jeffrey lee pierce cause of death
With the release of the Death Party EP in 1983, more line-up shifts saw the departure and return of Terry Graham and the inclusion of Jim Duckworth, formerly of Tav Falcos Panther Burns, on guitar. "[25], Pierce contacted Powers in early 1996 to work together on a new iteration of the Gun Club, and they began making plans, with Powers looking to recruit musicians in New York. By initially flirting with it, he accidentally ended up inhabiting it. But I think it was very difficult for him Jeffrey very often didnt make sense. But it was with a depressing sense of inevitability that the band would collapse once again. Find a Grave. All rights reserved. Long-term alcohol abuse had left Pierce with cirrhosis of the liver and his enforced sobriety was having a detrimental personal and musical effect. Reviews of Fire of Love usually cite Son House and Robert Johnson as touchpoints, which is understandable given their choice of covers/thefts, but I believe Jeffreys true musical soul mate (blues mate?) It features interviews with Pierce, acoustic performances and clips of the Gun Club. Labeled by many as psychobilly, they repelled the punk dogmatists; as blues-punk, they lost the traditionalists; as country-punk-blues, pretty much everyone else who might have been sympathetic turned away it was the genre-war 80s after all. Refused it, I mean. The future was acknowledged, however grimly envisioned. Glitterhouse Records instead released Axels & Sockets. At the age of 23, she hit NYC nightlife, working at music venues, bartending, and writing about all of her adventures along the way. Hed go for a run every lunchtime, says Mori. In fact, as ragged a fit as it is, the closest they came to a scene in the UK was probably goth (which, again, couldnt have exactly helped), especially as they werent really a goth band either, outward appearances notwithstanding. It was one of the best rocknroll experiences of my life and Ill never forget it.. Pierce attended Granada Hills High School, where he participated in the drama program, acting in plays and writing several short experimental theater pieces. So enamoured was Pierce of the new name that he wrote Group Sex for them in return. [17] With Mori now on bass, the band recorded 1987's Mother Juno, produced by the Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie, and featuring songs such as "Thunderhead", "Araby" and "The Breaking Hands". Beneath the attitude, there was always a sweetness, a reverence. And while punk, on the surface, at least, eschewed and discarded what had come before it, The Gun Club tapped into a lineage that took them through the decades via punk, primal rocknroll and eventually the blues. Punk had left its mark on both of the young friends, with Pierce and Powers running the Blondie and Ramones fan clubs respectively. writer: "The Stranger in Our Town" TV Series; 2012; 1 episode; Personal details. "[34] At live performances, Morris has introduced "Jeffrey Lee Pierce" with a tribute to Pierce and their close friendship, describing the song as a "eulogy".[35][36][37]. Something was really happening there.. (Jeffrey Lee Pierce photo: via fanpop.com). His demise is another sad reminder that the rock 'n' roll life-style can also lead to oblivion. He returned to Los Angeles in 1995. Because hed stopped drinking, he found that he couldnt perform, because it was always about him being pissed. Somewhere in that bled-out hellhole there is room however small and cramped for actual love: Really, this is what the Gun Club achieved as they crawled westward, south-by-southwest, the recurring astonishment of beauty amid the horror, running from flashlights on the back roads, a New Mexican mirage, an Arizona dream, as if the murderous pedophile Judge Holden in Cormac McCarthys Blood Meridian had abruptly renounced his appalling ways, emerging gore-soaked and penitent from the heat shimmer one day, proceding into a new life of domestic contrition. IN THE LATE 60S! But also I take away all the things I learned from Jeffrey. I suppose all junkies are secretive and he was hiding it and I didnt say much to him. Their most straight-ahead blues album, the direction taken still evokes scorn from Mori: I think Jeffrey wanted to be Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan. I didnt want to do anything like that., Mori: He was heavily into drugs and couldnt keep the tempo. Afterwards, I said to Jeffrey, Well? And he said, Well, what? And I go, Well, am I in the band or what?, and he says, Yeah and that was it., Yet despite Pierces persona, it was the music that counted for Morrison: I think he was incredibly talented; he was a singular talent. Jeffrey was so into it and even asked if we wanted to split the writing credits, but we stupidly declined and just accepted a recording fee!, Powers concurs: It was like a completely new band and it was the strongest version that I was in.. Pierce's autobiography, Go Tell The Mountain, goes into detail about the personal turmoil he experienced during the late 1980s and early 1990s. By this time, bassist Rob Ritter had taken as much as he could of Pierces self-centred behaviour and quit, with Ward Dotson following soon after. Dissonance on the former (Black Train) becomes plain ugliness