Mike Portnoy gets down to this sick beat on a drum cover of Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off."
The Dream Theater drummer is featured in the latest edition of the YouTube channel Drumeo's ongoing series, which challenges drummers to play alongside a song they'd never heard before. Upon being played "Shake It Off," one of Swift's many #1 hits, Portnoy sincerely asked, "Is that something that's popular?"
Once he convinced the Drumeo team that he'd truly never heard "Shake It Off" before, Portnoy went to work figuring out his own parts to the song, adding his prog-metal sensibilities to the pop megahit.
When he learns that the song is by the one-and-only Taylor Swift, Portnoy replied, "Only the biggest artist on Earth!"
"Taylor, I'm really sorry, I still would play with you in a heartbeat," Portnoy said. Referring to his rendition of "Shake It Off," he added, "I swear I wouldn't do that."
Portnoy was previously featured in a Drumeo video in which he learned the Nickelback song "Burn It to the Ground" after hearing it for the first time.
Dream Theater, meanwhile, is releasing a new album called Parasomnia on Feb. 7. It's their first record with Portnoy back in the band since 2009.