Features
Modern Drummer is the world’s most widely read drum magazine, is dedicated entirely to the art of drumming and caters to the needs of amateur, semi-pro, and professional drummers.
Landon Hall: Building the Music City Drum Show
What started as an idea from a drummer who wanted to bring people together has quickly become one of the fastest-growing events in the percussion world. When Landon Hall launched the Music City Drum Show in 2019, his vision was…
2026 Chicago Drum Show
The Chicago Drum Show just celebrated its 35th anniversary, continuing its reputation as the largest and longest-running event dedicated to custom, new, and vintage drums. This marked the second year under the leadership of Johnny and Brian Drugan. The Drugan…
Christian “CC” Coma of Black Veil Brides: Legacy and the Next Chapter
For Christian “CC” Coma, this moment has been decades in the making. Long before he was headlining festivals around the world with Black Veil Brides, before the gold records, sold-out tours, and millions of fans, CC was a kid in…
Indie Rock Meets Jam Band: Mt. Joy’s Sotiris Eliopoulos
Since the very beginning of “indie rock,” bands like the Kinks and The Talking Heads were always combining their musical influences and creating shocking new approaches to rock music. The indie attitude is what pushes rock music forward. With the…
Nate Smith: Looking for the Dance in the Rhythm
Nate Smith is one of the most influential drummers and musicians of today! Stylistically, his music, his drumming, his collaborators, and his influences go everywhere. Talking about and finding the musical connections between Betty Carter, Michael Jackson, Dave Holland, Bill…
Jeff Elwood: Engineering A New Way to Play
For Jeff Elwood, giving up the drums was never an option. After a life-changing accident left him paralyzed from the chest down, he spent years experimenting with homemade triggers, modified pedals, and custom setups in order to find a way…
Jimmy Madison: Drumming. Climbing. Living.
There is always a lot to be learned from a drummer who has been successful in the music business for 60 years. Jimmy Madison has seen it all. In 1966, he toured with Lionel Hampton. He came to New York…
Greg Clark Jr. Taking Things Seriously and Keeping Things Interesting with Will Smith and Stanley Clarke
When you talk to Greg Clark Jr. there are two words that you will hear him say many times: “interesting” and “100 percent!” They are also the two words that might best describe him and his drumming. After listening to…
Lamb of God’s Art Cruz: Learning and Listening, Musical Moments, and Healthy Obsessions
After hitting the East LA music scene with his band Winds of Plague and spending four years and doing four records with Prong; Art Cruz got the call of a lifetime in 2018. Lamb of God was one of his…
Steve Judd of Karnivool— Back Behind the Machine
Steve Judd has spent years behind the kit for Karnivool, helping define a sound that sits in its own lane. A sound that is tight, dynamic, and always shifting between control and chaos. Coming up in Perth, Australia, he built…
Elise Trouw: The Architect of Loop and Groove
Elise Trouw’s sense of rhythm showed up long before she ever touched a drum kit—counting patterns in everyday life, naturally thinking in time before she even understood it. That instinct eventually led her into drums, then quickly expanded into piano,…
Gunnar Olsen: Inside Puscifer’s Normal Isn’t
For more than two decades, Puscifer has operated in its own universe; part band, part experiment, part performance art, always evolving and never standing still. Led by Maynard James Keenan and driven by the sonic vision of Mat Mitchell, Puscifer…
Adonis Rose: New Orleans Drumming, and Much More!
You can’t talk about New Orleans without talking about great drummers and drumming. In the last few years, Modern Drummer has featured New Orleans drummers Johnny Vidacovich, Joe Dyson, Herlin Riley, Teddy “Tif” Lamson, and others. The lineage of influential…
Devon “Stixx” Taylor: A New Era of Greatness
For Stixx Taylor, the journey started behind a drum kit at two years old, but the road from church rehearsals in Atlanta to stadiums, residencies, and the Super Bowl stage was built on far more than talent alone. It was built on faith,…
