Mikkey Dee

Mikkey Dee — Micael Kiriakos Delaoglou, born in Gothenburg in 1963 to a Greek-Swedish family — is one of heavy metal's most sought-after drummers, and his career divides between three major bands. He built his reputation with King Diamond in the late 1980s, and his playing on Abigail (1987) is still cited as one of the great drumming performances in the genre: precision, limb independence and an inventiveness that conversed with the theatrical character of that music rather than merely accompanying it. He then passed through Don Dokken's band, and in 1992 joined Motörhead, where he stayed until Lemmy's death in 2015 — twenty-three years, the longest-serving drummer in the group's history. His arrival in Motörhead marked a change of nature. Where Philthy Animal Taylor played on instinct and violence, Dee brought formal technique to a band that had never had any, without losing the brutality: the records of the 1990s and 2000s, from Bastards (1993) to Bad Magic (2015), sound tighter and heavier for exactly that reason. With Motörhead's end, he was invited in 2016 to take over the drums in Scorpions, replacing James Kottak, and has remained with the band since. He is therefore one of the few musicians to hold a central position in three distinct metal institutions across different decades.