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Yael Benzaken is an independent drummer that hasn't stopped touring or recording since 1990. Starting out in NYC while still in high school delivering pizza pies - she joined Mercenary Music Artists, Meanstreak after the recording of "roadkill" with producer Alex Perialas(Anthrax, Overkill). Yael later introduced her bandmates to her mates in Dream theater which led to 3 weddings Mike + Marlene Portnoy, John +Rena Petrucci and Lisa n' John Myung. During those years, Yael was special guested on stage playing Metallica songs one night with James Hettfield, and Overkill songs with Bobby Gustoffsen. Mike Portnoy produced their last demo with Rob "wacko" Hunter engineering it.



Meanstreak toured and played with acts Motorhead, Iron Maiden, King Diamond and Anthrax to name a few all which led to her first endorsements starting with Paiste cymbals in 1992, and LP in '94. She then played a one-off appearance at the Limelight during Lalapalooza which lead to a close friend of Yael's Fish Fisher (Fishbone, Justin Timberlake, Wicked Wisdom) asking her to sit in on the palooza all-star jam...This was a historic day for Yael as she got to play drums with one of her hero's Layne Stayley. Jerry Cantrell was in/out of the jam b/c of amp problems but he was on that stage and the pit was 2000 people wide in the infamous x-church turned club in the heart of NYC. She later also sat in with Fishbone for a short leg of a 3 week US run on Fish's last tour with Fishbone.



The Limelight Jam included playing with Arrested Development,alice in chains and Fishbone members...There were atleast 12 guys on stage and Yael. On that night she met with a producer that wanted "beats" and entered the world of World Music and Hip Hop. Straight outta heavy metal into the world of Click tracks, playing with loops, and layers of vocals. These became the years of recording and playing upscale shows in Theatres vs. Rock clubs. and upscale studios, from the garage days to the Powerstation. The band that formed was called 1stborn7. Cedel Johnson on piano/keys, Boots (Janet Jackson,BobbyBrown) on guitar - James the Greek on bass and 7 on lead vocals with Toni Ridley on backups. They entered Avatar studios and recorded a song called "One Love" along with 16 other songs working with Pino Paladino (peter gabriel,the who) on bass in the studio. He gave Yael a gem of advice, He said, "If this was easy, everyone would be doing it!" The band played in Morocco 3x a year for 4 years and had the song released in an Italian movie called Amorrato.



Yael Benzaken also had recorded with producer and friend Nik Chinboukas, in a project called SwoCo. which took her back to the Bonham roots and she started a band with Tom Jude, Phillippe Casseus and Chris Rags called Drain NYC. They later changed their name to Tung and toured around a bit signing with an Indie label recording at Unique studios in NYC with George and Josh producing. (same guys that were producing Madonna records and wanted a more "rock" label).



After hammering away and getting compared to everything form Kings X, living colour, Alice in chains to Hendrix, they kept trying to get the right deal and the hunger fizzled out for the band. In 2000, Yael moved to LA to pursue music further and joined forces with My Ruin which happened very quickly. They toured across the U.S. and played in the UK. On the first tour out, they recorded a live album, To Britain with love and Bruises, on Snapper Records. They signed a deal with Century Media and later recorded the follow up record "The Horror of Beauty" and toured that album cycle, and shot a video for their single "made to measure". After leaving the label, the band switched bass players and continued working, playing local shows, and recording The Brutal Language., Yael and Johny Chow left the band at the end of the making of the record and My Ruin got Jason Brunk to play drums after Mick Murphy re-recorded the drum and bass tracks. Matt Cavalier is now the new drummer for My Ruin. Johny Chow joined fireball ministry.



Yael Benzaken started to play on sessions and touring with other projects not tying herself down to any one project since Jan 2005. Fish called her up when he got the Timberlake gig and asked if Yael would audition for his gig with Res for the upcoming Miller concert series tour. Yael got the gig and played drums on the Miller tour with Talib Kweli, Res and Jean Grae.



This touring ties back into seeing all the 1stborn7 producers and friends again. They played the U.S. east to west n' Yael layed down some tracks with them and met Colin Wolfe (Anastasia, James Brown, the Creins) bassist extraordinaaire. After they toured together. Colin gave Yael an ipod with 4 songs he wrote that were way heavier than what they just played. It was a flight from DC to LA. They went and played a show two days later with Spacey T. on guitar and Bru on keys (Fishbone) and called it the Creins. They recorded 10 songs at Optimum sound studios and Colin used some of the music for his video game adventures and commercials. At the same time, Yael also got a call from another old friend to come back to NY to record with Anna Phoebe from TSO (transiberian Orchestra) on electric violin and lay down some tracks. This project found Yael on a plane to Montreal to track more "world drumming" with new producers and opening more doors.



This lead to going back to NYC and LA - recording some solo material for a Drum dvd that she's working on, called DrumAddict Inc., and a project called One's self, with producer and optimum sound recording studios owner in Los Angeles, Yury Anisonyan, which has the world music twist and the double kickdrum mayhem thrown in for good measure. Nothing a female drummer has ever done before, in the public anyway. This will not be a drum video that looks like the rest. DW, Remo, Regal tip and Paiste all stepped it up a notch and Yael got more involved wih her compainies and developing ideas on some new products. Enter the prototype world.



Yael Benzaken was asked to go back to NYC again and record with NIk Chinboukas producing Chris Caffery's solo record, pins and needles, to be released March 23rd,2007 on metal haven records in Europe. there is a sample of "metal east" , an instrumental version of what's to come on Chris's record on dwdrums.com on Yael's music tab, under artist profiles, and featured artists. On this recording Yael got to meet almost all the musicians from TSO, flux quartet and She has already

been asked to play drums on a couple tracks for the upcoming Alex Skolnik (Testament, TSO, JazzTrio) record in June 07. During the months of October and November 2006 she toured again with Johny Chow sitting in on drums with Fireball Ministry for the triiple threat tour. Across the U.S. again. and back to NY to film a pilot for NBC in a house band with former touring buddy Jennifer Arroyo (suicide city,x-kittie). There will be more filming and editing completed and release dates by the end of 2007.



As for the bastard fairies...Yael hooked up with Robin Davey and the davey bros in 2005 from the UK. Their producer Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) and mick rossi management contacted Yael after the miller tour to play with the davey bros. The project is on a legal hold and Robin uses Yael's percussive drumming in his side project known as the bastard fairies. They did several underground shows and a small west coast tour in the summer of 2006 from LA to new mexico. This is dark and very non-traditional set ups on drums live and a must - see to believe show.... stay tuned for more fairies and more davey bros. news.