Top 10 Left-Handed & Open-Handed Metal Drummers | MetalForge

The best left-handed and open-handed metal drummers, ranked. Bill Ward, Charlie Benante, Mike Mangini, Hannes Grossmann, Matt Halpern and more — metal's rarest attribute-based drumming ranking, covering true left-handers, open-handed technique, and ambidextrous mastery.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the best left-handed metal drummer?

Bill Ward of Black Sabbath and Charlie Benante of Anthrax are metal's two clearest examples of genuinely left-handed drummers, both playing standard right-handed kits throughout their careers. Ward's natural left-handedness, combined with the open-handed technique he developed out of necessity in 1960s Birmingham, shaped the loose, swinging feel of Black Sabbath's foundational riffs. Benante's left-handed-on-a-right-handed-kit setup forced the unconventional limb independence behind thrash metal's skank beat.

What is open-handed drumming?

Open-handed drumming means playing the hi-hat with the non-dominant hand instead of crossing it over the dominant hand's snare arm — the crossed setup most drummers learn first. It is a technique choice available to drummers of any handedness, not an indicator of natural left-handedness: Hannes Grossmann and Matt Halpern are metal's most studied open-handed players, and both use the technique specifically to unlock voicings and hand independence a crossed-arm setup cannot achieve.

Are there many left-handed drummers in metal?

True left-handed metal drummers are rare at the genre's top level — most left-handed players either learn on a standard right-handed kit as though they were right-handed, or develop workarounds like open-handed technique rather than playing a fully mirrored left-handed kit. Bill Ward and Charlie Benante remain the clearest documented examples of natural left-handers in metal's upper tier, which is why this list also includes open-handed specialists, an ambidextrous world-record holder, and right-handed drummers whose off-hand technique is exceptionally well developed.

What's the difference between left-handed, open-handed, and ambidextrous drumming?

Left-handed means a drummer's natural dominant hand is the left — Bill Ward and Charlie Benante are metal's clearest examples, both playing standard right-handed kits despite their left-handed dominance. Open-handed means leading with the non-dominant hand on the hi-hat instead of crossing it over — a stylistic choice used by drummers of any handedness, including right-handers like Hannes Grossmann and Matt Halpern. Ambidextrous means genuinely equal proficiency in both hands, the rarest of the three — Mike Mangini's world-record-verified two-handed equality is the clearest documented case in metal.

