Rocking on: Travis Demsey.
ERIN PEARSON
A FORMER rock star is helping troubled Geelong teenagers reach for their dreams.
Former The Living End member Travis Demsey said he was running drumming classes at Corio’s fOrT centre after a conversation with a 13-year-old boy changed his life.
“I’d been working with the Starlight Foundation when I was in The Living End, visiting young kids in hospitals in Melbourne and Sydney,” Mr Demsey explained.
“After befriending a young kid I made contact with him on Christmas Day one year and his parents informed me he had died. It made me really question what I was doing and how I could do more.”
Mr Demsey said he left The Living End to become a volunteer youth worker.
His drumming classes were helping teenagers with anger management and self-esteem issues, he said.
“Drumming is very accessible and it was my vehicle for my change.
“I was an angry 13-year-old kid who was kicked out of three high schools. I didn’t know how to vent the issues I had, which were embarrassment from not having a family home, of constantly moving because we didn’t pay the rent and you don’t talk about that to your mates when you’re 13.”
Mr Demsey, who lives at Jan Juc, said children were “inundated” with negative images of youth.
“Everything on television shows that successful men have muscles, lots of bling and multiple women draping themselves over them. I could have had all of that too but happiness is more than that.
“Happiness is summer, barbecues, good friends, walking your dog; it’s very achievable.”
Mr Demsey said teenage years were an important time to offer children positive life paths.
“I want kids to understand that everyone has the ability to create their own destiny.”
