Columbus native to soon embark on European tour with Swedish metal band

This time next week, Columbus resident Zach Dean will be across the Atlantic, performing with the Swedish metal group Humanity’s Last Breath at some of the biggest venues he’s ever played in.

And this summer, he’ll be traveling back to Europe and to Australia to perform festival shows with another Swedish band called Imminence.

“I kind of play in two Swedish bands right now, which is interesting,” Dean said. “Just a guy from Columbus, Indiana, playing for two bands in Sweden. It’s weird.”

From playing at the Crump to venues in Paris and London, the Columbus native knew he would make it to this point in his musical career. When he’s not hiking in Brown County, at the gym or spending time with friends and his girlfriend, Dean is drumming.

And thanks to years of practice, funds invested and strong motivation, Dean is almost at the point where he can make drumming a full-time career.

“I’ve been playing 24 years, and not only that, I obsess over this thing and I’m so disciplined on it, just every word you can think of, I am just so motivated to play drums and it is literally my life,” Dean said. “I literally feel like it’s why I’m here.”

Dean recalls how his dad and uncle used to be in a rock band called “Torment” when he was around 7 years old. They practiced in the basement a lot, and from upstairs Dean would listen. Though he believes he wasn’t supposed to, Dean one day went down into the basement and was fascinated by his uncle’s drum set.

“… my uncle noticed, I was just staring at him a lot, I think, so they set me behind the drum set when I was around 6, 7 years old, somewhere in there, and I was just amazed looking at all of it,” Dean said. “I guess it started there.”

A friend of his dad’s then showed him how to play a rock beat, and from there, Dean taught himself how to play drums. The only time he received a drum education was through band in middle school. In 2007, he became involved with his first band called “When This Dies,” and they performed at locations around Columbus like the Crump.

“We played at Guitar City too in the parking lot… we played a lot of shows here. We recorded a few songs with my friend Ryan Furr… he’s a video content guy here in Columbus and he has his own business now on Washington Street, but he’s so good at what he does,” Dean said. “But anyway, he was in the band at the time recording us. It was fun.”

His style of drumming blends together the different styles of metal music he listens to and the drummers who have influenced him over the years. He improvises a lot, and when he plays with Humanity’s Last Breath, he incorporates fills and grooves from different genres he listens to, even pop and jazz.

He’s been told he has his own sound, which is what he wants. Dean believes drummers should make their own sound rather than trying to play like somebody else.

“I feel like on the internet a lot of the time, you see a lot of these people, a lot of these younger kids, they’re just trying to sound like this person or the most popular style, just trying to play exactly like that and I think you should go on your own journey and make your own sound,” Dean said.

In addition to performing with bands, Dean writes and records drum parts for other bands too. He attributes the real launch of his musical career to his drum videos that he began posting online in 2014. Those caught traction, especially on Instagram, where one received over 140,000 views, he said.

Those videos, in turn, led to Dean attracting the attention of the Georgia based group Alluvial, who invited him to go on tour with them. He said he went on five tours with Alluvial, four of those being in the United States and the other one in Europe.

“They really helped get me out there. All the touring we did, I ended up getting endorsed with Meinl Cymbals and EVANS Drumheads, two massive companies in the drumming world,” Dean said. “Every musician knows those brands, it’s crazy. So I’m lucky enough to be with those companies and a few others as well, 64 Audio, there’s a few more, but those are the two big ones.”

Meinl Cymbals would post videos of Dean on their social media, and those videos garnered thousands of views and Dean hundreds of subscribers. Dean believes that’s how the Swedish metal group Humanity’s Last Breath, who he already knew of, found him, as one of those new followers was the group’s guitar player.

“His manager reached out to me and asked me if I would do a fill-in tour in Japan and the U.S. earlier last year in April and May,” Dean said. “So I went to Japan and did a full U.S. tour with them and they liked me a lot so they asked me to do more stuff with them.”

Now, Dean will be accompanying the group on a European arena show tour, visiting locations like Germany, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Italy, France, the UK, Denmark and Sweden, to name a few. He feels both nervous and excited about playing in such big venues, but he looks forward to seeing the history, culture and landmarks, trying new food and visiting shops while on this European tour, and of course performing for crowds.

“Every show is really big, the biggest shows I’ve ever played,” Dean said. “Well, I played one really big one in the summer, I played Louder than Life down in Louisville, that was in front of 35,000 people, that was crazy. But indoor venues, this is definitely the biggest tour I’ve ever done.”