October 31, 2025 • 40 mins
Join legendary drummer Simon Phillips for a reflective look through his extraordinary five-decade career in music. From Simon Phillips Music in his early days as a teenage session prodigy in London’s bustling studio scene to becoming one of the most sought-after and influential and drummers in rock and jazz fusion, Simon shares the stories behind the grooves that defined the beat of generations.
We walk through his formative years backing artists in music history like Pete Townshend and The Who, Mick Jagger, Jack Bruce, Whitesnake, Joe Satriani, Mike Oldfield, Tears for Fears, Jeff Beck and Judas Priest, his iconic work with Toto where he brought explosive energy and technical precision to the rhythm of classics both new and old, and his ventures into jazz fusion with his own Protocol Music series and collaborations with players like Dave Weckl and Billy Cobham. He also discusses his recent work with DarWin music.
Simon reflects on the evolution of drumming technology, from acoustic kits to electronic innovations, and how he’s adapted while maintaining his distinctive powerful yet nuanced style of iconic performance .
Along the way, Simon Phillips Music opens up about his drumming and producer techniques and the discipline required to stay at the top of his game, the challenges of balancing touring with studio work, and what keeps him inspired today. From recording sessions with The Who to his current projects and teaching the next generation of drummers, this is Simon Phillips unplugged—candid, insightful, and still very much in the pocket.
We hope you'll find our show an entertaining history podcast on the Iheart Podcast Network.
Support the show: https://takinawalk.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a Walk that created some interesting sounding records or tunes,
let's say, recordings, but nobody would have guessed what I
was thinking of at the time. Yeah, yeah, it's just
I like this cross polonization.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm buzznight and welcome to the Taken a Walk Podcast.
Now you know that feeling when you hear a drum
fill so precise, so musically intelligent, that it makes you
stop whatever you're doing and just listen.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Let's call that the Simon Phillips effect. For over five decades,
from backing Toto through their biggest hits to session work
with everyone from The Hoo to Judas Priest, this British
drumming legend has left his mark on iconic recordings for
his entire career.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
But here's what most people don't know. Behind those thunderous
grooves and jaw dropping chops is a restless creative spirit
who's never been content to rest on his laurels. He
keeps pushing into new sonic territory, lens jazz fusion roots
with contemporary production techniques in ways that would make drummers
(01:05):
half his age envious. And we'll talk to Simon Phillips
next on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Taking a walk.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
The One and only Simon Phillips. Welcome to taking a walk.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Thank you, good to be here, good to be walking.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yes, so we like because of the title of the podcast,
posing this opening question, sir, if you had the opportunity
to take a walk with somebody living or dead, who
would that person be and where would you take that
walk with them?
Speaker 5 (01:42):
Ooh, interesting, interesting question.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Well, it would have to be somebody that's very fit,
because where I live we have lots of trails, hiking trails,
and in fact, I have one that starts literally outside
of outside my game, and I've never done it. You
can actually walk up to the top of the mountains,
the Topatopa Mountains, which is sixty four hundred feet. I've
(02:08):
been up to about three thousand feet and so that's
an hour and a bit. So it's a tough walk
because it's all uphill. So I'd have to take into
consideration somebody that could really do that. That's interesting. I
still think probably one of the most interesting people in
(02:30):
rock and roll still today's Pete Townsend, I think. And
he's fit too, so I always have a wonderful talk
with him whenever we speak. And yeah, I think he
would be the most interesting person in terms of just
(02:53):
a vast, wide range of interests and knowledge, And yeah,
I think that that would be pretty amazing. But there's
a lot of people to choose from also, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Oh, I'd love to be a fly on the wall
for all of them, but certainly with with Pete as well.
You had some spectacular history with with he and the band, didn't.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
You, Yes, absolutely, yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
What do you most fondly recall from those times?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well, the music, obviously, his writing is just spectacular, and
I always say to him, uh, these songs play themselves,
which I'm not sure he takes as a compliment or not,
but I mean it as a compliment because I love
it when a song, you sit down, you hear the tune,
and then you think, you put headphones on and you
(03:46):
you know how, you count in, or you listen to
to a click intro or whatever it is, and it
just seems to sit well, Everything sits well, all the
transitions work, everything is is wonderful. Now. Always love that,
But I think it's our talks outside of music that
I really find fascinating. And I can pick various times
(04:09):
during the times that we've worked together especially when I've
worked with him in a producing sense too.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
We did a project called.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
The Iron Man, and I was when it was eighty seven,
nineteen eighty seven, and so I had some very intimate
conversations during that because it was just us two in
the control room, you know. So those I think those
are what I remember most, you know, and of course
just some of the funny, funny things that he says
(04:37):
and happened.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
And yeah, it's great, Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well, we got a lot to catch up on. We've
got the Supergroup Darwin and that release which I want
to talk about. But the fascinating thing about you, among
many things, is you're constantly, in my view, in a
state of invention and rein mention. What do you suppose
(05:02):
is the driving influence to such curiosity and great creative superpowers.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
I think it's more to do with learning.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I love to always be in a learning situation, and
also now running my own band and even producing records
and engineering them and mixing them. I'm always learning, I
think that's what it is, and always curious to figure
(05:36):
out maybe different ways of doing things from a compositional
point of view. I have no idea where that comes from.
And when working with Darwin on these tunes, it'll start
out with a basic skeleton of the tune, and I might,
(05:59):
I guess, I go into what it would be termed
more of an arranging situation, where I would rearrange the
song and then work with it to make it cohesive.
And then the question is what to do next. And
the thing is about the type of music we play,
which let's say is prog rock, you know, for one
(06:20):
of a better term. You don't have to stick to
a three minute thirty format, so we can go off
and do all these wonderful little adventures musically which used
to happen in the early seventies. Yes, for a prime example,
they would have little they were little concertos, you know,
they were wonderful. I don't know where it comes from.
(06:41):
It just goes, hmm, how about this? And then I
develop it and then I go hmm, I wonder if
Darwin's going to like this because I just made a
left turn, and then I arrange it so that then
it comes back to the tune and it all makes sense.
I send him a demo which is all many instruments.
I use keyboards which are here on the left because
(07:04):
I don't play guitar. I wish I did, because it's
very hard to to replicate guitar driven music with a keyboard.
It's they're two different animals. It's it's quite amazing, both
harmonically and sonically too.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
But I do my best to recreate.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
I call it my yan hammer guitar sound, you know,
and use of course all the wonderful virtual plugins we
have nowadays, you know, acoustic guitars, twelve strings. And then
I send it. I send him the demo, and he
most of the time goes back, oh wow, oh, never
would have thought of that? Great, you know, and then
(07:44):
he might come back with some more suggestions and that
that's kind of how they all come together.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
Really.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Now you're speaking specifically about Greg Howe.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Not at that point, No, No, we're we're still working
on the composition of the actual position itself. I know
that in the palette that I have to work with,
I've got Greg who will do cover all the lead playing.
I've got Jesse Siebenberg who will cover all acoustic playing
and a lot of the clean guitars. And I've got
(08:17):
Darwin who will cover all the heavy guitars. That's his
main thing. But what's really cool is Darwin's use of
unconventional tunings. Every song has some different tuning, even if
it's just a drop a dropy, you know, like an
E flat, even if it's a B. He will take
(08:38):
that lower string and tune it down, which then changes
all his shapes and changes the tone, changes the sound
of the guitar, and introduce different voicings.
