Heart Beat: Elec Simon

“Go! Go! Go!”

Elec Simon yells. A young audience member he called to the Take Back the Night stage in mid-October is following the percussionist’s lead and drumming on a white utility bucket. The kid bangs the drumsticks on the bucket with increasing speed as a giant grin breaks out across his face.

“Woo!” booms Simon, who is wearing a black graphic T-shirt, jeans and red Converse, and has his signature dreads tucked beneath a red ballcap.

Simon calls up more kids and adults, and soon the whole stage is filled with audience members playing bucket drums, a maraca, a tambourine, cowbells and more. A symphony of percussion fills the Cultural Center for the Arts in Canton, and a chorus of clapping emerges from audience members now on their feet.

With wide eyes and outstretched arms clapping above his head, Simon leads the crowd in a call-and-response: “Say, I feel good!” The crowd answers, “I feel good!”

As the jam session ends, Simon shouts into the mic, “Did you just see this room come together, having fun, drumming, clapping hands? Imagine if we could be like that all day long. It can take one person to make a difference.”

For many in The 330, Simon is a difference maker. He’s been doing these community, school and prison shows for 15 years to raise awareness about anti-bullying and share life lessons. He’s seen firsthand the toll bullying can take — he lost his friend, Terry, to it when they were just 16.

Many may recognize Simon’s bucket drumming from the QStix, the street percussion group that plays every Cleveland Cavaliers home game, his 10 years with the off-Broadway and touring show “Stomp” or his percussion for the world-touring smooth jazz group Pieces of a Dream.

Music is Simon’s medium to spread a message of love and acceptance.

“Music brings everybody together,” he says.

When Simon was just 2 years old, he fell in love with percussion watching the drummers warm up backstage at gospel shows with his mom, a gospel promoter.

“Drums were always the No. 1 thing for me. I love rhythm,” says the now 37-year-old Canton resident.

As a kid growing up in Smithfield and Steubenville, Ohio, he’d drum on whatever he could get his hands on, including couch cushions. His junior year of high school, he saw the musical “Bring in da’ Noise, Bring in da’ Funk” on Broadway. He mimicked cast member Larry Wright’s freeform style of drumming on buckets.

Simon dreamt of being in “Bring in da Noise” or “Stomp,” so he moved to the Big Apple. Serendipitously, he met William Johnson, Alicia Keys’ percussionist, on the subway. Johnson was skeptical of Simon joining his street performance act. But Simon hadn’t come to New York City to quit, so he drummed for Johnson and got his approval. Simon began playing music with Johnson and Wright, who is known as the first bucket drummer.

“I didn’t back down,” Simon recalls. “This is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

But being one of the many buskers vying for New Yorkers’ attention wasn’t easy. There were days when Simon had to choose between having a slice of pizza or buying a MetroCard to get home.

Simon heard there were auditions for “Stomp” in Boston. He beat out 980-some people for one of the eight spots in the nontraditional show where cast members walk on trash cans, use brooms as drumsticks and make music with lighters. Finally, he made it.

But two weeks before the show’s start, Simon injured his lumbar and could barely walk, let alone do the very physical show, so he had to leave his dream job.

Over the next two years, Simon cowered into a dark place. He returned to Ohio and healed his back. But the loss made him so low that he contemplated suicide.

“I thought about giving up,” he says. “God showed me that he was real. He said, You need to fix some things.”

Unexpectedly, that time made him stronger. Simon developed a practice of helping others by starting his anti-bullying school shows, which helped pull him out of his funk.

Everything changed when he got a call that “Stomp” was having auditions in New York. This time he’d have to beat out 1,500 drummers — and he did just that. He broke down crying when his named was called. His second chance was within grasp.

“I tell people there’s no excuse — that people tell you, you can’t do something. I can do anything,” Simon says.

But the first few years of “Stomp” were a cruel awakening. A couple of Simon’s bosses nitpicked him — and made his life hell. Simon had already risen from the ashes, and he wasn’t about to stop. The show’s creators, Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas, encouraged him to keep going. He developed a thick skin. He set out to prove his critics wrong. And he did — he persevered to a decade-long run with the show.

“I never broke and that means the world to me,” he says. “It gives me fire.”

The kids are bullies. At a late September school assembly, four students own up to picking on Max, one of their classmates. Simon makes each apologize.

Then Simon encircles Max in a big bear hug. “It’ll be alright. I’m proud of you,” he announces. He commends Max for sharing his story and says it will help others.

Simon knows how Max feels. Growing up in a mostly white school, Simon was called racial slurs. It hurt, but Simon had a strong faith and mindset to get past it. His best friend, Terry, wasn’t able to overcome the hate.

As teens, Terry and Simon spent hours together in Boy Scouts and at each other’s houses. But Terry was picked on for being skinny, wearing glasses and being in band. It became too much. Terry walked into oncoming traffic.

Simon was devastated to lose a friend to bullying, so he has dedicated his life to spreading compassion. Now he tells Terry’s story in his middle and high school shows.

“I tell people, look at your best friend. Picture them not being here because somebody talks about them,” Simon says.

His shows use storytelling and music demonstrations to bring awareness to how niceness can truly save a life. It’s a message that urgently needs to be heard, as 14 young people with ties to Stark County took their own lives in the past year and a half. While we can feel powerless in these situations, he challenges crowds at his shows to do something: respect each other.

“[If] everybody would come to school being nice to everybody, we wouldn’t have bullying,” he says.

In person and through social media, people come to him in tears saying his message means so much. I was changed for the better. Thanks for giving me hope. You help a kid getting bullied stay strong.

Simon’s been knocked down many times. But all his trials feed his boisterous energy and infuse even more passion into his performances with the QStix, Pieces of a Dream and at assemblies. Before he steps onto a stage, he thinks about how far his hard work took him and his drive to keep helping others — and it fuels him.

“My energy comes from wanting to bless somebody else,” he says.