Simon Rogers

Simon Rogers is an English musician, record producer, and BAFTA and EMMY nominated composer, who has been a member of The Fall and The Lightning Seeds.

Biography

In 1976, Rogers entered the Royal College of Music, London, later becoming an associate (ARCM) and winning their guitar prize in 1980. Upon leaving he joined Ballet Rambert's Mercury Ensemble as their guitarist. During this period he composed several ballet scores, including ''Entre Dos Aguas'' and ''Fabrications'' for London Contemporary Dance Theatre. He also made his first commercial hit, joining the South American folk music group Incantation who enjoyed some UK and international chart success in the early 1980s, their best known single being "Cacharpaya".Pringle (2022), p. 162

In 1985, Rogers left both Rambert and Incantation and joined the post-punk group the Fall, initially as temporary bassist replacing Stephen Hanley. After Hanley's return from paternity leave, Rogers joined the Fall on guitar and keyboards for the album '' This Nation's Saving Grace'' and co-writing several songs on the follow-up '' Bend Sinister''. He produced their top 20 album '' The Frenz Experiment'' (1988)Pringle (2022), pp. 188, 190 before parting company with the group. During this period, he also produced two albums for Bauhaus singer Peter Murphy.

He began to compose for television whilst at Rambert and his credits include TV dramas such as '' The Old Men at the Zoo'' (1982), '' Much Ado About Nothing'' (1983) and '' The Rainbow'' (1988) as well as two American TV movies, ''Daddy'' (1987) and '' The Preppie Murder'' (1989) for ABC.

In the 1990s, Rogers continued to work in music production, beginning a long association with the Lightning Seeds, for whom he co-produced the albums ''Sense'', '' Jollification'', '' Dizzy Heights'' and '' Tilt'' as well as the football anthem " Three Lions". He also returned to The Fall to produce the majority of '' The Infotainment Scan''. Throughout the '90s he was also involved with underground dance music, remixing under the names RAMP and Slacker. Slacker signed to XL in '97 and had two hits, "Scared" and "Your Face" during their time on the label. There were also several successful releases on Boy George's More Protein label, including ''Generations of Love'' and ''Everything Starts with an E''. He has also developed solo projects such as ''Leuroj'' and ''T-Era'' for the Skint/Loaded labels, and ''Steiger'' for John Digweed’s Bedrock Records label.

In 2003, he returned to television music, scoring ''40'' (starring Eddie Izzard and Kerry Fox) for Channel 4. Work on other productions followed swiftly after the first broadcast of the series including ITV's ''Rebus'', starring Ken Stott, various episodes of BBC's '' Dalziel and Pascoe'' and Jon Howe's film ''Streets'' which was selected for the Venice Film Festival of 2004.

Other credits include scores for ''South Africa, Murder Most Foul'', ''Ochberg's Orphans'' and ''Dancing with the Devil in the City of God'', directed by Oscar-winning documentary maker Jon Blair and the title music for '' Hustle'' (Kudos/Spooks Ltd for BBC One), which was nominated for the Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music Emmy Award in 2007. Rogers was also part of Musicotopia who have provided music for three series of Animal Planet's ''River Monsters'', BBC ''Natural World'' documentaries and ''The First World War from Above'' for BBC One in 2010. In 2012, he scored the 4th season of CBBC drama ''Young Dracula''. He also composed the music for '' The Dumping Ground'' since its second season.
He was BAFTA nominated in the Music Factual category in 2024 for "A Time To Die" an ITV documentary dealing with assisted dying.

See also

* List of The Fall members

References

Sources

*
* Pringle, Steve. ''You Must Get Them All: The Fall On Record''. London: Route Publishing, 2022.

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rogers, Simon
English male composers
English record producers
English male guitarists
Living people
The Fall (band) members
Alumni of the Royal College of Music
The Adult Net members
Year of birth missing (living people)
The Lightning Seeds members