Mike Agorrilla

Michael Agorrilla

Panorama City, California is where Michael Agorrilla was born. Coming from a musical family where his father played drums and his mother played piano, he was raised with music flowing through his blood. “I remember coming home after a day out with the family and I would immediately turn on the cassette player and dance to Michael Jackson’s Bad album,” he says. After moving to Palmdale, California, he took two years of piano lessons and immediately joined the Mesa Intermediate School band to play drums. He then joined the Palmdale High School jazz band, wind ensemble, and drum corps where he was exposed to a variety of music such as jazz, hip hop, rock, R&B and pop.

At home, he would spend countless hours playing along to records by Mariah Carey, No Doubt, Soulive and Dave Weckl to name a few. Michael also joined several bands of different genres, and also became a member of the infamous Trash Can Trio of Palmdale. “I practiced everyday, during school and after school. As soon as I got home I would get on the drum set. I got lost in the music playing whatever I felt. It’s about the expression and the emotion of music that moves me. I could not live without rhythm” Michael never took any private lessons, but studied a plethora of records and videos. “ It was only in my junior year of high school, after listening to Dave Weckl and Alan Evans that I was turned on to jazz and hip hop. It was then that I knew I wanted to do this for life.”

After receiving music scholarships to Berklee College of Music, Cal State Northridge and Fullerton College, Michael chose to study music at Fullerton. “I made a quick decision to attend Fullerton based on instinct. Fullerton had a transfer program affiliated with Berklee anyway, so I was still headed to Boston.” Michael became the drum set player for Fullerton College’s top three jazz ensembles, as well as being a percussionist in the percussion ensemble. “Going to Fullerton put me in the right place at the right time. I was turned on to every genre of music at that point. I made so many connections in college. I played with everyone and that has made difference.” While being in the big band, jazz combo and fusion band at school, Michael started his own hip-hop jazz group outside of school called Aesthetic Effect. Through this group he joined the Cephas Love Sound which became the ‘hip-hip-soul trio’ buzz in Orange County. “Playing in the Cephas Love Sound completely opened up the door to my creative playing and my overall sound,” Michael says. Through the Cephas Love Sound he met more people which led him to play with more artists such as Leigh Jones, Ronnie Crumbly and Monet to name a few. He then became a member of the Los Angeles-based Latin Alternative group Mundo Aparte, who recently released a second album on 33rd Street Records. “It’s a trip when you look back at your life and figure out how you got to where you are now. It’s amazing when you realize that one thing led to another and every step made the difference, you had no control because it was fate.”

He has shared the stage with artists Victor Bailey, Brian McKnight, and Joan Sebastian to name a few. Michael is currently playing for a variety of artists in the Los Angeles area, as he continues to become one of the more versatile players in the L.A scene.