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1. Bill Ward — Metal's founding left-hander — the original open-handed groove. Bill Ward is the clearest case of a genuinely left-handed drummer in metal history: born left-handed, he taught himself on a standard right-handed kit in 1960s Birmingham because dedicated left-handed kits were not commercially available, and the open-handed workaround he developed became inseparable from Black Sabbath's early swing-based feel. His left-handed touch is audible in the loose, human microtiming of "Iron Man" and "War Pigs" — fills that a natural right-hander playing the same kit would have voiced completely differently. Ward earns rank #1 as the drummer whose natural left-handedness most directly shaped the sound of an entire genre's birth.
2. Charlie Benante — Thrash's left-handed architect — the skank beat from an unconventional setup. Charlie Benante is one of the only unambiguously left-handed drummers in metal's upper tier, playing a conventional right-handed Tama kit throughout his Anthrax career despite his natural handedness running the opposite direction. That mismatch forced him to develop unusual limb independence early, directly connected to his most famous contribution to metal's rhythmic vocabulary: the thrash "skank beat," a syncopated, punk-derived pattern that required exactly the kind of unconventional coordination his left-handed-on-a-right-handed-kit setup demanded. Benante earns rank #2 for building one of thrash metal's foundational rhythmic innovations directly out of his own handedness mismatch.
3. Mike Mangini — Ambidextrous by design — world-record speed from either hand. Mike Mangini is drumming's clearest documented case of true ambidexterity: equal, world-record-verified proficiency with both hands, built through decades of scientific, biomechanics-informed practice. His 2005 Guinness World Record of 1,203 single strokes in 60 seconds was set using technique that does not favor a dominant hand, and his "Rhythm Knowledge" educational system treats both hands as functionally interchangeable tools for constructing polyrhythmic phrases. Applied to Dream Theater's most technically demanding material, that ambidextrous foundation lets him execute passages that would force a hand-dominant drummer into audible compromises. Mangini earns rank #3 for the most rigorously documented two-handed equality in metal drumming.
4. Hannes Grossmann — Open-handed technique's modern death metal standard-bearer. Hannes Grossmann is metal's most widely studied open-handed technical death metal drummer, regularly leading with his non-dominant hand on hi-hat or ride rather than crossing it over his snare hand — a deliberate technique choice, not a product of natural left-handedness, that unlocks voicings and independent limb combinations a traditional crossed-hands setup cannot reach. His open-handed patterns are most audible on Obscura's "Cosmogenesis" (2009) and "Omnivium" (2011), where the technique lets him sustain ghost-note-dense polyrhythms without the ergonomic strain crossed-arm playing would introduce at those speeds. Grossmann earns rank #4 as the drummer who has done the most to bring open-handed technique into mainstream technical death metal vocabulary.
5. Matt Halpern — Djent's open-handed hi-hat pioneer. Matt Halpern uses open-handed technique on his hi-hat work throughout Periphery's catalog, a documented stylistic choice that lets him maintain ghost-note density and dynamic control on patterns that would otherwise force a compromise between hi-hat articulation and snare-hand independence. That approach is central to the riff-locked, ghost-note-saturated vocabulary Halpern helped invent for djent, most audible on tracks like "Masamune" where his non-crossed hi-hat hand runs a continuous 16th-note ghost-note stream independent of a constantly shifting kick pattern. Halpern earns rank #5 for extending open-handed technique into progressive metal's most rhythmically demanding modern subgenre.
6. George Kollias — Right-handed, but off-hand independence at a death metal extreme. George Kollias is right-handed, not left-handed, but his left-hand displacement patterns over steady double-bass foundations are studied throughout extreme metal as some of the most independently developed off-hand technique the genre has produced. Where many death metal drummers treat the non-dominant hand as a simple timekeeper, Kollias uses it to layer displaced accents against his own relentless kick patterns — a level of four-limb independence that earns him a place on this list for off-hand mastery even without sharing Ward's or Benante's natural left-handedness. Kollias earns rank #6 for off-hand independence at technical death metal's outer speed limits.
7. Kevin Talley — Right-handed, but a two-handed blast built on perfect symmetry. Kevin Talley is right-handed, but his signature two-handed blast technique — both hands striking the snare simultaneously or in tight alternation while the double bass drives underneath — demands genuinely symmetrical strength, stick height, and wrist mechanics between his dominant and non-dominant hand, because any imbalance becomes audible instantly at the 220+ BPM tempos he sustains with Dying Fetus and Misery Index. That symmetry requirement makes his non-dominant hand development some of the most rigorous in grindcore-adjacent death metal. Talley earns rank #7 for building an entire signature technique around eliminating the usual gap between a drummer's dominant and weaker hand.
8. Matt Garstka — Right-handed, but a left-hand ghost-note architect inside impossible polyrhythms. Matt Garstka is right-handed, but his left-hand ghost-note vocabulary is central to how he makes Animals as Leaders' polyrhythms feel like groove rather than a math exercise. On "Monomyth," his non-dominant hand fills the space between loud backbeats with quiet strokes and buzzed accents borrowed from jazz and gospel-chops playing, requiring his off hand to operate almost as an independent rhythmic voice while his dominant hand and both feet track separate polyrhythmic groupings. Garstka earns rank #8 for off-hand ghost-note density that few progressive metal drummers attempt at his level of polyrhythmic complexity.
9. Paul Mazurkiewicz — Right-handed, but traditional grip's extreme metal holdout. Paul Mazurkiewicz is right-handed, but he has used traditional (conventional) grip since Cannibal Corpse's 1990 debut "Eaten Back to Life" — an angled, jazz-derived left-hand position that nearly every death metal drummer of his generation abandoned in favor of matched grip's symmetric power. That grip choice was already an outlier in extreme metal by 1990, and it defines the specific character of his snare voice: a distinct stroke articulation and dynamic feel on backbeats that audiences learned to associate with Cannibal Corpse specifically. Mazurkiewicz earns rank #9 for sustaining an unconventional left-hand grip choice across more than three decades of brutal death metal.
10. Travis Orbin — Right-handed, but a left-hand interior voice inside djent's riff-lock. Travis Orbin is right-handed, but his left-hand ghost-note work functions as a genuine interior voice within Periphery's riff-locked djent patterns — precisely calibrated dynamic strokes placed between the dominant hand's main groove, requiring off-hand control that separates djent's most studied drummers from its merely fast ones. Combined with his powerful left-hand backbeats and a right-hand-driven ride approach, Orbin's hand independence helped define the genre's early rhythmic vocabulary on Periphery's self-titled 2010 debut. Orbin earns rank #10 for off-hand precision that helped establish djent's core drumming template.

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