If one band I would say influenced me more than any other it has to be Siouxsie and the Banshees. I was a bit to young to remember the Punk Explosion at the time. But with hindsight you can see that Siouxsie and the Banshees were extremely motivated to become famous. Siouxsie was part of the famour Bromley contingent who regularly followed Sex Pistols around the country-they were filmed on the Bill Grundy interview in 1976. When the Pistols broke big and Punk started to break as well Siouxsie formed the band the banshees and they performed at the 100 club in 1976 with a line up the featured Sid Vicous and Marco Peroni(adam and the ants guitarist). This line up didn’t last long but they found replacements in Kenny Morris and John Mcckay. What was important to the band was their distinctive sound the drums of Kenny Morris were not entirely straight forward like other bands at the time. John Mckays guitar playing was cutting .
They released the brilliant album called The Scream in 1978 and this was followed up with Join Hands in 1979. At the time of the albums release tensions in the band were getting tense . Basically Siouxie and her banshee Steve Severin on the other and Mckay and Morris on the other. The band split up at a signing of an album at a Aberdeen record store . Robert Smith of the support band the Cure joined for the remaining tour. In a stroke of genius the band recruited former Slits drummer Budgie and John Mcgeogh once of Magazine. They released a good album in 1980 called Kalidiscope , but followed it up in 1981 with the album Juju. The 1982 albums is classed as their classic line up and it’s a good album but for me the 1981 album is a standout album.
There has always been this kind of Gothic sound to the Banshees sound due to the dense drumming of earlier records and the guitar work, where John Mcgeogh added things was to add effects to the guitar where the sound would go from gothic(on the 1981 album Juju called ‘Nightshift”) to Tenant(1980) which was almost punk psychedelia.
In 1982 they split with John Mcgeogh and he went onto join PIL and Armoury Show. They recruited Robert Smith again who was achieving more success with the Cure. The released a album , a live one at that called ‘Nocturne ‘ . This was like a greatest hits package in a way. Some songs sounded better than the originals in a live context.
They released a 1984 album called ‘Hyena”. In truth this was a album that did feature guitar work from Robert Smith but most of the tracks where heavily bass driven and drums. Robert Smith quit to concentrate more on the Cure. They then appointed Johnn Carruthers (ex of Clock DVA) and released a brilliant album called ‘Tinderbox”.A cover Version album was released about 10 months later in 1987 .
They released a string of good albums into the early 90s like Peepshow and Superstition. They split in the mid 90s to concentrate on their Career with the Creatures(Budgie and Siouxsie’s band).
For me they are one of the most influential bands I ever heard. The music was ahead of its time.
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