John Emanuele

John Keith Emanuele grew up in Fresh Meadows, Queens, New York, for the duration of his early life. John grew up with music as an integral part of his life. His father, John Sr., is a musician and played in several bands professionally in his early adulthood.

John grew up with many keyboards in the living room. They included a Rhodes MKII and Farfisa Organ. In his childhood, although he often played with the keyboards, he was not profoundly interested in them, but rather was interested in the drums. John is a 100% self taught drummer and received no formal lessons, however he did watch several drum seminars and videos as a child. He often played along on drums while his dad played keyboards.

After learning Drums early on from the age of 4 onward, John got his first full size kit at age 7, and soon was performing on drums as a third grader, in performances of fifth and sixth grade chorus. He continued to play drums in school band throughout middle and high school, but largely avoided joining any bands during that time.

John attended Townsend Harris, a magnet school for the Humanities, along with Richard Cupolo, who he met early on in home room class. After high school, John went on to NYU, at the Gallatin School for Individualized Study. John studied social change and politics, while also taking several music classes to round things out a bit.

John played in several bands in high school and college before forming The American Dollar with Richard Cupolo in August 2005, 5 years after meeting him in high school, while a member of their other band had traveled away on vacation. Following college, John worked for several years at a Brooklyn company doing billing and IT work. As things built up for the band, it enabled John to begin working full time on music in 2009. During that period, The American Dollar ramped up it’s schedule, while John also pursued creating a project with a more minimal sound as Zero Bedroom Apartment. Over the next years Zero Bedroom Apartment released many EPs, in addition to John’s continuing work on The American Dollar.

Equipment:

Drum Equipment:

DW 4 Piece Drum Kit
Cravioto Snare
Paiste Innovations 18 inch medium crash
Zildjian K Series 22 inch crash ride
Zildjian A Custom 16 inch crash
Zildjian new beat 13 inch high hat
Evans EC3 heads
Moongels
DW 5000 series hardware
Sensory Percussion Drum Sensors

Keyboard Equipment:

M-Audio & Novation Midi Triggers
Monome & Arc 2
Moog Mother 32 Synthesizer
Moog Minitaur Bass Synth
Make Noise – Maths, Wogglebug, Photogene, MMG, Echophon, Rosie
Roland JU-06
Teenage Engineering OP-1
Yamaha VSS-30 Sampling Keyboard