Bio

For those who don’t already know, I am a freelance Rock drummer. I’ve been professional since 1973…which makes me a little over 40 years of age! … But let’s not talk about THAT! I always believe you are as old as the woman you feel (hehe)!

But seriously…. not long after I turned professional I discovered, in a blinding flash of inspirational light, that most bands were only as good as the person who drank the most, took the most drugs or turned up the latest! This almost invariably turned out to be the SAME person. As I was pretty serious (way too serious for an 18 year old, some said), and wanted to forge a career in the Music Business, I left the uncertain world of bands, and soon gravitated towards the realm of Studio Sessions.

When I first started working in the studio, there were hundreds of “demo studios” in London… places where songwriters went to record “demos” of their latest tunes. I cut my session teeth on working in these places, as well as doing radio sessions for the BBC. The pressure to perform almost instantaneously was good training for the serious album, advert and movie soundtrack sessions I soon found myself doing. By the mid 1980’s I was one of the two top-call session players in the country.

It was about this time that my work came to the attention of Elton John. He expressed an interest in using me on his 1985 album: Ice on Fire. Eventually, I played drums on 2 songs, with a third session a month or so later, to record the duet “Slow Rivers”, which Elton sang with Cliff Richard. During that session Elton asked me to join him for a charity show to be held at Wembley Stadium later in the year. And so, my debut gig with Elton was LiveAid! As we left the stage after our short set, Elton said: ”Lets’ put this band on the road.” And the rest is history. I spent much of the next 13 years as Elton’s regular drummer, recording more than 6 albums and touring the world a dozen times.

Now, life is by no means any less hectic. I am a regular drummer with Classic Rock band, Orleans, as well as another Classic Rock outfit: RPM, whilst managing to record for clients the world over from my own home-based studio in Nashville.