Mark Zonder

Mark Zonder — born in the United States in 1958 — was Fates Warning's drummer between 1988 and 2005, and one of the most atypical instrumentalists in progressive metal. His distinctive quality is what he refuses to do. In a genre where drumming is usually measured by speed and constant double kick, Zonder plays with little ornament, deliberate space and an emphasis on cymbal textures. His parts are built in irregular metres, but without sounding like a technical exercise — the rhythmic complexity is structural, not exhibitionist. That restraint is what lets the band's repertoire work. Jim Matheos's compositions depend on form and development, and a drummer filling every space would destroy the effect. On A Pleasant Shade of Gray (1997), an album made of a single fifty-three-minute piece, it is the drumming that holds the architecture across twelve sections without the work becoming wearying. His influence comes precisely from what he avoided doing: he showed that progressive metal does not need constant density to be complex. He was in the band across Perfect Symmetry (1989), Parallels (1991), Inside Out (1994) and Disconnected (2000).