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.
What Do You Know About... Barry de Souza?
What Do You Know About…? Barry de Souza He was ubiquitous in British studios during the ’70s, a favorite of producers and artists for his elegance and efficiency—and occasionally for his ability to navigate some weird and wonderfully ambitious art-rock…
Joey Waronker
There’s nothing about the Los Angeles–based drummer/mixer/producer Joey Waronker that screams for attention, musically or otherwise. But check out this ridiculous track record: Tegan and Sara, Dwight Yoakam, Norah Jones, Danny Elfman, Thurston Moore, M83, Pink, Nelly Furtado, Doobie Brothers,…
Up & Coming: Justin Brown
He's made quite a name for himself on the NYC jazz scene—largely by absorbing the intricacies of styles well outside the idiom. Twenty-eight-year-old, Oakland-born Justin Brown plays jazz with a universality and maturity that have made him one of the…
Influences: Al Jackson Jr.
It’s almost unbearable. Otis Redding’s immortal recording of “Try a Little Tenderness??? sustains a nearly paralyzing groove tension, helping make it perhaps the quintessential record by the soul legend and a perennial entry on “greatest songs of all time??? lists.…
Clutch’s Jean-Paul Gaster
After initially coming together on the 2001 album Pure Rock Fury and again for the 2004 fan favorite Blast Tyrant, Clutch and producer Machine have joined forces once again on the Maryland-based band’s tenth studio album, Earth Rocker. TO READ…
Portraits: Pierre van der Linden
He’s a free-jazz drummer playing in a Dutch progressive rock band. He finds inspiration in the work of French philosophers and twentieth-century classical composers. And he’s probably the only drummer you’ve heard trade fours on an international rock hit made…
Carter Beauford
A full fifteen years after the Dave Matthews Band drummer’s last MD cover story, he and his mates remain as popular as ever. In that time, much has changed in Carter’s world—but much has not, including an unceasing dedication to…
Influences - Billy Higgins
The year was 1959, and in New York City, Ornette Coleman’s quartet was creating a bona fide controversy with its six-week run at the Five Spot. The music was rhythmically loose and had at its core a melodic and harmonic…
Brian Chippendale
Portraits Brian Chippendale by Hank Shteamer Pretty might not be what he’s aiming for. But when Lightning Bolt’s drummer sits behind the kit, people move, and they think. What more could you ask for?When you think of a drummer playing…
Zigaboo Modeliste
Zigaboo Modeliste Story by “Pistol” Pete Kaufmann Photos by Jay Blakesberg How is it that his drumming approach is so unusual yet so fully representative of the breadth of New Orleans’ remarkable rhythmic legacy? In his first-ever Modern Drummer cover…
Zig’s Signature Beats
Here are some of Zigaboo Modeliste’s funkiest grooves and fills with the Meters, most of which fall in the cracks between straight and swung TO READ THE FULL STORY: SUBSCRIBE TO ACCESS LOG IN
Michael Miley
Rival Sons are on the crest of a wave of bands dead set on reviving the true essence of classic rock. It’s a path not so easily taken in 2013, as the group’s drummer explains here. But if the Sons’…
Steve Smith on Narada Michael Walden
Modern Drummer recently popped in on Vital Information drummer and 2013 Pro Panelist Steve Smith to chat about one of his favorite albums, the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Visions of the Emerald Beyond. The 1975 LP was the sophomore outing by Mahavishnu’s…
Up & Coming - The Summer Set's Jess Bowen
Jess Bowen is no stranger to the “boys’ club” mentality that female drummers have dealt with for decades. “I was playing a show at the Roxy a few years ago,” she says, “and the first thing the sound guy said…
