After bouncing back from health problems, drummer plays music all over the map

A misfiring pacemaker nearly robbed Devon Ashley of a big year behind the drum kit.

The Indianapolis-based musician wouldn’t be headed to Europe for a run of concert dates this month, he wouldn’t appear on an upcoming Lily & Madeleine album, and he wouldn’t be in the studio with all-star rock band The Last IV.

A dire outcome was possible for Ashley on the night of July 3, 2022. While watching the movie “Independence Day” at home, he endured a series of random “booms” in his chest.

“I thought, ‘This is how I go: my heart just shocking me to death,’” said Ashley, who grew up in the Haughville neighborhood and attended Ben Davis High School.

Fortunately, the jolts subsided, and Ashley learned the incident wasn’t a problem with his heart. Keeping the beat is the 52-year-old’s livelihood, but a pacemaker’s out-of-rhythm malfunction almost took him out—his second of three brushes with death.

The first came in 2009, when he suffered an aortic aneurysm, a balloon-like bulge in the large artery that carries blood from the heart through the chest and torso. Multiple surgeries followed, leaving sizable scars on the front, back and side of his torso.

His third came with a cardiac arrest five months after the pacemaker scare, but even that proved to be just a pause in a robust career on stage but mostly just outside the spotlight. It’s the place where drummers live.

“We’re sitting down,” he said. “We’re in the back. We’re the foundation of what’s happening. When people look at a house, they don’t say, ‘Ooh, look at that foundation.’ They look at the finished product.”

Still, out of the spotlight doesn’t mean out of the chaos. Ashley’s life in music featured plenty of that before 2009, largely because of travels as a member of The Lemonheads—a rock band led by vocalist-guitarist Evan Dando. Described by Interview magazine as a “rascally bad-behavior enthusiast,” Dando hasn’t concealed his history of heroin dependence, which made for a difficult tour.

“I don’t do drugs,” Ashley said. “It wasn’t fun for me at all.”

In recent years, calm has defined Ashley’s work as a drummer. He’s playing overseas this month with Simrit Kaur, a New Age artist who performs as Simrit and has a devoted following among yoga practitioners. Ashley met Kaur, a Greek singer-songwriter living in California, through Indiana-based record producer Paul Mahern.

Ashley said he’s benefited from attending yoga workshops as a member of Simrit’s band.

“That positive energy was so palpable,” he said. “I needed that. It really helped me.”

Brian Presnell, a visual artist and founder of Indy Urban Hardwood, attended Ben Davis with Ashley. Presnell noted the contrast between hitting the road with The Lemonheads and traveling with Simrit.

“Being in bands can sometimes be stressful,” Presnell said. “I feel like [Simrit] couldn’t have been a better thing for him at that time in his life. He met her and was able to go again and feel validated.”

Simrit, who grew up in South Carolina, said she isn’t surprised Ashley perceives positivity from her music. About half of Simrit’s songs are performed in Gurmukhi, a derivative of the Sanskrit language.

“The language is designed to heal from the inside out,” Simrit told the IBJ. “It’s designed to rewire the brain and change the body chemistry and the brain chemistry so people experience a greater sense of health and vitality and peace.”

That’s important given Ashley’s busy schedule.

The Simrit tour of European concert halls launches Sept. 2 in Finland and wraps up Sept. 23 in Spain. Ashley plays drums on “Nite Swim,” the fifth studio album by Indianapolis siblings Lily and Madeleine Jurkiewicz, which arrives Oct. 6. And Ashley is a member of The Last IV with vocalist Rusty Redenbacher, guitarist Vess Ruhtenberg and bass player David “Tufty” Clough.

Friends and family

Ashley has contributed to the foundations of songs for decades. His first recorded work, a 1981 live album by the First Samuel Missionary Baptist Church Choir, was released when he was a pre-teen.

Selections from the album, titled “Mary Don’t You Weep ’Cause Jesus Is Love,” are posted on YouTube.

He started playing drums at First Samuel Missionary Baptist Church, 1402 N. Belleview Place, as a 7-year-old. Ashley’s uncle, bass player Phillip Ragland, served as a mentor.

“From the beginning, I was always playing in an ensemble,” Ashley said. “You had to do your part and blend. … There was bass, organ, piano, guitar and singing. I just had to lay it down solid.”

Gospel music was the focus at church, but Ragland made sure Ashley was up to speed on music by Stevie Wonder, Sly & the Family Stone and Donny Hathaway.

Reggie Gammon, a vocalist in 1960s Indianapolis gospel group the Music Masters, is a cousin to Ashley. Scott Hicks, who played basketball in the 1980s for Cathedral High School and the University of Notre Dame, is Ashley’s uncle.

Two of Ashley’s sisters, Jamika and Brandi Jones, are known as singers in the local music community, and one of his nephews, Jadon Perkins, is a member of the IU Soul Revue in Bloomington.

Ashley said family members didn’t heap praise on him when he exhibited potential as a youngster. “The people who I knew who were the greatest were always humble and low-key,” he said.

