Mike Portnoy Ranks Neil Peart Over John Bonham as the Greatest Drummer of All Time
Today in Completely Meaningless Things One Person Says About Other People That For Some Reason The Internet Gets All Riled Up Over (and That MetalSucks Is All But Too Happy to Report On To Stoke The Flames):
Ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, currently of The Winery Dogs and Liquid Tension Experiment, has said that he’d give the edge to Neil Peart (Rush) over John Bonham (Led Zeppelin) in the greatest drummer of all time debate, even though he respects both tremendously and “it’s ridiculous to even have to choose between the two.”
The quote came as part of a roundtable hosted by Consequence of Sound to celebrate the life of Peart one year after his death. On a Zoom call with fellow drummers Charlie Benante (Anthrax), Matt Halpern (Periphery) and Arejay Hale (Halestorm), Portnoy explained:
“I think John Bonham has been universally acclaimed as one of the greatest of all time, and deservingly so — he really, really is deserving of that. But with all due respect, his entire recording career only lasted 11 years, and he’s also now been gone for, what, I guess 40 years. So there is something to be said for his place in drumming history because he’s been gone for so long.
“I think Neil had 40 years of a drumming career, and he’s only been gone one year. So I think time will tell. It’s ridiculous to even have to choose between the two, ’cause they both brought so much to the drum world and they both left behind such an incredible legacy. But I think the fact that Neil’s drumming career was 40 years long and gave us 40 years of music and drumming to listen to and reflect on, I think, to me, that puts him ahead of John. I think he’s the greatest of all time — I really do. And I think he’s only been gone a year, so it’s hard to really see how that’s gonna be felt five, 10, 20 years from now. But I think he will go down in history as the greatest rock drummer of all time — I really do.”
Now that your lives are so tremendously enriched by having read that, you should know the way less consequential news that The Liquid Tension Experiment, Portnoy’s long-dormant project with ex-DT bandmates John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess, as well as bassist Tony Levin, are set to unveil their first album in over 20 years, LTE3. Check out its first single, “The Passage of Time,” below; LTE3 comes out March 26 on InsideOutMusic and you can pre-order it here.
