On Wednesday of last week, we welcomed Ken Johnson of the Scott Johnson Foundation into XPG, who has kindly donated a drum kit to our students in honour of his son, Scott, who was fatally injured when the stage collapsed at a Radiohead concert in 2012.
Scott Johnson was a keen drummer and drum technician who spent his career working across the live music sector, touring the world with the likes of The Killers, Keane, and many others, until he was tragically killed in a stage accident at a show in Toronto, Canada. In the wake of Scott’s passing, tributes poured in from artists such as Elton John, Radiohead, and many more.
In honour of Scott, the Johnson family set up the ‘Scott Johnson Foundation’; an organisation that distributes drum kits and accessories to schools in collaboration with the music shop that Scott worked at in his hometown of Doncaster. The foundation has donated over 200 drum kits since its inception, with artists such as Elbow, New Order and Blur offering up their equipment to be passed on to the next generation of budding musicians in Scott’s memory.
It was an honour for our students to meet Ken and to swap stories about music and live performing as the students set up the kit. We ended Ken’s visit with a jam session featuring some of our budding musicians from Year 9 and Year 10 on their brand new drumkit.
