Des Kensel plays drums in power trio High On Fire. Mammoth riffs and gargantuan grooves reign supreme, while Des Kensel wages a furiously heavy and constantly catchy assault with his Pearl maple kit. Says Kensel: "I used to play a five-piece with a double kick pedal, but now I play a four-piece with a single pedal. My style has progressed."



Des Raised in New Haven, Connecticut, Kensel picked up the drums at age ten and grew up listening to a cocktail of metal, rock, and punk.



By fifteen, Des Kensel was a regular at New York's CBGB. A friend from high school worked the sound there and sneaked him in. He remembered that once, while drinking at the bar at 5 a.m., a metal chick started dancing in front of him. "After that, it sucked me into the lifestyle," he said. In 1996, he threw his drums in his car and drove out to the Bay Area.



A couple of years later, Des Kensel and former Sleep frontman Matt Pike both were looking for someone to play with. Hooked up by a mutual friend, they clicked immediately. Pike's friend George Rice auditioned on vocals but took up the bass instead, so Pike became a singer for the first time.



It started off casually, but High on Fire would go on to become more popular than Sleep...