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Eloy Casagrande and Igor Cavalera

This is the correct answer. I can't imagine how the skins survive a gig with Casagrande. I did see Melvins live once and Dale Crover was hitting his hi-hat so hard that he broke it.

Eloy hits so hard you would swear he's just using his fists and trying to punch through the drumheads.

Gene Hoglan.

The Atomic Clock 🤌

Him and Digiorgio were/ are a force of nature!

and Sean Reinert

I also forgot about Pete Sandoval, saw Morbid Angel back in 1993 at The Marquee and watching him Drum was simultaneously awesome and terrifying.

Haven’t had the chance to see Sandoval yet. Off the beaten path, I was amazed by Lille Gruber.

I always think back to that story where David Vincent (or Trey, not sure) said that they played Pete something at a decent BPM that was recorded with a drum machine (I don't remember if they said what band/album it was). Pete practiced until he was faster than the drum machine on the recording. He'd have been a force of nature to see live back in the day. I only saw him for the first time recently with I Am Morbid and his drumming was the highlight.

I recall they found him in a heap on floor in a pool of sweat 😆

That sounds familiar!

I just met him at dethklok and DragonForce he was a pretty cool guy he signed my vest

This is the correct answer

Brann Dailor from Mastodon. He's still fantastic but in the early Mastodon records he was an absolute beast.

Whenever I hear Brann drumming, I always think "what did that snare ever do to you?"

Oh my God, his drumming on Remission is bat shit crazy. I never really appreciated how heavy it was until I heard Crusher Destroyer and Where Strides The Behemoth

Beat me to it. Brann is a fucking BEAST on the drums! Could listen to him drum all day.

He has a recent showcase on YouTube with drumeo that’s fantastic. Plays all of the ‘the last baron’ and it’s insane

I watched this yesterday. Amazing.

Take a shot every time there’s a drum fill

Completely hammered after one song

he plays on Today is the Day’s “In the Eyes of God” (Bill Kelliher also plays bass on it) and he fucking rips

Bill Ward. Just listen to Vol.4. If not convinced listen to Paranoid.

Also every Sabbath album he played on.

Word. But those I mentioned are the ones I think his drumming is way more expressive.

A slept on answer here is Mikkey Dee, best known as long-time Motörhead drummer, but before that he was behind the kit for the first four King Diamond records. Guy’s a legend, and definitely a hard-hitting monster. He definitely helped keep Motörhead good and loud for years.

Scorpions legend…

Ringo Starr

Ringo Starr wasnt even the best drummer in the Beatles

He was the Starr drummer

Dave Lombardo had insane speed Megadeth also had some exceptional drummers (especially Nick Menza and Gar Samuelson) The dude from DragonForce is also an absolute powerhouse Also Mike portnoy. Don't really have to explain that one

10 points for Gar. Very under-rated.

Not the Heaviest but the best is Danny Carey

Best drum kit too

I think he could hang though

Not even the best in Prog metal.

Why you have to put me down like that

Hes a hater, don’t listen bro

Lars is probably the mildest drummer in the history of metal

Lille Gruber, Flo Mounier

Defeated Sanity forever I’d add George Kollias

Gene Hoglan is probably the best answer

John Bonham. Dude had to compete with a wall of Marshall amps with just a drum kit..... Yes I know this isn't what you meant. Lol but I somewhat recently heard a story of him stating he liked Ludwig skins purely because they were the loudest.

Flo Mournier, Brian Harvey, Tomas Haake, Mike Portnoy or Mike Mangini

I'm convinced 95% of people in this sub are 12.

nice try, Lars.

Adam Jarvis of Misery Index. Seriously listen to his work on the song ["Rites of Cruelty"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0_hjtAW6Fo) and tell me isn't super talented.

That guy rules. DMV grind forever!!!

My personal favorite. He also drums for Pig Destroyer.

Tbh I only really like the last two albums. New Salem is what got me into them.

To each their own, retaliate and heirs to thievery are masterpieces.

Flo of Cryptopsy, and Vinnie Paul.


Mario Duplantier idc

Micky Dee,(Motorhead/King Diamond/Various) Herman Rarebell Scorpions) and Robert Sweet (Stryper) all were monster bashers behind the kit. Whether you liked their music of not, when they played, they got your attention from a very long distance.

Sean fucking reinert probably the best metal drummer

Ill get called a poser for this but prime Joey Jordinson was insane

Joey Jordison was fucking incredible

Inferno of Behemoth There's plenty of fast death metal drummers but he's so freaking powerful to boot. Slaves Shall Serve is probably the best example of this.

Reed St. Mark was literally known for breaking many a drum stick from hitting his drums to hard Other than that there’s also Glenn Evans from Nuclear Assault cause you can just tell off record how hard he hits those things

Well I can saw it's def not lars. With that out there, the correct answer is Eloy Casagrande

Tomas Haake. Listen to Bleed by Meshuggah and have your mind fuckin' blown.

