Name: Rowland Charles Gould
   Date of birth:4th March 1955
 Place of birth: Shanklin, Isle of Wight, UK
 Marital status: Devorced
          Children: Chiani, Soloman
Previous jobs: Metal working, electronics factory worker

Level 42 member: 1980 to 1987
Instruments played: Guitar
Other instruments played: Clarinet, saxophone, keyboards, percussion, bass
Solo albums: Tin Man (1995), Love Kills Overtime (2000)
Other collaborations: Greyflood (1972-73), Joe Bear (1975), XJB (1976), Big                                          Swifty (1977-78), Xero (1979), Mark King - Influences                                          (1984), Mark King - One Man (1998)



Taken from Level 42 Fan Club:

Boon, like his brother Phil, grew up and went to school on the Isle of Wight. His nickname came from being such a placid baby, a veritable 'boon' to his mum! In fact, he has a brain the size of a planet and can rarely be bothered to make a fuss about anything. Thanks to this photographic memory, his academic career ran smoothly, and with apparently little effort he passed 11 'O' levels. Perhaps because he was such a 'boon' to his teachers, his artistic capabilities were largely overlooked, and not until the year of his 'A' levels (in maths, physics and chemistry), did Boon exchange his pen and slide rule for a clarinet, saxophone and guitar. It was the early 70's Boon joined his first band as bass guitarist with some mates and formed Joe Bear, whose drummer was a certain Mark King. By this time Boon had a full time job at an electronics factory, and was playing around the Island in Pubs and Holiday Camps. For 5 years Boon worked all day and played every evening until 3.00 am, firstly straight rock and roll, and then more sophisticated material as bassist/sax player, with a respected Island band 'Big Swifty'. He traveled abroad for the first time with Big Swifty, three months in the middle East during 1978. It was no holiday, 90 shows in a row in the same hotel without a break, but he returned as brown as a berry!

Boon moved to London in 1979 where he was re-acquainted with Mr. King and late one night they hatched a plot to visit America. Two weeks later they were there and despite several hair raising episodes, they avoided losing their hearts, and six months later arrived back in London to find that Phil was making waves with Mike Lindup at the Guildhall School of Music. Before long they were part of the act. Boon developed a guitar technique to bring out the characteristic 'throw away' style, picking out the counterpoint to Marks's growling bass on his Les Paul Gibson. Boon feels that you never stop learning an instrument and practices whenever time allows. He has no real musical heroes but leans more toward rock than the other 42'ers; once when the group were not working he recorded as lead guitarist with a heavy metal band called Xero.

After leaving Level 42 in 1987 due to ill health, Boon still wrote for Level 42 before releasing his first solo album Tin Man in 1995 and then contributed songs towards Marks One Man album in 1998. He then set up the Zen Gangsters to release Love Kills Overtime in 2000.