John Coghlan is an English musician, best known as the original drummer for the rock band Status Quo. He played with the band from 1962 to 1981.
Early life
The son of a Glasgow-born father and a London-born half-French mother, Coghlan grew up in Dulwich and was educated at Kingsdale Comprehensive School. He left school at 15 to take up an apprenticeship as a mechanic. He took drum lessons with Lloyd Ryan, who also taught Phil Collins the basics of drumming.[3]
Career
After meeting bassist Alan Lancaster, guitarist Francis Rossi and keyboardist Jess Jaworski, Coghlan joined Status Quo, who had started out as The Scorpions but were then called The Spectres, in early 1962. “There were three of them playing through a single Vox AC30 amplifier,” he recalls. “But it sounded great and that was the start of it all.” In 1966 the band’s name was changed to Traffic and then to avoid confusion with Steve Winwood’s Trafficband to Traffic Jam. After Rick Parfitt joined, it became Status Quo.
Coghlan played on the first fourteen Quo albums, including their first and most successful live album, “Live!” in 1977, and on songs such as Caroline”, “Down Down”, “Rockin’ All Over the World” and “Whatever You Want”.
Departure
While Quo were recording their album 1+9+8+2 in 1981, Coghlan unexpectedly left after almost twenty years in the line-up. According to himself, he was not resting enough. Coghlan set up a few solo projects as John Coghlan’s Quo and the John Coghlan Band
Quo reunion status
In 2012, Coghlan, along with bandmates Rick Parfitt, Francis Rossi and Alan Lancaster, reunited for a special one-off jam session for a documentary film about the band. Hello Quo! was directed by Alan G. Parker. Two reunion tours of the UK followed in 2013 and 2014.
