop band Nexcyx, the 21-year-old said it was Forde who got him his first job as drummer for Strategy The Energy Band at the age of 16.

“At first I was very nervous; it was my first time being a member of a band. So many people in front of me and I was thinking in my head, ‘What am I going to play? How am I going to sound? What are they going to think about me?’ But it turned out pretty well.”

He started to play more gigs with Nexcyx, increasing his skill and confidence. He later left Strategy and hooked up with Nexcyx, becoming the fifth official member and youngest person in that group.

Being in a band that practises almost every day, Chadd says that it has really helped him develop his ear and memory. These traits are important because he needs to remember a huge range of beats from a wide variety of genres and styles to play in one set.

Playing drums has afforded him many opportunities and respect from the music fraternity in Barbados, he says, and allowed him to travel overseas on many occasions to perform with Nexcyx. His travels have taken him to the United States but mainly to other Caribbean islands, of which Bequia is his favourite place to perform.

Chadd was raised by Christian parents and still plays the drums in his church, provided he doesn’t have to work. When he first started playing for secular bands, they were worried.

“At first they were kind of scared that I would get caught up in the outside life, but after a while they just let me do what I had to, saying that since it’s a job, go and do it as a job and nothing else,” he explains. He adds his father is extremely proud of his accomplishments thus far, and has confidence that this is only the beginning.

Chadd’s aspirations include getting married and having lots of children, while professionally, he wants to become so great a drummer that he can live off his talent, like his idols Toney Royster Jr and Eric Moore.

By 2016 he wants to have a house filled with platinum records, and “a few people passing by to say hi: Beyoncé, Rihanna . . . ,” he says with conviction.

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