Singing drummers are hard to come by, especially playing drum parts as intricate as those Keny Godoy plays. And yet, his drums and vocals have been the backbone of melodic death metal band Blackstone for over 25 years. His drum skills are also put to good use in other extreme metal bands, such as Demise, Imitheos and Noctis Imperium. Godoy gives us a glimpse into his influences, the challenges of doing drums and vocals at the same time, practicing without a kit, and the upcoming fourth Blackstone album.

“When I was a teenager, I was inspired by hard rock music”, Godoy says. “At the time, I wasn’t even playing any instruments yet, just listening to hard rock bands like Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith, Mötley Crüe, those kinds of bands. But then, I discovered thrash and death metal. And that was the thing that really fucked me up, haha! I wanted to play like those guys!

I started in 1994, playing bass in a local band. It was really raw early death metal stuff. And then, in 1997, that’s when I started playing drums. I was always interested in playing drums, because I always felt the energy and the power of playing drums. I always liked the aggressive parts of the drums in that style of music.

Then, in 2000, we started out Blackstone. We intended to get a vocalist into the band, but we never really found someone we felt comfortable with. In order to keep evolving the band, I decided to continue writing lyrics, and guiding the band with my vocals while playing drums in the rehearsal room. Then, my band mates said: while don’t you just keep doing the vocals while playing drums at the same time?”

The Same Level of Power

“It required a lot of practice, but I knew it wasn’t impossible. If you just practice, everything is possible. It wasn’t easy in the beginning, but I got more comfortable doing it. It’s still easier for me trying to sing while I’m playing polkas. I can breathe and sing along with that rhythm a little more easily. But when I have to do a fill or blastbeats, your breathing gets heavier, and it becomes more difficult.

But you can always get better with practice. I’m still working on it, trying to keep the drums and the vocals at the same level of power, and not sound like I’m tired while I’m singing. People always ask me: how can you sing and play drums in that style at the same time? It’s just practice. Like everything in life.

When we write the music, I start thinking of how the vocal lines must be. Then I just try to adapt the lyrics to those vocal lines. Sometimes I want to play a fill, for example on an extreme part, and I also want there to be vocals on top of that. But the problem is live, because you have to deliver the vocals and drums with the same amount of power. I have to be balanced for what I’m singing and what I’m playing.”

Mix of Styles and Influences

“Maybe in the beginning, when we had just started Blackstone, everyone in the band had different influences. Like I said, I was more into thrash and death metal. The other members were more into hard rock and heavy metal. Maybe there is a mix of styles in the band because of that. You can hear it on our first album ‘Spectrum’, from 2002. It was more melodic. But then, in 2006, with our second album ‘Spiritual Waste’, we evolved into a more Swedish style of death metal.

Our third album ‘Devoid of Humanity’, from 2012, is more complex. It’s a mixture of a lot of styles. More progressive, more extreme metal, more blastbeats, more technical death metal. I think it’s the mix of styles and influences that makes the music we play nowadays. Our main influences in the beginning were At the Gates, early Dark Tranquillity, early In Flames, Children of Bodom… My main influence is Dan Swanö from Edge of Sanity. All those bands doing melodic stuff. Mostly Swedish bands.

And old school American death metal. Like Morbid Angel, Death, Deicide, Obituary… Those kinds of bands were always my influences. But within the band, everyone had their own influences, me being the one who was mostly into death metal. The other guys were more into heavy and thrash metal and hard rock.”

The Only Way You Can Move Forward

“I started out with no drums. Just hearing the music and practicing in my room with my drum sticks, listening to all the bands that I loved to hear, and learning from their drummers. I bought my first drum set maybe ten years after I started playing drums. In the beginning, I just played drums in the rehearsal room. When I got my drum kit, I practiced at home, but not so frequently, to be honest. Most time I spent practicing was in the studio, with the entire band. The only way you can move forward is playing with other musicians.

At the moment, I play a Tama Rockstar five-piece kit. With two cymbals, crash, a china; a basic set-up, really. And a double pedal. I’m not really into playing with two bass drums. I got used to playing double pedals since the beginning, so it has become more comfortable for me that way. Also, it means it’s not so much stuff to carry around.

Then, there is a microphone stand on the left side. The position of it is very important. There is always the risk of hitting the microphone with the sticks. So I have put the microphone in a way that doesn’t interrupt the direction in which my sticks go. Maybe I need to have a headset microphone, but I don’t know, I just got used to the microphone with the stand. Like the old guys, haha! Like Mike Browning, like Chris Reifert from Autopsy. It’s not always easy, but with practice, you start to get comfortable with that.”

Different Responsibilities

“We are from Los Teques, the capital of the state of Miranda, which is around twenty minutes from Caracas. It’s not a bit city like Caracas, but it’s a normal city, I would say. There were small clubs here. Some were bigger, some were smaller. But we mostly played in the capitals of different states: Valencia, Barquisimeto, Caracas… We did play a lot of small clubs here in Los Teques in the beginning.

In some cases, we had really good backlines. It depends on the producers who organize the show. It often happens that you come to a place, look at the equipment, and it’s not what you expect. But that’s rock ‘n’ roll. You have to play with it, or you don’t play. The equipment itself is good, in most cases. That’s really important for us to bring a good show to the people: good amplifiers, good engineers, a good sound, all that stuff.

