Career
Sullivan grew up and lived in Huntington Beach California. He received his first pair of drum sticks at the age of four and own drum set at the age of ten. In high school, he started playing in bands. Before leaving to join Avenged Sevenfold as one of the band's founding members, Sullivan was the drummer for the third wave ska band Suburban Legends. At the age of eighteen he recorded his first album with Avenged Sevenfold titled Sounding the Seventh Trumpet. His early influences included Frank Zappa and King Crimson. The Rev said in a Modern Drummer Magazine interview that "I was raised on that stuff as much as rock and metal."
Later in life he was influenced by drummers Vinnie Paul, Mike Portnoy, Dave Lombardo, Lars Ulrich, and Terry Bozzio. He even had a "visual influence", Tommy Lee, on which he commented that "I never thought I'd have one of those." Sullivan had a signature ability called 'the double-ride thing', "just for lack of a better definition". 'the double-ride thing' is a technique that can be heard on tracks such as "Almost Easy", "Critical Acclaim", "Crossroads", and "Dancing Dead" in which Sullivan doubles up at a fast tempo between the double bass and ride cymbals.
The Rev was also a vocalist, songwriter, and pianist for Avenged Sevenfold. His piano-playing can be heard on the tracks "Seize the Day", "Fiction", "Save Me" and "Warmness on the Soul". His vocals are featured in Avenged Sevenfold's "A Little Piece of Heaven", "Brompton Cocktail", "Critical Acclaim", "Crossroads", "Gunslinger", "Lost", "Scream", "Afterlife", "Save Me", "Eternal Rest", "Flash of The Blade", "Strength of the World", "Bat Country", "Almost Easy" and "Fiction". He also wrote the songs "Almost Easy", "A Little Piece of Heaven", "Afterlife", "Fiction", "Welcome to the Family," the piano part of "Save Me", "Demons", "Fiction, and more.
Avenged Sevenfold also released a demo version of Nightmare, featuring The Rev on an electric drumset and some vocals of his.
At the second annual Revolver Golden God Awards, The Rev won the award for Best Drummer. His family members and Avenged Sevenfold received the honor on his behalf.
Read more about this topic: The Rev
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
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“Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman’s natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)