Now, I recognize the skill it takes to pull this off. I’m not knocking anyone who likes it or who can do it. I surely could not even begin to play drums w/ that kind of rolling double-kick ferocity. It just seems like, over the last 10 years, it’s become a little monotonous. I remember when I was a teenager and heard the older generation of Zeppelin and Skynyrd fans deride my music (80’s metal and hard rock) because, in their opinion, “it all sounds the same” and “it’s just a bunch of noise”. I shot back with “you just don’t get it” and “these bands all sound totally different” with my rebellious little mullet and denim jacket, clutching my cassette copy of Bark At The Moon. Looking back, those old guys may have had a certain, ridiculously tiny version of a point. So, hopefully, the current generation of Vans’ wearing, Skinny-jeaned deathcore fanatics can look back on this in, oh, twenty or so years and not want to hit me with a brick.

Back in the late-80’s, early-90’s, the first bands I can recall using a LOT of sustained double-kick speed and in longer parts of songs were death metal bands (pre-core infusion). What made this so impressive is that A) I had never heard a drummer use their feet so much and B) looking back, this is pre-Pro-Tools, non-quantized drumming. The kick drum tracks were not loaded into, or recorded on, a computer where they could be lined up in perfect synchronicity to a computerized click track. No individual kick-drum notes were moved any closer to others to make the drummer appear to be faster or tighter. The kicks may have been triggered for the sake of getting tones, but the drummers were PLAYING those parts; not having the engineer piece them together in a studio. When my friends and I heard this kick-drum style begin to take hold of metal and creep into other genres, we thought it was the coolest thing ever. I remember hearing Judas Priest‘s song “Painkiller” for the first time and being blown away by Scott Travis’ drumming, which was loaded down with sustained double-kick drumming. Bands wanted to emulate it, drummers wanted to do it, and fans wanted to headbang to it.

Fast forward to 2005 and beyond; fast, relentless double-kick drumming is all over the place. From power metal band Dragonforce to the perpetually annoying Avenged Sevenfold to pig-squealing deathcore peddlers Job For A Cowboy. Even more “traditional” bands like Primal Fear and Iced Earth use it too much sometimes. The vast ocean of screamo bands like The Devil Wears Prada and Parkway Drive use it to intensely irritating results. Is it impressive? On a technical and stamina level, yes it can be. But it’s also becoming quite boring and stale. Especially when you take into account how much of it is honed to it’s laser-like precision with software. Someone had mentioned on a message board I frequent about how a LOT of albums all sound the same nowadays because the engineers and producers are all using the same Pro-Tools plug-ins and patches to get the drum tones and then line them up with auto-correction and editing. I think there’s a lot of truth to that. When everyone is triggering the drums with the same triggers and downloaded tones, then auto-correcting the time to, literally, machine-like precision, it does all sound the same. It’s all beginning to bleed together into one big BBBZZZZZZZZBBBBBBBZZZZZZZZBBBBBBBZZZZZZZ. Add that to the already flooded metal scene (thank you internet) and it’s enough to make a person consider giving up and listening to New Country radio… at least they don’t really try to hide how manufactured their music is.

Pre-Painkiller, none of my favorite bands ever relied on massive amounts of sustained double-kick drumming. Nicko McBrain, Scott Rockenfield, Dave Holland, Larry Howe, Vinny Appice, Neil Peart, Bill Ward, Mark Zonder, Kirk Arrington, Lars Ulrich; none of these drummers leaned on their ability to maintain a blistering double-kick pattern for four minutes, let alone any digital enhancement. They may have used a triplet or two, or short double-kick patterns or passages here and there in the context of the song, but it wasn’t the very foundation of their style. Arguably, these drummers all have distinctive sounds and styles of their own (Neil Peart sounds like Neil Peart, Scott Rockenfield sounds like Scott Rockenfield, etc). Whereas today it’s hard to tell one double-kick beast from another. Every new band that pops up seems to have the “best drummer ever” behind the kit with songs literally gushing over with speedy, sustained double-kick drums and equally insane tom work and blast beats. It’s near-impossible to distinguish an indiviual drummer’s own personality amongst the triggering, sound-replacement, auto-correcting and whatever else the engineers prop them up with. It makes all these records sound like popcorn popping in a microwave with guitars recorded over it. Some will argue that the only reason modern metal drummers do it so much these days is to mask the fact that they’re maybe not all that good. While I think that may be a small part of it, I think some people genuinely just like it. It makes them feel good and more power to them. I just find myself getting into fewer and fewer new bands and, aside from simple aging, this overwrought use of the double-kick pedal is part of the reason.

Don’t get me wrong… again, I do like double-kick drumming and think when used as a piece of the overall puzzle it’s quite enjoyable. I get why younger generations of drummers come up wanting to out-drum the next guy. I mean, how much more badass can a 19 year-old kid be than when he’s behind the drum kit playing tornadic, blast-beat ridden, furious double-kick drum patterns? I get it, I understand the why’s of it. But, and you can call me old-fashioned if you want, I’d rather hear someone playing their drums, having interesting fills or patterns or hi-hat work (fast, slow, or otherwise), than someone just running wind-sprints on their kick pedals.