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.
Jon Hiseman & Gene Stone
“When people ask me what I play, the usual answer is ‘the drums’ because that is the instrument, but what I would like to say is, ‘I play the band.’ That is what I’m interested in.” So said Jon Hiseman,…
Drums of the Tombs
The musician, composer, and producer Tom Holkenborg, who performs under the stage name Junkie XL, custom ordered this month’s featured kit to use while creating the score to the 2018 action film Tomb Raider. To match the movie’s Pacific-island setting,…
Jeff Watts
Arms drawn up short like Joe Louis, ready to deal up dynamite from six inches or less with either hand, Jeff Watts stalks the groove, poised to pounce between the cracks of space and time with panther-like displacements: one second…
Vinny Appice — Playing For The Band
Sometimes before interviewing a musician, I find myself fighting a preconceived image I’ve gotten of the person. Perhaps it was a picture painted by another journalist in some other publication, or maybe the image was conceived in my own mind…
George Lawrence Stone — Dedication to Drumming
It’s a fairly safe bet that, if you took a poll to find the single drum book that has been used by the largest number of drummers, Stick Control, by George Lawrence Stone, would be the easy winner. Perhaps there…
Jon Christensen - European Jazz Master
Jon Christensen is probably one of the few European jazz drummers who has made a name for himself in the U.S. In Norway, of course, he is the father of a whole generation of drummers, easily recognized by the way…
George Brown — Kool Funk
Mention New Jersey to anyone in the music business these days, and the name Bruce Springsteen comes to mind almost automatically. But Springsteen and his E Street Band aren’t the only world-class acts to originate in Jersey—and still call the…
Adrenalin’s Brian Pastoria
I first met Brian Pastoria while his group, Adrenalin, was rehearsing some tunes from their recent album American Heart. The group’s road manager, Thom Kuchulan, noticed me standing outside the studio and invited me in to listen. The band was…
Dueling Drumsets
Back in the ’50s, Jazz At The Philharmonic presented a “drum battle” featuring Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. To my knowledge, it was the first time they had appeared together. It was an exciting event, and it generated great interest…
Artificial Groupings For Fills
In the July, 1984 MD, in the Ask A Pro column, a reader asked Steve Smith about a fill Steve played on the Journey song “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart).” The notation looked like this: Now, if you were like many…
Dean Butterworth on Good Charlotte’s Generation Rx
The pop-punk mainstays deliver again with powerful hooks and purposeful songs charged by their versatile ace behind the skins.
New Releases From Jojo Mayer's Nerve, Finally George with Todd Sucherman, and more
RECORDINGS Nerve After the Flare JOJO MAYER returns to the acoustic jazz format he cut his teeth on. Nerve, Jojo Mayer’s drum ’n’ bass ’n’ everything else collective, has been pushing the boundaries of electronic music for more than a decade,…
George Grantham — Dedication
It was the ’60s—an exciting time—and Southern California was developing its own answer to the “British Invasion, “San Francisco’s psychedelia, and Detroit’s Motown. L.A.’s scene was creating country/rock/folk with exciting newcomers like Jackson Browne, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the…
