Veteran Jazz Rock Drummer Simon Phillips Talks Playing With the Greats Ahead of Jan 12-13 Blue Note Gigs

Simon Phillips is a drummer who has, to paraphrase a popular saying, spent his nearly 50-year career marching to his own beat. Indeed, there are few musicians who have performed with both The Who and Judas Priest, or who got their start in Dixieland and went on to find success in the rock and jazz worlds, or who recognized China’s potential as a music market back in the early 2000’s. Phillips has done all that and more. Ahead of his Jan 12 and 13 gigs at Blue Note Beijing, the 60-year-old British drummer tells us about his eclectic career, his bond with The Who’s Pete Townshend, and how he’s survived the music industry’s recent seismic shifts.

Your latest LP is Protocol IV, which you released last year and which you will play from front to back at Blue Note, is an artistic and stylistic step forward for you. Tell us about it.
This is the first album where I’ve written the entire thing. Pretty much every other LP I've put out had cowriters. I'd write three or four tracks myself, then collaborate with someone else for the rest. For this one I just didn’t need to that, I just did it myself. A lot of it was written on the road, in hotel rooms when I had time. Written in that mode of touring and playing live, which gives it a certain energy.

What other influences or inspirations affected this album?
I love the early '70s start of jazz-rock- albums like Bitches Brew, and bands like Return to Forever. All that was musical nirvana for me, and this new LP is a 21st-century version of that.

How did you first get into jazz-rock?
I got started by playing Dixieland in my Dad’s band. I was listening to a lot of rock and roll then, like Chicago and Blood Sweat and Tears. And the piano player in my Dad's band turned me onto new music like [jazz rock forebearers] The Inner Mounting Flame: Mahavishnu Orchestra. I was 13, and thought "How do you even pronounce that? And orchestra? I don’t like classical music." [Laughs]. I didn’t know what the hell I was listening to, but the drummer was insane and it opened up to the world of jazz-rock.

What was it like to play in a band with your Dad? It must've made him more supportive than the average parent of a musician.
No, we didn't have a strong bond at all. I wanted to play rock, he thought all that was rubbish. He grew up in the 1930s and couldn’t relate to it at all. I was just dying to get out of a dance band and into a rock band. But looking back, it was an amazing gig. At 12 I became a professional musician. I learned musical discipline, I learned a style and the whole beginnings of how to play music.

You certainly switched things up later, by playing with The Who, Jeff Beck and Judas Priest.
Oh yes! Before I got to play with The Who, I had met Pete [Townshend] and played on some of his solo albums, like 1980's Empty Glass. After that, he asked me to play on The Who's next tour and I said: "Uh, uh, yeah! Wouldn’t mind!" That’s how that came about. It was an amazing experience.

But before all that, I remember just starting out, listening to a Jeff Beck record in my London apartment and thinking "Wow, I'd love to play with him." That was ‘75, and by '78 he had invited me to jam with him. We got on straight away, and things snowballed from there.

So that was the big turning point for you?
It's more like I had many small turning points. That piano player in my dad's band was working with Jesus Christ Superstar in London, and they wanted to get a new drummer. He put my name in for an audition, and that was a real catalyst.

It sounds like the music biz was more intimate back then, whereas now such opportunities would probably get bogged down by corporate interests.
Oh absolutely! Let’s take the rose tinted glasses off for a moment, though. The music biz in London was never easy. There were plenty of times where I'd be out of work. It'd get busy, then not. Like an actor’s career.

In those days there were no computers or sequencers. So if you were an artist and wanted a deal, you had to make a demo, and you had to do that by booking a cheap studio and booking unknown cheap musicians. In my case, I was young and unknown. And during each session, you meet bassists and guitarists, exchange numbers, and if they were impressed I'd get another call. It was so symbiotic in those days.

Now there are so many people trying to be musicians, who are not professionals. Record companies don’t have budgets and don’t sign anyone. There is really no music business to speak of anymore. I call it now the entertainment biz, not the music biz.

What have been the upsides of those changes?
Well, now I’m not signed to a record label and they don’t tell me what kind of music I need to play. And you don’t need to make music for the radio because that doesn’t matter anymore, so you can play whatever the hell you want. In the '70s they told jazz artists to play disco to sell records. Then all of these great musicians were cauterized and lobotomized into playing dumb music. That finally led to smooth jazz, especially in America.

Thankfully that's not the case in other parts of the world, especially the Far East. In Japan, wherever you go, Japanese restaurants will play either traditional Japanese music or acoustic jazz. And I love it. In America, forget about it. And that's a shame because it's one of the few things the US has to offer world culturally.

The good thing now is I can make a record no holds barred, honest and from my heart, and a lot of other artists can do the same. The downside is no one wants to sell it for you, and no one gets to hear it [laughs]. Then you have to become your own record company and find ways to get music out there. Like with everything, there are good sides and bad, and we have to adapt and do the best we can. That also means we need to get out there and perform live and go to new territories, which is a wonderful thing about coming to Beijing.

It feels like a new frontier?
Well, about ten years ago I came to China for the first time. I played drum clinics and saw all this enthusiasm among the students, and thought "This could be a big music market!" I hoped it would become like Japan, and you could do Chinese tours. But that never happened, which is very strange. I'm not sure why. But I'm up for helping to pioneer and bring jazz to Chinese shores. At the moment it feels like an experiment, though.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?
If you’re not doing anything on Jan 12 or 13, come and listen to an amazing band! If you're into rock or heavy metal you’ll love it, and if you're into straight-ahead jazz you’ll also love it because it has all these elements in it but with a very strong stylistic approach.

Simon Phillips will perform with his band, Protocol, and play his recent LP Protocol IV front to back at Blue Note on Jan 12 and 13. For more information, click here.

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