BALDWINSVILLE — Liam Rausa was enjoying his Thanksgiving break when his phone began pinging with congratulatory texts. The Purdue University freshman had no idea what his friends were talking about.
“They were all freaking out about it,” Rausa recalled. “They were looking at the magazine and they were blowing up my phone like, ‘Liam, look — you’re on the cover!’”
The cover in question is the December 2022 issue of Drum Corps World magazine, which covers Drum Corps International news and events. A photo of Rausa, a 2022 graduate of Baker High School and former Marching Bees center snare drummer/section leader, was selected for the online monthly publication.
In addition to his tenure with the Marching Bees and the B’ville Pep Band, Rausa has participated in the Buffalo Bills drumline since age 14.
“I played my first Bills game when I was 16. That was amazing,” Rausa recalled.
While his high school career is over, Rausa has marched on in his drum corps journey.
“When I was a senior, I realized it was going to end,” Rausa said.
So, he tried out for the Spartans Drum and Bugle Corps based in Nashua, New Hampshire. The Spartans’ home base is nearly 300 miles from Rausa’s hometown of Baldwinsville — and even farther from Purdue in West Lafayette, Indiana.
“Nashua, New Hampshire, just happened to be the closest to New York — about a six-hour drive, but it’s worth it,” Rausa said.
Since starting college this past fall, the astronautical engineering major has flown to New Hampshire monthly to practice with the Spartans. The drum corps schedule will ramp up to every weekend in the spring.
“Around March and April you start doing every weekend, which became pretty hard in high school,” Rausa said. “I’d get out of school Friday afternoon, drive out to New Hampshire and get back late Sunday night and go to school Monday.”
The less-rigid schedule of a college student gives Rausa plenty of time to balance his studies with his percussion practice. He wrapped up the fall semester with a 4.0 GPA.
“My biggest dream is to be an engineer and design the rockets that bring people to Mars and the instruments up there,” he said.
Growing up, Rausa watched his older sister perform in the Marching Bees. Their mother, Danielle Rausa, teaches music at Cicero-North Syracuse High School.
“I’ve always been surrounded by music my whole life,” Rausa said. “It was pretty much a no-brainer for me.”
Rausa received his first drum set at the age of 5, and his family nicknamed him Bamm-Bamm after the club-happy toddler from “The Flintstones.”
“I’ve just always loved to hit things,” Rausa laughed, adding that he has played the rough-and-tumble sports of football and rugby.
In addition to his family, Rausa said he has had several role models in his drum corps career, including his sixth-grade section leader Will Grindle and drumline battery instructor Rich Miller.
“He’s the only reason I tried out for drum corps in the first place,” Rausa said of Miller.
His advice for young marching musicians is to identify someone to look up to and emulate.
“I’ve had a bunch of really amazing instructors that have pushed me toward reaching the next level. Everyone there wants you to be as good as a drummer or musician that you can be,” he said. “Find people that are better than you that you want to be like. Listen and look at how they do things and hopefully one day [you’ll] be as good as them.”
Rausa will return to his Central New York stomping grounds with the Spartans next summer. Drum Corps International’s 2023 Summer Tour will stop in Syracuse on July 26. Details will be available as the summer approaches. Visit spartansdbc.org for more information.
To see the December 2022 issue of Drum Corps World, visit drumcorpsworld.com.
