Fresh out of college, Bill Detamore was reading a copy of Modern Drummer and came across an ad for a build-it-yourself snare drum. He sent away for one, pieced it together and put it up for sale at a store in the Valley.

To his surprise, the drum sold. Detamore used the profits to buy two more kits, assembling them in the bedroom of his parents’ house. After those two sold, he bought four kits. Four years later, he started his company.

More than two decades on, Detamore is still building drums, but from shells of maple plywood not mail-order kits. And he now employs eight drum makers who sand, polish and paint hundreds of snares and tom-toms a month that will be sold across the United States, and in Europe and Asia.

Last year, Detamore’s small but growing Canoga Park company, Pork Pie Percussion, did a respectable $2.5 million in sales. And drum roll, please the tempo is about to pick up quickly.

Detamore, 47, recently inked one of the biggest deals in Pork Pie’s 21-year history: Its drums will be featured in the next installment of the red-hot “Guitar Hero” video game series.

The deal puts Pork Pie drums in “Guitar Hero World Tour,” meaning the company will be marching to the beat of a $1.7 billion franchise that has sold more than 22 million games worldwide.

“The exposure I’m going to get out of it, I don’t think you can put a price tag on it,” said Detamore. “And if you could, I don’t know how you’d start to figure it out.”

Santa Monica-based Activision Blizzard Inc., which makes the “Guitar Hero” video games, signed deals with 14 other instrument and equipment manufacturers besides Pork Pie to appear in “World Tour.” Many of them are big-name manufacturers. Avedis Zildjian Co., for instance, does about $48 million in annual sales of cymbals and drumsticks.

But not Detamore’s company. He shares his cramped office with two other employees; all wear T-shirts and baggy jeans. A drum set sits in the corner and a piggy bank colored in army camouflage rests on a shelf. Pork Pie’s logo, a pig’s head wearing a bandana and eye patch, is on display everywhere.

Pork Pie’s small size and off-mainstream image is partly what made it attractive, said Dave Anderson, head of Activision’s business development. Anderson said Pork Pie had a following at Activision subsidiary Neversoft Entertainment, which developed “World Tour.”

“They’re a very niche, underground small company, and there are folks at Neversoft who really like Pork Pie,” he said. “We approached Pork Pie at their behest.”

Usually, companies must pay a fee to appear in a video game, though sometimes they can contribute product in lieu of or in addition to cash. Financial terms of Pork Pie’s deal were not disclosed, but Detamore said Pork Pie would supply several custom-built drum sets to Activision to be used as give-aways to promote the launch of “World Tour.”

New rhythm

Since it debuted in 2005, “Guitar Hero” in which nonmusician gamers can play popular rock songs using a controller shaped like a guitar has become a cultural phenomenon. “World Tour,” the series’ fourth installment set for release in late October, will be the first “Guitar Hero” game to feature a mike and a drum controller.

Activision has used instrument and equipment brands in previous iterations of “Guitar Hero,” a strategy that analysts described as a win-win. Activision gets a touch of realism and glamour by giving players’ screen characters the same guitar that, say, Aerosmith’s Brad Whitford plays in real life.

The instrument manufacturer, meanwhile, reaps the benefits of getting prominent placement before thousands of players, many of whom are in the coveted 13-34 demographic. And because the product placement is interactive, it is more effective than a magazine ad or billboard, said David Riley, director of New York-based NPD Group and a video game analyst.

“It’s actually a better medium for advertisers than other forms,” Riley said.

Anderson of Activision agreed. Of the 15 companies to be featured in “World Tour,” he said, “being associated with the game from an integrated level is really a feather in any of these company’s caps.”

Detamore sees the deal as vindication for a company he started when he was a young graphic artist at Rocketdyne. He left the rocket engine manufacturing company to work at the Drum Workshop in Newbury Park. Detamore then founded Pork Pie on the side in 1985, naming the company after the New Zealand film “Goodbye Pork Pie,” which he saw with a buddy over a couple of beers. Detamore now keeps a VHS copy of the movie in his office.

In 1987, Detamore quit the Drum Workshop to focus on Pork Pie full time. In his first year, he ran the company out of his garage. His revenue was $3,000.

Pork Pie’s nascent days were occasionally hectic. There was the day, for instance, when a representative from the metal band Megadeth called and said he needed two drum sets. The catch: He needed them in two days.

Detamore worked 36 hours straight without rest or sleep. “As I was putting the tops on the last drums, they were pulling up the truck and the guy was literally loading up the finished ones,” he said.

A grateful Megadeth later sent Detamore a plaque commemorating the band’s platinum album on which they played Pork Pie drums. Detamore hung the plaque in his office alongside similar ones sent by bands such as Green Day and Guns N’ Roses. Drummers in all those bands have pounded Pork Pie’s product.

Over two decades, the company has grown steadily. As demand climbed, Detamore added employees and leased warehouse space.

Detamore credits his talent with his hands and work ethic to his father, a General Electric repairman for 37 years. His dad built the family house in Arrowhead, restored Detamore’s ’65 Mustang from scratch and taught his son how to paint his first drum set.

“My dad was amazing because he could pretty much do anything,” Detamore said. “He never once as far as I can remember complained about going to work.”

In his office near the plaques and music memorabilia, Detamore keeps a modest reminder of his roots: a small brass cup that his father made as a high school student.

Soaring sales

Pork Pie now ships about 20 drum sets, 150 to 200 snare drums and 500 “thrones” seats or stools a month. Drum sets typically retail for $5,000 to $7,000 apiece, snare drums for $700.

In recent years, the company gained an international presence with dealers in Canada, Europe, Asia and Russia. In 2003, Pork Pie contracted with a factory in Taiwan to make snare drums and drum sets under the Little Squealer label.

Detamore flew to Belgium in June to open a distribution center there. He estimated that business is up 25 percent this year, mostly due to booming demand in Europe.

The company spends little on advertising. Pork Pie maintains a Web site and takes out ads in two trade publications. Beyond that, it’s word of mouth.

“We don’t really pursue people. They come looking for us,” said Jon Biggs, a 10-year employee of Pork Pie who runs day-to-day operations.

Pork Pie workers do everything by hand. Employees polish, sand, laminate and assemble drums in a workshop adorned with posters of hot rods, filled with the sound of blasting rock music and cooled by industrial fans. Detamore said he paints, cuts the edges and signs every drum that comes out of Canoga Park himself.

Though Detamore said he isn’t certain what impact the Activision deal will have on Pork Pie, other companies said they have enjoyed a benefit from partnering with the video game franchise. San Luis Obispo-based Ernie Ball Inc., which manufacturers strings, picks and cables for electric guitars and appeared in the last “Guitar Hero” game, has seen a double-digit growth in sales each year for the past two years, said Brian Ball, the company’s marketing executive.

Ball said he wasn’t sure how much of that to attribute to “Guitar Hero,” but added, “There’s no question it’s been a contributing factor.”

And Detamore said there’s already been an immediate payoff: His 11-year-old son, a big fan of the “Guitar Hero” games, was allowed to play an advance copy of “World Tour” at the Activision offices.

“I think for the first time I was a hero in my son’s eyes,” Detamore said.

On good days like that, Detamore admits he wants Pork Pie to be as big as General Motors. On other days, though, he yearns for quieter times, piecing together snare drums at his parents’ house.

“There are days,” he said, “I want to be back by myself, in the garage.”