Mike Mangini

Mike Mangini started playing the drums when he was two and a half years old. He would practice two to four hours a day and by the time he was nine he was already mimicking Buddy Rich performances. By high school, he was performing in school bands and participating in the prestigious All-County, All-State, and all Eastern United States ensembles. After graduating from Waltham Senior High School in 1981, Mangini put aside his music studies to pursue a computer science major at Bentley University. After graduating Mike started programming software for the Patriot Missile program. At the same time, he was working on a program that studied the links between the human brain and body. In 1987, Mangini scored one of his first 'high-profile' gigs - playing drums for the Rick Berlin Band in Boston, where he worked with bassist Philip Bynoe (who would later go on to work with Mike in sessions for Journey's Steve Perry and more notably during Mike's time in the Steve Vai band). He also taught drums privately in Boston during this time. In 1991, Mangini began working for the thrash metal band Annihilator. Mike performed on the drums on several tracks for the studio album, Set the World on Fire. He went on to tour with the band in support of this album up until 1994. In 1994 he was asked to play with the band Extreme, replacing original drummer Paul Geary. Mike Mangini had been friends with noted Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt since the 1980s. His time in Extreme included recording…