Jost Nickel is a well known musician in his native country of Germany and his reputation is rapidly spreading worldwide. His name appears in the credits of many hit records at home as well as France where Jost has played drums alongside Abe Laboriel Jr. and Manu Katché on some of the country‘s top-selling albums. In the nineties, Jost's career got a real boost when he joined the German fusion band Matalex. He recorded all but one of Matalex's albums (two of them featured Randy Brecker on trumpet), the first one being the exception, which instead of Jost featured the one and only Steve Smith. Jost began to expand beyond his native homeland when he toured with the great guitar player Barry Finnerty, whose studio lineage and tenure with Miles Davis helped draw substantial audiences. Most recently, Jost began a creative relationship with German supergroup Jan Delay & Disko No.1 whose last CDs all went straight to Number #1 in the charts.
Jost is known for his punchy, articulate drum sound, which he counterbalances with a jazzy, exotic cymbal wash. It's sort of a "shadows and light" vibe that reflects a cutting edge drummer who keeps one foot steeped in tradition.
Jost has appeared on many drum festivals, including the Meinl Drum Festival, the World Drum Festival Hamburg, and the Musik Messe in Frankfurt. His first appearance at a drum festival in North America was the Montreal Drum Fest in 2010 where the audience gave him a standing ovation. Recently, in 2012, Jost appeared at the PASIC Convention in Texas where he performed for a full house of drummers who heard great things about Jost and were eagerly anticipating an amazing performance. Jost received yet another standing ovation. Days later he followed up his successful PASIC performance with a special two day online streaming Master Class at Mike Johnston’s facility www.mikeslessons.com. Jost broke viewing records with over 8000 people watching from around the world during his scheduled classes.