Speaker 5 (08:52):
Plus I have we.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Have Derek Sheri in in who plays certain parts, and
we also have J three Julian Pollock who's amazing and
he covers other parts keyboard wise, and occasionally I also
throw in a few keyboard things where, especially when I'm mixing,
because once I'm in mixing mode, it's like it's like cooking,
(09:17):
it really is.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
You're putting everything together.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
And often I'll get there and I've got everybody in,
I've got all their parts, and yet hmmm, something's missing.
And that's when I, you know, connect all the gear
up and come up with something. Whatever it is, it's
usually some sort of keyboard, just something to bolster something
that's probably already there, but it needs to be a
(09:43):
different sound.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
At those moments of experimentation, is that one of the
happiest moments in life for you.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Oh when it works, yes, but only when it works.
It can be disaster sometimes I think that. Then then
at the end of the day, when you've got a
mix and it's sounding I call it, oh, this sounds
like a record. Now you know, uh, the mix will
sound not like a record for a very long time.
(10:14):
Perhaps it really depends and you're still kind of Okay,
that needs a little bit more of this, or maybe
I can change the the perspective of of everything. But
once you get that, then it's like, ah, okay, then
I'll print it and then i'll send it to Darwin
and then he'll listen to it and he'll give me
(10:35):
his version of it. And sometimes it's not there yet
and I'm going, hm, okay, what is it? I'm thinking,
I think it's sounding pretty damn good. So what am
I missing? That's the that that's the essence then and
again it's a it's a learning curve, is what I
really want to hear more of this? And I said, well,
(10:55):
there's a lot of that, but okay, why what is
it that's not knocking him out about it? What am
I missing? So and then you have to kind of
you have to try to change your ears. Okay, I'll
put that set out away, and now let's have that
set and plug them in and figure out what it is.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
And it might take a little while.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
It might take also getting away from it and moving
on to a different song, which is I do that
quite a lot, actually, and we're very lucky these days
to be in the digital world. We can do that
in a matter of minutes, and in the olden days,
in the analog world, you.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
Couldn't do that.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
You really had to get the mix while it was up,
because well, you've got degradation of tape. That's one of
the first things. But it's also recalling all your sounds,
and I mean it's a nightmare. A big mix recall
could take all day the way we used to do
it on an SSL, because it's not just the console,
(11:54):
it's all your outboard equipment. You have to write copious
notes and then you compare to the sound or the
mix that you last had and you go, well that's
not quite the same, is it? You know so, And
I'm very old school in that fashion, even though I
still use quite a bit of out ball gear and
it's very important to make copious notes about all the
(12:17):
settings on each piece of equipment and how it was patched,
and then you go flip backwards and forwards between the
original mix and your your recall as it were, and
they go, oh, okay, that's sounding pretty pretty good. Then
you can work with it. So we're very lucky. Now
it's just a push of a button, you know, selector
something on your drive, double click it, it opens up
(12:39):
in pro tools and you're almost there.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
So it wasn't like that in the old days.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I have a feeling with your time with your commercial
studio that you had that that really obviously made a
tremendous impact, and then sort of freeing yourself from the
commercial studio and then moving your studio back to the
home has given you Maybe is it fear to say
this added sense of creative flair?
Speaker 5 (13:09):
I know, I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I think all the scenarios that I've worked in, you
just you have to make it work.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
I was primarily taught by Mike Oldfield.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
He was the guy that helped me become an engineer,
and it was purely because he is a very good
engineer himself. But he was done with it. He wanted
to have someone else do it. But the problem was
finding a musician that could work with him as an engineer,
(13:44):
because he gets tired of having to explain, you know,
if something's a little more complex.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
Not all engineers would be able to do that.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
A lot can, of course, because they are musicians themselves,
but in this case, no. He sent the engineer home
that we were using and plump the nave manual on
my lap of an eighty one O eight console, which
is around nineteen eighty got that came out in about
(14:13):
eighty eighty one, I think, and that was it and
then he left, I'll be back in three hours.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
I loved that story. Oh yeah, I mean it was
It was amazing. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
It's something that I always wanted to do since I
was actually very young and used to mess around with
my mum used to have two tape recorders to revoks
G thirty six is that's right, tube revoxes, and I
used to bounce from one to the other. I was
recording stereo drums when I was literally, I mean I
(14:46):
don't know how old, I was maybe twelve or something
in the in the living room and then but I
was also carded around a lot of the London studio,
especially the BBC by my dad to watch sessions.
Speaker 5 (15:01):
So I kind of grew up in the.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Studio, but I would have loved to have had one
even when I was very young. So I did understand
the basic signal path of what happens. It was just
a question. In those days you couldn't. It was very
hard to go from one side of the last to
the other. And when you were in the control room
you just let the kind of stand or sit if
(15:25):
there was a place to sit, and listen to the playback,
and then leave, you know, go go back out to
the studio. It was very strict in those days. But
I was always watching over the engineer's shoulders, and if
I particularly liked the sound that he was getting on
the drum kit, i'd look and go what is he doing?
Speaker 5 (15:42):
You know?
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And nine times out of ten, the great engineers are
really not doing that much. That's the amazing thing. Working
with Elliott Shiner, Bob Clear Mountain, Oh, I mean great
English engineers, to John Punter. It's hard to remember. Sometimes
Greg Walsh, that was it. They weren't doing that much.
(16:06):
Nico Bolas, you know, how do you do that? And
it still fascinates me that how and it's really odd
to do with it is it's to do with, obviously
the ability, and you've learned how to do it from
the engineers you were working under in big studios, you know.
But taking that Ken Scott another one, you know, Dennis McKay,
(16:29):
and I watched them so closely. I used to get
to sessions early to obviously set up the kit, but
watch the maintenance engineer align the tape machine. I wanted
to understand what is he doing?
Speaker 5 (16:41):
You know?
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Why every time do I turn up an air I
hear a one killer hurts tone, you know, and what
is he doing. I used to sit there with a
cup of coffee and watch and he's there aligning, you know,
pulling all the meters like this. And I said, I
want to be able to do that, and the only
way to do that was to get my studio, and
(17:03):
I learned how to do it, and then I started
experimenting with alignments, and which we all did in the eighties,
you know, especially when it wasn't very corporate, when the
studio wasn't run in a very corporate manner like EMI
or a studios or I would imagine capital in those days,
the more individual like private studios like Ramport, which was
(17:27):
Pete Townsend's and all these other studios that opened up
with the younger engineers who are like, Okay, we've got
these new Ottari MTR nineties, let's mess around with them
a little bit. Let's you know, let's put some more
level onto tape. And it's all. It's stuff I loved,
always loved the technical side of it.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Who were the whether they be drummers or other musicians,
who were you know, at a young age when you
were observing everything those players that really influenced you to
this day.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I think it has to start with my age. I
grew up at a very musical household. My dad was
a He had a dixie and dance band, so I
listened to a lot of his.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
Music, but at the same terms of the dramas well.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Obviously it was Buddy Rich, Louis Belson to a certain extent,
Geene Crooper. I think it was more because the music
I heard Gene play was a little more old fashioned.
