Matt Kuykendall plays drums in Oakland, California metal outfit All Shall Perish. He began playing the drums in 2001 at the age of 16. Recalls Matt: "I think I threw away my rudiment book that came with my first drum set because RLRRLRLL sounded like some cheat code on Sega and i just wanted to play some fucking death metal! Years later I would regret that."



Inspired by aggressive music styles such as grindcore and deathmetal, Matt was heavily influenced by bands like Dying Fetus, Excruciating Terror, Slayer, and Origin, naming Kevin Talley, John Longstreth, Pete Sandoval, Flo Mounier, Dave Lombardo as musical influences. He’s always enjoyed double bass playing or any heavy and more technical side of drumming. Simply put, Matt loves the drums.



Matt Kuykendall has taken a few lessons over the years and they helped him to teach himself: "Honestly, I've been so involved in bands and writing music that serious lessons took a backseat for a while now. It's only in the last 3 years have I really stepped up my playing and started practicing every day and pushing my abilities as a drummer." Initially Matt Kuykendall just listened to songs and tried to play along with some of his favorite cds. Matt quotes: "I did not get serious about playing until I started All Shall Perish in 2002 with my friends Ben and Mike. We wrote and recorded "Hate. Malice. Revenge" and did a tour with Agnostic Front, and a tour with Hate Eternal. We then went on to do the most complex and technically proficient release of our career "The Price of Existence". We toured extensively on this record and it really brought my live performance up to par. The tours included Suicide Silence, Headliner with the Faceless and Arsis, Terror, Throwdown, and Euro tours with Bleeding Through, Red Chord/Through the Eyes of the Eead, Walls of Jericho, and another headliner with Emmure and FASSW."



Matt Kuykendall also changed his approach to performing live. "Up until this point, I had always recorded to a click but never played with one live. We wanted the songs on this new record to always come off perfect live so I felt it was a must for me to start playing every song on our new record to a click. Playing to a click has helped my playing immensely and it’s also opened up my bands sound to limitless sampling possibilities. I now try to practice as much as I can to a click and do a lot of warm up exercises before i play to get my rolls and grooves feeling natural. Practice makes perfect and perfection live is something that attracted me to the genre I play."