Jörg Michael was Stratovarius's drummer between 1995 and 2012, and is one of the musicians with the longest résumé in European metal. Born in Germany in 1963, his record includes spells with Rage, Running Wild, Grave Digger, Mekong Delta, Headhunter, Axel Rudi Pell and Avalon, among many others — the path of a sought-after player, called on by bands of completely different profiles across four decades. His arrival in Stratovarius in 1995 completed the line-up that would record Episode (1996), Visions (1997), Destiny (1998) and Infinite (2000). What he brought was weight and double-kick precision inside a repertoire that was already fast but needed someone able to sustain that tempo across ten-minute tracks without losing definition. It is the difference between fast power metal and power metal that sounds large. He stayed for seventeen years, through the crisis of 2004 and 2005 and Timo Tolkki's departure in 2008 — being, alongside Jens Johansson and Timo Kotipelto, one of the elements that let the band go on existing after losing its founder. He left Stratovarius in 2012, closing the longest tenure of any drummer in the group's history.
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