This is Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear
Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. He's known by musicians around the world as the
Minister of Groove, Zoro and internationally renowned rock star. One of the world's
most respected and award winning drummers, worked with the likes of Lenny Kravitz,
Bobby Brown, Frankie Valley in the Four Seasons New Edition, Jody Watley and
many men Anymore. Behind the scenes, though, he's got a lot of
stories to tell, and one of those he's telling in his new memoir that
he was here to talk to us about today, Maria's Scarf, a memoir
of a mother's love, a son's perseverance and dreaming Big Zoro, you and
I have something in common and that we were raised by a strong single mother.
Then we were both very, very fortunate because we didn't choose that fate.
But if you're going to be raised by somebody, a strong single other
is about the best thing you can hope for. Yeah, I don't know
if you witnessed. My father passed away when I was very young, so
I witnessed my mother getting stronger as I aged did you notice that too with
yours. Yeah well, now, I mean I noticed that, but mine
had to raise seven children alone, with more wealth from any father, and
so she did get stronger. But I grew to have more respect for her
as the years went. Now she's been passed away for twenty years, but
my respect meter has gone up even more and more and more because I just
as you get older, you just realize how hard this had to have been.
When you're a kid, you see it, but you don't really quite
understand the load they're caring. But which is why I wrote the book to
honor her memory and her legacy, and to aspire mothers and fathers everywhere and
never to give up on your kids, or never to give up on life,
no matter how hard it looks, that things could always turn around.
You of all people being raised where you were by a single mother, had
every excuse in the book to turn out a lot different than you did.
And I mean that then turn out in a bad way. Yeah, well
I was again, I was fortunate that everything in life is about who you're
surrounded by. So you can be in the worst setting, in the worst
situations, but if you have somebody who has vision that's the most important thing.
And so my mother, when I was a little kid, I asked
if I could wear her scarf for a school picture because I thought she looked
really cool and there was a budding rock star in me, even in the
second grade that I wanted to come out, but I just wanted to look
different and cool. And she knelt down tied her orange soaked scarf around my
neck, and then she said, one day, my precious son, you
will do something fantasmical with your life. That was the words she used,
fantastic, which was a mix between fantastic and amazing. But she had this
ability to this is a woman of faith, so she had strong faith and
God. So she had this ability to teach me to look past my circumstances.
And she really taught me how to dream. And a lot of times
she would use music to do it. She loved music immensely, so she
would put on songs like Frank Sinatra's High Hopes, Young at Heart, and
she would set my heart to dreaming so that I wasn't looking at the world
around me going well, this is never going to amount to anything. I
look somewhere through the eyes of faith and hope, and so I'm very grateful
for that because you could be in a different I could have turned out completely
different had she not had vision and faith, but she taught me those two
important things. You are also bringing up more remarkable similarities in our childhood's Zoro
he's the drummer for Lenny Kravitz, Bobby Brown, Frankie Valley and many others.
His memoirs about his mother. And that's the significance of the scarf in
the title of the piece, and is the scarf that you got to wear
and the encouragement that was bere I'm that scarf well. And she was just
an amazing person. And so my memoir is really about this beautiful bomb between
mother and son. It's meant to inspire people. So when people ask me,
you know, in four words, what will a reader get out of
the book, And it's very simple. It is heartwarming, heart breaking,
absolutely hilarious. But it will leave you full of hope. And I wrote
it and I've spent fifteen years working on it, literally fifteen years, but
I actually started a diary at the age of ten that I kept writing in
through my twenties. So in essence, I've been working on it for fifty
years and I'm sixty one, but the goal is to turn it into a
movie in a Netflix series. So think you know, Rudy Rocky the Blindside
for a stump. It's an epic overcoming story of you know, at one
point living in a car and going to It's my story of going from the
slums to the spotlight, but with the he of this incredible mother and this
tight bond of my six siblings, this type family that's just there for each
other. So it's really a universal story of love and hope and perseverance that
leads to the dream. It leads to my dream of becoming a world renown
drummer, which was my dream from a child. Maria's Scarf a memoir of
a mother's love, a son's perseverance and dreaming big Drummer. Zoro is the
author of the book you mentioned music. My household as well as a child
always filled with music. Sometimes it was Frank Sinatra, sometimes it was show
tunes. Mom wanted us to have culture, so at the tender age of
eight, she was bringing us to see West Side Story. She was bringing
us to see the sound of music, that kind of thing. Oh yeah,
and so our mothers were similar because at seven I got to go see
the Temptations and the Supremes and concert which I grew up in Compton, California.
