Bill Drummond

William Ernest Drummond (born 29 April 1953) is a Scottish artist, musician, writer, and record producer. He was a co-founder of the late-1980s avant-garde pop group the KLF and its 1990s media-manipulating successor, the K Foundation, with which he famously burned £1 million in 1994. More recent art activities, carried out under Drummond's banner of Penkiln Burn, include making and distributing cakes, soup, flowers, beds, and shoe-shines. More recent music projects include No Music Day and the international tour of a choir called The17. Drummond is the author of several books about art and music. Background William Ernest Drummond was born in Butterworth, South Africa, where his father was a minister for the Church of Scotland. His family moved back to Scotland when he was 18 months old, and his early years were spent in the town of Newton Stewart. He moved to Corby, Northamptonshire at the age of 11. It was here that he first became involved in performing as a musician, initially working with school friends such as Gary Carson and Chris Ward. He attended the University of Northampton and the Art and Design Academy from 1970 to 1973. He later decided that "art should use everything, be everywhere" and that, as an artist, he would "use whatever medium is to hand". He spent two years working as a milkman, gardener, steel worker, nursing assistant, theatre carpenter, and scene painter. Drummond also worked on a trawler. Career 1970s: Illuminatus, Big in Japan, and Zoo In 1975 Drummond began working at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool as a carpenter and scene painter. In 1976 he was the set designer for the first stage production of The Illuminatus Trilogy, a 12-hour performance which opened on 23 November 1976, and which was staged by Ken Campbell's "Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool". The production transferred to the National Theatre, and then the Roundhouse, in London. According to Campbell, Drummond became known as "the man who went for Araldite": "In the middle of a tour, Drummond announced he was popping out to get some glue – and never returned." Drummond later wrote that none of his career would have happened as it did if not for what he learnt from Campbell, starting with the advice "Bill, don't bother doing anything unless it is heroic!"