Phillip Campbell

Musician • Drummer • Pianist • Educator • Composer • Publisher

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Phillip Campbell is an Australian musician, educator, composer and publisher whose career has spanned professional performance, recording, music education and creative projects for more than four decades.

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Beginning his professional career as a young drummer in Sydney, Phillip became part of a vibrant Australian music scene that brought him into contact with some of the country’s leading musicians and artists.

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An especially important influence during these early years was acclaimed bassist, arranger and bandleader Jackie Orszaczky. Phillip worked extensively with Jackie in projects including Industrial Accident and Jump Back Jack, a formidable Sydney soul and funk ensemble. Phillip is credited on drums on the Jump Back Jack album, and Jackie’s musicianship, encouragement and confidence in him became an important part of Phillip’s development as a young professional player.

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Phillip’s association with Jackie also crossed paths with his time in Electric Pandas during the mid-1980s. After leaving the group in 1986, Jackie offered Phillip the drum chair in his own band. Phillip suggested the name Jump Back Jack, and the new identity stuck.

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Another pivotal moment came through Phillip’s work with guitarist and songwriter Garry Frost, formerly of Moving Pictures. While they were searching for a vocalist for a new project, Phillip saw Eric Weideman performing on the Red Faces segment of Hey Hey It’s Saturday. Impressed by what he heard, Phillip contacted the television station, obtained Eric's details and invited him to audition. That introduction helped set in motion the formation of 1927.

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Phillip later returned to 1927 as drummer in the early 1990s. Across his professional career he has performed and/or recorded with artists including 1927, Tommy Emmanuel, Jon English, Sharon O’Neill, Electric Pandas and Margaret Urlich. His recording credits include work associated with Tommy Emmanuel’s Determination and Stevie’s Blues, which received the 1992 APRA Jazz Composition of the Year award.

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From Performer to Educator

Alongside his professional performing career, Phillip developed a deep commitment to music education.

He established his first music school in 2002 and has since spent more than two decades teaching drums, piano, rhythm and musicianship to children and adults at every stage of development. His approach focuses on practical understanding: helping students hear, feel and understand how music works rather than simply memorising information.

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A major expression of this philosophy was The Waratah Drumcorps, a theatrical student percussion ensemble created and directed by Phillip. Students who often began as complete beginners were trained in rhythm, ensemble playing, movement, stagecraft and performance discipline before taking their work into genuine public performance environments.

Under Phillip’s direction, Waratah Drumcorps appeared at significant festivals, civic celebrations and cultural venues.

 

The ensemble was featured at Sydney Festival Parramatta in 2015, performed at the Australian Museum’s Jurassic Lounge Halloween event in 2018, presented performances and public drumming workshops at Tasmania’s Taste Festival 2018/2019, and was invited by the City of Sydney to perform as part of Christmas in the City in 2019. Other appearances included the Winter Magic Festival in Katoomba and theatrical performance work at venues including Sydney’s Enmore Theatre.

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For Phillip, Waratah Drumcorps demonstrated what music education could achieve when students were given something real to work towards: confidence, discipline, collaboration and the experience of becoming performers.

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Modern Musicianship

Phillip is also the publisher and custodian of the educational work of influential New York music educator Helen Hobbs Jordan.

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Through Phillip Campbell Music, he continues to publish and teach the Modern Musicianship Series, including The Fundamentals of Music Theory Workbook. Helen’s approach emphasises clarity, pattern recognition and practical understanding, principles that closely align with Phillip’s own philosophy of music education.

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The material continues to be used in private teaching and is supplied for students of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Open Academy, where The Fundamentals of Music Theory Workbook supports its four levels of Fundamentals study.

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Today, Phillip Campbell Music brings these different strands of Phillip’s life together: performance, composition, music education, publishing, historical preservation and new creative projects.

From professional stages and recording studios to classrooms, student ensembles and wilderness drumming programs, the common thread remains the same:

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                                  Helping people discover the music already within them.