It was more thirties forties Benny gouman Quarte. You know,
I preferred the sound of a bigger band, big loud
trumpets and more modern playing, which Buddy had still.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
I mean, you know, he was.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Playing in the thirties, so but he transformed a big
band drumming along with all the other amazing dramas. But
also I started getting into rock and roll too, and
I was more influenced by rock groups that had brass
sections because I grew up with brass players, so that
(19:13):
was a sound that I was so used to. I
wasn't quite ready for the sound of just guitar based
and drums when an organ. We didn't have many synthesizers
back then. We didn't have a friend of Rhodes, for example,
until you know, a bit later.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
So bands.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I think Chicago Transit Authority was the first rock and
roll record I really got into. And also my first
guitar hero, Terry cath I was more. He was more
my hero than Jimmy Hendrix was. Is that funny? And
actually I learned later that Jimmy loved Terry, loved the
band and wanted to produce their next record. Fortunately he
(19:52):
didn't make it, so it's still to this day, I
put on some old Chicago cuts from Chicago five and
one called Danny Saraffin, In my opinion, one of the
most musical dramas out there is all.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
The way he played those tracks was so inventive, beautiful.
I learned a lot from Danny, and I've told him.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
I mean, I remember doing I was aligning a system
up to do a surround mix. And one of the
best things you can do. Once you've done all the
technical stuff with pink noise and a meter, it's like,
listen to music on it. How does it sound? Does
it sound Okay? That's so important. So I get my
(20:39):
little collection of DTS and Dolby surround stuff and play it.
And I think there was a I had a surround
of Chicago five, Yeah, and it just I was like,
oh wow. I actually called him. I said, Danny, I'm
listening to Chicago five in around right now and you're
(21:01):
playing is awesome. It's fantastic, you know. So it's great
to be able to do that. That's lovely to be
able to, you know, say to somebody straight to them,
you know, you played amazingly on this record.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
It's great.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Oh, that's wonderful. Sharing that, and I'm so glad to
hear you talk about Chicago in that way, because, certainly
for their great career, I think, for the meticulous nature
of the way that band put it all together and
the beautiful nature, it's often underappreciated, you know, I believe,
(21:36):
you know.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, I was very lucky. We actually got to work
with Jim Panco on a total record, and I.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
Was engineering that record.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
It was the last one I did with them, falling
in between, and we had this one track which had
this outro which was we co composed pretty much everything
on that. I think that was kind of my riff
at the end. Came up with this kind of weird
thing and sane, but everybody seemed to like it, which
was great. And I think Page, David Page said let's
(22:05):
get let's get Jim on this and he could do
a real Chicago type arrangement. So I finally got to
meet and work with him and it was great and
record him too. That's the other great thing. Putting a
microphone in front of his trombone and trumpet player and
the tenor player.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
That's really exciting, you know, Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
A couple of other pieces of your great music history
and want to touch upon First of all, what are
your reflections of your time with the great Jeff Beck?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah, that was that was pretty classic. Actually, Jeff and
I had a wonderful synergy, and I think especially when
it came to writing the music for Their and Back.
We had been working on that record. We started in
nineteen seventy eight. Jhan Hammer came over. He had written
(22:59):
I think five tunes and we cut them all at Ramport,
just Jeff, Yarn and myself, no bass player. Yarn was playing,
you know, move base Jeff. A couple of the tracks
were great, but Jeff wasn't happy with everything. And then
we went on tour. We went to Japan in seventy
eight was Stanley Clark, and then we did some shows
(23:22):
in Europe in seventy nine and then Jeff would you know,
he'd asked me to come down and I had introduced
him to Tony Himus whose we used to do a
lot of sessions together, and we were also in the
Jack Bruce band together, so we did a lot of playing.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
We were playing one.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Day and running through some of these tunes and I realized,
I said, Tony, Jeff needs material. We need to get
together and start writing. And that was kind of the
start of the style that I wrote in. It was
very much Tony. Tony's influence. You know, my harmonic knowledge
(24:02):
was very limited and but Tony's vast. So I might
have a simple melody or might have an idea of
what we should do, like the pump for example. Actually
all of the Spaceburgie, but Tony was the one that
really said okay. He took it and then of course
harmonized everything and made it, you know, sound sound amazing,
(24:24):
and Jeff loved it. That that was the thing, and
that's what we ended up doing for there and back.
So Yahn wrote some of the tunes, Tony and I
wrote some of the other tunes, and that was really
the start of my writing in terms of what became
Protocol and all that music.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
But we had a wonderful time. We did.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I wish we could have done more. And I did
continue to work with Jeff actually on another project that
didn't really come to fruition, sadly, but it was a wonderful,
wonderful relationship.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Another band that well, they were on this podcast actually
Roland and Kurt from Tears for Fears. Tell me about
your time with Tears for Fears.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Oh it was very short, it was it was just
a session in it but it was interesting well because
I got to to I didn't meet Kurt. It was
just Roland and David Bascombe who was the producer and
engineer co producer. It was very interesting but we got
to chat a lot, which was which was great. And
(25:29):
the tune was lovely too. Oh well, it was on
showing the Seeds of Love that was the album, but
that was but basically it was just it was just ah,
it was.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
It was a session.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
You're known for this incredible blend of power but also vanesse.
How do you sort of decide when a song needs
you to sort of hold back and and then you
know those other moments where it's just you know, the
power has to shine through.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Well, experience obviously has a lot to do with it.
When I was younger, I was always trying to do
something a bit different, which didn't always work, and the
producer of the session, you know, was already in a
play simpler player and I was like, oh, okay, you know,
but that's just youth. That was me trying stuff and
(26:24):
introducing maybe something different to the tune. I used to
what I call it cross polonization. I would if in
those days I turned up to a session, it was
very specifically it was a it was a rock session,
heavy rock session. We didn't have heavy metal in that day.
(26:45):
In those days, they that term hadn't been invented. I'm
talking about the seventies. When I was like seventeen eighteen
doing sessions. I would always think, Okay, if I'm playing
on a rock session, how would Bernard Purdy play this?
And so I tried to introduce a big element of
(27:06):
soul music when we call it that. SO and R
and B was a different it was a different time
type of music then. Or funk because I used to
listen to a lot of funk music. I mean play.
I used to play anong to Billy Paul, Isaac Hayes
uh and then of course you know O Jay's the Meters,
(27:29):
Little Feet. Oh gosh, it's hard to recall everything, but.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
That's quite a playlist so far as Simon I got
to say, I.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Mean, I love love those grooves. I love to really
get those side of those groups. Donnie Hathaway, Artha Franklin
with Bernard Perdy on on drums used to love that
and so, and to me at that time, especially in England,
rock didn't groove, didn't have a deep groove. Ian Deep
(28:00):
Purple always had a great groove, Cozy Powell had a
great groove Carminappies, But a lot of times outside of that,
I felt it's lacking this, it's a little on top,
and that kind of comes for oh, of course the
Bonzer as well, John Bonham. A lot of that comes
(28:23):
from our upbringing in the fifties and sixties of Dixieland
and skiffle and playing jazz. So the one big difference
between that is in England anyway, jazz was kind of
forward motion, like a little on top of the beat,
but rock was was more back and all the stuff
(28:47):
I was listening to was like that, but I wasn't
hearing it in a lot of other records. So that's
why I would go right, Howard Bernard play this, and
I imagined kind of and I started playing like that,
although nobody would recognize it, but that's what was in
my mind. Alternatively, when I was doing funk sessions, of
(29:08):
which we did a lot of, you know, I would
play a lot more splash year, a lot more open.
My sound obviously is not a typical R and B sound.
It's much more live, you know, the tom's ring, and
so I would actually play it more like, Okay, how
would he and Pace play this? You know, And that's
(29:30):
the mindset, and it created some interesting sounding records or tunes,
let's say, recordings, but nobody would have guessed what I
was thinking of at the time. And it goes also
in some of the films that I would play, you know, yeah,
it's just I'd like this cross polonization. And I think
the more sessions that I did, the more I was
(29:54):
working with great engineers, great producers and other great musicians
where timekeeping so important, and I think one of the
reasons I got so much work.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
As a kid.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I mean, my busiest year of sessions was when I
was nineteen, nineteen seventy six. It was when I look
at it now, I go, how the hell.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
Did I do that?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Three sessions a day pretty much every day unless I
was on an album project, which was two weeks, which
was great. You know, those are the real rock and
roll sessions. Roger Glover, Jack, Bruce Whitesnake, and I think
it just taught me an awful lot and it was
a learning curve. It was a big learning curve. Some
(30:38):
sessions were difficult because I couldn't figure out quite how
to do it, you know, But the guidance of all
the great musicians I played with, you know, I mean
Herbie Flowers for example, Ray Cooper, Alan Parker. It was
great training, it really was, and then then also being
interested in the production side. So it's just, you know,
(31:00):
it's taken many, many years too, and I'm still figuring
it out.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Frankly, is there one musical challenge, you know, whether it's
involved with Darwin or Protocol or something you're dreaming up
that you're most excited about tackling next?
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Well, my next project is actually the next Protocol album.
I've been sitting in this room for the last month
writing music, and I hadn't actually written music for The
only music I've written in the last couple of years,
few years has been Darwin arranging stuff for other productions.
(31:40):
That's a whole different thing. But actual composition, So this
is I sat down and I said, what the hell.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
Am I going to do?
Speaker 4 (31:47):
You know?
Speaker 1 (31:48):
So I recalled some old compositions I wanted to listen
to them, and one of them sparked off like, actually this,
I don't know why I'd never used it. This is
actually pretty cool. So I transferred it from my old
Yamaha QX three sequence so which still worked amazingly, with
(32:10):
these three point five discs of which said around there
and they still worked.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
I put it in it.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Wow, it came up, and then had to transfer that
to pro Tools MIDI, and then I started work.
Speaker 5 (32:23):
That was kind of the starting point. It just went
on and on from there. So and now I have
I think I have fifty one minutes of music so far.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
It's awesome. What's your most cherished piece of equipment in
your studio that you have? Is there one particular piece
of equipment recording equipment?
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I really think the unit that converts analog to digital.
One of the big issues is digital sampling conversion. If
that is not really high quality, it's not going to
sound great. And so when after the fire, when I
(33:10):
lost all my studio equipment, I had to sit down
and design from scratch a new studio. But I didn't
have anywhere to put it because I had no building
and no house. So I thought, right, what piece of
equipment do I really really love? And I've worked with
it a few times. What would it be? And it
(33:32):
was the ball Mothership and that's sitting right there. You
can see it. Thirty two channels in twenty four out
an AS card. And I invested in that because I
just felt I need something that sounds like a tape machine,
but without all the problems. That to me, has been
the most stable workhorse.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
It's amazing that thing. It's not does it sound better?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
I mean, there's always this this question from other conversers, converters,
you know, we call them I o's. It's subtle, it's
very subtle. But when I get somebody after I've recorded
a record that maybe I've recorded previous times and they say, oh,
(34:22):
by the way, the drum sound amazing better than they
used to sound.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
Really okay, that's good.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
It's a pleasing sound because it's that there's transformers in
each one of those cards. There's eight transformers, one for
each channel, which gives it that That's what gives it
a bit of a coloration, a bit of a sound.
It's not so cold. And really the biggest where you're
(34:53):
or that that is the final step between you'll never
get it back. That will be digital, and it's there,
so you'd better make that good.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
You know.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
It's the same way as capturing onto tape. You've got
to make it good going to tape. And I'm all fashioned.
I was taught by I grew up in the time
where where you.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
Got it right.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
First time, we had a twenty four track machine. One
you lost one track for SIMPTI, and you had to
get the drum kit onto one piece of tape. You
couldn't have spread over to tape machines because they're one
of them is chasing, so it would just flange. Basically,
that's what would happen. So you have to mix down.
(35:35):
You used to record the drums my drum kit down
to eight tracks. Now of course you can go separately,
and there's this concept of just record everything flat and
well equ it later. No, get the sound you want
straight away. And when I record guitar exactly, I want
to capture the sound the guitar player is using at
(35:57):
that time. I think that's very import because it's part
of his character. So I was sum two or three
mics even and record that onto one channel, just the
way we used to do it, and it all sounded good.
Clynn John's always sounded great, you know, beautiful sounding records,
very simple and he's no frills. He's just basic, you know,
(36:21):
beautiful recording the way we used to do it.
Speaker 5 (36:23):
It is lovely.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
In closing, is there if you had an opportunity to
sit down with your younger self and talk about those
early session days, what would you tell yourself that maybe
you've learned over time, don't.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
Be so damn bulshy, open your mind up.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
I was very it was very narrow minded, and I
want to play something a certain way, and the producer said, no,
it's too complicated or whatever it is.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
Try this, try that, you know, and I go, okay.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
You know, I think with age, I've learned to be
a lot more open minded, you know. So back in
those days, it was in the eighties, we started what
I call under dubbing, especially for a drama. There was
music already recorded and you had to play drums and
take the drum machine off because now we had drum machines.
I would listen to a track and I go or
(37:21):
sometimes I'd say that I don't want to hear the
program drums, just let me hear the music with a click.
And I'd listened to that and start formulating an idea.
But when I went out to the studio and started
put the head phones on and said, okay, send us
the track, let's go, you know, and started playing, I
(37:42):
played something totally different to what I thought I was
going to play. And I think that was just experience
and something i'd learned to play instinctively. And I've always
I think I've always played instinctively. I sometimes I really
don't know what to play, and yet starts moving and
making noise.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
It's weird, you know.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Sometimes if a track is kind of complex, I use that.
I call it the Steve gadd method. Play it as
simply as you can get away with. It's a wonderful
thing because with complex music, it's all very clever.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
But anything has to groove, it has to swing, it's
got to have a groove.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
And that usually it tels that you need to find
a common denominator. I'll find a way of playing something
that's complex quite simple, and then and I'll break it down.
I might just run the track and just play just
high hat just for a bit. Then I'll listen to
what's going I go, okay, let's put a back beat there,
(38:51):
and then let's put a back beat here, and they
may not be traditional bat beat, especially if the thing
is in thirteen eight or something, you know, And then
I'll find a way of connecting it all up where
there's a common threat, and that way, the complex song
now has a groove that people can relate to, and
(39:11):
I think that's very important. Everybody does it differently, but
that's to me. Even when I've written complicated music on
the last album, there was something in nineteen, I still
try to make it. I'm not going to say danceable,
but groovable, let's say. I think that's very important for
the listener.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Oh, this is so amazing, well listen. Congratulations on Distorted Mirror,
first of all, the Darwin project and also the work
you're in the midst of. I knew you would be
in the midst of it, knowing the way you're always
creating with protocol. What a fascinating walk through music history,
(39:56):
through a great career that's constantly inventing and reinventing. Simon Phillips,
I'm so grateful to have you on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 5 (40:04):
Thank you very much, thank you very enjoyable.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Taking a Walk is made possible by the support of
our great sponsors, and we thanked them, including Chase Sapphire Reserve.
