How come you ended up behind the drums? What drew you to them?
I’m not really sure what drew me to drums. I didn’t have one moment that I can remember, although I had a friend in primary school who got a drum kit and I went to his house and saw it and played on it and from then I was hooked. Drums just grabbed me for some reason. I loved everything about it – the look, the noise, the physicality. Everything. And I’ve been addicted ever since.

Over the years, you have played in bands across all subgenres of metal – from extreme to melodic. Is there one where you feel the most at home?
I’ve been very lucky over my career to play for so many amazing bands and to really step out of my comfort zone and try stuff. I still definitely feel the most at home in metal and extreme metal. It was my first love musically and I still love it. I love the energy and the speed and the aggression. I love trying different things and I of course listen to so many different types of music but metal will always be home for me.

When and how did you discover Toontrack and where in your creative process does our gear play in?
I discovered Toontrack around 2015. I’d just moved to a new house and got a nice new e-kit, and a couple of friends of mine had been telling me I should get it hooked up to Superior Drummer and try it out as they had used it for their productions and told me how amazing it sounded. So I gave it a go and bought Superior Drummer 2. I was immediately blown away not only by the sound quality but the integration with the e-kit. It was effortless – it felt like it was custom made for my e-kit, haha. It immediately made my kit so much more fun and playable and I haven’t used anything else since. I haven’t used any of the built-in sounds since then, really. I’ve kept up to date and I have Superior Drummer 3 and EZdrummer 3 and pretty much all of the metal sample packs. I get excited when new ones come out and get pretty nerdy with trying things and making custom kits and stuff. It’s such an important part of my practice and writing. I literally use it every day for general practice, rehearsing Carcass stuff or learning songs for sessions. I always use it to record demos, whether it’s just for fun or for sessions. I also use it for all my lesson content on my online drum school. It’s literally a tool I use daily and honestly I’d struggle to live without it at this point.

So, when and how did you discover e-drums, what do you like about them and what have they added to your practice and creative routines?
E-drums started out of necessity, really. When I lived at home with my parents, we had some annoying neighbors who hated me playing drums, so my dad kindly got me an electronic kit, which I loved. That started me off on how useful e-kits can be as practice tools. When I got my first house I had a similar situation with the neighbors, so I got myself a nice Roland kit. Ever since then I’ve been pretty consistent with e-kits. I think they have so many benefits. They are much quieter. They often have built-in practice tools, metronomes etc., you can customize your kits – all these things really aid practice. Especially if you’re stuck on something or feeling uninspired, you can mess around with sounds and make your kit sound different and it’s amazing how it inspires you to try new things. I also feel that because you don’t have to hit so hard to make it sound good you don’t get as much fatigue and you can keep practicing for longer. So across the board I see them as great practice tools.

Extreme metal drumming has come a long way in the past couple of decades, with drummers playing parts at speeds and with execution that were unheard of in the early death and black metal eras. How and why, do you think?
I honestly think it’s like anything – newer generations want to take things further than the previous generations. I think it’s a natural progression. The blueprint was laid out by a lot of these bands in the ’80s and ’90s and I think so many people (myself included) fell in love with this stuff and thought “OK, what’s the next level we can take this to?” And of course speed was an obvious choice, haha. I think it’s great. That’s what should be happening – every new generation taking what the last generation did and pushing it further. It’s a great thing about metal that people are always trying to move it along. Especially with modern technology too – there are so many things that can help you try new things and push things to the next level. It’s hard to keep up these days with a lot of younger drummers who are so good and so fast, haha, but I still love browsing the internet for new drummers or bands I haven’t heard before and it’s honestly pretty inspiring. Sometimes you watch a drummer or hear some music and it’s hard to believe a human can do those things, haha.

Extreme drumming is incredibly physical, especially over a full headline set. Do you have any warmup routines or techniques you rely on to prevent injuries and stay sustainable on the road?
Yeah, for sure. I’m pretty consistent with my warm-ups every day. I like to stretch a lot, especially before shows. I also like to spend a good 30 minutes pre-show on a practice pad just getting things loose and making sure my whole body is warmed up. As we know, you use literally your entire body with this stuff, so I try to get everything as loose and warmed up as possible. Generally on tour I really prioritize rest. I try not to do anything before the show that is too physically taxing, and I sleep as much as possible, which isn’t always the easiest on tour, haha. The show takes a lot out of me, so I try my best to stay hydrated and not overdo things. I like to walk a lot as it’s a calm, not-too-taxing way of keeping active without pushing my body and affecting the show.

