The band were not named after a doctorate degree, but rather it was the first letter of the surnames of the 3 band members, Simon Phillips, Tony Hymas and Jim Diamond. Diamond was born in Glasgow and would be in a band called Jade and then spent some time as part of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. He would then have a stint with Alexis Korner’s band before forming a group called Bandit which featured future AC/DC member, Cliff Williams. He then relocated to the US and formed a band called Slick Diamond with Earl Slick who had worked with John Lennon and David Bowie. Hymas had been a chorister at Exeter Cathedral when a youngster and spent time as the pianist for a ballet company after qualifying from the Royal Academy of Music. He would then move into the rock world, working with Jack Bruce from the band Cream, and Jeff Beck. Simon Phillips started out at the age of 12 playing in his father’s Dixieland Band. He then found work on a production of the musical ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and would work as a session musician for some of the cast members. This led to him working as a session musician for a number of notable acts such as Peter Gabriel, Frank Zappa, Mike Oldfield and Tears for Fears to name a few. The band’s first single was ‘Little Suzie’s On The Up’ which didn’t do much. However, their second single, ‘I Won’t Let You Down’ would go to number 3 in the UK and top the charts in both Belgium and The Netherlands. This would sadly be their only success as subsequent singles failed to chart except for ‘I Didn’t Know’ which peaked at 31 in Belgium but didn’t do anything anywhere else. The band effectively broke up and Diamond launched a solo career, seeing a UK number 1 hit with ‘I Should Have Known Better’ and managing 3 further UK hits. In 2009 Diamond and Hymas reunited to record a third Ph.D album called ‘Three’, but this failed to re-start the band’s career. Sadly, Diamond would die in 2015 from a pulmonary oedema (water on the lungs).
SA Singles Charts 