Watch prog metallic legend Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater) try to play alongside to Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off with completely no concept what he is listening to

By his personal admission, Dream Theater‘s Mike Portnoy does not take heed to pop music, so when the nice individuals at ever-entertaining drummer’s web site Drumeo set him a problem of taking part in alongside to Taylor Swift’s world mega-hit Shake It Off, with out revealing what he was listening to, the prog-metal maestro was greater than slightly confused. Not least when he is advised that the tune has already had 3.3 billion views on YouTube.

“It feels like one thing out of Disneyland in Japan,” he muses, after recording a primary take drum half which he admits “is like utterly pissing throughout another person’s artwork.”

“In my world you’ve got a guitar solo, a keyboard solo, possibly a bass solo,” he provides, listening to the monitor with out its rhythm monitor. “This has a chat solo. What sort of world is that this that we’re residing in?”

Baffled as he could also be, Portnoy – whose CV additionally contains Liquid Pressure Experiment, Flying Colours, The Vineyard Canine, and a 5 yr stint with Avenged Sevenfold – gamely makes an attempt to play what he imagines the drums on the tune could sound like, which, surprisingly, bears little resemblance to what the drums on the tune really sound like.

When the identify of the tune and the artist who recorded it’s revealed to Portnoy, the drummer seems suitably mortified.

“Oh my god, that is Taylor Swift?” he gasps. “Like, solely the most important artist on earth! Wow, I had no concept.”

“Taylor, I am actually sorry,” he continues “I nonetheless would play with you in a heartbeat. I swear I would not try this! I am sorry I completely ruined your tune.”