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

Canadian Canadians () 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 their being ''C ...

drummer,

songwriter A songwriter is a person who creates 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 genre and film scoring. ...

, who was a member of the progressive rock band

Saga Sagas are prose stories and histories, composed in Iceland and to a lesser extent elsewhere in Scandinavia. The most famous saga-genre is the (sagas concerning Icelanders), which feature Viking voyages, migration to Iceland, and feuds between ...

for twenty-six years. In the late 80s, he and keyboardist Jim Gilmour left Saga and formed GNP (Gilmour Negus Project).

Biography

While playing at Larry's Hideaway, a club in Toronto, Steve Negus' drumming came to the attention of the

rock band ''Rock Band'' is a series of rhythm games first released in 2007 and developed by Harmonix. Based on their previous development work from the Guitar Hero, ''Guitar Hero'' series, the main ''Rock Band'' games have players use game controllers mod ...

, 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 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

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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 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 as producer, and '' Worlds Apart'' was recorded at Farmyard Studios. Producer Hine also had Steve play drums on

Chris de Burgh Christopher John Davison (born 15 October 1948), known professionally as Chris de Burgh ( ), is a British-Irish singer-songwriter and musician. He started out as an art rock performer but subsequently started writing more pop-oriented material ...

'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 and #32 in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. ''The Getaway'' went to number one on the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

charts, followed by Saga's own ''Worlds Apart'' at number two. In the late 80's, Negus and keyboardist Jim Gilmour left Saga and formed GNP (Gilmour Negus Project) with singer Robert Bevan for

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a British record label owned by Universal Music Group. They were originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman (musician), ...

. 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'' 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

with Saga

* ''

'' (1978) * '' Images at Twilight'' (1979) * '' Silent Knight'' (1980) * '' Worlds Apart'' (1981) * '' Heads or Tales'' (1983) * ''

Behaviour Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions of Individual, individuals, organisms, systems or Artificial intelligence, artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or or ...

'' (1985) * '' The Security of Illusion'' (1993) * '' Steel Umbrellas'' (1994) * '' Generation 13'' (1995) * '' Full Circle'' (1999) * ''

House of Cards A house of cards (also known as a card tower or card castle) is a structure created by stacking playing cards on top of each other, often in the shape of a pyramid. "House of cards" is also an expression that dates back to 1645 meaning a struc ...

'' (2001) * ''

Marathon The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of kilometres ( 26 mi 385 yd), usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There ...

'' (2003)

with Chris de Burgh

* '' The Getaway'' (1982)

with GNP

* ''Safety Zone'' (1989)

with Negus

* ''Dare to Dream'' (2008) * ''Economy of Motion'' (2023)

Guest appearances

* "One Mans Poison" (from the Rupert Hine album, '' Waving Not Drowning'') (1982) * "Charlene", "I Can't Touch You" (from the Top Dead Centre album, ''Take Another Breath'') (2012)

References

;;Citations

External links

Steve Negus
at Cyclone Records
Steve Negus
at

MySpace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

Saga
Fan Page * * Entry for GNP
Entry at canadianbands.com for GNP
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Negus, Steve 1952 births Living people People from Grimsby Canadian rock drummers Canadian male drummers Musicians from Hamilton, Ontario