12 Best Hard Rock Drum Solos

Whenever you talk about the best musicians in hard rock, more often than not that honor goes to the guitar player. Though there have been great musicians of every stripe in the hard rock world, many people just want to focus on the guy who's pumping out the riffs. On the other hand, any hard rock fan knows you build a build a great tune from the drums outward.

While many guitar players are musical marvels with their melodic phrasing, it's even harder to get people moving with an instrument that only relies on percussion. When these drummers got behind the kit though, they showed the world that you didn't need to be able to write melodies to be a great musician.

Each of these solos have some degree of finesse, but they also seem to serve a different purpose in each instance. Some may open the song while some may be just breaks in the tension, but the actual showmanship on display here cannot be denied. These not only ended up providing the perfect counterpoint to the guitar freakout, but also inspired legions of drummers to pick up a pair of sticks and bash away on their pillows. The drummer may get a bad rap as the dumb one in the group, but these solos show there is a method to their madness.

For many fans of prog, Dream Theater almost need to be put in their own separate category. It's one thing to make epic songs, but the amount of musicianship that each member of this band possesses is beyond anything most rock musicians can even fathom. Though guitarist John Petrucci may be looked at as the musical genius of the group, Mike Portnoy's drumming is where the real mind-blowing elements of the band really come into view.

Taken from their live album Once in a Livetime, Portnoy's drum solo comes on at the midpoint and takes every rock drummer to school on how to wow an audience. The way that he is able to build up his drum parts almost sounds like there are multiple drummers at play during this one performance. What's even more impressive is the sheer power behind some of these hits, with Portnoy combining the complexity of someone like Neil Peart with the absolute stomp of John Bonham.

For any menial drummer who tries to attempt a performance like this, the amount of work required will leave your body exhausted and your brain fried. Whereas most drummers just provide a heavy groove in 4/4, this type of performance almost requires next level calculus expertise to be performed right.