Robert Heaton

Robert Charles Heaton (6 July 1961 – 4 November 2004) was the drummer in the English rock band New Model Army. He was born in Knutsford, Cheshire and lived in Canada and Belgium as a child. He was musically gifted, eventually mastering the guitar and harmonica as well as the drums, for which he is better-known, and also played keyboards and fiddle. He was probably the first person to play a synchronous drum and harmonica solo, in 'Shot 18' on the No Rest for The Wicked tour. The musical content of Thunder and Consolation is essentially his creation. He was the second drummer in NMA but the band's first touring and recording drummer. Having spent several years as back line roadie and tour manager for several other bands, including Hawkwind, he brought professional experience to the band's touring life and was responsible for their hiring of their long-term tour manager 'Tommy T' Walker, a fellow member of the Bradford St George's and Bradford Univ TSA stage crew.

Together with Justin Sullivan, Heaton was the core of the Bradford-based band, originally alongside Stuart Morrow on bass and then later with Jason 'Moose' Harris. He wrote many of NMA's best-known compositions, which are still played nowadays at their gigs. He left NMA in 1998 due to health reasons - he had long suffered from sarcoidosis, undergoing repeated surgery, and was then diagnosed with a brain tumor - and was replaced by his roadie Michael Dean. Though the surgery on his brain tumor was successful, he was advised by his surgeons that he would be unlikely to play musical instruments professionally for several years. He began a successful landscape gardening business and eased himself back into music, initially as a New Deal adviser, then producer and recorder of local bands in Bradford under the 'Fresh Milk' project, eventually launching a touring and recording band - 'the Gardeners of Eden' - shortly before he died. The demo recording for the Gardeners of Eden remains unreleased, but copies are held by his family.

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