Stephen William Negus (born February 19, 1952) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

drummer,

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music ...

, who was a member of the progressive rock band

Saga is a series of science fantasy role-playing video games by Square Enix. The series originated on the Game Boy in 1989 as the creation of Akitoshi Kawazu at Square. It has since continued across multiple platforms, from the Super NES to the Pl ...

for twenty-six years. In the late 80s, he and keyboardist

Jim Gilmour James Montgomery Gilmour (4 January 1881 – 18 December 1918) was an Irish-born New Zealand rugby league footballer who played in the 1910s. He played at representative level for New Zealand (non- Test matches) ( Heritage № 67), and Welling ...

left Saga and formed GNP (Gilmour Negus Project).

Biography

While playing at

Larry's Hideaway Larry's Hideaway was a bar in the Prince Carlton Hotel in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The venue was notable for being one of the first venues in Toronto to open itself to punk and new wave music acts, as well as hard rock. The venue was well kno ...

, a club in Toronto, Steve Negus' drumming came to the attention of the

rock band A rock band or pop band is a small musical ensemble that performs rock music, pop music, or a related genre. A four-piece band is the most common configuration in rock and pop music. In the early years, the configuration was typically two gui ...

, Fludd. The band was searching for a new drummer, and offered Steve the job that night. Several weeks later Steve joined Fludd as their new drummer. While in Fludd, Steve Negus met bassist

Jim Crichton Jim or JIM may refer to: * Jim (given name), a given name * Jim, a diminutive form of the given name James * Jim, a short form of the given name Jimmy * OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism * ''Jim'' (comics), a series by Jim Woodring * ''Jim' ...

and keyboardist Peter Rochon, who would later join him as founding members of Pockets, the original working name of

. Brian and Ed Pilling were the creative force behind Fludd, and about a year after Steve joined, Brian was stricken with

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...

and the band couldn't continue to perform. A new band, Pockets, was formed out of Fludd's rhythm section. Negus, Crichton, and Rochon went into eight months of rehearsal to form the new band with Jim Crichton's younger brother

Ian Crichton Saga is a Canadian rock band from Oakville, Ontario. Bassist and keyboardist Jim Crichton and Welsh-born vocalist and keyboardist Michael Sadler were the principal songwriters. Saga had numerous line-up changes over the years. Ian and Jim Cric ...

on guitar and Michael Sadler as the singer. They changed their name to Saga a year later. With Saga, Negus earned many gold and platinum selling CDs in Europe, Canada, and the U.S. In 1981, the band went to England to work with

Rupert Hine Rupert Neville Hine (21 September 1947 – 4 June 2020) was an English musician, songwriter and record producer. He produced albums for artists including Rush, Kevin Ayers, Tina Turner, Howard Jones, Saga, the Fixx, Bob Geldof, Thompson Twin ...

as producer, and ''

Worlds Apart Worlds Apart may refer to: Film and television Films * ''Worlds Apart'' (1921 film), an American silent film starring Eugene O'Brien * ''Worlds Apart'' (2008 film), a Danish film by Niels Arden Oplev * ''Worlds Apart'', a 2008 Israeli film by Amo ...

'' was recorded at Farmyard Studios. Producer Hine also had Steve play drums on Chris de Burgh's album, '' The Getaway''. “ Don't Pay the Ferryman” was the single from that album, which went to #34 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart in the United States. ''The Getaway'' went to number one on the

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charts, followed by Saga's own ''Worlds Apart'' at number two. In the late 80's, Negus and keyboardist

left Saga and formed GNP (Gilmour Negus Project) with singer Robert Bevan for

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldw ...

. The CD ''Safety Zone'' which was produced by Negus came out in 1989. Before a follow-up CD could be written and recorded, Negus and Gilmour reunited with

which ended GNP. In 2003, Negus left Saga once again. In 2007, Negus released his first true solo project "

Dare to Dream Dare may refer to: Places * Dare, East Timor, a city * Darè, Italy, a commune * Dare County, North Carolina, United States * Dare, Virginia, United States, an unincorporated community Name * Dare (name), a list of people and fictional ch ...

" through Cyclone Records. Steve Negus also co-produced and engineered songs for Jaclyn Kenyon on her original songs "Whatcha Gonna Do" and "See it Through me" in 2009.www.SteveNegus.com biography
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Discography

Other album appearances

* Chris de Burgh - '' The Getaway'' (1982) *

- '' Waving Not Drowning'' (1982) * GNP - '' Safety Zone'' (1989) *

Top Dead Centre In a reciprocating engine, the dead centre is the position of a piston in which it is either farthest from, or nearest to, the crankshaft. The former is known as Top Dead Centre (TDC) while the latter is known as Bottom Dead Centre (BDC). ...

- '' Take another Breath (album) Tracks "Charlene" & "I Can't Touch You"'' (2012)

Solo

Negus Negus (Negeuce, Negoose) ( gez, ንጉሥ, ' ; cf. ti, ነጋሲ ' ) is a title in the Ethiopian Semitic languages. It denotes a monarch,

- ''

'' (2007)

References

;;Citations

External links