on the latter (Day Turn To Night), while Fires haunted and unhealthy lyricism (Ghost On The Highway) is tempered by Lucky Jims sonorous melancholy (Idiot Waltz). By Gregg L. Friedman MD, I really miss the great musical groups of the 1960's. Something born mewling reluctant from the bayou mud. "[14] Pierce toured Europe as The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Quartet, and from August 1985 he toured the United States and Canada. After six months in Japan, Pierce and Mori returned to London in August 1986, with Pierce intending to reform the Gun Club. But The Gun Club made things happen on their own terms. The gulf between the two records is grimly fascinating. Bath Speaking of the US/UK divide, The Gun Club never really found much traction in their homeland. He'd come almost every day and just sit on the couch and then he'd come out to dinner with us and just mumble away. The Gun Club have themselves informed and inspired many artists, including The White Stripes, Screaming Trees, Calla, The Pixies, Henry Rollins, and PJ Harvey. At the time of his death, he was 38 years old. [7], The follow-up album, Miami, was produced by Stein,[8] and features renditions of "Devil in the Woods," "Sleeping in Blood City" and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Run Through the Jungle." The Gun Club became the seminal swamp-blues, post punk band that had come screaming out of the LA club scene during the 1980 s. In 1982 Creeping Ritual Music was created by Pierce and later became the soul source for his music publishing. Come on! She would soon discover that life in The Gun Club around Pierces personality would be far from easy. Because hed stopped drinking, he found that he couldnt perform, because it was always about him being pissed, explains Mori. Furthermore, his cover of the traditional outlaw ballad John Hardy on Miami is eerily similar to a Leadbelly version (on most compilations, the accordion-less 3:13 cut). Emptiness and defiance. And I also think that the records speak for themselves and Im really proud to be on them. "[7], Primal Scream's 2013 album More Light referenced Pierce and the Gun Club with a reworking of Pierce's "Goodbye Johnny" and use of the title "Walking with the Beast".[40]. Hell, right off the bat you almost recoil from the light in Shirleys lips, fleetingly grasp the tiger in Debra Anns hips. Pierces behaviour on and off the stage soon began to be counterproductive: The other guys in the band were very antagonised by him. So that first Gun Club album, he was really into blues music, The Las Vegas Story he was into Television, Wildweed was Bob Dylan and Mother Juno was the Cocteau Twins., The new band gelled particularly well. One of his best qualities, was encouraging his friends to make music, even insisting that they do. In 1987 Pierce reformed Gun Club, recording with Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins as producer. As a teenager, he moved from El Monte, a working-class industrial suburb east of Los Angeles, to Granada Hills, at the time a white working- and middle-class suburb in the San Fernando Valley. Dax Riggs, former front man of Acid Bath, Agents of Oblivion, and Deadboy & The Elephantmen, frequently performs a cover of the Gun Club's "Mother of Earth" at his live shows, always crediting Pierce and expressing admiration for his song-writing. Born in Texas in 1958, Jeffrey Lee Pierce later moved to the West Coast. [7], Although the project's third and final album, The Task Has Overwhelmed Us, was due for release in late 2012,[47] the schedule was changed after the release of the second installment. He was 37. Returning to London, hanging out with Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds and guesting with the band on Bob Dylans Wanted Man at the Shepherds Bush Empire, and living alone in Moris apartment, Pierce was eventually deported to the United States in 1995 following a violent altercation in a west London pub that saw him waving a samurai sword. It was at this place called The Gala in Norwich, he says. He touches on Nick Cave, The Cramps, and how R.E.M. is trying to be like The Byrds, but just aren't as good. Hes also in the select group of music journalists to have actually got on with Lou Reed. With Pierces drinking escalating to the point of blackout, relations within the band rapidly deteriorated. [4], Pierce's early musical interests were glam and progressive rock, including bands such as Sparks, Genesis, and Roxy Music. Elvis From Hell is directed by Heiko Lange and Jessica Andree, and it features interviews with artists including Nick Cave, Jack White, Debbie Harry, Iggy Pop, Jim Jarmusch, Mark Lanegan, Moby, and more. In July 2014, Australian musician Spencer P. Jones argued that the blues influence in Pierce's music was largely the result of his access to the record collection of Canned Heat frontman Bob Hite, who allowed Pierce to come to his house and choose ten albums from Hite's vast blues record collection as he was dying. This contained forgotten preliminary recordings for a further . PopMatters is wholly independent, women-owned and operated. