Early Life
Taylor was born into a modest family and was brought up in a small suburban house in the Castle Bromwich area of Birmingham, his father worked in the car industry . He began drumming around the age of twelve, teaching himself by playing along with his favourite records. His first ambition was to be a goalkeeper for English Premier League club Aston Villa, and as a child he was taken to every home match by his father Hugh, but at 5' 9 never grew tall enough to realise his dream. He would eventually "play" at Villa Park but as Duran Duran's drummer for their 1983 charity concert there. Taylor cited drummers Paul Thompson of Roxy Music, Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones and Tony Thompson of Chic as his key musical influences growing up.
Before joining Duran Duran, he performed with several school (Park Hall School in Castle Bromwich, Warwickshire) and local club bands. After being inspired by the punk bands playing at Barbarellas club in Birmingham, he formed the New Wave/Punk outfit Scent Organs, who became regional finalists in the 'Melody Maker' young band of the year in 1978. After the band split in 1979, he joined Duran Duran and went on to become one of the world's most famous and influential drummers.
Read more about this topic: Roger Taylor (Duran Duran Drummer)
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“The symbol of perpetual youth, the grass-blade, like a long green ribbon, streams from the sod into the summer, checked indeed by the frost, but anon pushing on again, lifting its spear of last year’s hay with the fresh life below. It grows as steadily as the rill oozes out of the ground.... So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)