Mike Dillon grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and started playing percussion around age ten, joining his school’s music program and the local youth symphony. After high school he studied classical music in college, played in jazz ensembles and the marching band, and dug into Latin and African rhythmic traditions. By the late ’80s he was drumming in the progressive art-rock band Ten Hands, then founded the Dallas group Billy Goat. Hearing Thelonious Monk changed his course — he pivoted toward jazz improvisation and taught himself the vibraphone, picking up sideman work with MC 900 Ft. Jesus, Brave Combo, and Pigface and joining the genre-bending Critters Buggin’ (Bumpa 1998, Amoeba 1999).
In the early 2000s Dillon moved to New Orleans, where he quickly found a home in the city’s eclectic scene. He joined drummer Stanton Moore’s Garage A Trois (Emphasizer 2003, Power Patriot 2009), launched Mike Dillon’s Go-Go Jungle (Battery Milk 2007, Rock Star Bench Press 2009), and formed the Dead Kenny Gs trio with saxophonist Skerik (Operation Long Leash 2011). Solo records followed — Urn (2012), Band of Outsiders (2014), Life Is Not a Football (2017, cut in a Crescent City studio), Bonobo Bonobo (2018), the solo vibes-and-percussion set Rosewood (2020), and a deeply personal 2021 trilogy, Shoot the Moon, Suitcase Man, and 1918. He later relocated to Kansas City and now splits his time between there and New Orleans, per WWOZ.
As a sideman Dillon’s credits are sprawling: Les Claypool (Primus & the Chocolate Factory 2014), Ani DiFranco, Rickie Lee Jones (Kicks 2019), Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe (New Ammo 2014), Galactic, Clutch, the Revivalists, Papa Mali, the New Mastersounds, and Stanton Moore’s With You in Mind (2017) — plus guest turns with fellow New Orleans acts Naughty Professor (Identity 2017) and The Iceman Special (Circular Purple Circus 2021). His current band, Punkadelick, with Brian Haas and Rory Dolan, released Run White Boy Run in 2025.