At Ben Davis, Ashley’s friends included Presnell as well as Alan “DJ Topspeed” Roberts and late music-scene leader Ron “DJ Indiana Jones” Miner.

By playing drums at Lakeview Church as a teenager, Ashley earned an audition with contemporary Christian music group DC Talk. But he didn’t win the job, and Ashley’s studies at Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri, lasted just one year.

Back in Indianapolis, Ashley joined popular funk-rock band Birdmen of Alcatraz—featuring Redenbacher of The Last IV— during the group’s latter days.

“His feel and his memory are amazing,” Redenbacher said of Ashley. “He can sit down and play with anyone in the world, whether the style is R&B, rock, hard rock, funk or disco. There are people who may be more accomplished, but I don’t know if there’s anyone who could really cover all the bases like Devon can.”

Five months after Ashley’s pacemaker incident, he suffered the cardiac arrest during a Christmas shopping trip in Castleton. A subsequent surgery in February involved complications, and he was immobilized for 52 hours while fluid was drained from his spine.

But the drummer bounced back and rejoined Simrit for an April performance in Miami.

“I’m still grateful for everything I get to do,” Ashley said. “I’m about to fly to Helsinki and play in all of these crazy places.”

The fame game

In 2001, Ashley joined The Pieces, a power pop trio led by Ruhtenberg (now a member of The Last IV). The Pieces landed songs on college radio stations, and Ashley, Ruhtenberg and Heidi Gluck met Dando of The Lemonheads during an East Coast tour swing.

Dando enlisted Ashley and Ruhtenberg to join his band a few years later, Meanwhile, Ashley crossed paths with Beck’s manager in Los Angeles in 2005. Although an audition process to join Beck’s band for live dates to promote his “Guero” album didn’t pan out for Ashley, the “Where It’s At” singer made an impression by complimenting the drummer.

“At that point I felt, ‘All right, I know how to play drums,’” Ashley said. “When one of your peers or someone you like tells you, ‘I like how you did this,’ it’s big. I knew I was approaching this the right way.”

Presnell said Ashley deserves more recognition than he receives for being an in-demand drummer.

“Those dudes who do records call him all the time and say, ‘Come play for us. Will you sit in? Will you do this thing?’” Presnell said. “Devon’s been on so many projects it would make your head spin.”

By 2006, Indianapolis musicians Ashley and Ruhtenberg were on the road with The Lemonheads, and their 2007 itinerary included the Coachella festival in California. Ashley exited the trio in 2008 because paychecks weren’t arriving, he said.

In 2017, Dando told New Zealand news website Stuff that he kicked a long-running heroin habit in 2013.

“Be careful what you wish for sometimes,” Ashley said. “This was a crazy rock tour where you didn’t know if you’d be able to play the show that night because of the lead singer. I remember being on that tour and thinking, ‘This would be so fun if it were with anybody else.’

“I was out there doing what I want to do, but it was such a drag because of how much drugs affected everything on the trip.”

Steadying force

To dial back the drama after his Lemonheads experience, Ashley worked in the kitchen of a Nordstrom restaurant at Circle Centre Mall. He eased back into music with Soulove Universal, a party band that featured his sisters, Jamika and Brandi, in the lineup.

Headaches and shoulder pain preceded Ashley’s 2009 aortic aneurysm, a condition in which the body’s main artery “peeled like an onion,” he said.

Ashley recounted a near-death experience in the emergency room. “My late grandmother was at the door,” he said. “She came over to where I’m lying down. I tried to hug her, but she wouldn’t let me. She didn’t touch me, but she waved her hand over me.”

Record producer Mahern invited the recuperating Ashley to explore the possibility of working with Simrit. Mahern is a certified teacher of Kundalini yoga and has top-shelf punk rock credentials as Zero Boys vocalist. The Last IV member Clough was the original Zero Boys bass player.

Simrit, who plays keyboards, said she chose to gauge Ashley’s skills in the studio by playing a 10-minute song, “Dungeon of the Ribcage,” accented by multiple tempo changes.

“I started playing the song on a harmonium, which is a very drone-y instrument,” Simrit said. “Devon started playing with me, no problem, just by intuitively listening. I thought, ‘I’ve never played with a drummer who wouldn’t complain about a song like this … and get it right off the bat just by listening.’ We never rehearsed it. We had never met before.”

In the context of The Last IV, vocalist Redenbacher characterized Ashley as a steadying force.

“Devon is a motivator and an organizer,” Redenbacher said. “He keeps everything stable. He keeps me under control when I need to talk to somebody about stuff. He’ll say, ‘Cool out. It will be all right. We’ve got this.’”

Ashley said he’s able to play drums in an array of musical styles because he learned at a young age to “play to the song.” He remembered Ragland, his bass-playing uncle, being less impressed by flashy musicians than his nephew. A consistent foundation was more important than playing fast and loud, Ragland preached.

“He said, ‘If you’re doing all that, what am I going to do?’ ‘What’s that piano player going to do?’ ‘Everybody’s doing stuff. We just need you to hold it down and make it feel good,’” Ashley said. “I was 7 years old.”•