After 12 years drummer Stew Smith to quit rockers Delirious?

THE DRUMMER with best selling band Delirious?, Stew Smith is to leave the band. He will play his last concert with the group on 29th March at London's Indigo Club. Said Smith, "I have found the touring an increasing pressure on both me and my family. We function better as a complete unit than when we are separated for so many months of the year, and I wish to be at home, to be around and be far more local. I wish to develop myself further within the design business world allowing all of the gifting that I have been blessed with to explode out of me. As you know I have had the chance over the last 12 years to continue developing my previous career within design as creative director with Delirious? and Furious? Records. I'm also really looking forward to getting stuck into church life back home - Arun Community Church has been our home for the past 20 years and I cannot wait to see what emerges within a vibrant and dynamic church."

Said Delirious?' frontman Martin Smith, "Seasons change and it is apparent to us all that Stew is ready to fly into something new, something great and something divine. I've often wondered what it must have been like for Stew, to spend hours and hours behind the drum kit looking at my back as I rally the troops with a microphone. But that's what Stew does best, he watches my back and helps me see life in a panoramic way. In fact for 15 years he's watched my back, through tears and laughter, through the highs and lows, through top ten singles and feeding slum kids together. Life will never quite be the same without Stew on the road. I will miss looking behind me to a man killing his drums like he was at war with powers unseen or just running together on a country track trying to keep up or simply sitting in Starbucks hearing him talk about his kids."