Trent Lassiter has been hosting drum circles off and on for over 18 years, and has now joined forces with Supersonic Music to host weekly drum circles as part of Top City Thursdays.

In the past, Lassiter assisted Derek Sharp, the owner of Supersonic Music at 117 SE 6^th Ave, in hosting drum circles at his store.  That ‘fizzled out for a while,’ but Lassiter recently decided to revive the event once again.

“I was wanting to get back into hand drumming just because I have a large interest in drums. I called Derek to see if he would be interested in sponsoring it again and he said he wanted to coordinate it with Top City Thursdays.”

Lassiter brings in as many as 25 people some weeks-other weeks, not so many. But he and Sharp do what they can to see that people enjoy their experiences from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Thursday evenings.

“We’ll usually give away a shaker or something to help get people more involved.”

As his friends agree, Lassiter has quite the obsession with music. In fact, he has 13 guitars, two full drum sets, 37 hand drums, chimes and wooden instruments all in his apartment. How does he find room for it all? Well…

“I keep them all in my bathroom,” said Lassiter.

Over the years, Lassiter had kids who could “barely handle a shaker at first,” getting involve in the Topeka music scene through his drum circles, and in some cases continuing on to become members of highly respected local bands.

“Trent enjoys hosting drum circles and I think people can see that,” said Josh Dentenin, who works at Supersonic Music. “He’s very open and willing and accepting. Anyone can come in and join him. He just says, ‘hey, you want to join us? Great have a drum.’ I’ve seen people sit down and listen the whole time and never actually play. They always have a little smirk on their face because they think it’s fun to just sit and watch people interacting with each other.”

Lassiter said he hosts drum circles because he believes in the power of music. In the past, he’s offered drum therapy in which he gave instruments to about 20 people in a dark room with bandanas over their eyes and “waited until someone made the first move.” Finally, after some time had passed, someone would bang or shake his or her instrument, then the next person would follow, and so on until everyone in the room learned how to communicate and respond to what they were hearing.

“It’s a very healing thing,” said Lassiter.