Tony Kenning
Tony Kenning | |
|---|---|
| Add a Photo | |
| Born | January 11, 1961 Sheffield, Yorkshire, England |
| Nationality | English |
| Citizenship | England |
| Occupation | Musician |
Tony Kenning is an English drummer, best known as the original drummer and one of the founding members of the hard rock band Def Leppard.
Personal Life
Tony Kenning was born 11th January 1961 in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England. He has three children from a previous marriage. He plays both the drums and piano. He is currently a member of the band Shef Leppard, a tribute band based out of Sheffield; former bands include Atomic Mass, Def Leppard, Tour de Force, Cairo and Ministers of Inspiration.
He is the only member of Def Leppard to have been excluded from the band's 2019 Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame induction. Kenning did not attend the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction.
Kenning currently works as an engineer for Sky UK in London.[1]
Atomic Mass
In early 1977, schoolmates Kenning and Rick Savage started talking about putting together a band. They were quickly joined by guitarist Peter Doubleday and singer Nicolas Mackley and began practicing in Savage's living room. During a jam session at the local youth club, guitarist Pete Willis, together with a bass playing friend of his named Paul Hampshire, joined in. The lineup shifted many times over the course of the summer as the group became 'Atomic Mass'[2][3]
Atomic Mass played one non-paying gig: an end of term dance at their school, Tapton, in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Joe Elliott, future lead singer of Def Leppard, was in the audience that night.[4] Elliott went to a nearby school, King Edward VII.
Def Leppard
In the summer of 1977, Kenning and Savage began working at British Rail as Signals and Telecoms Trainee Technicians. Once they met up again with Willis, the trio decided to start a proper band, with Savage and Willis on guitar and Kenning on drums. Savage agreed to take up the bass until the group could find a “proper” bass player (leaving Willis to handle guitar duties on his own) and the group set about finding a lead singer.[5]
Soon after, Willis bumped into Joe Elliott on the way home from rehearsal.[6] Elliott had recently bought himself an electric guitar from a secondhand store and asked Willis if he would be interested in starting up a band. Willis replied that he was, in fact, already putting a group together and that they were looking for a singer. Elliott immediately volunteered for the position.[7] Willis gathered the rest of the members and the group met at Elliott’s parents’ house, where they checked out his record collection and decided to bring him into the band.[8][9]
In September, Kenning found a room at the Portland Works spoon factory on Bramhall Lane. The room was two-and-a-half floors up and accessible only by a rickety outdoor staircase, but the owner was desperate to lease the space and allowed the band to rehearse there for just £5 a week.[10]
Atomic Mass soon decided they needed a better name. Elliott proposed "Deaf Leopard", a name he came up with while designing band posters in art class. Kenning suggested they use the phonetic spelling so they would sound less like a punk band, crossing out the “a” in “Def” and drawing a line down the “o” in “Leopard” to change the name to "Def Leppard". The members agreed and the name Def Leppard became permanent.[11][12]
In January 1978, the band added guitarist Steve Clark to the lineup and the band began writing more songs. During this period, they wrote and performed such classics as "Wasted" and "Rocks Off"... songs that eventually found their way onto their debut album On Through the Night.[13]
The band's first show as Def Leppard was at the Westfield School in Sheffield on 18 July 1978. This was followed by a second show at an open-air festival on 26 August 1978, where the power was provided by a long cable attached to someone's house and car headlights were used for the band to see once it got dark. By the third show, this time at The Limit Club in Sheffield, the band played a taster night along with three other Sheffield bands including electronic band The Human League. Their next show at The Limit Club saw them move up to headlining status and the local press began to take notice.[14][15]
Kenning's last live performance with Def Leppard was at the Wapentake Bar on 1 October 1978. Just prior to that, he played on Def Leppard's first demo tape. Sometime later, these recordings were released on bootleg albums called First Strike and Warchild.[16][17][18]
On 18 November 1978, after a meeting with Elliott and the other band members at a pub in Sheffield called the Wapentake, Kenning decided to leave the group. The Def Leppard EP was recorded just a week later, with studio musician Frank Noon using Kenning's drum kit.[19][20]
Tour de Force, Cairo, and Ministers of Inspiration
After leaving Def Leppard, Kenning quit his job at British Rail and took a position working for British Telecom, where he met Gerry Fletcher, a talented vocalist and guitarist. In 1981, the pair recruited childhood friend of Pete Willis, Paul Hampshire, and Atomic Mass bassist, Andy Nicholas, and formed ‘Tour de Force’. Kenning found a rehearsal room for the quartet at Portland Works (a different room from the one he found for Def Leppard in 1977) and the group played a few local gigs around Sheffield before Pete Willis, having been dismissed from Def Leppard, asked Hampshire to join him in a new musical venture he was starting. After Hampshire’s departure in 1982, Tour de Force dissolved and the remaining members started up a new band called ‘Cairo’, with the addition of keyboardist Phil Wainwright. Andy Nicholas soon left the band and was replaced by Andy Needham. The group played regular gigs at pubs and working men's clubs around Sheffield and reached the final of Band ‘83 Competition at Sheffield City Hall. In 1984, the group recorded a self-financed single, “Eight Bells” (B side: “Inside Out”), at a studio in North London and converted the master tape to vinyl at Abbey Road Studios. The track received modest airplay on Sheffield’s Radio Hallam but eluded wider success.[21]
In 1985, a new iteration of Cairo with Steve Banks on vocals joined forces with the writing duo of John Reilly and Chris Mann to form a six-piece band called the ‘Ministers of Inspiration’ which melded a mix of styles and influences. The new group entered the Band of ‘85 Competition in Sheffield as a warmup gig and won. Ministers of Inspiration became a fixture on the local circuit and played a number of venues around Sheffield, including The Limit Club and Sheffield City Hall. On 22 September 1986, the band was showcased at the Fulham Greyhound in Hammersmith, London where they were spotted by an employee from Utopia Records. The Ministers were invited to spend a weekend recording at Utopia’s 24-track studio in London, where the group laid down their entire catalog of songs live in a single day. The recording garnered some interest, but when nothing came of the tapes Mann decided to take a step back from the band and Reilly took the opportunity to try something new. From there the rest of the band splintered off into various projects and Kenning, disillusioned with the results of his hard work, decided to give up his career in music.
