Screaming Bloody Oranges, Episode #10: Heavy Metal Drummers
It’s kind of hard to generalize about metal drumming, because as much as all the blast-beat-double-bass-polyrhythmic prodigies out there have pushed the art form to the technical extremes, enabling heavier, faster, and more intricate music than anyone could have imagined a few decades ago, you’ve also got Bill goddamn Ward laying down the foundations for the genre fifty years ago with nothing but a basic kit and a background in jazz.
Still, the best metal drummers out there draw from both ends of the spectrum, weaving feel, finesse, and fortitude into memorable performances that dazzle us on every listen. We got together to talk about some of these, touching on our favorites and talking about how drumming impacts an album. As it turns out, an hour isn’t nearly long enough to cover everything, but it’s a great conversation with some quality picks:
…
…
During the episode, Joe mentions a certain Metallica performance that he wasn’t quite sure of the particulars on — I went ahead and dug that up for your listening pleasure if you can’t hit the podcast just yet. And if you’re wondering how Lars Ulrich found his way into a discussion on our favorite drummers in metal, well, listen to the podcast, but if we were grading solely on technical skills we’d just be ranking drum machines.
–Ted Nubel
…
…
…
Listen and subscribe to Screaming Bloody Oranges: The Invisible Oranges Podcast on the following platforms: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Podbean
