Nigel Durham has died at 61, and Saxon announced the news on October 24. The former drummer’s death closes a long arc that ran through Saxon, Oliver/Dawson Saxon, and Morpheus Rising.
Saxon’s October 24 message
Saxon said it was very sad to hear of the passing of a member of the Saxon family, former drummer Nigel Durham. The message also sent love and thoughts to Lauretta, Gemma, his grandchildren, and family, putting the loss in personal terms rather than treating it as a band-history note.
Durham played drums for Saxon from 1987 to 1988 and appeared on the band’s 1988 album Destiny. He later performed with Son of a Bitch in 1999, a group that featured Graham Oliver and Steve Dawson, before the project became known as Oliver/Dawson Saxon.
Oliver/Dawson Saxon and Morpheus Rising
From 2000 to 2010, Durham served as drummer for Oliver/Dawson Saxon, then played with Morpheus Rising from 2013 to 2016. That span shows a musician whose work stayed connected to the Saxon orbit for decades, moving through related lineups instead of disappearing after a single credit.
In April, a false death report about Durham circulated online, and he addressed it himself on July 14 in a Facebook post. “Don’t know how this got started but I can assure everyone that I’m still alive & kickin. Lol.”
Durham’s final public rebuttal
That earlier post now reads as a hard piece of the timeline, because it turned a rumor into something Durham had already had to deny in public. A cause of death has not been publicly disclosed, which leaves October 24 with one clear fact and one unanswered one: Saxon has announced the loss, but not the reason behind it.
