Art Cruz opens up on influences, groove, and Lamb of God rise

Art Cruz did not get to a Modern Drummer cover by way of flash or noise. He got there the old-fashioned way, through East Los Angeles grit, a stack of hard gigs, and a drummer’s instinct for listening as hard as he plays. By the time Lamb of God asked him to fill in on tour in 2018, Cruz had already logged serious miles with Winds of Plague and four years plus four records with Prong, and that background is exactly what makes his story useful to any drummer trying to build something that lasts.

A résumé built before the big call

The cleanest way to understand Cruz is to treat his career like a sequence of earned steps. He came up in the East LA music scene, where his work with Winds of Plague put him in front of real audiences before the metal world had decided what kind of drummer he was. Then came Prong, a stretch that lasted four years and produced four records, which matters because that is the kind of run that teaches you how to show up, adapt, and survive the repetition that separates a working player from a weekend showpiece.

That background is what made the 2018 Lamb of God call so significant. Cruz was not dropped into a band from nowhere. He was already a proven road drummer when Lamb of God brought him in as a fill-in on tour, and the band officially welcomed him as its new drummer on July 19, 2019. The first release to carry his name in that lineup was the band’s 2020 self-titled album, and now he has recorded three Lamb of God albums, including the new Into Oblivion. That is the real arc here: not instant stardom, but a player turning a temporary opening into a long-term seat.

Why his influence list matters

Modern Drummer opens the profile with a telling question, then a telling answer. When asked about his influences, Cruz’s first names were Michael Shrieve, David Garibaldi, Dave Lombardo, Chris Adler, and Poncho Sanchez. That list says almost everything you need to know about the kind of drummer he is becoming.

Shrieve and Garibaldi point to control, phrasing, and deep pocket. Lombardo and Adler bring the precision and aggression metal demands. Poncho Sanchez widens the frame even further, because it signals that Cruz is not thinking only in blast counts and doubles, but in rhythm, articulation, and Latin feel. Add in the podcast detail about his marching band background, and the picture gets clearer: Cruz is building a vocabulary, not just a rep sheet. That is how modern heavy drummers stay relevant once the initial “new guy” narrative wears off.

For players, the lesson is blunt: if your influences all sit in one lane, your playing usually will too. Cruz’s lane has metal in it, obviously, but it also has groove, Latin rhythm, and the kind of cross-genre language that keeps a drummer from sounding boxed in the moment the tempo changes.

How he turned the Lamb of God job into a real role

The part that makes Cruz’s rise feel credible is that he did not just land the gig, he learned how to live inside it. In a March 12, 2026 podcast interview, he talked about tracking drums with producer Josh Wilbur on Into Oblivion, finding his groove in the band, and taking diet, fitness, and serious rehearsal seriously ahead of touring. That is the unglamorous side of the job, and it is exactly where a lot of players either level up or stall out.

Into Oblivion makes the stakes obvious. The album was released on March 13, 2026, runs 39 minutes, and packs 10 songs into that runtime. Lamb of God’s official site has it out now, and the store’s physical editions add another layer for fans who still care about the object itself: the CD ships after March 13 and includes a limited-edition zine with 24 pages of hand-written lyrics and never-before-seen studio photos. There are also deluxe and exclusive vinyl variants. In other words, this is not a side project or a placeholder release. It is a proper album cycle with Cruz at the center of it.

What the June cover says about his standing

Modern Drummer’s June 2026 issue, Volume 50, Number 6, places Cruz on the cover under the feature title “Lamb of God’s Art Cruz: Learning and Listening, Musical Moments, and Healthy Obsessions.” That framing matters. The magazine is not selling him as a novelty, a fill-in, or just a fast right foot. It is presenting him as a drummer whose career has been built on learning, listening, and the habits that keep a heavy band moving at a high level.

The rest of the issue reinforces that sense of Cruz as part of a broader working-drummer conversation. The same issue also covers the Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition, Mid Atlantic Drum Camp scholarship winners, Aerosmith, Isaac Carpenter’s Guns N’ Roses touring kit, and other gear and education departments. Cruz sits in that company because his story works as a practical model: get the gigs, absorb the influences, do the prep, and keep expanding what your hands and feet can say.

That is why Cruz’s path lands with more weight than a simple cover profile. The 2018 call was only the spark. The real story is everything that came before it, from East LA to Prong to the first Lamb of God record, and everything he has done since to make sure the band’s newest era sounds like a permanent chapter, not a temporary fix.