Simon Phillips

1998 saw the recording of another Toto studio album entitled" Mindfields", followed by 2 years of touring around the world of which the live CD "Livefields" captures. The most recent Toto record "Through the Looking Glass" took the band in 2002/03 on extensive concert trips to Europe and Asia.

Expanding his career from drumming to writing solo projects, Simon recorded his first album "Protocol" in 1988, followed by "Force Majeure" in 1992. "Symbiosis", which he recorded in 1995, was as spirited but more inspired than ever, and showed a change of direction in the compositions. Simon likes to link his growth in songwriting and new artistic depth to his move to the States. The 1997 record "Another Lifetime" shows yet another layer of his tremendously resourceful playing and an even more motivated composing. "Out of the Blue", a live album, followed in 1998 and in 1999 another complete change of style took place in his latest record "Vantage Point", which is a pure, straight ahead jazz album.

Yet another expansion to Simon's musical career is producing and engineering, which he first started back in England with British composer Mike Oldfield, working on three albums with him. Aside from his solo projects, Simon also co-produced Toto's "Tambu" in 1995,followed by "Mindfields" in 1998. Simon was asked to engineer the latest Toto album, and spent a couple of months during the winter of2001/02 recording "Through the Looking Glass" in his own studio. Simon is currently back in his studio mixing a recently recorded show for the next Toto DVD.

In 2000 Simon took a break from Toto and recorded with Derek Sherinian, formally of Dream Theater, as well as produced and engineered "Inertia". The following year included the recording of progressive band Planet X, "Moonbabies" and mixing a live CD "Live From Oz".

Simon's sympathy to the various styles of music and his interest in sound and arrangements will always drive him to expand his career.