Cruise ship work is a special type of education for a performer.  The passengers are quite literally a captive audience. Where else are they going to go if you’re no good? That said, the close quarters, sensory overload, and flowing booze can make an audience restless, so you still need to perform at your best. Despite his lifetime of percussion and college education in musical performance, Aaron Cote’s time playing on cruise ships might’ve best prepared him for where he is now: your instagram feed playing classic pop songs on the steel drum. “You want to play what people want,” he says. “But you also want to give them something that they didn’t know they want yet.” Cote has probably come across your Instagram Reels feed by now. Maybe it was his cover of Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle,” or “Waiting Room” by Fugazi on the steel drum.…