"Precision and attention to sound are the key ingredients that make our drums sound unique."
Owner/operator, Billy Fairley was born in Scotland and comes from a family of Pipers and Drummers. After growing up in Glasgow, he began playing with rock group Merlin and opened for The Rolling Stones at Green's Playhouse in 1969. He then moved to London and enrolled at The Guildhall School of Music where he joined with String Driven Thing ( www.stringdriventhing.co.uk
), a famous Scottish cult band of the 70s. While with SDT, they toured Europe with such acts as Genesis, Supertramp, Manfred Mann and Golden Earing to name a few and rose to number 15 on the British charts. He later took a gig as booker for The Tremeloes at Gale Management, Wardour St., London.
In 1980, Billy moved to Canada and his first music experience was with a band called The Nukes (i.e. survivors of the nuclear holocaust!). This experience was not quite what he was used to and after numerous North American Tours he left the group to focus on business at home as opposed to life on the road.
Billy Fairley, a widely experienced percussionist of over 35 years, has once again moved on. His hobby of making hand drums has now become a full time business. He is still involved musically by playing drums, mostly that of studio work. His most recent tour was with The Irish Rovers as the groups drummer in the spring of 2005.
Billy has supplied Great Big Sea, The Irish Descendants, Frankie Benson of Radio Erin am 740 and Pauline Adams (SDT) with his Jacobite bodhran. Paul Fairley, Billys son and former drummer of Undone (Toronto based indie rock act), has been using a selection of TDF Hand Drums for live session work and in various studios in the Toronto area.
