Drummer TONY LAUREANO Launches Official Forum

Drummer Tony Laureano (NILE, DIMMU BORGIR) has launched his official forum at this location. Tony's official web site, TonyLaureano.com, is expected to be up first week of May.

In a recent interview with Ukranian webzine Encomium, Laureano spoke about his musical influences and experiences as a live performer:

Encomium: Whose are your favorite drummers of all days? Favorite bands, songs or albums?

Tony Laureano: "Gene Hoglan and Dave Lombardo are at the top of the list. Other guys I love are Pete Sandoval, Sean Reinert, Bill Ward, Nicko McBrain, Scott Travis, and I like super drummers like Marco Minneman, Thomas Lang, and Virgil Donati. There's plenty others, as well, Steve Asheim, Nicke Andersson, Steve Flynn, Perry Strickland, etc. As for bands, I like a lot of stuff. I bow to all SLAYER up to 'Reign in Blood', I like some of the stuff they have done since then, but the early albums I enjoy from beginning to end, DARK ANGEL's 'Darkness Descends', 'Altars of Madness' by MORBID ANGEL, AUTOPSY's 'Severed Survival' is one of my all-time favorite albums, ENTOMBED's first, 'To Mega Therion' from CELTIC FROST, DARK THRONE's 'A Blaze in the Northern Sky', ANGELCORPSE's 'Hammer of Gods', IMMORTAL's 'Sons of Northern Darkness', PORTISHEAD, ALICE IN CHAINS' 'Dirt', I could go on and on. I love the MISFITS and SAMHAIN. Early DANZIG was good as well, TYPE O NEGATIVE's second album is incredible to me, I like their first one as well, 'Pleasure to Kill' from KREATOR, DEATH. Like I said, I could go on and on."

Encomium: What was your brightest live show experience? I mean both performance with your participation, as well as the show that you visited as a listener.

Tony Laureano: "Playing wise, probably the Los Angeles stop of Ozzfest with DIMMU BORGIR, over 45,000 people, biggest crowd I have ever played for. Wacken 2003 would maybe have been up there, as I played twice in the same day with MALEVOLENT CREATION and NILE, but Air France lost my gear, so I was playing on borrowed sticks, pedals and such, so I wasn't very comfortable. But I must thank Peter Wildoer from DARKANE and Matte Modin from DARK FUNERAL for loaning me some of their gear so I could play. Also, filling in for my friend Paul Mazurkiewicz of CANNIBAL CORPSE, whom I used to work for. He was traveling separately from the band one day, and he arrived late for a festival, and I had to play the set with next to no notice. As far as shows I've seen, METALLICA in '87 was killer. The first club show I saw was KREATOR in '89 with CORONER, and that was great as well. Wacken (Germany) and Metal Days (Switzerland) 2003, my first view of SLAYER since Lombardo's return, and seeing BLACK SABBATH and JUDAS PRIEST almost every night in 2004."

Read the rest of the interview at this location.