How do you approach writing drum parts for your current main band Carcass? Do you iron these out on your own, in practice or otherwise?
The band is pretty old school with its writing. We all get in a practice room and just jam everything out. Bill, our guitar player, will bring in a few riffs and we just piece it together and try to find the best beats and fills to go with it all together. It’s kind of cool and very different to how a lot of bands do it. It gives you a lot of freedom and also it’s great to scope out how things work from a band perspective and how it might sound live. It also helps you learn the songs really well as you’re writing while you’re playing, so it becomes part of your muscle memory quicker. We normally get the skeletons of songs together, or sometimes full songs, and I’ll just have some relatively basic drum parts in place. Then we all go away separately and try to improve our parts before the recording. This is when I’ll spend time on my own trying out different patterns or fills and see what’s best for the song that’s also interesting to play. Sometimes these ideas make the final song but sometimes the guys in the band hate them. It’s all very collaborative and natural, though, and everyone is just trying to make the song as good as it can be instead of just showing off, so it’s a really cool process and I enjoy it.

What does your live rig look like? Do you play to a click and backing tracks?
My live rig is relatively basic. I try to have as little as possible and I’ve stripped things down to what I actually need. Absolutely everything I have is something I use multiple times in the set. We fly a lot and don’t get to use our own backline, so I’ve tried to make a relatively simple setup that I can replicate anywhere in the world instead of something complicated. I also think having less can often help you be more creative as you have less to work with so you have to work harder to make it interesting. We don’t use click or backing tracks or anything, which is really cool. It’s all live and completely raw, which of course sometimes causes issues (I’m known for playing way too fast sometimes, haha) but that’s all part of the charm. It’s a real performance – warts and all.

After having played in bands, toured and recorded albums for almost two decades, what are some of the biggest milestones you look back on – personally and professionally?
I’ve been lucky enough to have a lot. It’s hard to pick. Joining Carcass, of course, was a huge moment for me. As a fan of the band for a very long time, I never in a million years expected to be asked to play for them. Some of the places I’ve been lucky enough to travel to, especially Japan and South America, have been incredible. I never thought I’d ever go there, let alone to play music, so that’s been incredible. Also, playing some of the biggest festivals in the world has been incredible: Wacken, Download, Hellfest… the list goes on. I’m incredibly lucky to have been able to experience these festivals and perform at them. That’s just a few, but there are so many things I’m grateful for that have been massive highlights.

With everything that comes with being a working musician (practicing, recording, touring – the list goes on), which part do you enjoy the most?
I definitely enjoy touring the most, I think. I love the energy of playing live in front of people. I love traveling and meeting people. I also just love the energy around shows and tours. It’s a real event and there’s something special about the buzz of being around people having a good time and enjoying themselves. It’s a cool feeling to be able to put on a show and help people have a good time for a night and let them forget about the stresses of life for 90 minutes.

Do you have any special pre-show rituals that you do every day on tour?
As mentioned before, I really value warm-up time. Stretches, at least 30 minutes on the pad. I like to be away from too many people and just get in the zone and get my head focused on the show at least 30 minutes before. No phones, no distractions, just preparing for the set.

How do you normally spend a day off on tour? Walk us through a typical day on the road, show day vs. off day!
Off days for me are normally catching up on sleep and eating a good meal. It’s rare you get good sleep on a tour bus and eating well can sometimes be tricky. We’re lucky to get hotels on days off, so I like to make the most of time to myself and getting some good food. If we’re lucky enough to be in a cool place on a day off, I’ll try to walk around a city or go to a landmark or something. Otherwise I make the most of not being surrounded by people 24 hours, haha. Show days are pretty consistent. Wake up, coffee, find breakfast, soundcheck, lunch or a snack, walk or do some work for my online drum school, FaceTime my family, dinner and then it’s pretty much time to start getting ready for the show. I’m not a partier, so after the show I’m usually in bed pretty soon. Not very rock and roll.

Here’s one… Aside from the hats, you can only keep one cymbal on your kit – which one would you pick and why?
Good one. I would probably say a ride. Rides are such a big part of metal and especially my metal playing I just couldn’t live without. You can also use a ride as a crash, so it kind of has a double use, haha.

Being an extreme metal drummer at heart, what do you play when you just sit down at the kit to jam? Do you still fire off a blast beat… or do you enjoy just playing a pocket beat?
Oh, I definitely go pocket. One of my favorite things to do is just put on pop songs and jam along to them, haha. That’s some of the most fun I have on the kit. Anything from Taylor Swift to Cory Wong to Kate Bush. Just playing along to catchy, fun music and seeing what comes out. It’s great fun. I spend so much of my life around metal, playing it, listening to it, learning it, talking about it, that when I have some “me time” on the kit I just like to not take it too seriously and have as much fun as possible.

What’s next on your agenda?
Next up I have a few session jobs booked for the start of next year, one of which I’ll record in my home studio and another in a studio not too far from me. I’ll be flying out to Slovakia to shoot a music video for Kai Hansen from Helloween’s new solo album, which I recorded last year and will be coming out soon. Then Carcass starts touring again next March around Europe. On top of that, I’m teaching on my online drum academy and seeing family as much as I can.