Bill Drummond | |
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Born | William Ernest Drummond 29 April 1953 Butterworth, South Africa |
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Years active | 1975–present |
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Origin | Newton Stewart, Scotland |
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William Ernest Drummond (born 29 April 1953) is a Scottish artist, musician, writer, and record producer. He was a co-founder of the late-1980s avant-garde pop group the KLF and its 1990s media-manipulating successor, the K Foundation, with which he famously burned £1 million in 1994.
During their career, The KLF released four studio albums – 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) (1987), Who Killed The JAMs? (1988), Chill Out (1990) and their most commercially successful album, The White Room (1991), which spawned internationally successful singles such as re–worked versions of "What Time Is Love?", "3 a.m. Eternal", "Last Train to Trancentral" and a new track, "Justified & Ancient" which featured American country singer Tammy Wynette.
Following their performance at the 1992 BRIT Awards, The KLF announced their departure from the music business and, in May of that year, they deleted their entire back-catalogue. Although the duo remained true to their word of May 1992, with the KLF Communications catalogue remaining deleted, they have released a small number of new tracks since then, as the K Foundation, the One World Orchestra, and in 1997, as 2K. Drummond and Jimmy Cauty reappeared in 2017 as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, releasing the novel 2023, and rebooting an earlier campaign to build a "People's Pyramid". In January 2021, the band began uploading their previously deleted catalogue onto streaming services, in compilations.[1]
More recent art activities, carried out under Drummond's banner of Penkiln Burn, include making and distributing cakes, soup, flowers, beds, and shoe-shines. More recent music projects include No Music Day and the international tour of a choir called The 17. Drummond is the author of several books about art and music.