Overnight success is increasingly becoming the only route to making an impact in the music business - write a hit, make a splash and ride the wave.

But the heavy metal world is a different beast and headline bands like Mastodon, Slipknot and Lamb Of God have worked hard for years to become masters in their field, just like their forebears Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Metallica did before them.

Something that also unites each of these bands is the calibre of their drummers - Nicko, Lars, Brann Dailor, Joey Jordison et al are all icons in their own right, blending virtuosity and originality with personality behind the kit. While drummers of this pedigree are rare, there’s a new name now dining at metal’s top table; and he earned his stripes early. To tell his story, we need to head to the south west corner of France, to a small coastal village called Ondres.

In a lone house set in the woods a driven young Metallica fan named Mario sat behind his first drum kit and set about imitating his hard-hitting heroes like Sepultura’s Igor Cavalera, Sean Reinert of Death and Metallica’s Danish whirlwind Lars - pretty advanced stuff for an 11-year-old.

Where most metal drummers might settle on the same tired blast beats and recycled double-bass licks, Mario was determined to be more of a creative force. Case in point: when perfecting his double bass-drum technique, Mario spent years studying pedal action, muscle use and motion to refine his approach. He has become one of the most precise and consistently fast double bass drum players in modern metal. The devil really is in the detail.

Between a brutal practice regime, exposure to jazz drumming and a diverse range of influences, a metal drumming monster was born. Then, at just 14, Mario embraced the musical chemistry he shared with his guitar-playing older brother Joe, and Gojira sprung to life (following a name change from Godzilla in 2001). Between debut album The Link and 2016’s astonishing Magma, the band has risen to dominate the metal world - much the same transformation their heroes Metallica made between Kill ‘Em All and the Black Album.

Mario and Gojira are justifiably proud of their latest release. The band decamped to a new HQ in New York - built by Joe Duplantier - and meticulously crafted every note on the album. The result is 10 tracks of spacious, dramatic and finely-tuned heavy-metal gold. Grammy nominations, excellent reviews and sold-out shows are all proof of this labour-intensive approach, and the band’s continued upward trajectory meant it was no surprise when Mario walked away with Rhythm/MusicRadar’s Best Metal Drummer 2016 award.

Backstage at Bristol Academy during Gojira’s recent UK tour we meet a man with obvious pride in his band’s career to date, particularly this most recent chapter.

What was your childhood like?

“I grew up 7km from Bayonne in a small village called Ondres, with my brother. It’s by the ocean, by the mountains and it’s all about nature. We were also really isolated where our house was, in the middle of the forest by a big lake, with no neighbourhood. On the video for Low Lands from Magma we shot some video over there. You can see a drone at the end, it’s exactly where we grew up, where we composed most of our albums.

“We were five minutes from the ocean so I was there every day at the beach, watching the waves, even during winter time. It’s a great place to connect with nature, but not really with the culture, so we had to self-educate. We would listen to bands from the US and UK.”

Sounds like a beautiful place. Which bands were you listening to early on?

“My mother was American. She was from Wisconsin and grew up in Los Angeles. She was always playing The Beatles, Tina Turner, Michael Jackson. It was not like we were raised by French parents only. My mother had a big impact on our musical culture. After the Beatles my brother fell in love with Metallica and I grew up just listening to Metallica around 11 years old. That was my first shock.

“It was the biggest thing in my life. Through those cassettes and listening to this music we started to dream. My brother and I knew we needed to play music.”

How did you discover drums?

“My brother started playing guitar with a friend at school, he had his own band. I was just 11 or 12 years old. He is five years older than me. Because I was very close with him I was always hanging out in his bedroom and just watching him playing guitar and being really into it. One day, when I really fell in love with Metallica, I took some chopsticks and started to beat everywhere on the table in my room.

“My mother came in and said, ‘Are you interested in drums?’ We jumped in the car to the first music store in the village and we bought a kit.”

After the Beatles my brother fell in love with Metallica and I grew up just listening to Metallica around 11 years old. That was my first shock

How quickly did you develop?

“At 12 years old I started my own band with a friend from school. We played Nirvana covers, Metallica covers and Sepultura. When I turned 13 I was really into death metal. I was very curious about the technique and fascinated by the ability to play fast and do so many tricks. Early on I knew I had this curiosity and perfectionist inside of me. I started my own death metal band with my friend.

