In a social media post that fans most likely didn’t see coming, Benighted announced that they were parting ways with drummer Kévin Paradis over what they described as “different ambitions in music.” Though the decision to let him go was final, both sides sounded like the end result was regrettable, given the fact that they’d spent the last seven years making music together.

According to the post, the band was worried that they’d suddenly find themselves without a drummer if some other opportunity were to come along for Paradis, citing “his recent experience with Ne Obliviscaris and his applying for Archspire.”

Kevin Paradis joined Benighted back in 2017 and has been featured on each of the band’s releases since their 2018 EP Dogs Always Bite Harder Than Their Master, with his latest work being on the band’s latest release Ekbom from earlier this year.

In a his own statement, Paradis said he was saddened by the decision to let him go, but that he also understood where his former bandmates were coming from. That being said, he said that there had always been a difference in opinion about making music their career. Paradis wrote that when he joined the band, he told the rest of the guys that he wanted to make a living solely off music, though he claims the rest of the guys said “it wasn’t their goal.” Paradis said both parties knew that difference in opinion would one day cause things to a head.

During his career, the drummer has shown his ability to play fast for long period of time, unofficially breaking world record of strokes played in 1min (1037 strokes) and in 5min (4797 strokes), in the meantime of keeping his former influences in Fusion, Jazz and Rock and Heavy Metal music to bring diversity to his Extreme Metal drumming. Kevin has also shown his sense of creativity with the use of the breathing drum technique  in song I Will Harm by Mithridatic or in drum solo Magma Maléfique ; a sense of creativity that he has also shown in his video “50 shades of blast beat which is a demonstration of how far we can go with the classic Death Metal drumming.