Former Saxon drummer Nigel Durham (born 1965), who played drums on the album “Destiny”, has died. “Destiny” is Saxon’s ninth album, released in March 1988 on EMI.
Saxon shared the sad news on social media on October 24, 2026 (original post below).
“Destiny” was the band’s shot at breaking into the American market. It has a softer production with the keyboards pushed up front, meant to conquer radio airwaves worldwide. It gave the band two singles: a cover of famed yacht rocker Christopher Cross’s Ride Like A Wind (released February 1988) and the ballad I Can’t Wait Anymore (released April 1988). The album turned out to be a commercial flop, and EMI dropped Saxon.
In 1989 Roadrunner Records released the live album “Rock ‘N’ Roll Gypsies”, recorded on the “Destiny” tour, with Durham in the lineup, of course. After this commercial shipwreck Saxon went through a major lineup overhaul and struggled for a while to find a new label, until Virgin Records finally took pity on them in 1990. What followed was a run of four albums: “Solid Ball Of Rock” (1991), “Forever Free” (1992), “Dogs of War” (1995) and “Unleash The Beast (1997). Throughout the nineties it was strictly the German market that kept the band afloat, as those albums, as a rule, only ever made the Top 100 album charts in Germany.
Between 2000 and 2010 Durham joined Oliver/Dawson Saxon. In June 2002, for example, they played a biker festival near the small Friulian town of Osoppo, 25 km northwest of Udine, where Ronnie James Dio was the headliner.
In 2001 Durham played drums on the Baileys Comet album “Judgement Day”, and in 2002 he played on “Pandemonium Circus”, the solo studio album by former Saxon bassist Steve Dawson. In 2013 Durham joined heavy metallers Morpheus Rising, and in 2014 released the album “Eximius Humanus” with them.
The cause of his death has not been made public.