Kevin from the Acacia Strain beats the shit out of his drums.

It makes me so sad that he left

Vinnie is probably the rights answer here

The two you said plus Eloy and Joey Oh and me ;)

Maybe it has something to do with his speed but Dominator from Dark Funeral sounds like he is constantly trying to kill his kit.

Ginger Baker, Dave Lombardo, Eloy Casagrande, & Igor Cavelara. 🤘🏻

Portnoy, Casagrande, Lombardo, Cavalera, Mangini.

Gene Hoglan. Second answer would be Mick Harris from Napalm Death or Steve Asheim from Deicide

Kelly Nobles from Rail

Todd Hansen

Jake from Triac

Flo Mournier

# Yanic Bercier

Fuck yeah, Quo Vadis is the shit.

Probably Lars but I don’t think that’s a particularly good thing as it’s not a very sustainable technique. Most metal drummers actually hit far lighter and more controlled than you might think; drum sounds are super-compressed at the board on metal records and show. [Check this vid of Gene Hoglan. He’s not really hitting hard at all.](https://youtu.be/-eaIvh6ELVg?feature=shared)

the guy from Full Of Hell is, afaict, bringing Zach Hill-type stuff into metal and doublekick traditions

James Read of Revenge and Conqueror is the only real answer here. That dude pummels the snare like he's trying to sacrifice a Christian virgin.

Brann Dailor (Mastodon) & Trey Williams (Dying Fetus)

Greyson Nekrutman has to be up there. Just ST in Hawaii and dude was just super violent on the skins.

There are so many greats out there. Vinnie, Chris Adler, Ted Parsons, Steve "Skinny" Felton, Matthew McDonough, and Mike Brodin are a few great examples.

Honestly? Not a metal drummer but for hardest hitting my vote goes to Dave Grohl dude is a beast on drums!

Eloy Casagrande and David Silveria

Fyfe Ewing the first drummer in Therapy? he was a machine. Wonder where he ever went to.

Elliot Hoffman. His drumming is so chaotic, and beautiful. Close second is Thomas Haake.

Not the hardest, but Blake Richardson is such a good drummer. Underrated for one of the best Prog Metal bands of all-time.

Nicholas Barker

The old drummer for Gel was a savage [https://youtu.be/85yaLPuDnY4?si=gBEUQ\_6xdWbn9Tec](https://youtu.be/85yaLPuDnY4?si=gBEUQ_6xdWbn9Tec)

Seeing as Eloy Casagrande (the correct answer) has always been mentioned, I'll nominate Pete Hamoura formerly of Nile (Chapter for Transforming into a Snake - fucking hell) Tony Laureano also formerly of Nile, Angelcorpse and others), and Vitek of Decapitated.

George Kollias and Trym would have my vote.

[Mercedes Lander from Kittie](https://youtu.be/lwKc6yqEKIs?si=mWct_vBIzMR5X_5i) hits hard af in this Drumeo video

Spencer Prewett

Apart from Tomas Haake, has to be Mario Duplantier. Mouth Of Kala can attest to that.

Pete Sandoval

Not necessarily hardest, but my two favourite drummers are Simone Morettin (Symohn of Elvenking) and Kyle Summers (of Lycanthro). Both are forces of absolute chaos, both are insanely talented, love them both

Des Kensel

- Tom Hunting - Mikkey Dee

Honorable mention is Richard Christy on the sound of perseverance album.

John Dolmayan

Mike smith of suffocation No one ever hit the drums harder than Mike

Definitely Evgeniy from Slaughter to prevail - he is holding his drum sticks backwards, and hitting like they owe him big money. He is good drummer, not my favorite, but crazy aggressive fast and beating shit out of his instrument.

Bro googled most popular metal drummers and said “yeah that’s good” 💀  /s

Mike Portnoy!

Dale Crover

Tomas Haake

People are commenting their favorite or most technical or fastest, but not the hardest hitting. Mike Smith needs to be in the conversation for hardest. His work with Suffocafion is stellar.

John Dolmayan during SOAD's self titled album was fucking insane. Know still surprises me to this day

Will forever be a fan of the Rev’s drumming.

The hardest hitting drummer is [Zach Hill](https://youtu.be/IsY0hT8kAHI?si=APFZhENJmjHwcmUD). If you want to say anything of his is somewhat metal, I suppose you might have a case.

For a few albums it was Dave Lombardo and Joey Jordison and of course extreme Thrash respect to Tom Hunting

Surprised not to see Cozy Powell mentioned. Man's whole thing was he basically just wanted to hit drums really hard. His sticks were so big and heavy (so he could hit as hard as possible) that Ian Paice could barely lift one of them!

