Mel Gaynor

Mel George Gaynor (* May 29, 1960 in London, England ) is a British drummer and known as a member of the rock band Simple Minds.

Biography

Gaynor joined Simple Minds in 1982 as a studio musician in the recording of the album New Gold Dream on. During the New Gold Dream tour, he was in late 1982, as a replacement for Mike Ogletree, a permanent member. With a short break in the early 1990s Mel Gaynor is still the drummer of the band.

Gaynor began playing drums, when he was eleven years old, and had his first professional use at the age of 14 years. Musically he was influenced by The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Besides the drums, he is an active songwriter and producer.

In addition to the Simple Minds Mel Gaynor has worked with musicians like Elton John, Tina Turner, Samson, Associates, The Pretenders and Robert Palmer. Another project he began with keyboardist Stephane Deriau - pure a duo called The Fusion Project. The first album of the formation was published in April 2006 and described as "a sort of mix in between progressive rock and jazz -fusion ."

Mel Gaynor was started in 2007 on his solo project with a new version of Play That Funky Music by Robert Parissi.