Kevin Kott

Kevin Kott — German drummer — is part of At Vance and has been Masterplan's drummer since 2016. His path places him in the core of musicians that sustains German melodic metal. Masterplan was founded by Roland Grapow and Uli Kusch after both left Helloween — the band in which Kusch was the drummer — which means the chair Kott took carries specific weight within the genre. In At Vance the repertoire presents an unusual demand: Olaf Lenk's band adapts classical pieces by Vivaldi, Beethoven and Mozart into a metal format. Performing those tracks obliges the drums to sustain structures that were not written for a rock band — phrases of irregular length, cadences that do not resolve where a riff would, and changes of tempo inherited from the original score. It is work of structural reading as well as execution, and it explains why the same person holds positions in two bands whose repertoires demand constant precision rather than raw speed.