Ollie Fontaine is a Liverpool born drummer and composer. Born Oliver Phillips, 27th February 1985.
Early Life - At the age of 13 he was scouted by Everton Youth Academy playing as a left winger. Having found success playing in the Edge Hill league for Ash Celtic. Injury at the age of 15 he was released by the Academy.
Turning his focus to music he founded notorious pop band Purple Gekko with school friends, Megan Walker and Luke Jones. The bands famous on stage antics caught the attention of nation press - Gigwise and Glasswerk.
He also co-founded Liverpool band The Compulsives with brother Christopher Fontaine. The band toured with Juliette Lewis & the Licks as well as playing the MainStage at Austrian music festival Frequency Festival in Salzburg, sharing the stage with Futureheads and Interpol. In 2005 the band signed with Alien Moose records founded by Echo & the Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant. 2009 saw the band change direction and name to Talking to Strangers, playing a debut sold out Zanzibar show in support of their first release.
2010 saw Ollie take to the drums for tropical pop band White Bicycles with fellow musicians Joel Morton and Robert Lewis. Based in a school ad-hoc in Toxteth Liverpool and boasting the only steel pan player (Eamon Laverey)and Colombian Tiple player (Bernardo Velasco - Distro Especial) in the city. The band gigged extensively playing Secret Garden Party and Bestival and supporting the legendary Lee Scratch Perry and infamous Finley Quaye. Their debut single ‘Today’ saw the band playing a sellout show at the Kazimier with a 12 piece band. Having also featured on tracks for Dan Croll, Michael Paskalev and Stealing Sheep.
2012 - present full time drummer in Liverpool pop punk heroes Sheepy touring the UK, Ireland and Europe. Having released 3 full length albums under London record label Blang as well as split 7 inch with Vamos and Lucy’s Diary. The band had been championed by BBC 6 music and gaining national exposure on Topshop Radio’s A list and Soccer AM.
2021 Having completed a master’s degree in Music and Composition at London College of Music a new creative output was formed - writing and scoring music for film and television. Working on a library of scores saw Taxi Music a US based production label take on his portfolio. History channel commissioned him to write a piece of music to accompany a documentary on ancient Egypt.
2022 a new sound - teaming up with fellow Sheepy alumni and former frontman of The Dead Class Villy Raze he embarked on a new project Dead Raze a garage punk blues rock 2 piece . Having in such a short time playing a tour in Germany and with anticipated single release slated for later this year.