Renowned drummer and producer Simon Phillips isn’t intimidated by deadlines. 

Simon Phillips & Protocol was slated to record its album in November 2025. But the previous September, keyboardist Otmaro Ruiz broke his arm. Doctors said Ruiz wouldn’t be ready to play for about two months.

Phillips took one for the team and moved the recording sessions to January. Still, the album “Protocol 6” made the deadline for a June release. 

Phillips, Ruiz, guitarist Alexander Sill, saxophonist Phillip Whack and bassist Ernest Tibbs will bring the music to the Musical Instrument Museum at 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 24.

Phillips’ style blends rock, fusion and jazz, while maintaining his trademark emotion and feel. An amalgamation of all of those sounds, “Protocol 6,” he said, is the perfect addition to his catalog. Some of the songs were mined from 1990s recording sessions that he found. However, they were created with “very different technology.” 

“I had to grab a sequencer, an old QX3 Yamaha sequencer, which used to take those 3 1/2-inch floppy disks,” he said. “They were in a plastic contains, but they still worked. It was amazing.”

Released in 1987, the QX3 Yamaha sequencer was released in 1987 features a 24,000-note internal memory capacity.

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Performing vs. producing

Music is in Phillips’ blood. His father, Sid, led a Dixieland dance band in England; his mother adored big band records. He began performing with Sid at the age of 12.

“I can’t remember a day without music,” said Phillips, 69. 

A renowned drummer by his teens, by 1976 he drummed in 200 studios, with different artists and producers. 

“That laid the seed to being a producer,” he said. “I saw how records were made and how differently they are made by different producers. I think that’s the most valuable experience I’ve had.” 

Performing live is still somewhat tricky for Phillips — a Grammy Award-nominated drummer, producer, composer and bandleader. Phillips finds it difficult to leave his studio. 

“I joined Toto in 1993, and one of the many reasons I left Toto was I had a studio, and I was always being taken out of it,” he said. “We were always on the road. I just got fed up with doing that. I told them I wanted to make records.”

Phillips has worked as a session drummer for Brian Eno and Phil Manzanera’s 801, Jeff Beck, Big Country, Gary Moore, Michael Schenker, Bernie Marsden, Jon Lord, Nik Kershaw, the Chemical Brothers and the Who, among others. 

Before “Protocol 6” tour started, he helped produce music by Barista, a Turkish pop artist. Afterward, he switched to a progressive rock collection with DarWin, a guitarist who keeps his background and birth name under wraps. Phillips produces and co-composes the DarWin project.

“That’s going to be released on CD and vinyl,” he said. “There’s a lot of work that goes into credits, the booklet and lyrics; making sure the lyrics are right. It’s fun.”

Phillips’ devotion to the craft makes each project sound “fantastic,” according to responses. 

“I think each one of the compositions is different,” he said. “That’s why it always takes me a few years in between each one. There’s a writing style you get used to. I need to get away from that, and I almost forget how I was writing as I write the next record. Isn’t that funny?”