For me, it’s very important to have a huge monitor near me. There are times you can’t hear anything, and you know you’re going to have to play from memory, and just wish all your band mates can hear you, so there are no big mistakes.

There are still some places we haven’t played, but we want to play. For example: a couple of weeks ago, we played in Barquisimeto for the first time. They received us really well. We want to play in other cities as well. But because everyone in the band has different responsibilities, like their jobs, there is often that’s keeping us from playing all the places we want to play. Maybe we can play outside of Venezuela at some point as well.”

Extreme in Their Own Ways

“I did play in Barquisimeto around 2012 with a band called Demise, in which I also play the drums, and with a band called Noctis Imperium. They are really good friends. I really like Noctis Imperium’s style, because I got into black metal as well. When I knew they recorded with Nicholas Barker from Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth, and when they asked me if I could play the drums with them for a show, I was really excited to play the Barker parts. That’s the style I like to play well: extreme metal drums.

Demise started before Blackstone did, back in 1994. I knew them, and I always liked them. Their founding guitarist Bernardo König is a friend of mine. He is also from Los Teques. They disbanded around 1999, and then he reactivated the band in 2005, while he also played rhythm guitar in Blackstone, with the same vocalist from the beginning, Alvaro Parra.

He asked me if I wanted to play drums for Demise. I said: yeah, of course! We started rehearsing, writing new music, recording several albums with the band. Then, around 2017 or 2018, Bernardo left Venezuela and moved to Chile, where he is originally from. Alvaro moved to North Carolina. Rhythm guitarist Rubén Granadillo also moved to the United States, the bassist is in Mexico… So we are now a band that exists only to record albums. But the important thing is that we are still making music that we like. Of course, I miss playing live with them.

Since I don’t sing in Demise, I can play more extreme, or more difficult parts. That demands more technicality, aside from Demise’s music being more extreme: more blastbeats, more double bass. Blackstone is a little more melodic, and there are more different parts. Both bands are extreme in their own ways. I’m always learning playing different kinds of music with different musicians. They give you new influences, and it always improves your musicianship. And I really enjoy that.”

Flowing Better with the Style of Music

“I feel more comfortable singing in English. I don’t know why. Maybe someday I will write something in Spanish. But to be honest, writing and singing in English feels more comfortable to me, because there is always that pronunciation that flows better with the style of music we create. Apart from that, more people can listen to us and understand what we are singing when we do it in English.

The way I learned English was reading the lyrics in album booklets, and also from video games. I always liked video games. And in the beginning, there was no internet to look up what I had to do in those games. I had to look it up in the dictionary. And that was the way that I learned. That way, I feel that I wanted to write lyrics in the style of the bands I listened to, with that language.

This is the first time I’m being interviewed in English. My wife Rebeca (Flores) had a television program before she started Documetal that was called Generación X, and I was the host of that program. There was a time when different bands came to our country, and I had to interview those bands in English. But when you are the interviewer, it’s different!”

The Heavy Weight of Writing All the Music

“Apart from the drums, I also play the guitar. We’re working on a new album that we hope to release this year, and I have written all the music on guitar. We are currently working on the pre-production, with all the drums programmed. Later this year, we are planning to record it. I will record the drums and the basic rhythm guitars, because I wrote most of the songs for this next album.

‘Devoid of Humanity’ was a collaboration from all of us. I wrote five or six songs for it on guitar, and then in rehearsal, we all gather and make the music together. But for this next album, I have the heavy weight of writing all the music on my shoulders. Joel Vegas, who started the band with me in 2000, was the one who wrote most of the compositions with me since the beginning, but he left the band last year for personal reasons.

When Joel left, I decided I wanted to carry on with the band, and I had some songs written on guitar that I wanted to bring to Blackstone. It’s not as melodic as in the beginning; it’s more thrash and old school death metal-oriented. Like I always liked it, haha! It has more groove, more progressive parts too, but always keeping in line with the style of the band.”

Just Frozen in Time

“Our bassist Carlos Aular has been in the band with me since 2003. He entered the band during the recording process of our second album, and he has stayed in the band since then. Our two guitarists our very young people. Richard Buitrago is 28 years old, and he is the lead guitarist, doing the job that Joel Vegas used to be doing. Very difficult solos. He has to put in the work, haha!

The last member to join the band is Alejandro Andrade. He is 24 years old, and he is from another band from Los Teques called Artypics. It’s very good to have young people, young blood in the band. It gives us a fresh mood, and keeps us motivated the create new music. So the band consists of two old guys and two young guys nowadays, haha!

In 2014, we didn’t split up; we just got frozen in time, because everyone had to take care of their families. We all got married, got kids, then there was the situation in the country… In my case, I kept playing music, but with different music, different bands. But in 2024, Joel Vegas and me, the only remaining original members, decided to reactivate the band.

It was great. We had new ideas, a lot of them, in a very short time. Some of our friends and producers said: there are some shows you have to play again! Last year, we had around six shows. Also, we did our first streaming video for Venezuela Metal Fest. It was a great experience. We wanted to record a bunch of videos, but we always focused most on recording albums, on the music.”

Many thanks to Joad Manuel Jiménez for his help setting up this interview.