Expert drummer Jerry Pentecost is one of the most even-tempered humans you’re likely to meet, in Nashville or anywhere else. And if you’ve been to a show in Nashville in the past decade, there’s a decent chance you’ve seen him play, since his understated drumming has been a key asset to a staggering variety of bands, from screamo to classic country. All the same, Pentecost found himself a little stressed leading up to AmericanaFest in September.
“I probably had about 100 songs on the docket to play that week that I had never played before,” he says with a laugh. “I was super thankful that I made it out alive. Because I literally thought I would end up in jail or I would’ve killed somebody.”
The week before the festival, he wrapped a leg of touring with Amanda Shires, whose band he’s led since 2016. Between those shows, he was practicing songs he would play in the house band at the Americana Music Honors and Awards ceremony at the Ryman. Then there were showcases to play during the festival, with Shires and others. He was also about to start his first run of shows with Ron Pope, with whom he was touring again when he spoke to the Scene last month.
But Pentecost takes his hectic schedule in stride. This is the life he’s been working toward since he was a toddler, staring agog at his biological father’s drum kit. His mother and father split when he was very young, leaving his mother to raise him and his three brothers on her own. Even with Pentecost working hard at babysitting and mowing lawns, it took years for the family to be able to afford a drum set. While his folks didn’t share his enthusiasm for music — especially not the MxPx and Blink-182 records that he and his friends were into — there was finally enough in the budget for a well-used kit at Christmas the year Pentecost turned 15. He practiced on it every chance he got, within the terms of the deal he made with his stepdad: He could play all he wanted on weekends, but not during TV time after work. He soon started a band called The Cool Kids with his best pal at Beech High School in Hendersonville.
Six years touring in a rock group and several more hopping on and off tours and playing cover shows — peppered with fill-in gigs and flexible side jobs like working the door at The 5 Spot and DJing — taught Pentecost what makes good music, which is more about people skills than technical skills. “You have to be able to listen,” he says. “You have to be able to pay attention and understand what’s happening and being able to serve the music in the song.”
Still, Pentecost always looked for opportunities to play original music, which is how he joined up with Shires and Pope, both of whom he’s recorded with this year, as well as Angaleena Presley, whose band he also leads. Pentecost estimates he’s played 10,000 shows with 70 different groups, and he keeps all the charts and set lists from his past six months of work in his snare drum case, just in case he gets a last-minute call. Having played nearly every kind of gig in Music City gives him a uniquely Zen-like perspective on our rapid growth.
“I get super mad when somebody’s in front of me with Ohio plates, and they have no idea where they’re going, and I have to be at a session in five minutes,” he says. “But at the same time, I’m super thankful. Because for me as a musician, we’re doing something that [makes] other musicians want to be here, and be a part of our song. Can’t guarantee that they will be, ’cause what everybody does is different. But it’s nice.”
