The world’s fastest drummer, Riccardo Merlini took on the challenge of performing DragonForce’s hit song “Through the Fire and Flames.” 

Riccardo Merlini is a skilled drummer, often called the world’s fastest, though he makes no such claims personally. To test his skills, Drumeo invited him to try covering a song of their choice, and they didn’t make it easy. 

He is an Italian drummer and graduated from the Conservatory, is also a student of Mike Mangini (Dream Theater) in Boston. A Teacher, and clinician, Riccardo is also one of the world’s fastest drummers who discovered and developed the fastest hand technique for a human being reaching 400BPM with a single stroke roll.

Riccardo shows his skills every day putting his style on any beat, groove, and song reaching very high approvals and ratings on every social media platform like Instagram, TikTok (with more than a million views in just 1 video), Facebook, and Youtube. Drummers from all over the world study with Riccardo like superstar percussionist Eric Bobo of Cypress Hill study, Mike Reid (drummer for Janet Jackson, Rhianna), and thousands of amateur drummers who want to better their skills. Riccardo is not only a drum teacher, you can also follow his live performances and Clinic tours around the world.

Merlini listens to the song with the drum track left in, as his job is to cover it in the fastest time frame possible. “I think I need to write down something here,” he says while listening. He comments on the song’s complexity and then showcases his writings, which are anything but standard affairs. “The crash stops at the beginning,” Merlini explains. “I just wrote it down, but then, it’s more useful to me to write the storyboard of the song.”

As could be expected from his explanation, Merlini’s notes are a collection of onomatopoeic words spliced with short sketches of fills, or as Merlini explains it, “It’s tupa-tupa, man.”

An hour in, Merlini is having difficulties, yet seems relentless in his pursuit of perfection. Problems arise while he learns the solo’s length, saying he needs to memorize the notes rather than rely on reading. His final take begins a mere 12 minutes later.

Merlini’s performance leaves the Drumeo crew in awe of his memory and skill. His final thoughts about the song indicate he enjoyed the experience, despite the overall difficulty of learning it in an hour.