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Metal is a pretty furious style of music to pull off without some level of force, especially live, which is why Raymond favours thicker heads for the rigours of the road: "In the studio I'll use one-ply mediums and then on tour the two-ply medium or sometimes heavy heads because when you're doing records it's more about the sound than the durability while on tour it's the other way round."

"Bulletproof rig"

"When you're doing records it's more about the sound than the durability while on tour it's the other way round," Raymond Herrera on heads

As for keeping his kit on the stage he had to customise a standard Tama rack. "We added more bars and clamps to it," he says. "It has curved stainless steel pipes with stable horizontal square legs." Nestled inside this seemingly bulletproof rig is perhaps the most important part of his set-up, the bass drum pedals.

He uses DW5000 dual chain drives. "I started using them when I was 16 and never stopped," he says. "They're not the lightest ones on the market, but they are the most comfortable I have used."

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