Working Drummer

After spending the first part of his career in the New York-based jazz world, Corey Fonville has evolved into playing and producing more groove-based music. With his band Butcher Brown and most recently with Charlie Hunter and Kurt Elling on new album SuperBlue, Corey is exploring playing and tones that are firmly in the supporting role rather than the more explosive/interactive jazz role. Corey i...

Originally from Syracuse, New York, Nate Felty is an experienced live/session drummer and educator who enjoys performing a wide range of musical styles. Nate has been living and working in Nashville, Tennessee since 2012 and earned his Masters in Commercial Music at Belmont University in 2014. Nate is the drummer for Nashville-based, nationally touring country/roots artist, Kelsey Waldon. With Wal...

Jordan Perlson has spanned about as wide a stylistic reach as one can imagine. Be it with jazz legends Seamus Blake and Gary Burton, folk heroes Alison Brown and Missy Raines, reggae giants Matisyahu and Trevor Hall, cutting edge music innovators like Becca Stevens, Snarky Puppy, and Jeff Coffin, progressive innovators Adrian Belew or Kaki King, or fusion megastar Hiromi, Jordan has become a known...

At age sixteen, Michael Bland won the "twin cities' best drummer" contest and was the beginning of a rewarding career. With his recognition as a prodigy, Michael was actively sought by many local acts. At seventeen, Hiram Bullock snagged him up, and took him to Pittsburgh and New York to do some one-nighters. That same year, he joined Dr. Mambo's Combo, a house band at Bunker's Music Bar and Grill...

Over the last decade plus, Quinton "Q" Robinson developed a busy and sustainable career drumming with Gospel and R&B acts such as Avery Sunshine, Peebo Bryson, and Anthony David, and recording in his home studio. But he got interested in musical theatre and started spending time in New York meeting Broadway drummers, musical directors, and contractors, and playing readings and off-Broadway product...

Clifford Koufman is a Nashville-based, award-winning drummer who founded Sound & Rhythm Drumming School in 2000. With over 20 years of experience, Clifford carries a world of experience to every scenario, whether creating music, performing or teaching. He's honored to be the recipient of multiple grants, the Thrive award to build community through community drumming classes, performances, and drum...

Blair has been an LA staple for over two decades, having recorded and/or toured with Alanis Morissette, Chris Cornell, Gwen Stefani, Brandi Carlisle, Melissa Etheridge, and many others. Blair has a couple of new calling cards, one of them is his podcast Recording Drums, he’s getting ready to get season 2 of that going. And the other is his suite of online courses, Introduction to Recording, The Sn...

Noah Levy is an in demand drummer that lives in the Minneapolis / St Paul area of Minnesota. He has toured and recorded with a long list of international artists including Five For Fighting, The Honeydogs, Peter Frampton, Nelson, The Bodeans, and Golden Smog. Noah spends a lot of time as a session player working in studios around town as well as his own home studio. He currently plays with Brian S...

Zack was recently in Nashville for a gig, so he and Matt took the opportunity to sit down and chop it up. In this episode, Matt and Zack talk about: What "burying the click" really means and how it fits into the greater goal of sounding and feeling good The phenomenon and business model of the social media drummer An interaction we had with a listener regarding our interview style What's coming up...

Rob Rufus is an author, musician, screenwriter, and advocate. He is the recipient of the American Library Association’s prestigious ALEX Award. His literary debut, Die Young With Me, was named one of the Best Books of the Year by Hudson Booksellers and is currently being developed as a major motion picture. His follow-up, The Vinyl Underground, was named one of the Junior Library Guild’s Gold Stan...

Chicago drummer George Fludas was born in Chicago on October 10, 1966. He was inspired to play drums by his father, who was also a drummer, and who exposed him to great jazz drummers such as Art Blakey, Max Roach, and "Philly" Joe Jones. He has played with many stellar musicians such as Lou Donaldson, Kenny Burrell, Betty Carter, Benny Green, Roy Hargrove, Hank Jones, Cedar Walton, Diana Krall, Be...

Simon Phillips, multifaceted drummer and composer, producer and engineer, is renowned for his historic stints with Jeff Beck, The Who, Toto, Jack Bruce, Mike Oldfield, Joe Satriani, Judas Priest and countless others. His life of top-tier session work has fostered an extraordinary versatility and boundless artistic curiosity, something he’s long carried into his work as a leader, mainly under the b...

