Most Technical Drummers of All Time

The Top Ten
1 Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater, Avenged Sevenfold) Michael Portnoy is an American drummer primarily known as the former drummer, backing vocalist, and a co-founder of the progressive metal/rock band Dream Theater. Known for his technical skill as a drummer, Portnoy has won 30 awards from the Modern Drummer magazine.

He is the real technique.. Hear his drums on songs like Honor Thy Father (Dream Theater), Nightmare To Remember (Dream Theater) Roots Of All Evil (Dream Theater)... God Hates Us (a7x), Save Me (a7x) Dream theater lost their greatest member.. And dream theater won, t be the same without Portony

DT will not ever be as good as they were with Mike. They truely have lost part of their soul and Mangini is not the answer. He's a little faster but boring not creative

Voting for this guy 100%.. He is brilliant and helped DT get to the popularity they're at now

His face just says it all ( I don't take eney thing serious at all so ya ITS NORMAL)

2 Neil Peart (Rush) Neil Ellwood Peart, (September 12, 1952 - January 7, 2020) was a Canadian musician and writer best known as the drummer and primary lyricist of the rock band Rush. Peart received numerous awards for his musical performances, including an induction into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1983, making ...read more.

Mike Portnoy? Really? Before Peart? Huh. Well, Peart ruled the drummer scene back when Portnoy was still a sperm cell, and he did it for over than forty years! Win that Dream Theater!

I feel that he is the ultimate package when it comes to, power, stamina, technicality, creativeness behind the kit. He is not called the Professor for nothing.

Neil Peart is the most overrated drummer in the world, sure he is amazing but there are better drummers out there then Neil.
Examples: Mike Portnoy, Danny Carey, etc etc

I considered him to be one the best of all time and can play anything from Rock to Jazz.

3 George Kollias (Nile) Georgios "George" Kollias is a Greek heavy metal drummer and music teacher best known for his work with American technical death metal band Nile.

He is amazing! The biggest prove on that he is technical the he can do faster drums than Joey Jordison twice the speed but without making' the drums sound bad... Drummer Of Japan X does fast style but he ruins the sound of his drums because he tries to be speed with no creativity

He is simply awesome, amazing how fast he is more than so many overrated drummers!

The pinacle of greatess, just amazing. No question he's the best and he also plays jazz & latin

This guy is unbelievable!

4 Gene Hoglan (Death, Dethklok, Testament) Eugene "Gene" Victor Hoglan II is an American drummer. He is acclaimed for his creativity in drum arrangements, including use of odd devices for percussion effects and his trademark lengthy double-kick drum rhythms.

It's sad that Gene is not at least Top 5 on this list. As far as technicality is concerned, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone better than Gene "The Atomic Clock" Hoglan. He has invented many Blast beatsgrind beats that are used today.

His work for Dark Angel is also remarkable - some of the fastest and heaviest thrash songs out there (Darkness Descends, Merciless Death).

He has much fast skills, dethklok has shown us that

If you didn't know, he is Dark Angel's drummer.

5 Mike Mangini Mike Mangini is an American drummer. Since 2010, he has been a member of progressive metal band Dream Theater, following the departure of founding drummer Mike Portnoy.

He isn't quite as entertaining as Portnoy was either Dream Theater, but Mangini is a god. He is near unmatched in technical skill and has set many worlds fastest drummer records, primarily being the first to beat 1,200 single stroke roll hits in a minute. That's ought to count for something.

6 Kai Hahto (Wintersun)

He is sooo...UNDERRATED.

He started playing drums when he was just 6, His parents saw him hitting the pots and pans since he was 3 years old! ( Born drummer..)
So his parents decided to buy him a drum kit, then he stared practicing along Iron Maiden, AC/DC and many other bands, Since he was 13.
He played in local bands until the late '80s when he formed Cartilage with his friends heavily influenced by death metal which became very popular in underground scene...Later he formed many bands, and hey...let me tell you he has played with more than 30 bands...

This guy is insane on drums. He's the perfect drummer for such an insane band as Wintersun.

7 Mario Duplantier (Gojira) Mario Duplantier is a French musician and artist best known as the drummer of technical death metal band Gojira.

Listen to liquid fire, explosia, l'enfant sauvage, backbone, gift of the guilt and you will know that he is the best young metal drummer

Listen to la enfant savage and you will know the he is one of the most technical.. Underrated drummers

8 Danny Carey (Tool) Daniel Edwin "Danny" Carey, born May 10, 1961 in Lawrence, Kansas, is an American drummer and instrumentalist best known for his work in American Grammy Award-winning progressive rock band Tool. He has also contributed to albums by and played with such artists as Zaum, Green Jellÿ, Pigface, Skinny Puppy, Adrian Belew of King Crimson, Carole King, Collide, The Wild Blue Yonder, Lusk, and the Melvins. ...read more.

He is so amazing I didn, t hear a lot of tool songs actually but I have to say he is one of the most technical..

The only person on this list who even compares is Mike Portnoy. Jordison and Adler are definitely not morr technical.

9 Jörg Michael (Stratovarius)
10 Blake Anderson
The Contenders
11 Dave Lombardo (Slayer, Testament) David "Dave" Lombardo is a Cuban American drummer, best known as a co-founding member of the American thrash metal band Slayer.
12 Hannes Grossmann (Necrophagist) Hannes Grossmann is a German drummer who plays for the US death metal band Hate Eternal, German progressive band Alkaloid, and for U.S. technical extreme metal supergroup Blotted Science. He was also the drummer during Necrophagist's Epitaph era and played with Obscura for their first two albums.
13 Dave Witte
14 Steve Asheim (Deicide)
15 Alex Holzwarth (Rhapsody)
16 Dave Mackintosh (DragonForce)
17 Alex Van Halen Alexander Arthur "Alex" Van Halen is a Dutch-born American musician, best known as the drummer and co-founder of the hard rock band Van Halen.

Listen to: outta love again, girl gone bad, hot for teacher, Panama, top Jimmy. I could list every Van Halen song here. The drum intro in hot for teacher is incredible. It sounds like a car!

This guy is the best drummer in the world! Why can’t people see that! This guy is way better than all the other drummers in this list!

18 Yuma Van Eekelen
19 Nic Ritter
20 Jason Rullo (Symphony X)
21 Marco Minnemann
22 Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden) Michael Henry "Nicko" McBrain is an English musician, best known as the drummer of the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden, which he joined in 1982.
23 David Haley
24 Janne Parviainen (Ensiferum)
25 Zak Nolan
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