The Drummers’ Crisis in Speed Metal
With speed metal, the faster the better. But there are human limitations, especially if you’re the drummer. This has led to a crisis of existentialist proportions. The Wall Street Journal (of all people!) reports that some speed metal bands are dumping human drummers for drum machines. Why? Because they can’t keep up.
Mark Mynett, a British music producer and lecturer at the University of Huddersfield’s Department of Engineering and Technology near Manchester, England, says he once “produced a whole album where the drummer didn’t play a single bass-drum track on a single song.” He likens it to “magazines airbrushing models.”
How did heavy-metal drumming get so fast?