Justin Welch

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. Find sources: "Justin Welch" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message) The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for music. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. Find sources: "Justin Welch" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Justin Steven Welch (born 4 December 1972) is an English musician, best known as the drummer in Elastica, Suede, and later the drummer in Lush. Welch is currently the drummer of The Jesus and Mary Chain.

Welch moved to London in his late teens and studied at London's Drumtech drum school. He played drums in a number of bands in the early 1990s, including an early line-up of Suede (where he would first meet Justine Frischmann) and Spitfire.^[1]

In 1996, Welch also formed the Britpop supergroup Me Me Me with Blur bassist Alex James and The Lilac Time frontman Stephen Duffy, who released one single "Hanging Around".^[2]

Elastica split in 2001 and Welch moved to Devon where he taught drums in secondary and primary schools.

In 2012, he was in a duo with friend and former EMF frontman James Atkin called 'Asbo Kid'.^[3] He also played drums for Brighton based band Das Fenster.

In 2013, Welch briefly re-united with Suede for several gigs to replace drummer Simon Gilbert who was unable to play due to contracting tuberculosis.^[4]

It was announced, in September 2015, that Welch would play drums in the newly reformed Lush.^[5]

On 21 January 2017, three-quarters of the original line-up of Elastica – Matthews, Annie Holland and Justin Welch – worked together on the remastering of Elastica.^[6]

In December 2017, the Elastica Facebook page announced that Welch featured on the debut single of a new British rock band called The Rockerati, "16 Tons". A post on Welch's personal Facebook page noted that the release had been receiving substantial radio airplay in the US.^[7]

In 2022, Welch joined The Jesus and Mary Chain as their new drummer playing festivals throughout that year and shows performing their seminal sophomore album Darklands. Welch continues to perform live with the band on all forthcoming dates.

He lives in St Leonards-on-Sea and is married to keyboardist Sharon Mew (known for playing in Elastica on the band's second album, and Heave), who is currently working as an artist.

• Spitfire (1994, by Spitfire)
• Elastica (1995, by Elastica)
• The Menace (2000, by Elastica)
• Brickbat (2019, by Piroshka)
• Love Drips and Gathers (2021, by Piroshka)
• St Leopards (2022, by Aircooled)

• 17 (1997) Stephen Duffy
• 2 Tone Techno (2012, by The Asbo Kid)^[3]
• Blind Spot (2016, by Lush)
• "16 Tons" (2017, by The Rockerati)