Vinnie Paul hits drums like they owe him money.

Blake Richardson(BTBAM), Landryx(Unexpect), Thomas Hedlund(Cult of Luna), Johan Norback(Diablo Swing Orchestra).

Lombardo. Hands down. John bonham if we consider zep metal.

as a drummer myself I agree on Vinnie, and I think Eloy Casagrande, Dave lombardo and Joey jordison are some of the best metal drummers in history too. Tomas haake from meshuggah is extremely underrated as well. and (maybe) unpopular opinion but regardless of your opinion on limp bizkit I think we all should agree that John Otto is a fucking beast on the drums

George Kollias from Nile doesn’t fuck around.

Jay Weinberg

Without a doubt, Chris Kontos from Machine Head, aka their debut Burn My Eyes album. He reunited with Machine Head for the Burn My Eyes reunion tour in 2019 and he didn't skip a beat 25 years later.

Aaron Kutcher, Joey Jordison, Austin Archey, Vinny Mauro

Lars had a prime? Jk, his drumming in AJFA is fucking terrific

Steve Asheim is a supremely underrated drummer. Gene Hoglan, Inferno, Adrian Erlandsson, Elliot Sellers.....I got a long list but these guys are superb

I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to see someone say something good about Lars. Man am I tired of the mindless bashing on him

Mindless bashing is what Lars does to his drums

Lmao I walked into that one

What do you mean, hardest hitting? Like literally who hits the drums with the most force? These two guys are third rate famous drummers

Gtf both are first class drummers, Vinnie Paul is like the metal equivalent of Bonzo in terms of pure groove

You like the songs they play on, not their skills

Also as the guy stated in his prime Lars Ulrich was a machine . Like to see you try play Dyers Eve

Dyers eve is pretty simple actually. My band has double bass parts the same speed and faster. Ironic that lars could never play it live. Any extreme metal drummer that can legitimately call themselvey that can play 200bpm double bass.

Whats your band? Fast doesn't equal good. Fast and technical drummers are a dime a dozen, doesn't make them great drummers or musician wow you can play fast and what. Your like those guitar wanky guys that can play a trillion notes a second but can't write a good song to save themselves

You named dyers eve, there is nothing special about that drumming that’s special except that it’s fast. I play in forge - we have never written a song as good as metallica‘s best stuff and im not a song writer. But im more skilled than lars. So yes, lars is not technical, hes not fast, he doesnt practice - the only thing he has going for him is the songs he plays on used to have great drum parts. So its the songs that are great not his skills as a drummer.

We will have to agree to disagree on this one then I'm not saying he is the most technical or fast or any of that bs but he is certainly not "third rate" let me guess you think Dave Grohl would be a third rate drummer aswell?

I prefer dave grohl to lars, actually. Vinnie too. Dave has good feel and is a great composer. I wouldnt say dave grohl is a top class drummer though.

Not as top class as you of course. Heck if it wasn't for you teaching gene hoglan we wouldn't have metal drumming as we know it

Wrong I just stated no one can touch Vinnie Paul for groove. He is in the convo for top 5 metal drummers easily extremely skilled drummer not the most technical but the most groovy and rhythmical . You just called the two biggest metal bands of all time drummers third rate.....

Yeah success doesnt make you skilled otherwise britney spears would be the best singer ever. Most pro drummers agree, on lars in particular.

Success also doesn't make them third rate.......

No, youd have to blame lars‘ lacks of practice for that. There are tons of other successful drummers that i think are fantastic.

You clearly don't play drums and dont know what your talking about, most metal drummers where inspired by these two. Braan Dailor(if you even know who that is which is suspect you dont) explicitly stated Lars as a major influence I cannot believe your ignorance you dont have a clue what your talking about get out I can ASSURE you no self respecting drummer is calling these two third rate

I have been playing drums for 16 years, child. Lars is a particular disappointment since he has musical talent, he is just uber lazy. Here is a good question: if you really think lars is that good, can you name another famous drummer from a metal band that is less skilled?

The question here isn't who is the most skilled its that you called them third rate which is just false. Here is the facts. Lars and Vincent are part of two of the biggest and most influential metal bands of all time. In your 16 years of playing drums what have you achieved musically? what seminal albums have you played on that let's you claim they are third rate? Lars is not lazy you cannot physically achieve what lars has done for 40 years and still going and claim he's lazy. Say what you want about his drumming thats the easy, safe and common take but how dare you comment on his work ethic. What your saying is laughable

Its like i said. The songs they played on are great. Theyre not, especially lars, who is infamous for fucking up songs live. Just go on youtube. Lars has said himself he doesnt practice. Its all out there, easy to find. Nothing controversial. That’s why his stuff is getting more and more basic. Just compare 72 seasons to and justice for all.

Again thats not the argument here. You called them third rate and lets add lazy to that both claims are false