DREAM THEATER's MIKE MANGINI Designs 'Very Unique' VATER Drumstick

Vater has welcomed four-time Grammy Award nominee and DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Mangini as a Vater drumstick artist.

Mike has been working closely with Vater over the past few months. He also spent time at the Vater factory to develop a very unique design, of which Mike has said: “It’s not your ordinary stick. It is balanced, it is powerful. It is the Wicked Piston!

Mike Mangini‘s “Wicked Piston” Vater drumstick model is made from American Hickory and will be introduced at the 2016 NAMM show in Anaheim, California in January. Complete details and specs on Mike‘s new Vater drumstick design coming to Vater.com very soon.

Mike will also be the cover story in the February 2016 issue of DRUM! magazine, which goes on sale January 12, 2016.

Asked if there was anything he wished DREAM THEATER had done differently in the way they went about finding a replacement for original DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Portnoy in 2010, DREAM THEATER guitarist John Petrucci told “The Classic Metal Show”: “There’s not many situations in life where you can say you wouldn’t have done anything differently, but this is one of ’em. I think, looking back, I wouldn’t have done anything differently.”

He continued: “Mike Mangini really helped us to get through a major bandmember change, and in a way, that was probably as smooth as any bandmember change could have gone. The way that he came in, his personality, his skills as a drummer, his background, his history… it clicked to the point where it was, like, if we would have met Mike [Mangini] twenty years ago, we would have been playing with this guy. If I would have grown up with him, I would have been friends with him jamming. And that’s rare. It’s rare to do that one time around.”

Petrucci added: “You know so many musicians in bands that are having trouble finding people to play with, and who click, and so the fact that this happened with Mike [Mangini], it’s really just amazing to us. And since he’s been in the band, we’ve done two albums, two world tours and, thankfully, have had a lot of success with it, and a lot of support from our fans through all of it. And, again, I wouldn’t have done anything differently. It’s really amazing.”