Working Drummer

Michael Robinson is the Vice President of Marketing for KHS America. He leads the Branding, Marketing Communications, Product Management, Marketing Communications, and Creative teams at KHS America. Michael makes significant contributions to the success of KHS America in the areas of leadership and team development, and in the establishment of customer-centric marketing principles that continue to...

Kent Aberle has been touring and recording with Kristian Bush for two years. He attended Eastern Illinois University as a Special Education major and began playing in cover bands on the weekends. He has made his home in Atlanta since 2001. After working his way through several cover bands and retail gigs, he got the opportunity to audition for Kristian Bush and won the gig. He also gained a unique...

Russ Whitman began playing drums at the early age of 6 years old. From then on he always knew what he wanted to do with his life. Following in his father’s footsteps, he started off playing by ear in his grandfathers church. Russ continued his musical education thru his middle and high school years consistently placing first chair in almost every all-state ensemble from concert to jazz. After high...

Jan Faircloth grew up in western Kansas and moved to Kansas City in his early 20s. There, he found ample opportunities to pursue his love of Blues and Country music and has since been the heartbeat of some of the most successful blues acts to come out of KC, including Trampled Underfoot, Levee Town, and the Danielle Nicole Band. He is a fixture on the local scene and tours nationally and internati...

Kevin Rapillo was born in Trumbull, CT, just north of New York City. A combination of growing up just hours north of New York City and having a great uncle, Lou Vitale, that was a professional drummer were the things that helped nurture Kevin’s interest in music. After high school, he found himself at the Berklee College of music in Boston. After moderate success in the Boston area with bands in a...

Ed Breckenfeld was born and raised in Chicago and has lived and worked there all his life. He’s done it all, from devoting years of his life to a single band, to being the jack-of-all-trades hired gun, to being the first call for producers, artists and engineers for all kinds of session work. He is the author of “Off The Record,” a long-running transcription series for Modern Drummer Magazine in w...

Rob McNelley is an accomplished session guitarist in Nashville who has landed a string of high-profile gigs and awards including “Guitarist of the Year” from the Academy of Country Music in 2014. Rob’s father, Bobby Gene McNelley, was the lead singer of McGuffey Lane, a southern-rock band based out of Columbus in the 1980s. Rob spent much of his young life listening to his father’s band, and gradu...

Lauren Kosty is a classically trained percussionist who has been upping her drumset game in recent years. She spent her entire life in L.A. until she moved to London in February of 2015, where she quickly won an open audition for the drumset/percussion chair with crossover artist Russell Watson. Watson combines operatic singing with various pop styles, making the gig the perfect culmination of Lau...

On a historic night in the Winter of 2009, drummer Wes Little proved beyond any doubt that he is the nimble, adaptable, professional musician he wanted to be even before he left his small Southern home town. The occasion: the inaugural ball for newly elected President Barack Obama. The job: to back a jaw-dropping lineup of legendary talent, including Stevie Wonder, Sting, Mary J. Blige, Faith Hill...

Darren Stanley is one of the Atlanta area’s most established and well-liked drummers. His main gig is touring with Colonel Bruce Hampton, who is described by Wikipedia as a Blues Surrealist. Before that, he was the longest standing drummer for Delta Moon, with whom he toured and recorded for eight years. He is the house drummer for bassist Kevin Scott’s Tuesday night jam session in Atlanta, which...

A Memphis native, Marcus Finnie has toured and recorded several years with Grammy winner Kirk Whalum. He has also toured the world with Grammy winning artists such as Donna Summer, Larry Carlton, Earl Klugh, Lady Antebellum, Billy Preston, and BWB. Marcus is featured on KirkWhalum’s fourth volume of The Gospel According to Jazz. This project also features Rick Braun, Norman Brown, Sheléa and sever...

Michael Duffy is an L.A. native, and has spent most of his career splitting his time between drumset and Latin percussion. He marched corps with Velvet Knights and Blue Devils and attended North Texas. He left school early to start gigging full time, first in Dallas then in Austin, where there was a lot of session work at the time. He moved to L.A. in 2002 where he has toured and recorded with a l...

