Anyone here been playing metal drumming for a while?

inflames said:
Even though I'm a metalhead and focus on the drumming ALOT, when listening to my music, I cannot for the life of me get into blast beats unless it has a very good riff behind it.

I prefer the playing that matches the drumming to the guitar, Lamb of God, Slipknot (flame if you must), Opeth, Gojira, and lots of melodic metal bands
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Hey, totally agree with this, although when the Gojira drummer rips into a blast beat like halfway through and on the outro of 'Yama's Messenger' it's usually got some cool rhythmic twist on it - or even if not, it just sounds more intense cuz it's used sparingly as the drummer doesn't dump them in blindly out of not being bothered to think outside metal drumming stereotypes.

So what other 'melodic metal bands' do you like where the drummer plays in this sort of style?
 
I have been playing metal for about 3 to 4 years now, but I love all genres of music. I will give anything a listen once and if I like it (and drums apply), I will add to my library, listen, find drum grooves I like, and take them behind my kit and practice them. I play in a melodic thrash metal band, and some of the ideas I bring to the table are not metal at all, but the guys love em! You'd be surprised, just keep an open mind and you will solve a lot of your problems. Happy drumming!
 
Stylewise, to get a more creative front, check out:

JoJo Mayer
Romain Goulon
George Kollias
Derek Roddy
Chris Adler
Buddy Rich
Jim Chapin
Thomas Lang
Dave Weckl
Shannon Lucas
Dave McGraw (can't stress that one enough for metal)
 
Chaos_Inferno said:
I'm SHOCKED it took this long for someone to mentioned Between the Buried and Me.

Blake's drumming is absolutely awesome, and he's far from the blast-happy metal drummer nowadays.... His drumming on Colors and (their new album) The Great Misdirect is phenomenal, with more of the melodic, progressive stuff on Colors. His playing is fast, tight, and creative.... more so on their new album I think. He's a bit closer to the tried and true metal drumming on Colors, and Alaska as well. Their music before that either didn't have Blake behind the kit or wasn't particularly inventive.

Although I wouldn't call them metal, if it's the style of drumming you're looking for I can't find anyone better really. If you're looking for ridiculously fast blasting and such that isn't extremely uninspired and boring, Inferno from Behemoth, Flo Mounier from Cryptopsy (oh for the love of god only their first two albums, and maybe the next two or three if you're just listening to the musicianship), and Dennis Rodnum from Spawn of Possession will serve you very well.
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Yea, the newest EP was ridiciulous creative.
 
Listen to the last 4 Death albums (Human, Individual Thought Patterns, Symbolic and The Sound of Perseverance) and pay close attention to the drumming and the arrangements of the songs.
 
schist said:
Listen to the last 4 Death albums (Human, Individual Thought Patterns, Symbolic and The Sound of Perseverance) and pay close attention to the drumming and the arrangements of the songs.
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Couldn't agree more.
 
ChrisCirino said:
One question for the group though.

Brann Dailor, don't get it. I own every Mastodon CD and two of their videos, but just can't wrap my hands around his playing. I read about him in every magazine and all over this forum but can't quite figure out what all the accolades are for. I'm not a music snob, I love all Metal and can see uniqueness and ability in the playing of Adler, Bittner, Roddy, Hoglan, Yeung, Kolias etc. I just don't consider this guy in the same league. His playing sounds very immature to me, with a bunch of poorly placed, super-fast, single stroke rolls around the kit being his only move. Thoughts?
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Well, my first thought is one of disagreement, out of the drummers you mentioned, I think Adler is the most unique, then Hoglan, but I'd have a hard time telling Roddy, Yeung and Kolias apart, as for Bittner, I bought his DVD, and everything on it was stuff I've been able to do for a long time. That being said, I'd have to listen to more shadows fall to give a better opinion.

Brann Dailor I can definitely pick out of a crowd of drummers so to speak. His playing IS in a way immature, he says so himself, one of his top inspirations is Animal from the muppets, but I think he's really been able to refine such a style (going nuts with fills all the time). Brann's still the only Metal drummer I've REALLY noticed use dynamics, some fills are basically just all snare drum, but going around the spectrum of soft/hard, center/close-to-rim, rimshot/not.

that's my two cents. might be the last time I ever give it, as my country just announced we're abolishing the penny (woo hoo!).

back on the subject of coming up with new drumming ideas, here's something I do.

buy (or pirate) Guitar Pro (Guitar pro 6 is out, but I still prefer Guitar Pro 5). I can't play guitar at all, so I like to use Guitar Pro to program guitar parts to write songs. Writing my own unique guitar parts, allows me to come up with my own unique drum parts to go with them. head to http://maelstrom.bandcamp.com/ Bloodbath is a song I wrote this way, and then got my band to learn. Maybe not the most unique drum parts in it, but it was quite fulfilling to see the song come to life.
 
My vote is for looking outside your genre. Take some time to play some stuff that isn't metal...whatever you might be interested in checking out...classic rock, jazz, funk or whatever. Play it for a bit then come back around to metal. You might be surprised at what you bring back and how you can translate it into metal. Good luck!
 
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