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.
Setting Sights - Gerry Gibbs
Usually the hippest music happens when nobody in the room is consciously trying to sound hip. Drawing inspiration from an oft-derided genre, this drummer/leader has made another unexpected—and, yes, hip—addition to his already eclectic body of music. TO READ THE…
On The Cover - Dom Famularo
In the hundred or so years since our instrument was invented, the art of playing it has evolved significantly. And so has the way we teach it. Few people understand drumming history more fully than this month’s cover artist—and no…
Jeff Plate and John O. Reilly of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra
During most of the year, Jeff Plate and John O.Reilly are busy with numerous projects. Plate is the drummer for the veteran hard-rock groups Metal Church and Savatage, as well as a cover band, Rust; he also teaches. O.Reilly, whose…
Snarky Puppy’s Holy Trinity
Snarky Puppy’s Holy Trinity Robert “Sput” Searight, Jason “JT” Thomas, Larnell Lewis Photos by Stella K. For Culcha Vulcha, Snarky Puppy’s eleventh album and first studio effort in close to a decade, bandleader, bassist, and primary composer Michael League recruited…
Catching Up With…Jason Bittner
In 2007, at the Sounds of the Underground festival in Phoenix, Arizona, where Shadows Fall was on the bill, Jason Bittner heard that Kelly Smith, drummer for the thrash veterans Flotsam and Jetsam, was in attendance. Bittner first met Smith…
Catching Up With… Good Tiger’s Alex Rüdinger
Since kicking down the door to the metal world with his jaw-dropping YouTube play-along videos more than six years ago, twenty-four-year-old journeyman Alex Rüdinger has filled in on tours with Monuments and Revocation and recorded and toured with his still-breathing…
Steven Tyler’s Sarah Tomek
I was first convinced of Sarah Tomek’s eminent skills on a night when our bands were both on the bill at Asbury Lanes, a bowling alley turned rock club in Tomek’s hometown. Yup, the same one immortalized in the title…
Paal Nilssen-Love
Imagine an organic synthesis of Elvin Jones, Art Blakey, and Milford Graves poured through a thoughtful post-hardcore player, and you have Norway’s Paal Nilssen-Love. A busy musician who divides his performances between solo concerts and support roles, Nilssen-Love brings the…
Up & Coming: Poly-Math’s Chris Woollison
The progressive British trio Poly-Math rocks. Hard. And all without vocals, because the music is already so full. Consisting of guitarist Tim Walters, bassist Joe Branton, and drummer Chris Woollison, Poly-Math has recently released a three-song mini album, Melencolia, its…
Sean Noonan
Independence might be the ruling concept of this drummer/leader’s career. It defines a common relationship not only among his hands, feet, and voice, but between his art and almost everything else in drumland. TO READ THE FULL STORY: SUBSCRIBE TO…
What Do You Know About...Mel Brown?
Portland, Oregon, gave a young child the gift of music. The kid took that gift with him to Detroit, and proceeded to elevate the music of some of the greatest performers of all time. Back home, he’s repaid the debt…
BØRNS’ Kristen Gleeson-Prata
With so many different paths that might lead to a full-time drumming gig today, it could seem daunting for aspiring professional players to choose the best road to take. The drummer for the indie/psychedelic pop songwriter BØRNS is proving that…
Matt Chamberlain
“Content” is not a word that exists in this perennial MD favorite’s lexicon, who balances his day job as a top studio drummer with chasing the muse with creative artists like Brian Haas and Bill Frisell, as well as through…
Dale Crover
When the Melvins toured with Le Butcherettes in 2015, they’d invite the group’s vocalist, Teri Gender Bender, to join them for a number at the end of their set. Even after the exhilaration of a sticks-flying, riff-crushing Melvins show, the…
