Simon Gilbert was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire on May 23, 1965. Being an 8-years-older-cousin of Neil Codling, he had seen Neil in diapers. They didn't meet much in their childhood, though. Simon is openly gay. He was once beaten up by a gay basher in 1995 while he was walking out of a gay bar with Paul Codling (Neil's older brother) who's also a gay. Paul was being beaten as well.



Simon was selling tickets in London ULU when he was recruited by Suede. He said that drums are the easiest instruments to play. On their first video, Animal Nitrate, Simon admitted that all his mum's friends thought Brett was a woman.



Simon Gilbert likes reading fanzines and he has them stacked up in his mum's house. He also likes to tape his band with his camera... he likes it so much that he's already got over 60 tapes of Suede on road - 3 hours each. Some of his shots are used in the Europe Is Our Playground video and some others are featured as the multimedia in Filmstar single. It would be useful as he was very forgetful, he said. He can also show off in front of his family and friends, not to mention how memorial his collection would be if Suede have to split for some reasons.



Simon Gilbert has a dog he loves a lot called George, a cute golden retriever that appeared in the beginning of Saturday Night video. He takes George out a lot while he's not touring and he talks about it a lot on tours. George takes Pedigree as his food.



Simon Gilbert is known to be very friendly to his fans. He also likes to throw his drum sticks to the audience after gigs, who would happily fight to get those. And Simon likes to smoke. His bandmates see him as the most vain member of the band, and the best dressed.



A couple of years ago Simon Gilbert met his father who he never met before. His sister tracked him down, and he turned out to be a sound technician at BBC. Simon started to worry about what he'd think about his band's sound quality.



Simon Gilbert currently plays drums in Bankok based group Futon.