We loved soul music, but we loved all kinds of music. And
then at twelve she scrimped and saved and took me to see Frank Sinatra in
concert. And so she was always playing music and doing the best she could
to enrich our lives with those experiences. And what's very interesting in my mother's
case, even though I grew up in a jay poverty, she and her
former life before I was born, she was the daughter of a Supreme Court
justice in Mexico City, so she came very well to do, aristocratic family,
diplomatic family who had presidents and movie stars. Over of course, that
wasn't my childhood at all. Mine was so far removed from that. But
as I got older, I realized she was who she was, and she
carried herself as that person she grew up being, even though her life didn't
turn out like that, and she wanted to be an actress but was not
able to do that because life got in the way. So me succeeding as
a drummer I got to live her dreams for her. And she was an
immigrant from mexic Go City and moved to Los Angeles. So sometimes it's the
it's the parents who set the stage for the second generation to make it,
you know, And in that case, that was her. And so it
warmed my heart that that she loved what I got to do. And one
of her favorite groups was Frankie Valley in the fourth Seasons, and I surprised
her one time with I told her I got her tickets to go see the
group, but I didn't tell her I was the drummer. And and then
she goes to the group. She was super excited. She goes, Oh,
I wish you could come with me. I'm like, no, I
can't because I got a different gig that night. And then and then the
burdens get pulled back. Frankie comes out singing who loves You pretty Baby?
And all of a sudden she sees me on stage and I can hear her
scream from the audience. It was really you know, it really, it
was really sweet. Why are the drums for you? Zoro? Uh?
You know, it's one of those things I think instruments tick you. I
didn't really drums. I just had rhythm in me from what I was born,
and I was always hitting things with my hands. And in fact,
that there's some super eight footage. I was in that program, the Big
Brother's Big Sisters program when I was a kid. I wasn't a drummer.
Then I was ten, twelve, ten or twelve years old, and before
they died, the Big brother and Big Sister that were my mentors, they
gave me this super eight footage that I had never seen, and it was
me banging on their son's drum set. He was a professional drummer and I
had never even picked up a pair of sticks. But when I saw the
footage, man, I got so emotional because I was like it was a
prophetic super eight footage because I know that i'd become a drummer, but I
was always drawn to the rhythm and always drawn to the you know, to
the drums, and it's one of those things I think it's just sort of
God given. It's just in you, and all you have to do is
be by it, and then it's like a magnet. It draws you towards
that that thing. And so when I saw drummers, or when I heard
funky rhythms. I was just man. I was all into it, and
I actually never started until I got discovered as the janitor at my high school.
I was the after school janitor, and my job was to clean the
school and the last part of the job was to clean the band room.
And so after I was done cleaning the bandroom, I had like ten minutes
left and I would sneak on the drums and just played them. I had
never taken lessons, I didn't have stakes. But the band director caught me
one day and he goes, kid, he goes, you got an amazing
rhythmic gift. And that's how I got on all the school band programs,
was being the janitor at the high school. It really isn't a remarkable story.
And he tells all about it in Maria's Scarf, a memoir of a
mother's love, a son's perseverance and dreaming. Big professional and gifted drummer.
Zoro. You know his work with Lenny Kravitz, Frankie Valley and Sean Lennon
and many others, and now his writing is out everywhere. Thank you for
bringing the story to a Zorro, and I look forward to seeing it on
the screen. Well, thank you so much. It's been an honor and
a privileged to be on your station. And thanks for great questions. I
really appreciate it. Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee
Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five
to seven and iHeartMedia presentation