Lee Runestad

Lee Runestad — American drummer — was part of I Prevail in the initial line-up, in the period when the band built its base in Michigan. He was in the group before its national recognition, when I Prevail was still assembling the formula that would define it: low-tuned guitars, wide melodic choruses and two vocalists of opposite registers sharing the tracks on equal footing. That combination — which the following decade would turn into one of the most listened-to formats in American heavy rock — was still being tested. His function in that repertoire is to articulate transitions. I Prevail's tracks alternate between extreme weight with guttural vocals and melodic sections of pop structure, and the drums are what mark the passage from one to the other — if it is not done with precision, the song sounds like two different pieces glued together. Runestad belongs to the band's formative phase, prior to the records that would enter the American charts and to the Grammy nominations that would come with Trauma (2019).