Berklee alum Malachi Lewis played drums on ‘The Tonight Show’

Music

The 24-year-old’s talent for drumming turned heads at a local church. It led to his first national TV appearance.

The wave of emotions hit Malachi Lewis all at once on a random Wednesday last November.

Excitement washed over him as one of his mentors, Keithen Foster, called and told the 24-year-old Berklee College of Music alum that he was putting together a band for an appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

Foster needed a drummer, and he wanted to see if Lewis was ready for the opportunity.

This was Lewis’s first nationally televised gig. It was his chance to show what he could do while performing onstage with artists T-Pain and Glorilla.

Then came nervousness. He had four days to prepare for the show and book his travel plans for New York City. Once his plans were set, the New Jersey native made his way back home and settled in for a weekend at his parents’ house. The familiar place brought a surge of confidence, and the comfort he needed to focus.

“Everything was just going on all at once,” Lewis said. “Once I finally got to a place where I could really focus on what I needed to be done, I was able to really settle and wind down and listen to the music and really adapt to what was going on, making sure that whatever I composed for myself, that I don’t overdo it but at the same time make it authentic.”

It was the kind of moment that most musicians could only dream of. Jimmy Fallon was standing on stage wearing a black suit and tie, holding a cutout of the album cover for Glorilla’s debut album “Glorious.” The words “The Tonight Show” were spelled out over the stage in gold letters. T-Pain stepped onto the stage, adjusted his beanie hat, grabbed the mic, and the act was underway.

Lewis had watched these kinds of performances on late-night television since he was a teenager. Once he got on stage, he felt so prepared that everything came second nature.

“It was a no-brainer, because I understood the language of getting it done,” Lewis said. “It was a crazy experience. It was such a high that I definitely want to keep doing it because it was a level of professionalism that I just couldn’t wait to get to.”

He knew, back when he was 10 years old, that he wanted to attend Berklee and give himself a shot at moments like these. He grew up watching YouTube clips of drummers like Tony Royster Jr. and Dennis Chambers with his dad.

Sometimes, they would add videos of Berklee students to the mix. That’s when Lewis got hooked.

“Berklee has a history of drummers that came there and made a legacy,” Lewis said. ‘Watching those clips — Berklee Chops is what they call it — I would watch them so much. There were so many that I just memorized that I can literally play verbatim. I can play them down from the start of the clip to the end of the clip. That stuck with me for a long time.”

During his junior year at Berklee, Lewis met a pair of mentors in Covered by Music co-founders Kirjuan Freeman and Keithen Foster. They saw Lewis’s work ethic as he played drums at the local church they attend every Sunday.

Freeman saw a younger version of himself in Lewis. He decided to take a step back from his role on the drums at church because he saw Lewis’s talent and wanted to nurture it.

So, when Foster called with the “Tonight Show” opportunity, Freeman couldn’t wait to hear Lewis’s reaction.

“I’ll never forget. I said ‘do you want to make the call? Make the call. He’ll call me after,’” Freeman said. “And I was waiting. Keithen made the call and of course MJ was like ‘yeah, I’m ready.’ I remember when he called me. He was emotional. … It was very touching to me because a lot of people just don’t see it.”

“He comes here every Sunday, he plays, and he’s the reason I stopped playing drums here,” he added. “I had a medical procedure done and I was down for playing drums. It was the first time I had any major surgery in my life and I couldn’t play for like four weeks. MJ subbed in. The first time I heard him play drums, that second Sunday, was the time I decided, I’ll never play drums again.”

Lewis recently volunteered at Covered By Music’s R.E.A.L. program, where a four-day hands-on music bootcamp led by industry professionals is offered to local youth for free.

The program was co-founded by Foster, Freeman, and Patriots cornerback Marcus Jones.

“He works really hard. He was a presidential scholar, not just a full-tuition scholarship student like me,” Foster said of Lewis. “He graduated, he stuck to his guns and didn’t leave early to go to LA or anything just because he’s nice on drums. Even now, he’s like I’m not in a rush to go to LA because I love being under you guy’s tutelage, and that to me means a lot.”

“Any opportunity that I can give him so that he can take the elevator up instead of the stairs, we encourage it because he deserves it and he still knows he has to work hard.”

Making music is an off-the-field passion for Jones. He said he hasn’t met a young drummer as talented as Lewis.

“I’ve known MJ for a minute. He’s special,” Jones said. “The pocket that he can do as a drummer are crazy. Either you’ve got it or you don’t on the drums, point blank, period.”

“The way that he can go from different genres and everything like that is a difficult task and he’s top tier. I’ve never seen someone at his age doing it like that. I want him to get the recognition that he deserves.”

The life of a young musician is not all glitz, glamour, and national TV appearances. Lewis currently teaches drum lessons at Guitar Center. He puts together mixes for dance choreographers. He’s balancing the need to make a living and the dream of making it big.

“I just want to play at the highest level, full-time,” Lewis said. “Full-time, because right now it’s still occasional. I want to get to a point where I can impact a group of people that are as talented as I am and be more involved in meaningful situations. I just want to be at the highest level because that’s just how I think. Whatever comes with it is what I want.”