Simon Tong (born 9 July 1972) is an English

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselve ...

and

keyboardist A keyboardist or keyboard player is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical ins ...

who was a member of the Verve between 1996 and 1999. He has played with Damon Albarn on tour with his bands Blur and

Gorillaz Gorillaz are an English virtual band formed in 1998 by musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, from London. The band primarily consists of four fictional members: 2-D (character), 2-D (Singing, vocals, Musical keyboard, keyboards), Murd ...

, and as a member of the Good, the Bad & the Queen. He ranks in BBC's "The Axe Factor" as the 40th greatest guitarist of the last 30 years. Tong grew up in English town

Skelmersdale Skelmersdale is a town in Lancashire, England, on the River Tawd, west of Wigan, northeast of Liverpool and southwest of Preston. In 2006, it had a population of 38,813. The town is known locally as Skem . While the first record of the tow ...

, the subject of his most recent release, ''Prospect of Skelmersdale'' with his project

The Magnetic North The Magnetic North are a British band, formed between multi-instrumentalist Simon Tong (formerly of The Verve, Blur and The Good, the Bad & the Queen), Orcadian artist and producer Gawain Erland Cooper and singer, composer and orchestral ...

Career

The Verve; 1996–1999

From 1996 to 1999, Simon was a guitarist and keyboardist for The Verve. He was brought in to replace lead guitarist

Nick McCabe Nicholas John McCabe (born 14 July 1971) is an English musician best known as the lead guitarist of the Verve. Early life McCabe is the son of a bus driver father and a social worker mother and has two older brothers, Alan and Paul. When aske ...

after the band's first short-lived split, but remained with them when McCabe returned. Their third album was 1997's highly acclaimed '' Urban Hymns''. He played on many of their hits from that time such as " The Drugs Don't Work", " Bittersweet Symphony" and "

Sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's inventio ...

". The Verve disbanded in 1999 and later reformed in 2007, this time without Tong, as Jones stated in an interview, "When we were getting the band back together we wanted to go back to the core members, he was cool with it, he understood. He would like to have been part of it but he understood the reasons,". By 2009 they had disbanded again.

The Shining; 2002–2003

After The Verve disbanded, Tong and Simon Jones (The Verve) were members of short lived band The Shining from 2002 to 2003.

Blur/Gorillaz; 2002–2010

Following Graham Coxon's departure from Blur in 2002, Tong was recruited as the guitarist for the band's live performances in support of the album ''

Think Tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmental ...

'' (2003). He continued the relationship formed with frontman Damon Albarn by contributing guitar to

' 2005 album '' Demon Days'' and playing guitar in the Gorillaz live band for the Demon Days Live performances. Tong also contributed guitar to Gorillaz' 2010 album ''

Plastic Beach ''Plastic Beach'' is the third studio album by British virtual band Gorillaz. It was released on 3 March 2010 by Parlophone internationally and by Virgin Records in the United States. Conceived from an unfinished project called ''Carousel'', t ...

'' and substituted for lead guitarist Jeff Wootton on certain dates of the Escape to Plastic Beach Tour.

Erland and the Carnival/The Good, the Bad and the Queen; 2006–2019

In July 2006, it was reported that Tong would again be working with Damon Albarn. NME reported that Albarn had foregone plans to record a solo album and instead formed a new group The Good, the Bad & the Queen, which featured Tong with Albarn, former Clash bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Tony Allen. The band released the single "

Herculean Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the Gr ...

" in October 2006 and later released their self titled debut studio album on 23 January 2007. The album enjoyed very good reviews and a second single, " Kingdom of Doom", was also released in January 2007 as part of their pan European tour. The band was active again after a decade, releasing their second album, ''

Merrie Land ''Merrie Land'' is the second and final studio album by English art rock supergroup The Good, the Bad & the Queen. It was produced by Tony Visconti and released on 16 November 2018. Promotion The band announced the album with the single "Merrie ...

'' on 16 November 2018 to largely positive reviews. It was supported by a 2018 December tour in the UK and a European tour in 2019. However, the band was split again shortly after finished the UK and Europe tour. In 2021, Tong contributed to Damon Albarn's solo album, The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows.

The Magnetic North; 2012–present

Simon Tong co-created The Magnetic North with

Erland Cooper Gawain Erland Cooper (born 5 October 1984) is a Scottish composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist. Cited as "one of the most unique, consistently engaging composers of his generation", he was born and raised in Stromness, Orkney. As an inter ...

of Erland and the Carnival, and Hannah Peel of John Foxx and the Maths. They originally planned on only releasing one album in 2012, ''Orkney: Symphony of the Magnetic North'', but due to its popularity reconvened to release follow-up ''Prospect of Skelmersdale'' in 2016, a concept album about Tong's Transcendentalist hometown,

Other projects

Tong also set up a record label with

Youth Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood ( maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as being a young adult. Y ...

(of Killing Joke) called Butterfly Recordings. The first acts to be released are Indigo Moss and Duke Garwood along with a compilation entitled "What the Folk". In 2012 Simon contributed to the recording of the Dr Dee soundtrack, written by Damon Albarn, which was released on 7 May 2012. He was a member of the band Transmission with

, Paul Ferguson (of Killing Joke) and Tim Bran (of Dreadzone) which has released a single called "Noctolucent" and an album "Beyond Light" in 2006. He has also played guitar on several tracks on the 2007

Client Client(s) or The Client may refer to: * Client (business) * Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer * Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuabl ...

album " Heartland". Tong was asked to play guitar on the album Apriti sesamo by Italian composer Franco Battiato . After its 2012 release Tong toured with Battiato in Italy. In 2020 Tong was involved in a project called 'Mirry

with his brother in law Tom Fraser and Kirsteen McNish. It resulted in an album based around the 1950s piano recordings of Frasers great aunt Mirry.

Personal life

Tong grew up with fellow Verve member Richard Ashcroft and went to school with other members of The Verve. He is credited with teaching him guitar.

References

External links

Gorillaz – Official websiteBlur – Official websiteThe Good, The Bad, The Queen – Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tong, Simon English rock guitarists English male guitarists English rock keyboardists English songwriters Living people 1972 births Music in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan People from Farnworth People from Wigan Blur (band) members The Verve members British people of Chinese descent British people of Portuguese-Jewish descent Gorillaz members Transmission (band) members The Good, the Bad & the Queen members The Shining (band) members Erland and the Carnival members The Magnetic North members