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Meet Juan Diego Patino

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Juan Diego Patino.

Juan Diego, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
From the second I was born in Bogota, Colombia, I was interested in music, as a baby I would stay quiet and look almost mesmerized when AC/DC played on the TV. As a matter of fact, one the first gifts I got as a kid was a cheap drum set for kids that I played until it broke.

My parents were not very stoked on having a three years old drumming as hard as he could inside an apartment, which is 1000% fair. So they weren’t in any sort of rush to replace that drum-set. I didn’t touch another instrument until I was 12 and I picked up a guitar in the music classroom, but I always was obsessed with music.

But when we moved to Guayaquil, Ecuador in 2010 they felt bad for me having to leave my friends and asked me if I wanted to get back into music. I asked them if I could buy a guitar and an amp and started rocking away. I played a lot of Ramones, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath and absolutely fell in love with music. A year after living in Guayaquil, I decided to pick up the drums. I was fortunate enough to receive my first lesson from one of the best drummers of the country. After a couple of lessons, he began to tell me that I had the potential to be a professional drummer and connected me with some of the best drummers in the Ecuadorian Rock scene and convinced them to take me under their wing. I began meeting musicians and playing with people and soon enough started my first band, “Quartz”, it was a mixture of hard rock and pop-punk that captured the attention of a small group of people that supported us in a very hardcore way. Looking back to those days of playing every Friday or Saturday with my best friends in the whole world, I realize those were truly some of the happiest times of my life.

All my friends and bandmates always insisted that my drumming was going to take me places, but at first I didn’t believe them. I have always struggled with feeling like I am good enough, and at that time it was shining through my music. It also made me practice for over 30hrs a week, but it also made it hard to believe that I could actually have a career in music. But in my junior year of high school that changed. I befriended the host of Radio Disney Ecuador while planning and EDM festival that was a part of my senior project, and he propelled my drumming career forward. Before I knew it, I was backing the boy band “It is a Way”. It all happened so fast after that, in the blink of an eye, I was in music video shoots and taking pictures with little girls at the mall. Thats when I began thinking I could be a musician.

I moved to the US with the help of my parents to elevate my musical knowledge and have a different college experience. In Los Angeles I met Britta Raci, a wonderful singer/guitar player from Burbank, CA and started the band I always dreamed of: “It’s Butter”. We started a lot of music together and playing shows around town. It was then when I met Andrew Zaragoza of the metal band “Sinicle” and decided to audition for his band.

Fast forward a couple of months from there and I was touring up and down the West Coast with chunks of 3-17 days with Sinicle, while playing local shows with “It’s Butter” and I was also going to college to study percussion, music business and audio engineering.

In 2017, I decided to step down from “Sinicle” because something inside of me told me my cycle with them was over. I kept pushing as hard as I could with “It’s Butter”, transferred to a new college, started tutoring students and kept studying and improving my crafts. I began focusing on promoting myself as a drummer as well as my band and began seeing results. I started subbing-in and playing with as many bands as I could. I would learn 8-10 songs just for one show and tried to keep up with my practice schedule of 5-6hrs daily. By 2019, I started seeing even bigger results. I got to share the stage with Kordelya in the official after party of the Latin Grammys, back world-class dancers in the best dance studio of the city (PlaygroundLA), travel to other major cities of CA playing for EDM/Pop artists/It’s Butter and tracked remotely for one of the biggest hip hop crews in Colombia (Aerophon Crew).

When the year was half-way gone, I was hungry for more. So I began to dive into my music production and mixing skills. I released my first two electronic music EP’s (Hurt and Sleepy- D.I.) to the masses and started playing a couple of shows around town. This was my first time performing without my drum-set and I have to say it felt very different. My last months of the year were filled with days with studying and tutoring. Together countless nights of mixing local artists like “The Stamp Collection”.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
No, it hasn’t been easy at all. I have been actively trying to develop my career as a music producer and drummer in this city while also studying and tutoring at one of the biggest private college in the state. However, being an international resident I have to put all those things in the back burner and have one true priority.

As an international resident, I have to deal with a lot of paperwork/phone-calls/applications to uphold my legal status in the country. This is not something that I can do alone. Luckily I have a very supportive family behind me and they are willing to go above and beyond to help me achieve my dream. Stay in city and play music in LA for as long as I can.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I am a versatile drummer that has played with artists that range from Black Metal to EDM. I take pride in always trying to go the extra mile for the artists that trust me to become a part of their musical family. I do this because I am grateful of every opportunity I get to be on a stage and share my gift with the world.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success is to be happy with myself, surrounded by great people, and making music with best friends. I feel like I’m doing that right now, I consider myself truly blessed. At the moment, I’m focused on growing as a person and being the best musician I can be.

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