Robert Charles Heaton was an English musician best known as the drummer in the English rock bandNew Model Army. Besides being the drummer for the band, Heaton was also responsible for much of the band's songwriting both lyrically and musically, the musical content of NMA album Thunder and Consolation is essentially exclusively his creation. He was probably the first person to play a synchronous drum and harmonica solo, doing so in the song 'Shot 18' on the No Rest for The Wicked tour. He was the second drummer in NMA but the band's first touring and recording drummer.
Biography
Early years
Heaton 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. Heaton began playing guitar and drumming along to his dad's collection of trad jazz recordings. He developed a very eclectic musical taste, taking in obvious rock influences like Led Zeppelin and ZZ Top but also but also the country music of Johnny Cash and classical composers - Beethoven, Mozart Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi.
Heaton's arrival marked the start of New Model Army's professional era, the band has previously had Phil Tompkins on drums, but had released no music during this time. Having spent several years as back lineroadie 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 frontman Justin Sullivan, Heaton was the core of the Bradford-based New Model Army, originally alongside Stuart Morrow on bass and then later with Jason 'Moose' Harris. Heaton's wide-ranging musical interests are manifested in the music for the anthemic "Green and Grey" as well as co-writing with Sullivan the New Model Army singles "Better Than Them", "Brave New World", "51st State", "Poison Street", "White Coats", "Space" and "Here Comes the War". He was responsible for 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 tumour - and was replaced on drums by his roadie Michael Dean. Though the surgery on his brain tumour was successful, he was advised by his surgeons that he would be unlikely to play musical instruments professionally for several years, which ultimately resulted in the end of his career with New Model Army.
Work outside New Model Army
Following his illness Heaton 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. In 1983, he had a brief spell as recording drummer for Hawkwind whilst working as their drum roadie.
