Michigan-bred drummer Chad Smith reveals U-M music scholarship at surprise Ann Arbor performance

Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith has long pledged allegiance to his southeast Michigan roots. Now he’s putting some money behind the sentiment.

During a surprise performance Sunday (Nov. 2) with the University of Michigan Marching Band, the Bloomfield Hills-bred Smith announced a scholarship in partnership with U-M’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

The $40,000 scholarship — named in honor of his mom, Joan, and late dad, Curtis — is administered by the Chad Smith Foundation, which he launched in August.

“Michigan has such a very strong music program,” Smith told the Free Press last week. “They’re well known, and I’m just honored to a little part of that.”

He described the catalyst for his music-oriented foundation, whose team includes several family members.

“My passion for music, art and education is really the backbone of this. There are students that need help either financially or equipment-wise or places to play or connecting,” Smith said. “We want to give that opportunity to them to pursue their dreams, like I did when I was a very young person in Detroit, growing up in Bloomfield Hills and going to Lahser High School.”

The Grammy-winning drummer, who turned 64 last month, was an unannounced special guest at Sunday’s Band-O-Rama in Ann Arbor, an annual Hill Auditorium event showcasing U-M’s concert band, symphony band and marching band.

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Smith took to a drumkit for the marching band’s rendition of “Can’t Stop,” the 2003 Chili Peppers song that’s among the array of hits Smith has recorded in his 37-year tenure with the band.

His U-M scholarship will fund incoming students starting next year.

Smith’s foundation launched a similar music scholarship at the University of Minnesota, his parents’ alma mater.

Smith is a Minnesota native but spent the bulk of his childhood and young adulthood in metro Detroit, where he got his career footing with rock bands such as Toby Redd. He landed the Red Hot Chili Peppers gig just months after migrating to L.A. in 1988.

And despite his folks’ Minnesota connections and a pair of siblings who attended Michigan State University, the drummer is a dyed-in-the-wool Michigan fan, a loyalty he loves to flaunt when the Chili Peppers play Columbus in the backyard of Ohio State.

“I rock a big yellow ‘M’ on the kick drum, I sing the fight song, and it’s the loudest response of the whole night,” Smith said with a laugh. “They just boo the crap out of me, man. I love it. I’m maize-and-blue all the way.”

Smith has bold ambitions for his foundation, saying he’s at a life stage where years of success allow him to give back. He’s especially passionate about the value of music in schools — and he speaks from first-hand experience.

“I wouldn’t be here today, doing what I have been doing, if I didn’t have that opportunity,” he said. “At Lahser, there was concert band, symphonic band, jazz band, marching band, even a music theory club. If I didn’t have all that, I would have never graduated, and who knows what would have happened.”

Smith’s new home state scholarship is a tribute to the legacy of his parents.

“My mother — 98 years young — is still living in the house I grew up in,” he said. “My father was a 32-year Ford Motor Company guy at the world headquarters in Dearborn. We just have all these really good connections in Michigan. So it makes a lot of sense for us.

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan-bred drummer Chad Smith reveals new U-M music scholarship