Brendan Hill was born in London in 1970 and started on violin at age three, switching to drums at ten after his family relocated to the U.S. Studying with local teacher Tony DiNicola, he joined the Princeton High School Studio Band — the same jazz program later made famous by the film Whiplash — and took first place in the Berklee High School Jazz Competition three of his four years there. In 1983, he met harmonica player John Popper, and the two began jamming in his basement — the earliest incarnation of what would become Blues Traveler.
After graduating, Hill studied jazz at the New School for Social Research in New York, working with faculty including Chico Hamilton and Bernard Purdie. Joined by guitarist Chan Kinchla and bassist Bobby Sheehan, the group took the name Blues Traveler in 1987. The band built its following through relentless club dates around New York City, including a standing residency at the Wetlands, before signing with A&M Records and releasing its self-titled debut, Blues Traveler, in 1990. Two more albums, Travelers and Thieves and Save His Soul, followed as the band earned a reputation for improvisational live shows and a non-stop East Coast touring schedule.
In 1992, Blues Traveler co-founded the H.O.R.D.E. (Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere) festival alongside Phish, Widespread Panic, Spin Doctors, and Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit, helping define the touring jam-band circuit of the 1990s. The band’s commercial breakthrough came with 1994’s four, certified six-times platinum by the RIAA; its single “Run-Around” won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group and set a record at the time as the longest-charting single in Billboard history. That same era brought a performance at Woodstock ’94, a run opening for The Rolling Stones, and a tradition, begun in 1994, of headlining a July 4th concert at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater — a streak broken only in 1999 and 2020.
The band’s catalog includes three RIAA Gold albums (Blues Traveler, Travelers and Thieves, Save His Soul) and three Platinum albums, including four and the live album Live from the Fall. Hill has recorded 15 albums with Blues Traveler in all, including the Grammy-nominated covers album Traveler’s Blues, featuring guest turns from Warren Haynes and Keb’ Mo’, and its follow-up, Traveler’s Soul. Over more than three decades, Hill has performed more than 2,000 shows to a combined audience of over 30 million people, alongside bassist Tad Kinchla and keyboardist Ben Wilson, who joined following the passing of original bassist Bobby Sheehan.
Beyond the band’s own catalog, Hill has lent his playing to a range of film and session work. Blues Traveler appeared as themselves in the 1996 film Kingpin and 1998’s Blues Brothers 2000, and the band’s music has appeared in films including Speed and The Truth About Cats & Dogs. Hill has also contributed to numerous outside session recordings, producing and engineering side projects for other artists.
Brendan currently plays an Absolute Hybrid Maple kit in Walnut and lives in the Pacific Northwest.