Thomas Pridgen

Pridgen won the Guitar Center Drum-Off at age nine, and at age ten was the youngest recipient for a Zildjian endorsement in the nearly 400-year history of the company. Pridgen is also naturally left-handed, but plays the drum kit as if he is a right-hander with his kit set-up right-handed. Pridgen has studied with David Garibaldi, Walfredo Reyes Sr., Troy Lucketta, and Curtis Nutall. He endorses DW Drums, Zildjian Cymbals, Evans Drumheads, Audix Microphones, and Zildjian Drumsticks (as of 2017). Pridgen was also the recipient of a four-year scholarship to Berklee College of Music in 1999 at the age of 15; he was the youngest musician to ever receive this scholarship. He has played in clinics with Walfredo Reyes Jr. and Dennis Chambers. By his teenage years he had already done studio sessions with many Bay Area Gospel artists. Pridgen's first non-gospel touring experience was as the drummer for The Coup, who he worked with in 2001 and 2002. In 2006, Pridgen received a call from Omar Rodríguez-López of The Mars Volta:

"Omar asked if I wanted to come check out the band," Pridgen recalls from his home in El Cerrito, California. "We talked on the phone for a couple of hours, and then I went to Ohio to meet them. Omar invited me to a back room, where the whole band was set up. We jammed for a good thirty minutes. …