Peter Michael Thomas (born 9 August 1954) is an English rock drummer best known for his collaboration with singer Elvis Costello, both as a member of his band the Attractions and with Costello as a solo artist. Besides his lengthy career as a studio musician and touring drummer, he has been a member of the band Squeeze during the 1990s and a member of the supergroup Works Progress Administration during the early 2000s.
Tom Waits has referred to him as "one of the best rock drummers alive."
Career
Thomas states that his favourite album and greatest influence is Are You Experienced by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. He first heard the album at the age of 14, and became greatly influenced by Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell. Thomas met his drumming hero as a teenager, after waiting outside Mitchell's house for multiple days.
Following early work with Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers and John Stewart, Thomas was recruited as a member of Costello's backing band the Attractions in 1977. Elvis Costello & the Attractions would spend the next decade touring the world, and recording nine albums, from This Year's Model (1978) to Blood and Chocolate (1986).
Although Costello split with the Attractions between 1987 and 1993, he continued to work regularly with Thomas during this period. Thomas played drums on the albums Spike (1989), Mighty Like a Rose (1991), and Kojak Variety (recorded in 1990 but not released until 1995) and was a member of Costello's 1989–1991 touring band, The Rude 5.
Costello reunited with the Attractions for the albums Brutal Youth (1994) and All This Useless Beauty (1996).
In 2001, Costello recruited Thomas, Faragher, and fellow Attraction Steve Nieve to record the album that became When I Was Cruel (2002). Elvis Costello & the Imposters, as they were subsequently named, have gone on to tour extensively, and recorded the album The Delivery Man (2004). From 2008 until 2010, Thomas was a member of the house band for Costello's television program Spectacle: Elvis Costello with...
Thomas lives in Los Angeles, with his wife Judy. Their daughter Tennessee is drummer for the band the Like. In 2003, Thomas was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Elvis Costello & the Attractions.
In summer 2015, Thomas hit the road as drummer for the summer tour of the folk-pop duo the Weepies.
Studio work
Over the years Thomas has been an in-demand session musician. His many credits include drums for Graham Parker's 1991 album Struck by Lightning and 1992 album Burning Questions.
After Costello split with the Attractions for a second time, Thomas worked for the next few years primarily as a session drummer, recording with such artists as Suzanne Vega, Fito Páez, Joaquín Sabina, Los Lobos, the "Chelsea Madchen" tour, in which the singer parodied Nico, of Velvet Underground fame, and her outing as subversive traditional country-and-western alter ego Tammy Faye Starlite. Violinist Lisa Germano also played on both tours, as did bandleader/guitarist Peter "Petey" Andrews. The band "played some of the best blues rock music I've heard in years," wrote Huffington Post music correspondent Wendy Block.
In 2013, Thomas appeared on Arctic Monkeys' album, AM, on the song "Mad Sounds".