Bill Drummond

William Ernest Drummond (born 29 April 1953) is a Scottish artist, musician, writer, and record producer.

He attended the University of Northampton and the Art and Design Academy from 1970 to 1973.

He later decided that "art should use everything, be everywhere" and that, as an artist, he would "use whatever medium is to hand".

He spent two years working as a milkman, gardener, steel worker, nursing assistant, theatre carpenter, and scene painter.

Drummond also worked on a trawler.

Drummond is a fan of Scottish football club Queen of the South, which he says is due to their proximity to his home town of Newton Stewart.

In 1975 Drummond began working at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool as a carpenter and scene painter.

In 1976 he was the set designer for the first stage production of The Illuminatus Trilogy, a 12-hour performance which opened on 23 November 1976, and which was staged by Ken Campbell's "Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool".

The production transferred to the National Theatre, and then the Roundhouse, in London.

According to Campbell, Drummond became known as "the man who went for Araldite": "In the middle of a tour, Drummond announced he was popping out to get some glue – and never returned."

Drummond later wrote that none of his career would have happened as it did if not for what he learnt from Campbell, starting with the advice "Bill, don't bother doing anything unless it is heroic!"

After absconding from the Illuminatus! production in London, Drummond returned to Liverpool and co-founded the band Big in Japan.

Other members included Holly Johnson (Frankie Goes to Hollywood), Budgie (Siouxsie and the Banshees), Jayne Casey (Pink Military/Pink Industry) and Ian Broudie (The Lightning Seeds).

After the band's demise, Drummond and another member, his best friend David Balfe, founded Zoo Records.

Zoo's first release was Big in Japan's posthumous EP, From Y To Z and Never Again.

They went on to act as producers of the debut albums by Echo & the Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes, both of which Drummond would later manage somewhat idiosyncratically.

With Zoo Music Ltd, Drummond and Balfe were also music publishers for Zodiac Mindwarp and The Love Reaction and The Proclaimers.

The production team of Drummond and Balfe was christened The Chameleons, who recorded the single "Touch" together with singer Lori Lartey as Lori and the Chameleons and were involved with the production on Echo & the Bunnymen's debut album, released on the Korova label.

Drummond later took a job in the mainstream music business as an A&R consultant for the label WEA working with, amongst others, Strawberry Switchblade and Brilliant.

He was a co-founder of the late-1980s avant-garde pop group the KLF and its 1990s media-manipulating successor, the K Foundation, with which he famously burned £1 million in 1994.

"Queen of the South" is also the title of the sixth track on his 1986 album, The Man.

In July 1986, on his 33 and a third birthday, Drummond repented his corporate involvement and resigned his job by way of a "ringingly quixotic press release": "I will be 33.5 (sic) years old in September, a time for a revolution in my life. There is a mountain to climb the hard way, and I want to see the world from the top..."

During their career, The KLF released four studio albums – 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) (1987), Who Killed The JAMs? (1988), Chill Out (1990) and their most commercially successful album, The White Room (1991), which spawned internationally successful singles such as re–worked versions of "What Time Is Love?", "3 a.m. Eternal", "Last Train to Trancentral" and a new track, "Justified & Ancient" which featured American country singer Tammy Wynette.

(In an interview in December 1990, Drummond recalled spending half a million pounds at WEA on the band Brilliant – for whom he envisioned massive worldwide success – only for them to completely flop. "At that point I thought 'What am I doing this for?' and I got out.")

Drummond was "obviously very sharp," said WEA chairman Rob Dickens, "and he knew the business. But he was too radical to be happy inside a corporate structure. He was better off working as an outsider."

Later in the year, Drummond issued a solo album, The Man, a country/folk music recording, backed by Australian rock group The Triffids.

The album was released on Creation Records and included the sardonic "Julian Cope Is Dead", where he outlined his fantasy of shooting the Teardrop Explodes frontman in the head, to ensure the band's early demise and subsequent legendary status.

Following their performance at the 1992 BRIT Awards, The KLF announced their departure from the music business and, in May of that year, they deleted their entire back-catalogue.

Although the duo remained true to their word of May 1992, with the KLF Communications catalogue remaining deleted, they have released a small number of new tracks since then, as the K Foundation, the One World Orchestra, and in 1997, as 2K.

Drummond and Cauty reappeared in 2017 as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, releasing the novel 2023, and rebooting an earlier campaign to build a "People's Pyramid".

In January 2021, the band began uploading their previously deleted catalogue onto streaming services, in compilations.

More recent art activities, carried out under Drummond's banner of Penkiln Burn, include making and distributing cakes, soup, flowers, beds, and shoe-shines.

More recent music projects include No Music Day and the international tour of a choir called The17.

Drummond is the author of several books about art and music.

William Ernest Drummond was born in Butterworth, South Africa, where his father was a minister for the Church of Scotland.

His family moved back to Scotland when he was 18 months old, and his early years were spent in the town of Newton Stewart.

He moved to Corby, Northamptonshire at the age of 11.

It was here that he first became involved in performing as a musician, initially working with school friends such as Gary Carson and Chris Ward.

He lived on the Beanfield Estate, where his father was the priest of the St Peter and St Andrew church.

He attended Beanfield Secondary Modern School gaining four O-levels, and the sixth form of Kingswood School, where he was expelled in the sixth form.