My gateway to the world's most captivating destinations is from
Chase Sapphire Reserve, Claude AI. Try Claud for free at
Claude dot Ai, slash Buzz and Lexis Experience Amazing at
your Lexus dealer now
Taking a Walk that created some interesting sounding records or tunes,
let's say, recordings, but nobody would have guessed what I
was thinking of at the time. Yeah, yeah, it's just
I like this cross polonization.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm buzznight and welcome to the Taken a Walk Podcast.
Now you know that feeling when you hear a drum
fill so precise, so musically intelligent, that it makes you
stop whatever you're doing and just listen.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Let's call that the Simon Phillips effect. For over five decades,
from backing Toto through their biggest hits to session work
with everyone from The Hoo to Judas Priest, this British
drumming legend has left his mark on iconic recordings for
his entire career.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
But here's what most people don't know. Behind those thunderous
grooves and jaw dropping chops is a restless creative spirit
who's never been content to rest on his laurels. He
keeps pushing into new sonic territory, lens jazz fusion roots
with contemporary production techniques in ways that would make drummers
(01:05):
half his age envious. And we'll talk to Simon Phillips
next on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Taking a walk.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
The One and only Simon Phillips. Welcome to taking a walk.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Thank you, good to be here, good to be walking.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yes, so we like because of the title of the podcast,
posing this opening question, sir, if you had the opportunity
to take a walk with somebody living or dead, who
would that person be and where would you take that
walk with them?
Speaker 5 (01:42):
Ooh, interesting, interesting question.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Well, it would have to be somebody that's very fit,
because where I live we have lots of trails, hiking trails,
and in fact, I have one that starts literally outside
of outside my game, and I've never done it. You
can actually walk up to the top of the mountains,
the Topatopa Mountains, which is sixty four hundred feet. I've
(02:08):
been up to about three thousand feet and so that's
an hour and a bit. So it's a tough walk
because it's all uphill. So I'd have to take into
consideration somebody that could really do that. That's interesting. I
still think probably one of the most interesting people in
(02:30):
rock and roll still today's Pete Townsend, I think. And
he's fit too, so I always have a wonderful talk
with him whenever we speak. And yeah, I think he
would be the most interesting person in terms of just
(02:53):
a vast, wide range of interests and knowledge, And yeah,
I think that that would be pretty amazing. But there's
a lot of people to choose from also, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Oh, I'd love to be a fly on the wall
for all of them, but certainly with with Pete as well.
You had some spectacular history with with he and the band, didn't.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
You, Yes, absolutely, yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
What do you most fondly recall from those times?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well, the music, obviously, his writing is just spectacular, and
I always say to him, uh, these songs play themselves,
which I'm not sure he takes as a compliment or not,
but I mean it as a compliment because I love
it when a song, you sit down, you hear the tune,
and then you think, you put headphones on and you
(03:46):
you know how, you count in, or you listen to
to a click intro or whatever it is, and it
just seems to sit well, Everything sits well, all the
transitions work, everything is is wonderful. Now. Always love that,
But I think it's our talks outside of music that
I really find fascinating. And I can pick various times
(04:09):
during the times that we've worked together especially when I've
worked with him in a producing sense too.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
We did a project called.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
The Iron Man, and I was when it was eighty seven,
nineteen eighty seven, and so I had some very intimate
conversations during that because it was just us two in
the control room, you know. So those I think those
are what I remember most, you know, and of course
just some of the funny, funny things that he says
(04:37):
and happened.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
And yeah, it's great, Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well, we got a lot to catch up on. We've
got the Supergroup Darwin and that release which I want
to talk about. But the fascinating thing about you, among
many things, is you're constantly, in my view, in a
state of invention and rein mention. What do you suppose
(05:02):
is the driving influence to such curiosity and great creative superpowers.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
I think it's more to do with learning.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I love to always be in a learning situation, and
also now running my own band and even producing records
and engineering them and mixing them. I'm always learning, I
think that's what it is, and always curious to figure
(05:36):
out maybe different ways of doing things from a compositional
point of view. I have no idea where that comes from.
And when working with Darwin on these tunes, it'll start
out with a basic skeleton of the tune, and I might,
(05:59):
I guess, I go into what it would be termed
more of an arranging situation, where I would rearrange the
song and then work with it to make it cohesive.
And then the question is what to do next. And
the thing is about the type of music we play,
which let's say is prog rock, you know, for one
(06:20):
of a better term. You don't have to stick to
a three minute thirty format, so we can go off
and do all these wonderful little adventures musically which used
to happen in the early seventies. Yes, for a prime example,
they would have little they were little concertos, you know,
they were wonderful. I don't know where it comes from.
(06:41):
It just goes, hmm, how about this? And then I
develop it and then I go hmm, I wonder if
Darwin's going to like this because I just made a
left turn, and then I arrange it so that then
it comes back to the tune and it all makes sense.
I send him a demo which is all many instruments.
I use keyboards which are here on the left because
(07:04):
I don't play guitar. I wish I did, because it's
very hard to to replicate guitar driven music with a keyboard.
It's they're two different animals. It's it's quite amazing, both
harmonically and sonically too.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
But I do my best to recreate.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
I call it my yan hammer guitar sound, you know,
and use of course all the wonderful virtual plugins we
have nowadays, you know, acoustic guitars, twelve strings. And then
I send it. I send him the demo, and he
most of the time goes back, oh wow, oh, never
would have thought of that? Great, you know, and then
(07:44):
he might come back with some more suggestions and that
that's kind of how they all come together.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
Really.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Now you're speaking specifically about Greg Howe.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Not at that point, No, No, we're we're still working
on the composition of the actual position itself. I know
that in the palette that I have to work with,
I've got Greg who will do cover all the lead playing.
I've got Jesse Siebenberg who will cover all acoustic playing
and a lot of the clean guitars. And I've got
(08:17):
Darwin who will cover all the heavy guitars. That's his
main thing. But what's really cool is Darwin's use of
unconventional tunings. Every song has some different tuning, even if
it's just a drop a dropy, you know, like an
E flat, even if it's a B. He will take
(08:38):
that lower string and tune it down, which then changes
all his shapes and changes the tone, changes the sound
of the guitar, and introduce different voicings.
Speaker 5 (08:52):
Plus I have we.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Have Derek Sheri in in who plays certain parts, and
we also have J three Julian Pollock who's amazing and
he covers other parts keyboard wise, and occasionally I also
throw in a few keyboard things where, especially when I'm mixing,
because once I'm in mixing mode, it's like it's like cooking,
(09:17):
it really is.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
You're putting everything together.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
And often I'll get there and I've got everybody in,
I've got all their parts, and yet hmmm, something's missing.
