In a recent Interview with Drum legendary Mike Portnoy, he discussed his first connection with the metal genre. He said:
[metalwani_content_ad]
“As far as metal goes – when I started in the ’70s, the only metal was Sabbath. I guess Deep Purple and Zeppelin were kind of prototypes for metal. And then came KISS, then came AC/DC, and Priest, and Maiden. By the time Metallica and all those bands came around I was already in my late teens or 20s and had already been playing for a long time.
“But I think like the benchmark for metal drumming for me I think it was three songs for double bass drumming. This was before Metallica, before Anthrax and Slayer. Those are the bands that had the biggest impact in terms of my double bass drumming. But early double bass drumming was ‘Fast as a Shark’ by Accept, ‘Overkill’ by Motorhead, and ‘Red Hot’ by Motley Crue. Those were the three benchmarks for double bass drumming before thrash came around.
“So in each of those cases those were kind of songs that taught me how to play double bass.”
