DREAM THEATER Drummer MIKE MANGINI Demonstrates VATER Slick Nut Cymbal Fasteners (Video)

Video footage of Vater Slick Nut cymbal fastener artist Mike Mangini (DREAM THEATER) demonstrating how he uses the Slick Nut in his kit setup and while actually performing live can be viewed below.

During a recent interview with DRUMmagazine.com, Mangini was asked if he was involved in writing the material for DREAM THEATER's forthcoming album. "I was zero involved in it," he replied. "It's the four of them. This new material is stuff that they've never had the opportunity to do without a drummer. My involvement is going to be worrying about the drums and backing this band. I have too much work to do, you know? I've been off the stage as a full-time job for much too long. I just want to sit on a drum stool. I want to see those orange and magenta lights reflecting off my drums. I want to hear the crowd. I want to play drums that's what I want to do right now. That's all I want to do. I didn't want to get involved in anything at that time. If I have strengths to offer the band, those will show themselves in time."

When asked if there were any new songs that were especially difficult, he replied, "The one where I put the most amount of psychotic, two-things-at-the-same-time type of drumming would be track six [still unnamed as of press time]. While multi-time signature shifts were going on, I was playing in a time signature that was completely different from those with one limb on one side of my body. And I was really hitting the drums. I'm very proud of it, but they liked it musically. I wouldn't do it just to throw it in. I didn't do it for that reason. I did it because I had a mathematical joy out of it. Oh, my gosh, it would be amazing to play in 7/16 here, but yet it's changing time signatures 18 times or something. When I got [in the tracking room, guitarist] John Petrucci just bled his soul through mine and into the drums it wasn't me. I mean, it was me, but he brought out of me this intro to one of the songs and it was actually so hard to come up with the best possible thing with all the choices I had in my mind, that I didn't do it all by myself. I did it with John Petrucci, so it was really something. So that kind of established the protocol for our relationship, which was wonderful. I was just like, "Man, I don't want this to be about me. I'm not happy with my [input] alone. Sometimes I can't get away from me. I want this to be about us."