Feature Stories
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.
Curt Bisquera
Curt Bisquera has been a first-call studio drummer since 1991, appearing on recordings or playing gigs with Mick Jagger, Tom Petty, Celine Dion, Morris Day, Ronan Keating, The Dixie Chicks, Seal, Bonnie Raitt, The Spice Girls, Boz Scaggs, Johnny…
Jim Brock
Jim Brock’s new CD/DVD set, The Nature Of Drumming, is an inspirational look at what makes this fine drummer/percussionist tick. “It’s basically an instructional video for why we play, and not so much on how we play,” Brock explains. “That’s…
Steve Asheim of Deicide
Death metal scene-leaders Deicide have been playing their intense music for seventeen years, first attracting major exposure with their self-titled debut album in 1990. The band’s latest release, The Stench Of Redemption, has returned them to critical prominence, and drummer…
Elton John's Nigel Olsson: That Classic Feel
by Robyn Flans No one plays a pop song like Nigel Olsson, and his triumphant return to Elton John’s band has allowed the veteran musician to inspire drummers all over again. When news hit in the mid-’80s that Nigel Olsson…
Dave Buckner of Papa Roach
When the members of Papa Roach chose to live for several months in LA’s historic Paramour Mansion while recording their band’s fifth album, drummer Dave Buckner got a bit more creative inspiration than he expected. “The Paramour is definitely haunted,”…
Dominic Howard of Muse
After touring for most of 2004 and 2005 in support of their breakthrough release, Absolution, southpaw drummer Dominic Howard and his bandmates in British rockers Muse spent six months sequestered in a studio in southern France, putting together Black Holes…
Evan Stone
For Evan Stone, his new jazz CD, Sticks & Stone, Vol. 1, is the culmination of a seventeen-year dream. “I didn’t feel ready until recently,” the drummer admits. “But in the last couple of years I’ve felt it was time…
Evan Johns of Hurt
Evan Johns says the last two and a half years have been a long journey for his band, Hurt. “There was a lot of not eating, yelling, and screaming, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, man,’” Johns reports.…
Billy Ficca of Television
After Television emerged from New York’s punk underground in 1977 with their landmark Marquee Moon album–a sly balance of dissonance and melody, which became a template for The Strokes, Sonic Youth, Interpol, and countless others–they never really toured much. Odd,…
Gavin Harrison: Porcupine Tree's Grand Illusionist
by T. Bruce Wittet Mind-twisting rhythms meet super-fat grooves? Gavin Harrison is a rare artist who knows how to do both. If you’ve stumbled across any of British drummer Gavin Harrison’s educational books or videos, you’ll know that he’s deep…
Rocky Gray of Evanescence
by Waleed Rashidi Rock stardom may be a cool thing, but to Rocky Gray, it’s the music–and playing his own parts–that matters. All it took was one wildly propulsive radio single to plaster drummer Rocky Gray’s performances all over the…
John Blackwell
John Blackwell had a problem most drummers wouldn’t mind dealing with. Does he wait around for Prince to decide what his next adventure will be? Or does he work on his solo record, Forever Jia (dedicated to his late daughter).…
Kaspar Rast
The versatile Kaspar Rast was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1972, and has been playing drums since he was six years old. Rast trained at the famed JMS school in Zurich and at the Drummers Collective in New York City.…
Athena Kottak
Kottak’s Athena is a very funny, tell-it-like-it-is, beautiful woman who kicks ass behind the drumkit. Born a few years after her famous sibling—Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee—Athena is a cancer survivor, a mom, and the wife of Jimmy Ratchitt. Athena says…
