Musical Career
Haake is noted for his technical abilities; his drumming style is characterized by heavy use of polyrhythms while often maintaining a steady 4/4 beat. This signature style has become one of the most recognized features in the music of Meshuggah. It was developed after a conversation with "Swish" about 1/1 time. He is also known for stacking his cymbals in a variety of configurations to give himself a desired sound.
Haake also writes the majority of Meshuggah lyrics and also contributes spoken vocals on several songs ("Choirs of Devastation" on the album Contradictions Collapse, "Inside What's Within Behind" and "Sublevels" on the album Destroy Erase Improve, "The Exquisite Machinery of Torture" on the album Chaosphere, "Spasm" on the album Nothing, as well as on several chapters on the album Catch Thirtythree and on the song "Dancers to a Discordant System" from ObZen).
The drumset Tomas Haake uses has been meticulously sampled in full for the software instrument Drumkit From Hell Superior made by Toontrack, with Haake performing all the drumming himself. It since has been used by many bands, including fellow metal act Clawfinger, Devin Townsend's Ziltoid the Omniscient, Dethklok on Adult Swim's TV show Metalocalypse (in several songs from the second season), and Ben Weinman of The Dillinger Escape Plan. The latter used it to program drum parts for the album Ire Works before The Dillinger Escape Plan found drummer Gil Sharone. Meshuggah later went on to use this software instrument to program all the drum tracks for their album Catch ThirtyThree, and the re-release of their album Nothing, using no live recorded drums by Haake. obZen also used the software as an auxiliary sound source as Haake played.
In the July edition of Modern Drummer magazine, Haake was named the number one drummer in the "Metal" category, as decided upon in the magazine's 2008 Readers' Poll.
Haake also provides spoken vocals on Meshuggah guitarist Fredrik Thordendal's solo album Sol Niger Within and vocals on the song "Futile Bread Machine (Campfire Version)" from The True Human Design.
In 2012, Haake was named the 5th best Modern Metal drummer by MetalSucks.net
Read more about this topic: Tomas Haake
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