Charlie Benante

Charlie Benante — born in the Bronx, New York, on 27 November 1962 — has been Anthrax's drummer since 1983 and is one of the most influential instrumentalists in American thrash metal. His technical importance is concrete and datable. On Speak English or Die (1985), the album by the side project Stormtroopers of Death, he played on the track "Milk" a pattern of kick, snare and cymbal at extremely high speed that became known as the blast beat — a device that would become the rhythmic foundation of death metal, grindcore and black metal in the decades that followed. Few drummers can point to a specific recording and say that a technique was born there. In Anthrax his function is double: he holds the rhythmic weight and writes much of the material, including guitar riffs — unusual for a drummer. He is on the band's entire discography since Fistful of Metal (1984). In 2022 he took the drum seat on Pantera's reunion tour, filling the place of Vinnie Paul, who died in 2018. It was an invitation of symbolic weight: only a drummer with unquestionable credentials within that world could take that seat without the tribute sounding out of place.