Simon House (born 29 August 1948 in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England) is a composer and classically trained violinist and keyboard player, perhaps best known for his work with space rock band Hawkwind. His arrival in 1974 introduced a new element to the band's style. He was the first conspicuously trained musician, and the sound which emerged on Hall of the Mountain Grill was a previously unheard, lush chaos which sounded a little like Black Sabbath meets The Moody Blues.
Before Hawkwind, House played in High Tide and the Third Ear Band, who contributed the soundtrack to Roman Polanski's Macbeth. Guitarist Tony Hill recounted how House became a member of High Tide: " hanging out with and crashing where we could at Mike's or Wayne's. Simon ended up crashing there as well. Simon was playing bass then. He said: 'I used to play violin, you know?' So I said 'Get it!' That was basically it."
He joined Hawkwind in 1974, playing on some of their albums, before leaving for David Bowie's band in 1978, which, along with Robert Calvert's depressive phase, led to Hawkwind breaking up in mid-tour.
Along with other Hawkwind members, he guested on science fiction author Michael Moorcock's New World's Fair in 1975 and has also played on solo projects by former Hawkwind members Robert Calvert and Nik Turner.
Since the 1970s, as well as cutting an album (Interesting Times) with Tony Hill under the High Tide banner and rejoining Hawkwind during 1989-91 and 2001–03, House has released several solo albums.
Famous quotes containing the words simon and/or house:
“Stevenson had noble ideas—as did the young Franklin for that matter. But Stevenson felt that the way to implement them was to present himself as a thoughtful idealist and wait for the world to flock to him. He considered it below him, or wrong, to scramble out among the people and ask them what they wanted. Roosevelt grappled voters to him. Stevenson shied off from them. Some thought him too pure to desire power, though he showed ambition when it mattered.”
—Garry Wills, U.S. historian. Certain Trumpets: The Call of Leaders, ch. 9, Simon & Schuster (1994)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)