Gearwire had the honor of speaking with Trash Kat inventor Kevin Reed and his mother at the 2007 Chicago ReBeats Drum Show. Reed is a survivor of a traumatic brain injury that initially had a world-renowned neurosurgeon doubting there was any chance for his survival. But after a marathon brain surgery (which removed roughly half of his brain) and 75-day coma, Reed woke up. Since Kevin still has some problems with speech, his mom did the presenting at the show.

A drummer since childhood, Kevin incorporated music into his physical therapy. "He never was in in-patient rehab, and he had music therapy from the very beginning," Kevin's mom said. Over the past thirteen years he has had to relearn how to walk, talk, read and write, not to mention how to drum again. Kevin performed for us at the show, and there was no apparent trace of the injury in his playing.

"When he woke up after the coma, he was paralyzed on one side of his body and blind in both eyes," Mrs. Reed told us. Kevin he spent a year of his rehab training the then-paralyzed right side of his body how to work again. He nailed an ACE bandage to the wall of his studio, suspended his right arm from it, attached a drumstick to his hand with velcro, and beat the head of the drum. For a year.

The Trash Kat uses a standard size trashcan as a body; Reed had a 20" hoop lying around, and he discovered that it fit a trashcan perfectly. The present Trash Kat model evolved from about thirty prototypes. "He started playing it out on his gigs, and because of the response, he decided to start selling it nationally," said Kevin's mom, who is also his business partner.

The drum is available through Kevin and his mother's company ThunderEcho Drums, which recently loaned a Trash Kat to the hands-on Museum of Making Music, in Carlsbad, California. Trash Kats are used by numerous school-based drum corps, and also by LA-based metal percussionists Street Drum Corps.