As a 16-year-old the Horsham man's friend Brady King played him two of the LA glam metal band's biggest hits - "Kickstart my Heart" and "Dr Feelgood" - and from there all Josh wanted to do was be a drummer.

Soon thereafter, around 2007, he started taking drum lessons off Brady at the Wimmera Music Centre. At the time, the centre was owned by Brady's father, Graeme.

"I went home and downloaded all of their stuff on (file-sharing application) Limewire," Josh said.

"Brady used to play drums in a band called Innovation, and I would go to their shows. I didn't know how to drum, I would just follow them around and help Brady set up his drums for ages. So once I did that, I started to figure out how to set up a drum kit, and from there I went to Leading Edge music, and he showed me how to play some beats.

"I would literally go to work, come home and play the drums for hours on end, that was all I wanted to do."

Josh is playing in four bands at this weekend's 60 Years of Wimmera Rock event in Horsham: White Trash Candy, Johnny Thunder And The Lightnings, Von Stich and Sultana Frizell, which is forming just for the festival.

"There have probably only been a few instances where the cops came around, because (the noise) was pretty constant every night!

"It got worse when he actually started jamming with bands because there was a lot more noise," Brady added. "His house was the jam house."

Brady, now the drummer in Horsham band All the King's Men, was in Innovation with schoolmates Mark Block (White Trash Candy lead singer), Leigh Wallace (who also played in the original lineup of White Trash Candy) and singer Jason Barnes.

"We had the advantage of my parents' music shop, so we had somewhere to practice and some gear, so we were lucky," he said. "We were just 16 or 17 and we'd play the Freeza battle of the bands and blue light events, footy clubs and weddings, and we opened for Jimmy Barnes when he came to Horsham in 2006."

The room in which Brady and his friends practiced - simply named 'The Room' - is still there behind Surf One, which replaced the Wimmera Music Centre on Firebrace Street.

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"Around the time I started to float around with Innovation, Barnabe (Harrison, now All The King's Men's singer) started to come in as well - he was getting up and singing a few songs. We're all still doing it, all starting pretty much from that one little room," Josh said.

"That room was there from the original music centre days," Brady said. "Nick Southcott from Sultana Frizell would have played there a heap of times, the Von Stich boys... everyone that was a band through the 90s and early 2000s would have practiced there at some point.

"When I was young I remember going in there on Mondays, and the green bins would be full of empty stubbies, and just thinking 'Who was in here?!'. The bands would pay $50 a night to hire the room, bring all their gear and grog and just jam until the early hours of the morning."

Brady estimated 500 people took music lessons at the Wimmera Music Centre in the six years he taught there. His father Graeme, a singer, is playing at 60 years with the Wimmera Blues Brothers on Saturday night.

"He would drive us to Kaniva and the like back in the day when we were too young," Brady said.

"Mum and Dad bought the music centre off Rick Stephens - who is playing with Shades of Troopers Creek this weekend - in 1994, and it was just the one shop in the main street. Then in the early 2000s the name changed to Leading Edge Music and we had that until about 2015."

The drummers said they hoped to help mentor and coach more people in the Wimmera play live music.

"The scene at the moment is thriving," Brady said. "We're all friends as well, and everyone is different enough that we have our own unique act, so no one is stepping on any toes," he said.

"You could see that at the firefight gig at the Exchange from the difference in the people there for each band. In terms of like new bands coming through, we're still the younger guys even though we're in our thirties - Travalley are a couple of younger blokes but they're not based in Horsham anymore..

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"I played at the 50 years of Rock event when I was in my twenties, but there are no twenty-year-old bands this time. The older guys have all still got it - I've got maximum respect for Paul Christopher and Last Stand - but I'd be happy to try and nurture a new set of musos.

Josh said: "White Trash has got Mark's brother Tony to start getting up and playing guitar with us, just to give him a push to experience the live scene.

"And with Johnny Thunder, one of the boys has a son who is 13 that's a drummer, so he'll come along to gigs, and I'll let him hop up on the drums and play a few songs because I would have loved that being 13.

"To be able to experience a big crowd and everyone getting involved. My younger brother Jake's (a guitarist in Johnny Thunder and the Lightnings) first ever show was an ACDC tribute concerfirst-everommercial Hotel Horsham a few years ago - I got him up there for that after he'd just been playing in his bedroom and since then he's never looked back."

Brady said he was impressed by how young the crowds were at the gigs he played, having spent the 2000s being among the few interested patrons at the Royal Hotel's monthly band nights.

"Amongst the 18 and 19-year-olds like we were at the time, there would be text messages going 'Band night, don't go' - we were always there of course," he said.

"It's completely different now."

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