March 18, 2026, 10:06 p.m. ET
- With Adrenalin — a band he formed in the late ’70s with his brother and several childhood friends — Pastoria enjoyed major-label status, landing a deal with MCA Records.
- By the turn of the ’90s, following a flirtation with national success, the band had transitioned into a group called DC Drive.
Brian Pastoria, a metro Detroit drummer best known for his work with the rock bands Adrenalin and DC Drive, has died, his family confirmed Wednesday, March 18. He was 68.
Pastoria, who hailed from a family of Italian heritage in East Detroit (now Eastpointe) and later operated a downtown recording studio, was a reliably upbeat personality and an avid booster of Motor City music. The outgoing drummer was a well-liked, decades-long fixture on Detroit’s rock scene, carrying a banner for the region’s music history and always eager to support up-and-coming artists.
Pastoria passed away peacefully in his downtown Detroit apartment, where police found him Wednesday, his brother Mark Pastoria told the Detroit Free Press.
With Adrenalin — a band he formed in the late ’70s with his brother and several childhood friends — Pastoria enjoyed major-label status, landing a deal with MCA Records. The group’s 1986 album, “Road of the Gypsy,” included a title track licensed for the Lou Gossett action film “Iron Eagle” the same year.
His drumming hero was Charlie Martin, one of the original players in Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band, and Pastoria was a workhorse always hustling to advance Adrenalin’s music.
“Brian was a real driving force in the band. He relentlessly wanted to play — then do it again and do it again,” said saxophonist Jimmy Romeo, who played alongside Pastoria in the 1980s and ’90s. “He was a relentless rock drummer.”
The group cut its teeth at Detroit nightspots such as the Westside Six and 24 Karat Club, where original material was encouraged onstage, and the band eventually landed local airplay via supportive radio figures such as WLLZ-FM’s Doug Podell.
Speaking with the Detroit Free Press in 2003, Pastoria recounted the group’s origins.
“It was 1977, and I was 19 years old. This band was like the gang from the old neighborhood in East Detroit,” he said. “From the very beginning, we were writing our own songs, but we were very much influenced by a lot of the ’60s and ’70s rock. Aerosmith was a huge influence on us. They gave us hope that you could be a rock band and cut your own space out there.”
Pastoria and his bandmates eventually evolved into what he described as “more of an E Street thing” — a reference to Bruce Springsteen’s group — with saxophone, synths and two guitars.
“We started to see the possibilities of keyboards, multiple singers in the band and all the different musical things we could do,” Pastoria said. “We had a common vision to make music that stood the test of time. We didn’t want to just write a bunch of songs — we wanted to be a voice of where we came from. It’s something we always talked about.”
By the turn of the ’90s, following their flirtation with national success, the Pastoria brothers had transitioned their band into a group they called DC Drive. But they faced the cultural headwinds of the time.
“We didn’t want to be a hair band. We weren’t into any of that. We were still a real rock ‘n’ roll band, still about straight-ahead heartland rock ‘n’ roll,” Pastoria told the Free Press. “It just wasn’t lining up with the industry.”
He continued:
“We were working on our first DC Drive record, and we heard Nirvana. That blew up, and we were like, ‘Oh my God, are we different than that, or what?’” Pastoria recalled. “That’s when we started hearing (feedback) from the labels — ‘What’s up with the saxophone?’”
Pastoria and his brother Mark, a keyboardist and producer, steered their interests to the business side: In the mid-’90s, they opened Harmonie Park Studios in downtown Detroit, eventually building a clientele that included Aretha Franklin, Dave Mason, Trombone Shorty, Martha Reeves, the Four Tops’ Duke Fakir, Grand Funk’s Mark Farner and others.
In early 1999, the Pastorias’ studio hosted the first hometown fan listening session for Eminem’s “The Slim Shady LP” on the cusp of the rapper’s blockbuster breakout.
Pastoria was a proud and vocal advocate of Detroit’s musical legacy, especially Motown, and in the 1990s he developed friendships with Hitsville figures such as vocal coach Maurice King and choreographer Cholly Atkins, who appeared in the DC Drive music video “You Need Love.”
In the 2010s, Pastoria was part of an executive board pushing to build a downtown music museum.
“Brian was very proud of the city’s music heritage,” said Romeo. “He loved that we grew up in that Motown era.”
Pastoria is survived by three sons, Dante, Anton and Jeremy.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.