Band teacher, Neil Proff, is in the middle of his tenth year of teaching at Lake Stevens High School. Along with music, family, good food, fishing, woodwork, and travel hold a high importance in his busy life. Continue reading to take a look into the hectic yet wonderful life of this Viking teacher.

Q: What is your favorite food?
A: Dim sum, Mongolian, and fried chicken.

Q: Tell me a little bit about your family
A: I have been married to my wife for eight years, I have identical twin three year olds and a five year old, all boys. My mom is still alive, but my dad passed away so my mom comes up and hangs out with us on a regular basis.

Q: Funniest moment teaching?
A: We used to have a porcelain bowl in the office when I first came here and I didn’t know why a porcelain bowl was on a shelf in the office here. It was the size of two volleyballs. It was a tradition that if you were late for jazz you would have to carry this bowl around with you, and a percussionist thought it would be funny to paints parts of the bowl blue with a Sharpie marker. He tried to sneak it back into my office and got caught. I told him to handle it and get it back to the way it was. I was sitting at my desk and talking to kids, my drumline kid walked in and looked down the office to see this other drummer with a piece of sandpaper and the bowl, sandpapering this bowl in ways that nobody should touch a bowl.

Q: What do you do outside of teaching?
A: I stay so busy I don’t even know what to do with myself. If it isn’t school related I’m hanging out with my kids as much as I can and right now we build Legos. I fish a lot and do wood working. I’ve built most of the furniture that’s in my house. I’m restoring a 1973 Volkswagen bug, every Sunday we watch UFC fights, and we hang out and watch movies. We travel. We are going to go to Japan next winter and [will] take the entire family to visit my Japanese roommates from college.

Q: How many instruments can you play?
A: All of them, essentially. If it’s a standard instrument in high school then part of my masters degree was to be able to play all this stuff. I play some better than others. I’m not terribly good at playing the trumpet or the French horn. Saxophone is my academic instrument, down from there I can play flute, clarinet, piano, guitar.

Q: What was the first instrument you played?
A: I played the clarinet when I was in fifth grade. All of my friends asked me if I was going to go to the band room during lunch to try out instruments for joining band. I thought band was for geeks and wasn’t even thinking about joining. I sat down at lunch, and I was alone. Every single one of my friends went to try out instruments, so I went in and tried out stuff. There’s a five minutes left in lunch difference between me standing in front of you and working at Boeing.

Q: What is your favorite genre of music?
A: You can’t as a music teacher that question. There is not. Good music is good music.”

Q: Does music help you through difficulties in life?
A: Everyday.

Q: Who is your least favorite music artist?
A: Bad ones. Anybody that cheapens the music industry. Anybody that is the musical equivalent of Donald Trump.

Q: What was your most embarrassing moment?
A: When I was in college, the girl that I wanted to marry got killed by a drunk driver before we were courting. There were two girls I was interested in at the time and when one would act up I would take the other camping or we would go out to do something. Because if you’re going to be indecisive and fuss with me then I’m going to mess with you back. So I took one of them camping because my buddy was having a mountain bike race. We went to Wenatchee and camped on the drive. We sat around the fire and I introduced Erin as Lauren. I introduced one girl as the other. It was a bad one.

Q: Best Star Wars movie?
A: I’m not one of those haters on the new movies.

Q: Favorite childhood toy?
A: Legos. Hands down. Or Transformers when they didn’t suck.

Q: What was life like in high school?
A: The summer between fifth and sixth grade, I had no friends. My teeth were even more messed up then they are now. I got in fights, my third grade year I spent 50 days in the principal’s office. It was bad. Then I met the first girl I fell head over heels for and it made me realize that I was kind of piece of crap, so from that point forward I came back to school a completely different person. I dropped 40 pounds and tried to make back all of the friends I had lost. By the time I was a senior in highschool I could pretty much walk into any circle in the school. It was kind of fun. I would change my appearance from day to day or week to week just to go and hang out with different people. Everyone knew that I was doing music which was reasonably unexpected in all those circles.

Q: What makes you angry?
A: Stupid that affects people badly and that hurts people.

Q: How do you and Ms. Forslund get along?
A: Famously. I tease her. She’s my work wife, I’m her work husband. She’s a wonderful person.

Q: Do you see a rivalry between band and choir?
A: No more than there is between brothers and sisters. They’re our family. If you were able to raz your brother or sister in front of company, their girlfriend or boyfriend, you would take the opportunity, right? If anyone were to mess with choir, we would be the first person to come to their defense, but we talk trash. That’s just how it is.

Q: What advice would you give to a stranger?
A: Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future. Don’t accept drama in your life. Stay away from people who are mean. Work hard and save your money. Know yourself and have standards and stick to them.

Q: What is something that frustrates you as a musician?
A: Other people not reaching for their potential.