A journey through drumming

Jon: drums

Black Dog - Roadhog

Jon Auty has been drumming for nearly twenty years and in that time has worked with many of the worlds top musicians.

It was whilst at school that his dream of playing in front of a big audience came true. He was chosen as the drummer for a School Band 'Supergroup' Concert at Birmingham Symphony Hall culminating in the chosen musicians, from schools up and down the country, playing with star of the show - Cliff Richard. Musical Director, Brian Bennett, drummer with The Shadows , arranged new versions of Cliff's hits 'Green Light' and 'Devil Woman' for the sell out concert in 1986.

After leaving school in Derbyshire, he moved to London and began making connections in the session world. His first step was to meet guitarist Jay Graydon, a session musician whose work included a 1989 album with Steve Gadd on drums for Toshiki Kadomatsu called 'Reasons for Thousand Lovers'. Graydon mentioned that he knew people who were looking for drummers who could improvise and organized a meet with guitarist Terry Steadman. Within one week of meeting, Jon and Terry had become firm friends and had decided to create a band with session players. Keyboard supremo John Kongos was followed by bass player Brian Lord and before too long Black Dog were getting regular work live and in the studio.

The late eighties saw Black Dog working on albums for Louise Burton and with composer George Fenton on a BBC drama 'History Man'.

By 1989 Jon had made a name for himself as a versatile drummer who wasn't afraid to create something 'special' when presented with a challenge. Whilst working with American pianist Mike Lawrence on his 1990 release 'Nightwind' he met Gavin Wright who was playing with the London Session Orchestra on the title track. It was this meeting that gave Jon new direction and an opportunity to embark on a lifelong ambition.

His first session with the Orchestra was at E.M.I Abbey Road Studios in July of 1990 with German band Eloy. This was the start of a successful four year relationship that would see sessions with Nigel Kennedy, Patrice Rushen, Lon Satton and Andy Taylor from Duran Duran.

Around the same time a project called Improv Ensemble were looking for musicians to take part in a unique recording. Each player would record for 20-25 minutes with no instruction from the engineer or producer. The idea was to play what you were feeling at the time. The result was an album called 'The Hearing Continues' long bursts of music were mixed with short screams and sobbing!! This was eventually performed live at the Red Rose 6 months later.

An extract from the sleeve notes:

"The sights at the recording session were quite amazing: Four drummers with full kits; three grand pianos (played by three grand pianists); three bass clarinets; three double basses; and so on. The feelings were very positive throughout the session, and a considerable variety of pieces were recorded. They included free improvisations, conductions and rule-based schemes, and in one case (Fire - in the Air) the musicians reacted to a film."

Whilst working on a session in 1992 a young musician called Marius de Vris was interested by Jon's drumming style. Six years later Marius asks Jon to perform drum loops for the title theme of his new movie score The Avengers. The film wasn't a great success, but the new version of its theme is every inch a winner.

Jon kept himself active on the live front, playing with The Rat Band a rock / blues cover band fronted by Jim Marlow and featuring Nigel May on Guitar, Jeff James on Bass and Dave Frame on acoustics. Jon shared the backbeat with ex Deep Freeze Mice drummer Peter Gregory.

By 2001 Jon was once again looking for a new and exciting challenge, something that would test him and allow him to conjure up a new lease of life. In between jobs he found session work with Leicester bands Lender and Neon Squeeze and joined Loughborough based band Magenta. Lead singer/guitarist Lisa de Ville contacted Jon and they met in December 2001. Magenta were a powerful four piece band with direction and purpose. Led by Lisa de Ville they seemed fit to take the world by storm. Unfortunately Magenta suffered from on-going line-up problems and ultimately unraveled in mid-2002.

Luckily Jon had been contacted by Tristram towards the end of 2001. Auditions for what would become Pig Iron Joe commenced in November 2001 and recording took place at Seamus Wong Studios in February 2002. Soon after that Sharon left The Roadhogs and Tristram asked Jon to join as the bands regular drummer. The rest as they say is history.

Jon's Particulars