Gavin Harrison

Gavin Harrison is a drummer, composer, and author from England. The founding (and current) drummer with Porcupine Tree, he is also a member of Pineapple Thief and a former drummer with King Crimson. Harrison's credits number in the hundreds, and they include work with Renaissance, Iggy Pop, Level 42, Kevin Ayers, Jakko M. Jakszyk, and Lisa Stansfield. His leader debut, Sanity & Gravity, appeared in 1997. In 2007, he issued Drop, the first of three collaborative albums with guitarist 05ric (Ric Byer). 2009's Circles and 2012's The Man Who Sold Himself followed. From 2012 to 2022 he was one of King Crimson's drummers. In 2015, he issued Cheating the Polygraph, covering Porcupine Tree tunes with a large jazz band. He joined Pineapple Thief full-time in 2018. In 2020 he and fusion bassist Antoine Fafard released Chemical Reactions. In 2021 he joined a re-formed Porcupine Tree on Closure/Continuation, and in July 2024 Harrison and Fafard re-teamed for Perpetual Mutations. Harrison was born in North Harrow, Middlesex, in 1963. His father Bobby was an established jazz trumpeter and part-time drummer. Gavin began playing drums at age six. At 16, he left school and began his professional career; three years later he was touring North America with progressive pop group Renaissance. At 19, Harrison became a full-time session and touring musician. He worked on records by Gail Ann Dorsey, Tom Robinson, and others. In 1988 he co-founded the global jazz ensemble Dizrhythmia with bassist Danny Thompson, guitarist Jakko Jakszyk, and percussionist/vocalist Pandit Dinesh; they released a widely acclaimed, eponymously titled jazz/world fusion album on Island/Antilles. The following year, he played on BJ Cole's Transparent Music and Sarah Jane Morris' self-titled debut. He also toured with Iggy Pop during the mid-'80s. In 1990 he played on keyboardist Dave Stewart and vocalist Barbara Gaskin's second album, The Big Idea, and he's worked on each of their albums since. In 1991, he joined Incognito and played on the hit album Inside Life that netted the global smash "Always There" with vocalist Jocelyn Brown. (Harrison was also in the band's lineup for 1997's Blue Moods.) A year later he joined Kevin Ayers on the iconic Still Life with Guitar. Harrison went to work in Italy, playing on numerous albums and tours for Franco Batiato, Claudio Baglioni, Raf, Fiorella Mannoia, Eros Ramazzotti, and Projeto Cavani. He briefly joined Level 42 on what was reportedly their final tour (it wasn't). In 1995, Harrison played on Mick Karn's widely acclaimed The Tooth Mother and Cole's The Heart of the Moment. He published the first of several instructional books, Rhythmic Illusions, in 1996. His intense session and touring work continued in 1997 on Soft Vengeance by Manfred Mann's Earth Band and Jakszyk's The Road to Bailina. That same year, he released Sanity & Gravity, his debut long-player as a leader. His large, alternating lineup included future Porcupine Tree bandmate Richard Barbieri and bassist Mick Karn. In 1999 he appeared with Lisa Stansfield on her soundtrack for the film Swing and toured with her worldwide on several subsequent tours. His second book, Rhythmic Designs: A Study of Practical Creativity, appeared in 2000, the same year he played on soul singer Lewis Taylor's II and became the musical director for Artful Dodger. In 2002, Harrison was invited by Steven Wilson, Barbieri, and Colin Edwin to join Porcupine Tree as a replacement for founding drummer Chris Maitland. Harrison played on In Absentia, XMII, Deadwing, Fear of a Blank Planet, and The Incident, and toured with them relentlessly until they went on hiatus in 2010. In 2007 he and touch guitarist 05ric released their collaborative debut Drop; it was the first year he won Modern Drummer magazine's poll -- he won consecutively through 2010. The following year played in a live, two-drummer incarnation of King Crimson on August 07, 2008: Park West, Chicago, Illinois, Mr. Stormy's Monday Selection, and Level Max. He also played on Wilson's solo debut, Insurgentes, and collaborated with 05ric on Circles. 05ric's and Harrison's third and final collaboration, The Man Who Sold Himself, appeared in 2012, as did his contribution to the Fusion Syndicate's eponymous debut. A studio supergroup, the band featured a slew of first call prog and fusion musicians including Billy Cobham, Percy Jones, Rick Wakeman, John Etheridge and a dozen others. Harrison, and Antoine Fafard initially worked together with ex-Mahavishnu Orchestra violinist Jerry Goodman on the bassist/guitarist's classical/jazz fusion outing Occultus Tramitis in 2013. Two years later, on a break from touring with King Crimson, Harrison issued his sophomore solo outing, Cheating the Polygraph, on which he arranged Porcupine Tree covers for a jazz octet. It won global acclaim. Between 2014 and 2020, Harrison worked stages across the world with King Crimson, ultimately appearing on more than a dozen live recordings, including 2016's now-classic Radical Action to Unseat the Hold Of Monkey Mind. That year Dizrhythmia reunited for Too. The year also marked his first recorded appearance with the Pineapple Thief on Dissolution; he also played a European tour with them that resulted in the live album Hold Our Fire. He became a full-time member in time to record 2020's Versions of the Truth. He also re-teamed with Fafard to cut a a co-billed collaborative album titled Chemical Reactions with Goodman and the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra. Porcupine Tree officially re-formed in 2021 as a trio with Wilson, Harrison, and Barbieri. In November, they released their first single, "Harridan," to acclaim across the U.K., Europe, and North America. That year, the Pineapple Thief issued the double-length Nothing But the Truth, which featured numerous compositions from Harrison. The following year, Give It Back, a collection of Porcupine Tree songs reworked, was released. In June 2022, Porcupine Tree's Closure/Continuation appeared on Sony's Music for Nations' imprint. Each tour date sold out within minutes. In July, they played a gig in Amsterdam that resulted in 2023's Closure/Continuation Live. Two years later, the Pineapple Thief released It Leads to This, while Harrison and Fafard re-teamed for Perpetual Mutations, a much more jazz-rock fusion-recording. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi