Everyone has their own special story, and for Blue Valley’s percussion teacher Alex Vallar, it’s that he’s also a director of the Kansas City Chiefs’ drumline. To more surprise, Vallar revealed he was the founder of the “Chiefs Rumble” drumline and has been with them since the start.
“Back in 2009, me and my roommate at the time received a call about starting a drumline [for the Chiefs],” Vallar said. “We decided to get our closest friends together, and 15 years later, we’re still together.”
A question that many may wonder is what benefits Vallar receives as being part of the Chiefs team. However, being paid to be a professional musician, the drumline does not actually receive all the free gifts.
“[The benefit] is just being in that atmosphere,” he said. “As the team has gotten better, especially with Andy Reid, it’s been more playoff games. We’ve gone on a trip to Germany, [and] have gone to three Super Bowls. It’s just been incredible.”
To Vallar, being on the Chiefs Rumble is an experience for which he is very grateful.
“[The best part] is just being able to continue to perform. Once you get to a certain age, there’s only a limited amount of opportunities to really perform. So getting to perform for [over] 60,000 fans is pretty incredible,” Vallar said. “Seeing [our] work pay off is when people start recognizing the Rumble when [we’re] in parking lots or out and about. I think that’s the most fun part about being an entertainment musician.”
At last year’s Super Bowl, Vallar brought back the champion confetti for his students at Blue Valley as no more a gift than it was a form of encouragement. Vallar shared the reason why he made effort to bring the souvenirs back.
“I think a lot of percussion students don’t see the [music] opportunities outside of [after] high school and college. The more I can model that, the better it is for students [to achieve] more excellence in their life and just have some of those opportunities that I have been blessed to have.”
Vallar stressed the importance of showing the younger generation the pathways of percussion.
“Not in a million years would I think [that after] high school I would be playing drums for the Chiefs–– that was not even remotely in my purview. So I tried to get the percussionists a little bag of confetti as a memorabilia [to] kind of remind them like ‘hey, if you continue this activity and perfect your skills [you could] do things like perform at the Super Bowl,” he said. “[I brought it back] to be able to give them [those] memories, see a little bit of happiness, and remind them how far drumming can take you.”