“My brother was not into death metal at this time, but one year after this we decided to make our own band together. We both played in bands but we got frustrated because we were so ambitious and we weren’t getting that fulfilment with our separate bands.

“We were always complaining about our band mates! One day we decided to do a band together. We started Godzilla [the band’s name prior to Gojira] when I was 14 years old and he was 19.”

You’d only been playing for two years at this point. Did you take lessons?

“No, I just learned by myself. When I was 15 or 16 we released two or three demos. Then I thought I should take lessons. Again, my mother said, ‘You want to take lessons?’ We jumped in the car and found a drum school. The name of the school was Agostini. It’s a very famous teaching method in France. I took lessons with this guy for seven years. I learned how to play drums with this guy. I was really primitive before that.

“I learned how to play jazz, he taught me how to hit with finesse, less-is-more, dynamics. On the first day he said, ‘We will learn to play smoother.’ After that I started to do the paradiddles and all the rudiments. We had one hour of jazz, one hour of rock, one hour of Afro-Cuban. I learned a bit of everything.”

When I turned 13 I was really into death metal. I was very curious about the technique and fascinated by the ability to play fast and do so many tricks

Did you find you had limitations before taking lessons?

“Oh yeah, a lot. I was playing with my arm a lot, then I learned how to play with my wrists. I also learned you can have a lot of dynamics in the way you play. Sean Reinert of Death [introduced me to] a new dimension of drummer. Even before taking lessons I was listening to this guy and thinking, what is this jazz aspect and this finesse?”

Since 2001 Gojira has released six albums with considerable progression in your playing. What do you think of your drumming when you listen back to, Terra Incognita or The Link?

“I respect every moment of my career. I think it’s an evolution and sometimes I listen to The Link and think, ‘Wow, there are some cool fills.’ On the first album, Terra Incognita, I remember getting into the studio and I had a lot of pressure because it was the first album and it was so important. I only had three days to record everything so I panicked. I was changing my drum pedal every song. I f**ked up all my tracks. I can hear that I was not playing naturally.

“I learned a lesson from it. For The Link I worked a lot and I knew not to change my pedal just before a track. My tracks were better. At this time we didn’t use a lot of Pro Tools, we didn’t fix problems, it was very one-shot. Nowadays everything’s changed. We had one computer, no mobile phone, it was old-school days. It was a real performance when we were recording.

“For The Way Of All Flesh we started to incorporate more modern techniques so we used computers and we sometimes fixed problems on the double kicks. But still, before recording an album I’m working for months. I’m happy with each album, but it’s true that now I need to play simple.

“I have new needs, new desires. I want to serve the music the most I can and I also want to have more fun! I don’t want to impress anyone right now. With The Way Of All Flesh I was always thinking, ‘Look at this crazy pattern, everybody will be impressed!’ That’s not something that occurs to me anymore.”

Drummers can often be led by their ego which distracts them from playing musically…

“To be very honest, I always served the music in the past. I tried to make my fills at the right place, I didn’t go too crazy. But since Magma, since I became a dad, since I lost my mother, I had a revelation about myself; I don’t want to prove anything else. I don’t know why it happened on Magma, but it is a big change for the four of us. It’s hard to describe why. Maybe it’s also because 90 percent of our life is on the road and we’re getting older.

“When you’re playing challenging drum parts you suffer a little bit. Suffering is good also, but when you suffer for something you have to push the limit of yourself. It’s almost like a martial art. I like the discipline behind these drum parts. I love the fact I’ve always got to be on top of my game. I’m always practising my craft. Before going on stage you always have to drink water, be warmed up. It’s a real discipline. I love this, but not anymore. I don’t want to suffer anymore.

“The discipline for each part on the previous albums is huge. It’s a lot of preparation and a lot of stress. I’m such a perfectionist, when I go on stage I want to be perfect. Playing these parts is so demanding. For Magma I thought, ‘You know you can also go on tour and play music with a bit more fun, be more relaxed.’ Magma was this statement from the four of us. We felt the same. With death metal you have this pain, this complexity. When you feel you are changing yourself you find you need less pain, less complexity, less anger.”