When Dustin Cole is on the stage with his band, he’s in a different world where his mind makes blues-rock music rather than struggles with Tourette’s syndrome.
“Everybody told me you don’t seem to have Tourette’s when you’re playing,” said the Destrehan musician. “I didn’t seem to have the tics.”
There’s a big connection with people with Tourette’s and music, and Cole found numerous stories he could relate to there, as well as about people of every type with the syndrome and working past it.
“If I’m stressed or anxious it can cause problems,” he said.
Tourette’s is a neurological disorder characterized by multiple motor and vocal tics, such as blinking, shrugging, sniffing, or repeating phrases. It is usually diagnosed in childhood or adolescence and often becomes less severe in adulthood.
Cole has never let it stop him from performing. He loves it too much – and his family and friends literally invested in him to keep it going. They contributed to a Gofundme, which recently helped him afford his dream instrument – a custom-built Fender Telecaster electric guitar.
It makes the sound he needs for the blues-rock sounds with the band, Dustin Cole and the Dead Men, who regularly perform in New Orleans. Cole’s sound is based on legendary music figures like the late Stevie Ray Vaughn and bands like Cream with Eric Clapton, as well as Pink Floyd. He’s also a songwriter.
“Its what I grew up with and what comes out of me naturally,” he said. “It was a long time before I found my voice and that’s what has always appealed to me.”
Cole calls it “heavy blues” with a big sound.
With his band, he’s able to “do his own thing,” which is an organic groove coming from three guys who have performed more than they’ve rehearsed. They play mostly in New Orleans, but they’ve also performed in Baton Rouge and recently Leesville. Tours are planned and they want to branch out as soon as possible.
Cole has decided he wants to make music and is willing to work hard to make it work.
“My goal has always been for music to pay my bills,” he said. “That’s the career that makes me happy.”
In music for about 17 years, he attributes his love for music to his uncle who taught him how to play guitar, a Telecaster similar to one he recently bought.
“I always wanted that guitar from him, but this one now reminds me a lot of that and thought that was cool,” Cole said.
By age 13, he had his own guitar that he bought for his birthday and played it passionately. He was living in Texas at the time and was miserable with Tourette’s.
“My mom homeschooled me and I started playing guitar,” he said. “I wanted to play music so I got obsessed with it.”
On the Internet, he watched videos and tried to learn solos, as well as rented tapes of concerts and he’d watch them before he started to play guitar.
“I’d just learn things I liked and I’d recognize patterns,” Cole said.
Also, his father’s love for Stevie Ray Vaughn and Eric Clapton, and particularly the band Boston, also inspired his sound.
Born in Picayune, Miss., Cole came from a musical family, as well as a church family where his musical training came from playing three to five times a week at church for hours. His home roots may even have star quality.
[pullquote]“Everybody told me you don’t seem to have Tourette’s when you’re playing. I didn’t seem to have the tics.” – Dustin Cole[/pullquote]“There are rumors and I think I’ve proven to myself that we’re actually related to Johnny Cash,” he said. “My grandfather and him were supposedly first cousins. I found a picture of Rosanne Cash [Cash’s eldest daughter] and thought, ‘That’s my mom.’ It looks just like her. I thought that’d be really cool if that was in our blood.”
His wife, Carrie, and family are supportive of his career plans, which he deeply appreciates. The couple had a baby, named Anastasia but called Anya, on Aug. 30. She wasn’t due until Oct. 26, which Cole said has been “a wild ride.”
Carrie met Cole while going to shows. He was playing with a band at the House of Blues in New Orleans and they kept in touch. It wasn’t an immediate connection, though. A musician lifestyle was something she’d have to consider because she wanted to settle down and have a family. Even so, she mused, “I was looking for someone with long hair and tattoos – and he has it.”
And she was attracted to more about him.
“It was just he was honest about everything and that’s what I needed in somebody,” Carrie said. “He was just such a sweet person and I had to give him a chance, and I’m glad that I did.”
She described him as amazing.
Sometimes in the middle night, he gets up and announces he has to go write something. Carrie doesn’t want to know what it is, insisting on waiting to see him perform it on stage where he’s free of Tourettes’s.
“Actually, it gets better with him on stage,” she said. “He’s able to focus on something different. I don’t think it affects the music whatsoever.”
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