Simon Tellier Interview – Drummer for Pet Shop Boys/Gloria Gaynor/Charli XCX/Taio Cruz.

There’s an air of effortless grace and composure that the French bring to the table. They even invented the name for it; a certain je ne sais quoi. A thing that is hard to describe, and harder for the non-french to imitate. These are qualities that come to mind when I think of Simon Tellier. He’s one of the most talented drummers I have ever worked with, and he is indeed, very French.

I’ve known Simon since I was eighteen. He later told me that when we first met, I spoke too fast for his new understanding of the English language. We both attended the same music college, Tech Music Schools, where Simon had landed himself a scholarship. Eventually, we learnt to communicate, and I’ll never forget teaching him the word ‘cobbles’ on the streets of Edinburgh.

A year or so after we met, we both auditioned to join an in-house band at the successful pop production house Xenomania. We got the gig, and it was the most unusual entrance into the music industry for both of us. It was a very structured job — 10am to 7pm, Monday to Friday. Every day, we travelled forty minutes outside of London to a gorgeous house in the country, where our rehearsal space was in fact the pool house which accompanied the outside pool in the vast garden. A wonderful Spanish cook prepared a feast for the staff once a week and we were on a salary (although we were not extraordinarily well paid, to have a regular pay-check for our first jobs as session musicians was a huge comfort). It was very bizarre, and it’s probably safe to say neither of us will work a job like that again.

Everyone in our school knew what a fantastic drummer Simon was, and working with him 5 days a week for many months in that job meant I got to see it first hand. He had certainly put a lot of work in, playing drums since he was 4 years old and doing shows with his musician parents around France throughout his childhood. He was the youngest endorsee of Mapex when he joined them in 2005. After his stint with Xenomania, he went on to play with many high profile acts, such as Tinchy Stryder, Taio Cruz, Christophe Willem, Charli XCX and Gloria Gaynor. He’s most recently been busy touring with the legendary Pet Shop Boys. I got on the phone with him one Saturday afternoon to ask him for the juicy details of his tours  past and present.