And that's when I, you know, connect all the gear
up and come up with something. Whatever it is, it's
usually some sort of keyboard, just something to bolster something
that's probably already there, but it needs to be a
(09:43):
different sound.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
At those moments of experimentation, is that one of the
happiest moments in life for you.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Oh when it works, yes, but only when it works.
It can be disaster sometimes I think that. Then then
at the end of the day, when you've got a
mix and it's sounding I call it, oh, this sounds
like a record. Now you know, uh, the mix will
sound not like a record for a very long time.
(10:14):
Perhaps it really depends and you're still kind of Okay,
that needs a little bit more of this, or maybe
I can change the the perspective of of everything. But
once you get that, then it's like, ah, okay, then
I'll print it and then i'll send it to Darwin
and then he'll listen to it and he'll give me
(10:35):
his version of it. And sometimes it's not there yet
and I'm going, hm, okay, what is it? I'm thinking,
I think it's sounding pretty damn good. So what am
I missing? That's the that that's the essence then and
again it's a it's a learning curve, is what I
really want to hear more of this? And I said, well,
(10:55):
there's a lot of that, but okay, why what is
it that's not knocking him out about it? What am
I missing? So and then you have to kind of
you have to try to change your ears. Okay, I'll
put that set out away, and now let's have that
set and plug them in and figure out what it is.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
And it might take a little while.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
It might take also getting away from it and moving
on to a different song, which is I do that
quite a lot, actually, and we're very lucky these days
to be in the digital world. We can do that
in a matter of minutes, and in the olden days,
in the analog world, you.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
Couldn't do that.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
You really had to get the mix while it was up,
because well, you've got degradation of tape. That's one of
the first things. But it's also recalling all your sounds,
and I mean it's a nightmare. A big mix recall
could take all day the way we used to do
it on an SSL, because it's not just the console,
(11:54):
it's all your outboard equipment. You have to write copious
notes and then you compare to the sound or the
mix that you last had and you go, well that's
not quite the same, is it? You know so, And
I'm very old school in that fashion, even though I
still use quite a bit of out ball gear and
it's very important to make copious notes about all the
(12:17):
settings on each piece of equipment and how it was patched,
and then you go flip backwards and forwards between the
original mix and your your recall as it were, and
they go, oh, okay, that's sounding pretty pretty good. Then
you can work with it. So we're very lucky. Now
it's just a push of a button, you know, selector
something on your drive, double click it, it opens up
(12:39):
in pro tools and you're almost there.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
So it wasn't like that in the old days.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I have a feeling with your time with your commercial
studio that you had that that really obviously made a
tremendous impact, and then sort of freeing yourself from the
commercial studio and then moving your studio back to the
home has given you Maybe is it fear to say
this added sense of creative flair?
Speaker 5 (13:09):
I know, I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I think all the scenarios that I've worked in, you
just you have to make it work.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
I was primarily taught by Mike Oldfield.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
He was the guy that helped me become an engineer,
and it was purely because he is a very good
engineer himself. But he was done with it. He wanted
to have someone else do it. But the problem was
finding a musician that could work with him as an engineer,
(13:44):
because he gets tired of having to explain, you know,
if something's a little more complex.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
Not all engineers would be able to do that.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
A lot can, of course, because they are musicians themselves,
but in this case, no. He sent the engineer home
that we were using and plump the nave manual on
my lap of an eighty one O eight console, which
is around nineteen eighty got that came out in about
(14:13):
eighty eighty one, I think, and that was it and
then he left, I'll be back in three hours.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
I loved that story. Oh yeah, I mean it was
It was amazing. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
It's something that I always wanted to do since I
was actually very young and used to mess around with
my mum used to have two tape recorders to revoks
G thirty six is that's right, tube revoxes, and I
used to bounce from one to the other. I was
recording stereo drums when I was literally, I mean I
(14:46):
don't know how old, I was maybe twelve or something
in the in the living room and then but I
was also carded around a lot of the London studio,
especially the BBC by my dad to watch sessions.
Speaker 5 (15:01):
So I kind of grew up in the.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Studio, but I would have loved to have had one
even when I was very young. So I did understand
the basic signal path of what happens. It was just
a question. In those days you couldn't. It was very
hard to go from one side of the last to
the other. And when you were in the control room
you just let the kind of stand or sit if
(15:25):
there was a place to sit, and listen to the playback,
and then leave, you know, go go back out to
the studio. It was very strict in those days. But
I was always watching over the engineer's shoulders, and if
I particularly liked the sound that he was getting on
the drum kit, i'd look and go what is he doing?
Speaker 5 (15:42):
You know?
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And nine times out of ten, the great engineers are
really not doing that much. That's the amazing thing. Working
with Elliott Shiner, Bob Clear Mountain, Oh, I mean great
English engineers, to John Punter. It's hard to remember. Sometimes
Greg Walsh, that was it. They weren't doing that much.
(16:06):
Nico Bolas, you know, how do you do that? And
it still fascinates me that how and it's really odd
to do with it is it's to do with, obviously
the ability, and you've learned how to do it from
the engineers you were working under in big studios, you know.
But taking that Ken Scott another one, you know, Dennis McKay,
(16:29):
and I watched them so closely. I used to get
to sessions early to obviously set up the kit, but
watch the maintenance engineer align the tape machine. I wanted
to understand what is he doing?
Speaker 5 (16:41):
You know?
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Why every time do I turn up an air I
hear a one killer hurts tone, you know, and what
is he doing. I used to sit there with a
cup of coffee and watch and he's there aligning, you know,
pulling all the meters like this. And I said, I
want to be able to do that, and the only
way to do that was to get my studio, and
(17:03):
I learned how to do it, and then I started
experimenting with alignments, and which we all did in the eighties,
you know, especially when it wasn't very corporate, when the
studio wasn't run in a very corporate manner like EMI
or a studios or I would imagine capital in those days,
the more individual like private studios like Ramport, which was
(17:27):
Pete Townsend's and all these other studios that opened up
with the younger engineers who are like, Okay, we've got
these new Ottari MTR nineties, let's mess around with them
a little bit. Let's you know, let's put some more
level onto tape. And it's all. It's stuff I loved,
always loved the technical side of it.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Who were the whether they be drummers or other musicians,
who were you know, at a young age when you
were observing everything those players that really influenced you to
this day.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
I think it has to start with my age. I
grew up at a very musical household. My dad was
a He had a dixie and dance band, so I
listened to a lot of his.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
Music, but at the same terms of the dramas well.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Obviously it was Buddy Rich, Louis Belson to a certain extent,
Geene Crooper. I think it was more because the music
I heard Gene play was a little more old fashioned.
It was more thirties forties Benny gouman Quarte. You know,
I preferred the sound of a bigger band, big loud
trumpets and more modern playing, which Buddy had still.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
I mean, you know, he was.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Playing in the thirties, so but he transformed a big
band drumming along with all the other amazing dramas. But
also I started getting into rock and roll too, and
I was more influenced by rock groups that had brass
sections because I grew up with brass players, so that
(19:13):
was a sound that I was so used to. I
wasn't quite ready for the sound of just guitar based
and drums when an organ. We didn't have many synthesizers
back then. We didn't have a friend of Rhodes, for example,
until you know, a bit later.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
So bands.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I think Chicago Transit Authority was the first rock and
roll record I really got into. And also my first
guitar hero, Terry cath I was more. He was more
my hero than Jimmy Hendrix was. Is that funny? And
actually I learned later that Jimmy loved Terry, loved the
band and wanted to produce their next record. Fortunately he
(19:52):
didn't make it, so it's still to this day, I
put on some old Chicago cuts from Chicago five and
one called Danny Saraffin, In my opinion, one of the
most musical dramas out there is all.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
The way he played those tracks was so inventive, beautiful.
