5 Things to Know About Mike Mangini

The drumming group received a shock in June 2026 when onerous rock stalwarts Godsmack revealed one other new drummer onstage: Mike Mangini.

It struck some as a stunning match, as Mangini had beforehand performed with progressive metallic legends Dream Theater from 2010 to 2023, changing co-founding drummer Mike Portnoy. However for many years, Mangini’s illustrious drumming profession has been outlined by versatility, an openness to new alternatives a steadfast dedication to self-improvement. Taking part in along with his fellow Bostonians in Godsmack is simply one other feather in his cap.

Listed here are 5 issues Godsmack followers ought to learn about Mike Mangini.

READ MORE: 13 Steel + Rock Drummers Identified for Their Ridiculously Giant Kits

1. Earlier than Music, He Was Into Missiles

Earlier than he grew to become some of the well-known metallic drummers on the earth, Mangini labored as a software program programmer. After acquiring a pc science diploma from Bentley College, he took a job at Raytheon and helped design the software program for the Patriot missile program. However he could not ignore the decision of music for lengthy.

“I began out as an engineering aide as a result of I did not have a level, so I began working at Raytheon and dealing on the documentation,” Mangini defined in a 2012 interview with ArtisanNewsService. “And as soon as I realized find out how to use a pc once more, I labored my manner in and I ended up, on the finish of my tenure, being awarded a full-time employees place. In order that meant that I could possibly be inventive with the programming. And the very day I received the stack of packages, I stared at them in my workplace, and I stared at them, and all I assumed was, ‘It is time for me to now go.’ And I began my very own educating enterprise [and] I began taking part in.”

2. He Was a Berklee Music Professor

They are saying those that cannot do, train, however generally those that can do additionally train. Mangini is a primary instance, having taught at Berklee Faculty of Music for a decade, first as an affiliate professor and later as a full-time professor within the Percussion Division. He left the place in 2010 after getting the Dream Theater gig following an intense audition, of which his college students have been supportive — and he wished them to see it as proof optimistic that follow and scholarship repay.

“I did not wish to say something to them partly as a result of I did not need it to intervene with our research, as a result of it doesn’t matter what you say, it adjustments issues,” Mangini instructed Drum! journal in 2011. “However on the opposite aspect, I wished to inform them screaming on the high of my lungs with pleasure saying, ‘You see? The strategies, they work!’ Properly, I used to say that quite a bit anyway, however profitable this audition helps validate some issues.”

3. He is Performed With a Lot of Guitar Virtuosos

Following a quick stint with thrash metallic band Annihilator (taking part in on ’93’s Set the World on Hearth… and, afterward, one other pair of LPs within the 2000s), Mangini joined Boston onerous rockers Excessive, taking part in a handful of songs on their 1995 album Ready for the Punchline. He continued working with guitarist Nuno Bettencourt after Excessive disbanded, showing on the guitar wizard’s 1997 solo debut Schizophonic.

On the similar time, Mangini additionally joined Steve Vai’s touring band, a place he held from 1996 to 2000. The drummer performed on a pair of Vai studio albums — 1996’s Hearth Backyard and 1999’s The Extremely Zone — in addition to the reside albums G3: Reside in Live performance and Alive in an Extremely World. Mangini later contributed to Vai’s 2012 album The Story of Gentle and 2016’s Fashionable Primitive.

And, in fact, the drummer’s five-album tenure with prog metallic luminaries meant he performed alongside the exceptional John Petrucci.

4. He is the Solely Dream Theater Drummer With a Grammy

Mangini performed in Dream Theater from 2010 to 2023, taking on for co-founding drummer Mike Portnoy. In 2022 the band earned a Grammy Award for Finest Steel Efficiency for “The Alien,” the lead single off their 2021 album A View From the Prime of the World.

“You understand, they used to inform us our songs have been manner too lengthy, we used bizarre time signatures and there have been too many guitar solos. The truth is, this track is in 17/8, so attempt to faucet your foot to it. However, we simply gained a Grammy, so I am glad we did not pay attention,” Petrucci stated, partly, in the course of the acceptance speech.

Jason Merritt, Getty Photographs

That makes Mangini the one Dream Theater drummer to win a Grammy. The band was nominated for 3 different Grammys — two throughout Mangini’s tenure and one after Portnoy’s return — however didn’t win. Portnoy, a great sport, did congratulate the band after the win, although.

Godsmack, in the meantime, have been nominated for a Grammy thrice of their profession — Rock Instrumental Efficiency (2002, “Vampires”) Finest Laborious Rock Efficiency (2003, “I Stand Alone” and 2004, “Straight Out of Line”) — however haven’t gained.

5. He is Set 5 ‘World’s Quickest Drummer’ Data

Mangini’s prodigious talent is apparent simply from watching or listening to him play, but it surely’s additionally been acknowledged and awarded on a worldwide scale.

Within the early 2000s he set 5 completely different data with the World’s Quickest Drummer group, together with the “naked handed” document of 1,146 single-stroke hits in a single minute. On his web site, Mangini particulars how he used the Drum-o-meter to trace his strokes and refine his approach. 

He later would break 1,200 single stroke notes in 60 seconds, turning into the primary to take action whereas additionally setting non permanent data in “conventional grip” (1,126 single strokes in 60 seconds), and, relating to the ft, established “single stroke foot” heights with 13,222 hits in quarter-hour and 4,555 hits in 5 minutes (each data have since fallen).

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