Originally from North Carolina, Al Wilson discovered his passion for drumming at the age of 18. Within a very short time, Al was learning “on the job” working as a full time drummer. While living in Colorado, this passion turned into a time of self-discovery and learning of all things drums and percussion.  In an effort to find more work, Al eventually moved to Nashville and began working immediat...

Matt Hankle grew up in New Jersey, the son of a classical flautist and a jazz trombonist. His first professional experience was at age 17 when he spent a summer touring with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. After three semesters at the University of Miami, he re-joined the circus full-time for two years. He then settled down in New York where he worked on Broadway for over a decade,...

Peter Erskine has played the drums since the age of four and is known for his versatility and love of working in different musical contexts. He appears on over 600 albums and film scores, and has won two Grammy Awards, plus an Honorary Doctorate from the Berklee School of Music (1992). Peter graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan and studied at Indiana University under George Gabe...

Todd Strait was into jazz from the very start and has played with some of its biggest names over his a 35-year career. After studying with Ed Soph and Joe Morello, he made New York his home base and built an impressive resume there which included Marian McPartland and Woody Herman. In the 1990s, he relocated to Kansas City where he became the drummer for Eldar as well as two of the most celebrated...

Zack Albetta grew up in Santa Fe, NM, where he began drum lessons at age 8. Music was the focus of his high school years and he went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Percussion Performance from Ball State University. In 2003, Zack entered graduate school at The University of Missouri-Kansas City and in four years, Zack earned Master’s degrees in Percussion Performance and Jazz & Studio Performanc...

Wes Anderson recently became the drummer for the U.S. Army Jazz Ambassadors, the military’s premier touring jazz ensemble. Born and raised in Phoenix, AZ, Wes graduated from Arizona State University and marched drum corps with The Arizona Academy. In 2012, he landed a gig at Disneyland and moved to L.A. A few months after moving, he joined pianist Eric Reed‘s trio, with whom he continues to perfor...

Dave Harrison is a graduate of West Virginia University School of Music. He performed with the world famous Percussion ’90 under the direction of Phil Faini where he served as arranger and featured performer. Dave moved to Nashville in 1990 and started working in the studios. He joined the Edwin McCain Band in January 1996 and over the next 10 years, recorded 6 albums with the group, co-producing...

Ryan Lee was born and raised in Kansas City, MO, and earned a bachelor’s degree in music from The Conservatory at The University of Missouri-Kansas City. New York, Nashville and LA are established as places from which to launch an international performing career, but Ryan has stayed in Kansas City and found many opportunities to perform around the world with artists including Jose James, Tony Tixi...

Scot Corey is a freelance drummer/percussionist who has performed as an ‘extra’ with the Nashville Symphony for over 17 years, including NSO’s Carnegie Hall Debut (2000), their Naxos recording of Piazzola’s Sinfonia Buenos Aires and their return to Carnegie Hall. He has served as adjunct percussion faculty at Trevecca Nazarene University since 2000 and is a founding member of the Matrix Percussion...

L.A.based drummer Jamey Tate has been solidly busy for almost 15 years. He studied under Peter Erskine as a grad student at USC and has put Erskine’s lessons, musical and otherwise, to good use since then. He has made a name for himself touring and recording with two of the biggest names in smooth jazz, David Benoit and Mindi Abair, as well as being in demand for studio work around LA on creative...

Establishing himself in Nashville as one of the top studio drummers, Eddie Bayers has worked with some of the biggest names in the music industry, including Vince Gill, George Strait, Alan Jackson, Steve Winwood, Peter Frampton, Bob Seger, Trisha Yearwood, Garth Brooks, Kenny Chesney, Uncle Kracker and the list goes on and on. Playing on hundreds of gold and platinum albums and numerous movie soun...

Marlon Patton was born and raised in the Atlanta area, attended college down the road at The University of Georgia in Athens, then returned home to Atlanta where he has lived and worked ever since. He is a true genre-hopper, in terms of the many types of music he plays and the many types of work he does. Any given day could find him mixing a jazz record in his studio, tracking a rock record in som...

Rick Malkin has made a career for himself by combining his passion for drumming and photography. Growing up in Pittsburgh, Rick learned photography at an early age from his father who was a full time photographer. At the age of 10, Rick discovered the drums and at the age of 14 he was already playing drums in musical theater. After meeting Eddie Bayers for a Modern Drummer cover shoot, Rick moved...