Rolling Stone Menu Drummer Simon Phillips on His Years With the Who, Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, and Toto
The journeyman drummer has also played with Judas Priest, Jeff Beck, and Jack Bruce, and appeared on Pete Townshend’s “Let My Love Open the Door”
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Rolling Stone interview series Unknown Legends features long-form conversations between senior writer Andy Greene and veteran musicians who have toured and recorded alongside icons for years, if not decades. All are renowned in the business, but some are less well known to the general public. Here, these artists tell their complete stories, giving an up-close look at life on music’s A list. This edition features drummer Simon Phillips.
Was Mick Jagger’s ‘Primitive Cool’ Tour Just a Ruse?
Simon Phillips, who played drums on Mick Jagger’s 1987 solo album
Primitive Cool and was a member of the band he took on tour the following year, suggested that the road trip was just a ruse to get the Rolling Stones into Japan.
Jagger booked shows in only Japan and Australia, seemingly as a result of the lukewarm response to the album. But in a new interview with
Rolling Stone, Phillips said he wondered if there was another reason for the way things worked out on the 1988 road trip.
“When we started playing shows in Japan, half the set was Stones songs,” he said. “I felt, ‘What’s the point? Why do that? This is a chance for you to do something different, a solo project. . Unless, of course, this was part of a master plan to get the Stones into Japan. The problem was, the Stones could not enter Japan because of their drug convictions. … Mr. Udo of Udo Artists had to pull so many strings to get the gover