Bob Siebenberg - Biography

Bob Siebenberg was born on October 31st 1949 in Glendale, California. Besides sports, he was drawn to music during his childhood.  His mother was a saloon singer and his father was a big fan of bands like Dukes of Dixieland, The Firehouse Five Plus Two, Spike Jones and Lawrence Welk.

In 1958, when Bob was in the fourth grade at school, he decided to join the school orchestra to play snare drum. The surf music scene was about to explode in California with Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, a precursor to the Beach Boys, and the surf craze.

Bill, Bob’s brother, was a senior in high school at the time and a couple of his friends were musicians. In the early 60s, he joined Ken Glastre and Jay Beasley and The Expressions were born. They initially played surf music, but with the advent of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, the line up would change with the times.
 
In September of 1966 The Expressions disbanded and Bob joined other bands, first The Lost Souls and then The Ilford Subway, which featured a young bass player named Scott Gorham, who become Bob’s closest friend and would eventually go on to join the band Thin Lizzy. Bob would marry Vicki Gorham, Scott’s sister, in March of 1971.

The Ilford Subway disbanded two years later, and in 1969 Bob would join a band from Santa Barbara called R.H.S. (Real Hot Shit).

Bob returned to Glendale in November of 1969 and formed a new band, Redeye, with Scott Gorham on guitar, Derek Beauchemin on keyboards, Ron Reeves on vocals and Rick Hart on bass. They used to play Procol Harum style material, but the band was short lived. In July 1970, Bob got a call from one of the guys he had played with in R.H.S. asking him to audition for a new band.

The new band was called Benbecula, and Bob got his friends Scott Gorham and Derek Beauchemin to join him. Again, no luck and Bob decided split to England and try it in the land of his heroes. On April 30th 1971 he flew to London with a suitcase and his drum kit, and started looking for a job while he went to the Eric Guilder School of Music to study piano, flute and sax.

In the summer of 1971, after reading an advertisement in the ‘Melody Maker’, Bob met up with bassist Barry Richardson, keyboardist Ruan O’Lochlainn and guitarists Mick Molloy and Deke O’Brien. The band became Bees Make Honey and Bob stayed  wit them for almost two years, playing five or six nights per week in pubs everywhere between London and Ireland as well as Universities and  recorded an album with them, ‘Music Every Night’.

In the spring of 1973, Bees Make Honey played with Frankie Miller the tour for his first album, ‘Once in a Blue Moon’, and supported Supertramp at several gigs. at a club called Barbarella’s in Birmingham, and after the Bees set, Bob and Ruan O’Lochlainn stayed behind to watch the Supertramp play.

Before one of these shows Bob was playing darts at a nearby pub when Rick Davies and Dougie Thomson showed up. This was the first time he would speak with his future band mates. Soon afterwards, one night while he was packing up his stuff after the gig at the Kensington, Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson came up and told him they were looking for a new drummer, and they like to jam and see what happens.

Rick and Roger asked Bob to rehearse with them soon thereafter, and about a year later they recorded the breakthrough album ‘Crime of the century’ together. The band would sell over sixty million albums and record classic albums like ‘Crisis? What crisis?’, ‘Even in the quietest moments’, ‘Famous last words’ and the best seller ‘Breakfast in America’.

After collaborating with Gary Wright on the album ‘The Right Place’, and with Phil Lynott on the album ‘Solo in Soho’, Bob released in the 80s his two first solo works, ‘Giants in our own room’ (1985) and ‘The long shot’ (1989), and composed the soundtrack for an Award Winning video game called ‘Space Quest III – The Pirates of Pestulon’.

Since then, he has been involved in other projects like Alan Simon’s ‘Gaia’ or Ken Scott’s ‘Epik Drums’, and has been playing with the band Todd Hannigan & The Heavy 29s and working at Brotheryn Studios. He has also kept recording and touring for Supertramp with his son Jesse and his old band mates Rick Davies and John Helliwell, reaching in 2011 the amazing number of 850 live shows with the band.