I learned a lot from Danny, and I've told him.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
I mean, I remember doing I was aligning a system
up to do a surround mix. And one of the
best things you can do. Once you've done all the
technical stuff with pink noise and a meter, it's like,
listen to music on it. How does it sound? Does
it sound Okay? That's so important. So I get my
(20:39):
little collection of DTS and Dolby surround stuff and play it.
And I think there was a I had a surround
of Chicago five, Yeah, and it just I was like,
oh wow. I actually called him. I said, Danny, I'm
listening to Chicago five in around right now and you're
(21:01):
playing is awesome. It's fantastic, you know. So it's great
to be able to do that. That's lovely to be
able to, you know, say to somebody straight to them,
you know, you played amazingly on this record.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
It's great.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Oh, that's wonderful. Sharing that, and I'm so glad to
hear you talk about Chicago in that way, because, certainly
for their great career, I think, for the meticulous nature
of the way that band put it all together and
the beautiful nature, it's often underappreciated, you know, I believe,
(21:36):
you know.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, I was very lucky. We actually got to work
with Jim Panco on a total record, and I.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
Was engineering that record.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
It was the last one I did with them, falling
in between, and we had this one track which had
this outro which was we co composed pretty much everything
on that. I think that was kind of my riff
at the end. Came up with this kind of weird
thing and sane, but everybody seemed to like it, which
was great. And I think Page, David Page said let's
(22:05):
get let's get Jim on this and he could do
a real Chicago type arrangement. So I finally got to
meet and work with him and it was great and
record him too. That's the other great thing. Putting a
microphone in front of his trombone and trumpet player and
the tenor player.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
That's really exciting, you know, Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
A couple of other pieces of your great music history
and want to touch upon First of all, what are
your reflections of your time with the great Jeff Beck?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah, that was that was pretty classic. Actually, Jeff and
I had a wonderful synergy, and I think especially when
it came to writing the music for Their and Back.
We had been working on that record. We started in
nineteen seventy eight. Jhan Hammer came over. He had written
(22:59):
I think five tunes and we cut them all at Ramport,
just Jeff, Yarn and myself, no bass player. Yarn was playing,
you know, move base Jeff. A couple of the tracks
were great, but Jeff wasn't happy with everything. And then
we went on tour. We went to Japan in seventy
eight was Stanley Clark, and then we did some shows
(23:22):
in Europe in seventy nine and then Jeff would you know,
he'd asked me to come down and I had introduced
him to Tony Himus whose we used to do a
lot of sessions together, and we were also in the
Jack Bruce band together, so we did a lot of playing.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
We were playing one.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Day and running through some of these tunes and I realized,
I said, Tony, Jeff needs material. We need to get
together and start writing. And that was kind of the
start of the style that I wrote in. It was
very much Tony. Tony's influence. You know, my harmonic knowledge
(24:02):
was very limited and but Tony's vast. So I might
have a simple melody or might have an idea of
what we should do, like the pump for example. Actually
all of the Spaceburgie, but Tony was the one that
really said okay. He took it and then of course
harmonized everything and made it, you know, sound sound amazing,
(24:24):
and Jeff loved it. That that was the thing, and
that's what we ended up doing for there and back.
So Yahn wrote some of the tunes, Tony and I
wrote some of the other tunes, and that was really
the start of my writing in terms of what became
Protocol and all that music.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
But we had a wonderful time. We did.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I wish we could have done more. And I did
continue to work with Jeff actually on another project that
didn't really come to fruition, sadly, but it was a wonderful,
wonderful relationship.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Another band that well, they were on this podcast actually
Roland and Kurt from Tears for Fears. Tell me about
your time with Tears for Fears.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Oh it was very short, it was it was just
a session in it but it was interesting well because
I got to to I didn't meet Kurt. It was
just Roland and David Bascombe who was the producer and
engineer co producer. It was very interesting but we got
to chat a lot, which was which was great. And
(25:29):
the tune was lovely too. Oh well, it was on
showing the Seeds of Love that was the album, but
that was but basically it was just it was just ah,
it was.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
It was a session.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
You're known for this incredible blend of power but also vanesse.
How do you sort of decide when a song needs
you to sort of hold back and and then you
know those other moments where it's just you know, the
power has to shine through.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Well, experience obviously has a lot to do with it.
When I was younger, I was always trying to do
something a bit different, which didn't always work, and the
producer of the session, you know, was already in a
play simpler player and I was like, oh, okay, you know,
but that's just youth. That was me trying stuff and
(26:24):
introducing maybe something different to the tune. I used to
what I call it cross polonization. I would if in
those days I turned up to a session, it was
very specifically it was a it was a rock session,
heavy rock session. We didn't have heavy metal in that day.
(26:45):
In those days, they that term hadn't been invented. I'm
talking about the seventies. When I was like seventeen eighteen
doing sessions. I would always think, Okay, if I'm playing
on a rock session, how would Bernard Purdy play this?
And so I tried to introduce a big element of
(27:06):
soul music when we call it that. SO and R
and B was a different it was a different time
type of music then. Or funk because I used to
listen to a lot of funk music. I mean play.
I used to play anong to Billy Paul, Isaac Hayes
uh and then of course you know O Jay's the Meters,
(27:29):
Little Feet. Oh gosh, it's hard to recall everything, but.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
That's quite a playlist so far as Simon I got
to say, I.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Mean, I love love those grooves. I love to really
get those side of those groups. Donnie Hathaway, Artha Franklin
with Bernard Perdy on on drums used to love that
and so, and to me at that time, especially in England,
rock didn't groove, didn't have a deep groove. Ian Deep
(28:00):
Purple always had a great groove, Cozy Powell had a
great groove Carminappies, But a lot of times outside of that,
I felt it's lacking this, it's a little on top,
and that kind of comes for oh, of course the
Bonzer as well, John Bonham. A lot of that comes
(28:23):
from our upbringing in the fifties and sixties of Dixieland
and skiffle and playing jazz. So the one big difference
between that is in England anyway, jazz was kind of
forward motion, like a little on top of the beat,
but rock was was more back and all the stuff
(28:47):
I was listening to was like that, but I wasn't
hearing it in a lot of other records. So that's
why I would go right, Howard Bernard play this, and
I imagined kind of and I started playing like that,
although nobody would recognize it, but that's what was in
my mind. Alternatively, when I was doing funk sessions, of
(29:08):
which we did a lot of, you know, I would
play a lot more splash year, a lot more open.
My sound obviously is not a typical R and B sound.
