Terry Bozzio

Virtuoso drummer Terry John Bozzio was born on December 27, 1950 to Italian-American parents in San Francisco, California. Terry started playing the drums on makeshift sets at age six. Inspired by the Beatles' famous appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," Bozzio begged his father for drum lessons at age thirteen. He played in the 60s garage rock bands Blue Glass Radio, The Yarde, and Tamalpaias Mountain Boys. Terry majored in music at both Sir Francis Drake High School and College of Marin. Following graduation from college, Bozzio played drums for productions of the rock musicals "Godspell" and "Walking in My Time" as well as performed with various local jazz groups. He joined Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in 1975. Terry played drums on ten albums for Zappa which include "Bongo Fury," "Joe's Garage," and "Baby Snakes" (he also appears in the latter rock concert documentary of the same name). Bozzio left Zappa in 1978. In 1980 he co-founded the excellent New Wave band Missing Persons. Missing Persons recorded three albums and almost cracked the Top 40 with the songs "Words" and "Destination Unknown" prior to breaking up in 1986. Terry was married to Missing Persons lead singer Dale Bozzio from 1979 to 1986. After the disbanding of Missing Persons Bozzio went on to work with a huge array of musical artists who include Robbie Robertson, Gary Wright, Frank Zappa's son Dweezil, Paul Hyde, Herbie Hancock, Richard Marx, Jeff Beck, Duran Duran, Billy Sheehan, Steve Vai, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. In the summer of 2005 Terry filled in for drummer Dave Lombardo in Fantamos for the group's European tour. More recently he worked with the nu metal band Korn on their eighth album. Bozzio's major innovations as a rock drummer are creating the melodic ostinato for the drum set and creating orchestral compositions on the drum set by playing polyrhythms and metric modulations. Moreover, Bozzio performs clinics for fellow drummers on a regular basis all across the country. He was inducted into Guitar Center's RockWalk in Hollywood on January 17, 2007. Terry Bozzio lives in Austin, Texas with his second wife Ev Kvamme and son Raanen.