Simon Phillips

Simon Phillips (born 6 February 1957) is a US-based English jazz, fusion and rock drummer, songwriter, and record producer. He worked with rock bands during the 1970s and 1980s and was the drummer for the band Toto from 1992 to 2014. Phillips worked as a session drummer for Jeff Beck, Gary Moore, Michael Schenker, Bernie Marsden, Jon Lord, Nik Kershaw, Mike Oldfield, Judas Priest, Mike Rutherford, Tears for Fears, 10cc, Pete Townshend and The Who. He was the drummer for The Who during the band's American reunion tour in 1989. He became the drummer for the band Toto in 1992 after the death of Jeff Porcaro. Career Phillips began to play professionally at the age of twelve in a Dixieland band led by his father, Sid Phillips for four years. After his father's death, he started playing pop and rock and found work in a production of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. He worked as a session musician for cast members, and this led to other session work. Beginning in the 1970s, he worked with Jeff Beck, Gil Evans, Stanley Clarke, Peter Gabriel, Pete Townshend, and Frank Zappa. Phillips was the drummer in the Phil Manzanera and Brian Eno supergroup 801 on their 1976 album 801 Live. He replaced Judas Priest drummer Alan Moore to record on the band's Sin After Sin album (1977), and on that album, Phillips introduced the combination of the double bass drumming that would come to define heavy metal in later years, particularly the thrash metal sub-genre which emerged in the 1980s. The track "Dissident Aggressor" was an early example of the tempo and aggression which would soon become synonymous with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Author Andrew L. Cope has described Sin After Sin as a key album in the development of heavy metal technique, in particular for its use of double kick drumming. That same year, Phillips played on Evita. Around 1978, British guitarist Gary Boyle made an album called "The Dancer" featuring Simon Phillips.