In 1995 John Jones, a working drummer in the San Francisco bay area was gigging at night and managing Downtown Rehearsal (a mega sized rehearsal and recording facility in San Francisco). John was also working on weekends at DrumWorld San Francisco doing repairs in the shop there. Being a working drummer himself for 30+ years, John had worked on his own gear throughout his playing career had always been interested in what makes a drum do what it does and the difference between a good drum and a bad one. Being employed at a drum store definitely had its advantages. It enabled John to purchase a high-end G.M.S kit in 1992 that hovered around $7000 and being able to pay monthly on time he could swing it. John immediately took the kit home and took it apart, every screw and nut thoroughly inspected all aspects of all the drums. After slowly putting the kit back together, he took one more of the drums around to several recording engineers, and had them record the drums and asked them to explain the dynamics and how they sound. He then enrolled in acoustics classes so he could better understand the sound dynamics, next a series of woodworking classes so he could better understand the materials he would be working with and what they were capable of.

All this time still working in the drum store, John had access to virtually every manufacturers state of the art gear, as soon as it was available, keeping John on the cutting edge of drum technology for the next three years. Continuing to do re-wraps, bearing edges, and snare beds, John continued to hone his skills. In mid 1995 John was able to purchase a new wood hoop Ayotte kit. He did the same thing with this kit that he did with the G.M.S kit. His thought was to take the top two drum makes and completely critique their products, with G.M.S. and Ayotte, I could evaluate and test the difference between straight shell drums and drums with reinforcement rings. In John's opinion those were the two best acoustic drum sounds on the market at the time. Just about the end of 1995, DrumWorld San Francisco was experiencing some internal problems (like so many music companies in the 1990's). They were downsizing, and were no longer able to continue John's repair services at the store.

Still managing at Downtown Rehearsal, John still had his own room with his band. With calls still coming in for repair services, he simply set up half of his rehearsal room to continue the drum repair services. Hence Thumper Custom Drums was born! Before you ask, we're going to go ahead and explain this, the company name of Thumper was John's nickname during his rock and roll career. You see John was never taught correctly how to play drums. He was self taught and of course developed bad habits. One of those is his bass foot that he uses for a metronome. And hence the thump, thump, thump through ballads, polkas and anything else that was being played, Thus his nickname was born. Following the natural progression from drum repair and refurbishing to the actual creation of custom drums seemed to be the path. John has always thought that drums could be made better and less expensive than what was being offered by the major manufacturers. He knew he would not be popular because he was going to tell the truth. Nevertheless he set out to make great drums at a fair price.

The company slogan would be 'high quality, low cost drums for the working drummer. You see John was always a working drummer, never close to stardom, and he intends to focus his products to those individuals (you know the ones who work from 9:30 to 1:30 six nights a week, and their bar bill is bigger than their paycheck), what John likes to call 'playing the rock and roll trenches'.

After outgrowing the facility at Downtown Rehearsal, Thumper moved to the east bay, continued building and began to exhibit at the NAMM and Hollywood custom and vintage shows. As popularity increased, John was able to place a few drums in bay area drum stores. The word of John's repair work caught the attention of Sam Adato, who owns a small drum store in San Francisco. John has been commissioned to do all of Sam's re-wrap, bearing edges, and all of his other repairs. This was a major boost for the company. In 1999 John submitted two drums to the Nashville Snare drum Olympics, and won a first and second place for his two drums. In 2000 he exhibited at the NAMM show in Los Angles to a great response from buyers and other exhibitors.

In 2001 the company relocated again to extreme northern California. The new facility enables John to operate extremely inexpensively. You see the way we're able to keep out costs down is that John's shop is part of his home! He has no overhead, no parking lot, no neon signs. So when you buy our drums, you are paying only for the materials, and the labor it takes to put them together, no distributors, no retailers, no middlemen. So, we feel we have the right combination of drum making knowledge and access to drum making materials to build great drums at a great price. John's philosophy has always been not to build a lot of drums, but to build good ones.