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Matt Tong
Matt Tong.jpg
Tong in 2007
Background information
Birth name Matthew Chee Hung Tong
Born (1979-04-29) 29 April 1979 (age 45)
Origin Bournemouth, Dorset, England
Genres
Occupation(s) Musician
Instruments
  • Drums
  • percussion
Years active 2002–present

Matthew Chee Hung Tong (born 29 April 1979) is a British musician from Bournemouth, England. He is best known as the drummer of Bloc Party from 2002 to 2013 and has been a member of Algiers since 2015.

Early life

Tong was born in Bournemouth, England to a British mother and a Malaysian father. He is a public supporter of the Bournemouth F.C. football team.

Career

Tong joined Bloc Party in 2002, the 9th drummer to perform with the band. On 9 November 2006, Tong suffered a collapsed lung after opening for Panic! at the Disco in Atlanta and was admitted to the hospital, causing Bloc Party to miss the next few shows on the tour. Tong said in 2009, "I wouldn't mind trying something else for a while" regarding the uncertainty of Bloc Party's future. Tong left Bloc Party during the band's summer 2013 tour, after recording four albums with the band. ..... In 2022, Okereke said "I don’t really want either of them in my life right now" of Tong and bassist Gordon Moakes, who also left Bloc Party in 2015 after 13 years.

Tong played the drums on No Devotion's 2015 debut album Permanence, stepping in to finish the final four songs after Luke Johnson left the band in the middle of recording. Tong also drummed in a new band L'Amour Bleu under the alias "She-Tong". He also formed the band Red Love with producer Alex Newport, whose debut album came out in 2017.

In 2015, Tong joined the band Algiers, first as a touring member before being brought on as the band's permanent drummer.

In 2022, Tong played on the song "Frankenstein" from Rina Sawayama's second album Hold the Girl. Sawayama asked producer/songwriter Paul Epworth, who had produced the Bloc Party albums Silent Alarm and Intimacy, to recruit Tong for the song. Sawayama said that Tong was an inspiration to her as a fellow Asian in the music industry. Tong's hands were covered in blood following the recording.

Drumming style

Tong described himself as "notoriously sloppy at timekeeping". He wrote the drum parts on Silent Alarm as alternating between high and low intensity to give himself a physical break. Tong said that he was not an athletic person and always struggled at sports, so drumming became too fast for his own comfort. During live performances, he becomes a "mood drummer" who changes the speed of his performance based on crowd reaction.

Personal life

Tong has lived in New York City since 2010.

Tong married Brooke Vermillion, the touring DJ of Kindness, in 2006.

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