If you could go back to the start and teach your younger drumming self one thing, what would it be?

"I’d tell myself to learn to play left-handed as well as right-handed. Neil Peart always tries to do that, and it’s my goal right now to become as fluent left-handed as I am with my right. That’s what I’m trying to do right now, but once you’ve got your style, you’ll never learn to do it. I have so many different styles, because I played jazz for so many years and in a big band, and I studied with a lot of African-American drummers for the funk aspect, but I’d really like to train the right side of my brain to control the left side of my body."

You are part of our 25 drum icons feature. Who else would you choose to include?

"My favourite drummer of all time is Keith Moon, and of course I’d choose John Bonham, Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Dave Lombardo, Pete Sandoval from Morbid Angel, Frost from Satyricon… man, there’s so many. I’m a big fan of Tim Alexander from Primus, too. Dennis Chambers. Dave Weckl. Man, I could go on – there’s been so many over the years, it would take a whole day to list them!"

How do you see the next 25 years of your drumming career panning out?

"I’ll do this until my last breath. It’s what I’ve been put here for: it’s my passion and it’s pretty much my life. Slipknot could go another 20 years, or it could go another two: I don’t know. Our band is like a freight train that’s ready to fall off the tracks at a million miles per hour, but it never does."