It's much more live, you know, the tom's ring, and
so I would actually play it more like, Okay, how
would he and Pace play this? You know, And that's
(29:30):
the mindset, and it created some interesting sounding records or tunes,
let's say, recordings, but nobody would have guessed what I
was thinking of at the time. And it goes also
in some of the films that I would play, you know, yeah,
it's just I'd like this cross polonization. And I think
the more sessions that I did, the more I was
(29:54):
working with great engineers, great producers and other great musicians
where timekeeping so important, and I think one of the
reasons I got so much work.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
As a kid.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I mean, my busiest year of sessions was when I
was nineteen, nineteen seventy six. It was when I look
at it now, I go, how the hell.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
Did I do that?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Three sessions a day pretty much every day unless I
was on an album project, which was two weeks, which
was great. You know, those are the real rock and
roll sessions. Roger Glover, Jack, Bruce Whitesnake, and I think
it just taught me an awful lot and it was
a learning curve. It was a big learning curve. Some
(30:38):
sessions were difficult because I couldn't figure out quite how
to do it, you know, But the guidance of all
the great musicians I played with, you know, I mean
Herbie Flowers for example, Ray Cooper, Alan Parker. It was
great training, it really was, and then then also being
interested in the production side. So it's just, you know,
(31:00):
it's taken many, many years too, and I'm still figuring
it out.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Frankly, is there one musical challenge, you know, whether it's
involved with Darwin or Protocol or something you're dreaming up
that you're most excited about tackling next?
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Well, my next project is actually the next Protocol album.
I've been sitting in this room for the last month
writing music, and I hadn't actually written music for The
only music I've written in the last couple of years,
few years has been Darwin arranging stuff for other productions.
(31:40):
That's a whole different thing. But actual composition, So this
is I sat down and I said, what the hell.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
Am I going to do?
Speaker 4 (31:47):
You know?
Speaker 1 (31:48):
So I recalled some old compositions I wanted to listen
to them, and one of them sparked off like, actually this,
I don't know why I'd never used it. This is
actually pretty cool. So I transferred it from my old
Yamaha QX three sequence so which still worked amazingly, with
(32:10):
these three point five discs of which said around there
and they still worked.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
I put it in it.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Wow, it came up, and then had to transfer that
to pro Tools MIDI, and then I started work.
Speaker 5 (32:23):
That was kind of the starting point. It just went
on and on from there. So and now I have
I think I have fifty one minutes of music so far.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
It's awesome. What's your most cherished piece of equipment in
your studio that you have? Is there one particular piece
of equipment recording equipment?
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I really think the unit that converts analog to digital.
One of the big issues is digital sampling conversion. If
that is not really high quality, it's not going to
sound great. And so when after the fire, when I
(33:10):
lost all my studio equipment, I had to sit down
and design from scratch a new studio. But I didn't
have anywhere to put it because I had no building
and no house. So I thought, right, what piece of
equipment do I really really love? And I've worked with
it a few times. What would it be? And it
(33:32):
was the ball Mothership and that's sitting right there. You
can see it. Thirty two channels in twenty four out
an AS card. And I invested in that because I
just felt I need something that sounds like a tape machine,
but without all the problems. That to me, has been
the most stable workhorse.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
It's amazing that thing. It's not does it sound better?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
I mean, there's always this this question from other conversers, converters,
you know, we call them I o's. It's subtle, it's
very subtle. But when I get somebody after I've recorded
a record that maybe I've recorded previous times and they say, oh,
(34:22):
by the way, the drum sound amazing better than they
used to sound.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
Really okay, that's good.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
It's a pleasing sound because it's that there's transformers in
each one of those cards. There's eight transformers, one for
each channel, which gives it that That's what gives it
a bit of a coloration, a bit of a sound.
It's not so cold. And really the biggest where you're
(34:53):
or that that is the final step between you'll never
get it back. That will be digital, and it's there,
so you'd better make that good.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
You know.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
It's the same way as capturing onto tape. You've got
to make it good going to tape. And I'm all fashioned.
I was taught by I grew up in the time
where where you.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
Got it right.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
First time, we had a twenty four track machine. One
you lost one track for SIMPTI, and you had to
get the drum kit onto one piece of tape. You
couldn't have spread over to tape machines because they're one
of them is chasing, so it would just flange. Basically,
that's what would happen. So you have to mix down.
(35:35):
You used to record the drums my drum kit down
to eight tracks. Now of course you can go separately,
and there's this concept of just record everything flat and
well equ it later. No, get the sound you want
straight away. And when I record guitar exactly, I want
to capture the sound the guitar player is using at
(35:57):
that time. I think that's very import because it's part
of his character. So I was sum two or three
mics even and record that onto one channel, just the
way we used to do it, and it all sounded good.
Clynn John's always sounded great, you know, beautiful sounding records,
very simple and he's no frills. He's just basic, you know,
(36:21):
beautiful recording the way we used to do it.
Speaker 5 (36:23):
It is lovely.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
In closing, is there if you had an opportunity to
sit down with your younger self and talk about those
early session days, what would you tell yourself that maybe
you've learned over time, don't.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
Be so damn bulshy, open your mind up.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
I was very it was very narrow minded, and I
want to play something a certain way, and the producer said, no,
it's too complicated or whatever it is.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
Try this, try that, you know, and I go, okay.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
You know, I think with age, I've learned to be
a lot more open minded, you know. So back in
those days, it was in the eighties, we started what
I call under dubbing, especially for a drama. There was
music already recorded and you had to play drums and
take the drum machine off because now we had drum machines.
I would listen to a track and I go or
(37:21):
sometimes I'd say that I don't want to hear the
program drums, just let me hear the music with a click.
And I'd listened to that and start formulating an idea.
But when I went out to the studio and started
put the head phones on and said, okay, send us
the track, let's go, you know, and started playing, I
(37:42):
played something totally different to what I thought I was
going to play. And I think that was just experience
and something i'd learned to play instinctively. And I've always
I think I've always played instinctively. I sometimes I really
don't know what to play, and yet starts moving and
making noise.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
It's weird, you know.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Sometimes if a track is kind of complex, I use that.
I call it the Steve gadd method. Play it as
simply as you can get away with. It's a wonderful
thing because with complex music, it's all very clever.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
But anything has to groove, it has to swing, it's
got to have a groove.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
And that usually it tels that you need to find
a common denominator. I'll find a way of playing something
that's complex quite simple, and then and I'll break it down.
I might just run the track and just play just
high hat just for a bit. Then I'll listen to
what's going I go, okay, let's put a back beat there,
(38:51):
and then let's put a back beat here, and they
may not be traditional bat beat, especially if the thing
is in thirteen eight or something, you know, And then
I'll find a way of connecting it all up where
there's a common threat, and that way, the complex song
now has a groove that people can relate to, and
(39:11):
I think that's very important. Everybody does it differently, but
that's to me. Even when I've written complicated music on
the last album, there was something in nineteen, I still
try to make it. I'm not going to say danceable,
but groovable, let's say. I think that's very important for
the listener.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Oh, this is so amazing, well listen. Congratulations on Distorted Mirror,
first of all, the Darwin project and also the work
you're in the midst of. I knew you would be
in the midst of it, knowing the way you're always
creating with protocol. What a fascinating walk through music history,
(39:56):
through a great career that's constantly inventing and reinventing. Simon Phillips,
I'm so grateful to have you on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 5 (40:04):
Thank you very much, thank you very enjoyable.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Taking a Walk is made possible by the support of
our great sponsors, and we thanked them, including Chase Sapphire Reserve.
My gateway to the world's most captivating destinations is from
Chase Sapphire Reserve, Claude AI. Try Claud for free at
Claude dot Ai, slash Buzz and Lexis Experience Amazing at
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