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. During his two-decade career, hes interviewed the likes of Keith Richards, Jimmy Page and Ozzy Osbourne, and has been ranted at by John Lydon. Arun Starkey. He was very ill. Hed been living on his own in my flat in Shepherds Bush and when I went back there I found that hed drawn all these happy, smiling faces on the wall because hed been so lonely. If he liked something, say, like a type of food, then hed eat that for months and months and then drop it and move on to something else. At times, it was a case of, This could be really good but youre really fucking it up. So we went and kept in contact, and it was decided that the next album should be recorded with Robin., She continues: Jeffrey had been wanting to record The Breaking Hands and he knew that he wanted loads of bells on it, so he figured that Robin would be perfect for it. Pierce taught Powers how to play the guitar using an open-E tuning and one finger. Mr. Pierce is survived by his father, Bob, of Salt Lake City, his mother, Margie, and a sister, Jackie Faretra, both of Los Angeles. Born. The album was originally slated as a country-influenced album but eventually transformed into a blues recording. Outwardly, I might have been a character in a Gun Club song, thankfully absent all the mayhem, betrayal, and sex killing. To this day, however, that voice still causes the hairs to raise, the hackles to rise in fight or flight. After the gig, Jeffrey Lee came up to me and started talking to me and he just wouldnt let me go, says Romi Mori, then a Japanese fan and later Gun Club bassist. The band upped sticks to New Yorks Blank Tape studios to record the follow-up album, Miami. Birthday: June 27, 1958 Date of Death: March 31, 1996 Age at Death: 37 Live Live Death Statistics Worldwide and The United States Jeffrey Lee Pierce - Biography If he hadnt have been so tenacious then nothing wouldve happened for the band. imported from Wikimedia project. Titles like "Walking With the Beast", "Bad America" and "Wildweed" now seem sad portents of what was to come. The film will cover the singer/guitarist's life and career through his death in 1996 at age 37 from causes related to heroin addiction, alcoholism, and HIV. Far too young by any means. WERE WE ALL BRAINWASHED BY THE CIA WITH SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK & ROLL? To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. And it was there that the next stage of The Gun Club began to take gestate. At the center of everything was Jeffrey Texas-born, Los Angeles raised a music fanzine writer, an obsessive Blondie stan (as a teenager, he was president of their fan club and was fairly regularly ousted from hotel rooms by members of the Blondie contingent for overstaying his welcome) with an unscratchable reggae itch and a compulsion for Delta blues as well as country murder ballads. Elvis From Hell will tell the story of Pierce, a tragic but influential figure who died at 37, due to complications from heroin addiction, alcoholism and HIV. From his days as a peroxided, Debbie Harry-fixated Los Angeles teen-punk, through a lengthy era when he seemed convinced he could channel the spirit of Robert Johnson, to a more recent probe of the seedier side of continental balladry, Pierce who died of a cerebral blood clot in Utah at the end of March 1996 always . Anyone can read what you share. Lange and Andree will also co-produce, along with Alexander von Sturmfeder, under their Scenes From banner. Sexual rage. What can you say about a record that you cut for 2500 bucks in 48 hours, on speed? Jeffrey was 37 years old at the time of death. Jeffrey Lee Pierce, singer, guitarist, composer: born Texas 27 June 1958; married Romi Mori; died Los Angeles 31 March 1996. Other family and friends of Pierce provided additional material; Phast Phreddie Patterson submitted a copy of a homemade cassette recording of Pierce performing "My Cadillac" and "St. Mark's Place", which were pre-Gun Club recordings, and Cypress Grove obtained the two-inch master tapes of some song ideas they had recorded at the end of the Ramblin' Jeffrey Lee sessions. And while the new fans are throwing themselves with abandon to the maelstrom emanating from the stage, older heads are sensing a familiarity that hasnt been heard for some time. Soundtrack: Too Young to Die. By coincidence, Robin and Liz were walking towards us, remembers Mori. Thats why he started playing guitar more. I thought they were amazing with Ward Dotson playing, remembers Powers. [39], Henry Rollins, another friend of Pierce, played the Gun Club song "Bill Bailey" during his first show for the "Artist in Residence" feature on Australian national radio station Double J. Rollins stated before playing the song: "Jeffrey Lee Pierce was a very good friend of mine and I miss him horribly. Edit. He said, Leave them! The band's first album, "Fire of Love" (1981), remains its most admired, with a fast-paced, irreverent version of the Mississippi blues song "Preachin' the Blues" and Mr. Pierce's warbling voice wailing about dark themes like drugs and death. Jeffrey Lee Pierce, fdd 27 juni 1958 [ 1] i Montebello, Kalifornien, [ 2] dd 31 mars 1996 [ 1] i Salt Lake City, Utah, [ 3] var en amerikansk rockmusiker, frontfigur i det Los Angeles -baserade punkbandet The Gun Club . Almost beyond language. Find a Grave memorial ID. Using a pick-up drummer, The Gun Club road-tested material from what was to become their third album, The Las Vegas Story. Ive waited 13 years to say goodbye to Jeffrey Lee Pierce. He got back in touch with his initial blues roots, began dressing like a rambling cowboy, and finger-picked a resonator guitar. He went and grabbed it; it didnt come to him. At the point that final album dropped, his wife and bassist Romi Mori had left him for his then-drummer (Nick Sanderson), and Pierce had probably realized how indifferent the wider world had become to his music, let alone his pain. [50] The documentary received mostly positive critical reception, but was criticized for not including any of Pierce's music or interview footage with him.