Shef Leppard
Shef Leppard was formed in Sheffield in 2019, as the ultimate Def Leppard tribute band. [22] The band consists of members Tony Kenning on drums, Paul Banks on vocals, Harris Nixon and Andy Frost on guitar and Andy Scott on bass.
A chance meeting between Kenning and Nixon led to the band's formation. Nixon began playing at the age of 14 and by 1983, with his band Schaeffer, was recording and gigging with bands such as The Little Angels and It Bites. He went on to form the band Carnival, recording many albums and touring throughout America and Europe. They were soon joined by Frost, who was a member of the NWOBH band Seventh Son back in 1983. Both Frost and Nixon were in the band Schaeffer when the Shef Leppard project began.
After touring for over thirty years with the likes of Saxon, FM and Tony Martin, bass player Andy Scott, who has known and worked with Nixon many times over the years while touring in the same circuits, "jumped at the chance" to join the lineup.
After fronting for bands including Nemesis and Wild Mcbride, vocalist Paul Banks was the last member to sign on.[23]
In 2022, Shef Leppard conducted their own "Stadium Tour" throughout the UK and in conjunction with The Stadium Tour featuring Def Leppard and Motley Crue. They played multiple shows with The Motley Crude Tribute Band and Poizon: World's No. 1 Tribute to Poison.
References
- ↑ "Tony Kenning". LinkedIn.
- ↑ Fricke, David (1987). Animal Instinct. Great Britain: Zomba Books. pp. 17–18. ISBN 0-946391-55-6.
- ↑ LIFE, Def Leppard. 2022. Dotdash Meredith Premium Publishing. p. 10. ISBN 0-709891060-7-9
- ↑ Fricke, David (1987). Animal Instinct. Great Britain: Zomba Books. p. 18. ISBN 0946391-55-6.
- ↑ Savage, Rick (2019). "Rick Savage Q&A by Mick Wall". Classic Rock Magazine, The Complete Story of Def Leppard: 48.
- ↑ Burke Warren, Robert (29 March 2019). "Def Leppard". Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 34th Annual Induction Ceremony: 31–32.
- ↑ Elliott, Joe (26 March 2018). ""#1 Joe Elliott." Music and Me. Podcast. Select quotes taken from "Joe Elliott on His Early Days in Def Leppard and Recording Hysteria." Def Leppard Tour History". deflepparduk. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
- ↑ Fricke, David (1987). Animal Instinct. Great Britain: Zomba Books. p. 18. ISBN 0946391-55-6.
- ↑ LIFE, Def Leppard. 2022. Dotdash Meredith Premium Publishing. p. 10. ISBN 0-709891060-7-9
- ↑ Fricke, David (1987). Animal Instinct. Great Britain: Zomba Books. p. 18. ISBN 0946391-55-6.
- ↑ Elliott, Joe (2019). "Joe Elliott Q&A by Paul Elliott". Classic Rock Magazine: The Complete Story of Def Leppard: 25.
- ↑ "Behind the band name Def Leppard". American Songwriter.
- ↑ "About Shef Leppard". Shef Leppard.
- ↑ Fricke, David (1987). Animal Instinct. Great Britain: Zomba Books. p. 24. ISBN 0946391-55-6.
- ↑ "New Book Remembers When Sheffield Nightlife Really Was The Limit". mcmedia.co.uk.
- ↑ "Def Leppard Band Member / Tony Kenning". deflepparduk.com.
- ↑ "1978 Demo". defleppardfandom.com.
- ↑ "Def Leppard First Strike". internetarchive.com.
- ↑ Fricke, David (2021). Animal Instinct. Great Britain: Zomba Books. p. 26. ISBN 0-946391-55-6.
- ↑ "Def Leppard Band Member / Tony Kenning". deflepparduk.com.
- ↑ Fricke, David (1987). Animal Instinct. Great Britain: Zomba Books. p. 26. ISBN 0-946391-55-6.
- ↑ "An Interview with Tony Kenning of Def Leppard". vwmusicrocks.com.
- ↑ "About Shef Leppard". Shef Leppard.
External links
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