Ash Soan is one of the most in-demand drummers in the world, with a long list of live and studio credits that includes many of the biggest names in pop music over the last few decades. In addition to his studio and touring work, he is also well-known for his seven-year stint as the house drummer on The Voice UK. He is the creator of a series of video lessons available on his website and commands a...

Kenny has entertained millions of people with his drumming all across the world, played on thousands of records, provided the beat of America’s culture for four decades, and has been the “go to” drummer for the biggest stars in music, ranging from John Mellencamp to Lady Gaga, Bob Dylan to The Smashing Pumpkins, and everyone in between! In this episode, Kenny talks about: Learning to focus on 1 or...

As a studio musician, Brandon has performed on over 100 recordings including Grammy nominated and winning releases by John Mayer, Sugarland and Shawn Mullins. As a member of the multi-platinum-selling rock band Train, Brandon toured the world, indulging in his life-long rock and roll fantasy of performing a keyboard solo on a smoke-emitting Moog synthesizer. These days, in addition to touring with...

Nick Buda was the featured artist on just the second ever Working Drummer podcast back in January 2015 and we are happy to have him back to talk about what he’s been up to and see what more we can learn from this super pro player. Early in his career, Nick toured with such diverse artists as Edwin McCain, Hank Williams Jr., Jedd Hughes, Maia Sharp, Emily West, Col. Bruce Hampton and the Codetalker...

Dave Elitch first gained notoriety touring with the American progressive rock band The Mars Volta in 2009-2010. Since then he has lent his talents to Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake, M83, The 1975, Juliette Lewis, Big Black Delta, and many others. An established LA session player, Dave has performed on various records, syncs, and film scores for major motion pictures, including “Trolls" and “Logan....

Joe Gilder is a musician, songwriter, and producer living in the Nashville area with his wife Pam and 3 kids.  Joe started Home Studio Corner back in 2009. Over the years, he's created thousands of pieces of content — videos, podcasts, articles, training courses, and more — all with the goal of helping home studio folks make better music. In addition to Home Studio Corner, Joe's worked for Sweetwa...

Frank Zummo is currently the drummer of the rock band SUM 41, EDM Artist Kayzo, and has recently begun releasing music and doing live performances under his own name. His schooling started with Dom Famularo and continued at the Drummer's Collective in Manhattan. In 2004, Zummo co-founded the award-winning drum ensemble Street Drum Corps, which became his biggest project to date, resulting in count...

Tommy Harden has been in Nashville since the early 90's. The first gig he landed was 4 months after moving to town with the Grammy award winning Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers. He then went on to tour with Ricky Skaggs, playing drums in the coveted Kentucky Thunder band as well as touring with Reba McEntire for 14 years. Tommy has played on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Tonight Sh...

Mike Jackson is a multi-talented musician, composer and overall creative with over 30 years of experience in the fields of music, commercial composition as well as video and audio production. He has composed music for a diverse range of clients and formats like CD-ROM game titles such as Spy Kids® and Totally Spies®, WGN's Footnote and CMT.    While serving as staff composer at one of the nations...

Megan Coleman was born in the heart of Detroit. She grew up in church, learning from the rich culture that is Detroit Gospel, Jazz and RnB music. She always had a passion for music and had the chance to start exploring that both in church and in school when she started playing drums in Jr. High. She continued to grow in love and passion for music, but wanted instead, to pursue Medicine. In the mid...

Chad Melchert is one of Canada’s most pre-eminent live and session drummers who is also an acclaimed drum teacher. This native Canadian calls Edmonton (Morinville), Alberta, home but despite his Canadian residence Melchert has toured all over the world and played with artists from all types genres including Gord Bamford, Brett Kissel, Adam Gregory, Aaron Goodvin, Duane Steele, Hemingway Corner, Gi...

Jake Sommers attended The University of the Arts in Philadelphia (UArts) as a music performance major. He was fortunate to study under Marc Dicciani, Jimmy Paxson (Ben Harper, Stevie Nicks, and Natalie Maine), Gerry Brown (Stevie Wonder and Diana Ross), Marcus Baylor (Yellowjackets), as well as Erik Johnson. He graduated from University of the Arts in May 2013 with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Musi...

Shawn Zorn is a drummer from Memphis, TN who now splits his time beween Nashville and Memphis. He has performed or recorded with artists such as Twin Forks, Allen Mack Myers Moors (featuring Zach Myers of Shinedown) Amy LaVere, Will Sexton, Cory Branan, Mike Doughty (Soul Coughing), Anthony Raneri (Bayside), Dashboard Confessional, Susan Marshall, Luther Dickinson, John Paul Keith, and more. He is...