Steve Hewitt the drummer for Placebo was born 22nd of March 1971 in Northwich, Manchester, United Kingdom which incidentally is also home to Tim Burgess of The Charlatans. Who Steve actually played with for a period with the band Electric Crayons. At the age of 17 after seeing an advert for ‘Genius duo’ who required a drummer for a German tour, he duly joined the ranks of Breed and touring Germany with them. As well as stints with the Boo Radleys, Steve was also playing simultaneously with early 90’s dance outfit K-Klass, who had scored five top 40 hits from 1991 to 1994. As time progressed, Steve found himself becoming more and more involved with session work doing music for car adverts amongst other things. Following a dismal and somewhat disastrous gig at the Bull and Gate, Breed decided to part ways and call it a day on the band.
With a pregnant girlfriend and no musical work forthcoming, Steve was forced to get a job as a forklift truck driver. “I had to get back into music again,” he decided, “I can’t function without playing” Today, aged 26, Steve doesn’t have to worry about jacking in his day job. In the past he’s been a joiner and an apprentice building racing cars for Williams; he even did a stint at Dougie’s Music store in Northwich. Steve Hewitt became a drummer because one of the kids at school asked him to. His first gig was a school assembly at Weaversham High, playing Fleetwood Mac’s “Albatross”. He didn’t even have a foot pedal. A self taught player, at seventeen he was already teaching others, working out of Dougie’s store. Steve’s elder brother was a rock fan, so Steve loved AC/DC, Black Sabbath and Dio. Later he got into more indie-inclined likes of The Smiths and The Wonderstuff, along with the obligatory weed smoking Pink Floyd interludes. In terms of sound and style, Steve has taken Placebo’s recorded drum tracks and built on them. “I listened to the first Placebo LP,” he says, “and I thought Robert was technically a good drummer, but in terms of feel and groove it felt like he was fighting it. I’ve just sorted out the tempos really, on the stuff that was done before I joined, and just put more groove, more feel in it. Made it less uptight.”
It was actually Steve who played on the very first ever Placebo demos, along with Brian and Stefan. Other commitments prevented him from joining the band back then… but that’s a long story… When Robert ‘left’ Placebo Steve was the first drummer to be phoned by Brian who had placed Steve at the top of a list of three. ‘ I sat in my bedroom with my practice kit for two weeks and learnt the LP’, Steve recalls ‘ Then we had one and a half days rehearsal before touring thirteen countries in four months!’.
Update:
It has been announced on the Official Placebo Band web site that Placebo have parted company with their drummer of 11 years, Steve Hewitt, due to personal and musical differences.