[51]. This was a more ambitious offering, from the reworking of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Run Through the Jungle" to the voodoo feel of "Like Calling Up Thunder" and "Devil in the Woods". Matthew Lawrence Says He Was Fired From Agency After Refusing To Strip For Director Offering Him A Marvel Role, The Daily Show Moves Into Post-Trevor Noah Era While Paying Tribute Contenders TV: Docs + Unscripted, The Traitors Team Shaking Things Up For Season 2 As Cirie Fields Doubles Down On Winning Strategy Contenders TV: Docs + Unscripted, Layoffs Underway At Amazon Studios & Prime Video, Handful Of Creative Executives Impacted Update, The Issues, The Stakes, Movies & TV Shows Affected, How Long It Might Last, Netflix Lands Adam McKays New Comedy Average Height, Average Build, Plumbs Another Domestic Win At $38M; Karting Past $1 Billion Global, Serious Moments For Media Give Way To Satire & Mirth; Biden & Wood Remarks. [30], Pierce is honored by Thstrm in a 2005 song recording. Or Kansas. Jeffrey Lee Pierce. [31] The World/Inferno Friendship Society also paid tribute to Pierce in their song by the same title. Pierce returned to Los Angeles before relocating to Utah to stay with his father and write. Listen to The Birthday Party before and after Jeffrey. Its now 20 years since the untimely passing of Jeffrey Lee Pierce, and his legacy is apparent in any number of current bands now active, as well as his contemporaries who are still performing. [24] [27][28], The French rock band Noir Dsir paid tribute to Pierce in the song "Song for JLP", from its 1996 album 666667 Club. It stopped him doing what he wanted to do. In late 1993, Pierce spent time with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds during the recording of their album Let Love In. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. With The Cramps on indefinite hiatus due to ongoing legal wrangles with their label, Powers re-joined The Gun Club. Despite the continued alcohol and drug abuse, Pierces talents were flourishing. Of course, we can play the influence game forever we have to mention Howlin Wolf as well as a 1959 album by Marty Robbins called Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, particularly the song The Masters Call., But its important to remember it goes both ways. [6] Becoming disillusioned by the evolution of punk rock into what he saw as strict formality, and feeling that reggae was an import, Pierce developed a keen interest in and extensive knowledge of the Delta blues, taking influence and inspiration from his own culture's history. He was the rock star Ian Astbury wanted to be. On top of Pierces fascination with Tom Verlaine, elements of be-bop and beat literature found their way on to the album. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Reflecting the singer's burgeoning interest in the blues, Fire of Love, Gun Club's debut album, included possessed covers of Robert Johnson's "Preaching the Blues" and Tommy Johnson's "Cool Drink of Water" alongside Pierce's own compositions ("Sex Beat", "She's Like Heroin to Me") which already reflected his unhealthy fascination for the seamier side of rock 'n' roll. In a 2012 interview with Gun Club biographer Gene Temesy, Nick Cave, a great admirer of the frontman, said: "With Jeffrey, you pretty much entered his world when you saw him. And now, because frankly its weird talking to dead people, Im casting around awkwardly for the right words, so maybe just some facts for now. Its counterintuitive, and often, at its most abject, unforeseen beauty lurks. Hed have a few drinks at lunchtime first and then do a few rounds at the Holland Park running track. I play a lot of his music because I miss him and I want people to never forget the Gun Club. Elvis From Hell is due out in 2020. In the early stages of his career, Pierce became friends with his idol Debbie Harry, having met Harry and Chris Stein through his presidency of Blondie's U.S. fan club. Its like we had this idea that the band would repeat Fire of Love ad infinitum and wed all go home happy, so when expectations were dashed, much of the critical world scowled petulantly and turned away, never to turn fully back. We were all very relaxed and all good friends and we all really wanted to do it. His Anglo father worked as a union organizer. DEATH PARTY - EP (13-Apr-83) 01.The House On Highland Ave 02.The Lie 03.The Light Of The World 04.Death Party 05.Come Back Jim Line-up: Jeffrey Lee Pierce (vocals)/ Jim Duckworth (guitar)/ Jimmy Joe Uliana (bass) and Dee Pop (drums). All rights reserved.