Simon Phillips has enjoyed being ‘first call’ drummer for recorded performances by rock royalty – Jeff Beck, The Who, Asia, Toto, Mike Rutherford, Jack Bruce, Jon Anderson…
With such a wide-ranging musical palette from which to choose, does he have a favourite recorded performance?
Indeed he does.
Phillips tells MusicRadar: “I think one of the performances that I'm certainly really proud of – and also one that has got recognition for being, you know, a pretty good drum track – is Give Blood by Pete Townshend. But the funny thing about that session was that it was actually full of problems.
“I turned up a week before the session because people scheduled me the week before I was supposed to turn up!
“And I didn't know who the guitarist was because the British are not very good at introducing themselves to people. I didn't recognise him, because he had really short hair. I just thought he was some friend of Pete's, like a session guy, you know?
“And what I found out later was this guitarist who I didn't know was Dave Gilmour!”
Phillips says he found it difficult working with Townshend's producer Chris Thomas.
“Before I turned up, my drum roadie delivered all my drum cases, and Chris Thomas asked, ‘Why are Simon's drums coming? He's supposed to come next week’.
“Pete said, ‘Oh, shit! I think I gave him the wrong date.’
“Then at the session, Chris wanted me to play everything separately. And I went, ‘What? What do you mean, separately?’
“And, because he wanted it for the sound, we kind of got into a bit of an argument, actually. It was hilarious, this whole scenario.”
Give Blood was used as the opening track on Townshend’s 1985 solo album White City: A Novel.
Townshend and Phillips have different accounts of which musicians featured on the track.
Townshend recalled: “Give Blood was one of the tracks I didn't even play on. I brought in Simon Phillips, Pino Palladino and David Gilmour simply because I wanted to see my three favourite musicians of the time playing on something.”
Phillips now tells MusicRadar that Pino Palladino was not present. “There was no bass player,” he says, “because Pete hadn't booked one.”
Instead, Phillips says that Townshend brought in John ‘Rabbit’ Bundrick, a former member of rock band Free. He also reckons that Townshend did play on the song.
“Rabbit was able to come by and play some keyboards,” Phillips says. “So it was just Pete on acoustic guitar, Dave on electric guitar, Rabbit playing some chords, and me on drums. And it just kind of came together.
“It was also around the time that Herbie Hancock’s Rockit came out. I really loved that song for some reason.
"I'm not a big fan of programmed drums and stuff, but I loved it. And I actually stole one of those fills. And I know, it's so weird, and yet it really suited the track. It's just one of those things."
“Also, for some reason I had set myself up a right-handed ride cymbal, which I didn't do for a long time [Phillips typically uses one ride cymbal on his left]. So I had two rides.”
Phillips recalls that after all the problems leading up to that session, the recording of Give Blood was straightforward and super-fast.
“We only did two or three takes and it was done," he says.
"It is immortalised, and it is one of the best."
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