Drummer determined to play despite severed thumb

1.00pm

Aaron Benjamin, of Napier band Sub-Human, will drum through the pain at the national Battle of the Bands competition next month, despite a severed thumb tendon from a bottle attack at the weekend.

The 18-year-old graphic design student was playing at a friend's farewell party in Hastings, still buzzing from winning both the Hawke's Bay and Central North Island titles of an international band competition.

But an attack by bottle-wielding gatecrashers put him in hospital for two nights.

With less than a month before the national finals of the World Battle of the Bands competition in Auckland, drummer Aaron now has a cast on his lower left arm to repair the tendon .

"It's all in the mind. I'm a fast healer and we're gonna give it our all and, hopefully, win," he said today.

- HAWKE'S BAY TODAY