Chris Turner hears Paul Simon for the first time
Drumeo handed Oceans Ate Alaska's Chris Turner a Paul Simon track with the drums stripped out. What one of metal's most precise drummers did with it.
Here is a fun premise. Take a drummer known for inhumanly precise metal, hand them a song they have never heard with the drums stripped out, and ask them to write a part on the spot.
That is Drumeo’s For The First Time series, and in July 2026 they pointed it at Chris Turner of Oceans Ate Alaska. The song? Paul Simon’s 1975 hit “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover”.
Why that song is a trap
Anyone who knows the original knows the drum part is the whole point of it. Steve Gadd’s groove on that track is one of the most studied things in drumming — a marching-band-flavoured pattern that sounds simple until you try it and discover it is anything but.
So Chris walks in blind, with no Gadd to lean on, and has to invent something that serves the song.
What he does with it
The interesting part is watching him work rather than watching him play. What is he listening for on the first pass? Where does he decide the backbeat sits? How much does a drummer whose day job is blast beats and double kick pull back when the song obviously wants space?
It is the best possible advert for the thing we bang on about constantly: technique is what lets you play less convincingly, not just more.
Watch it
Final thoughts
Chris has spent a decade being admired for accuracy. This is the clip that shows the musicianship underneath it, and it is worth twenty minutes of anyone’s evening.
If you want to work on the same skill, start slow with our tempo trainer and try writing parts to songs you have muted rather than copying them.
Read our full Chris Turner feature or see his rig in the Rig Vault.