The Gun Club

Early days (1976–1980)

By 1976, Jeffrey Lee Pierce was playing early rock n' roll tunes like Elvis Presley's "Fever" in L.A. garage bands, and by 1977 "discovers and becomes obsessed with reggae artist Bob Marley". Pierce was also the former head of the Blondie fan club in Los Angeles and previously a member of the Red Lights, the E-Types, the Individuals, Phast Phreddie & Thee Precisions, and the Cyclones. Some of Pierce’s compositions from this period of his career were later recorded by Tav Falco's Panther Burns^[3] for "The Journey Is Long : the Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project” album. ^[4]

The Gun Club's precursor band, the Creeping Ritual, formed in late 1979.^[5] Along with Pierce (lead vocals and guitar), the first lineup consisted of Brian Tristan AKA Kid Congo Powers (lead guitar), Don Snowden (bass), who was at the time a music critic for the Los Angeles Times and Brad Dunning (drums), now a prominent designer and writer.^[5] In April 1980, they changed their name to "The Gun Club" on a suggestion by singer Keith Morris, then Pierce's roommate and also singer for Circle Jerks.^[6]

In his autobiography, Kid Congo Powers reflects on meeting Pierce for the first time, at a Pere Ubu show : "One balmy evening at the beginning of August 1979, I was standing in line outside the Whisky a Go Go to get into a Pere Ubu show...I spotted somebody moving toward me out of the corner of my eye. I looked up slowly, not really wanting to engage with anyone at all, and saw this truly eccentric-looking individual standing directly in front of me… “Hi, I’m Jeff,” he said... I’d seen him before, browsing through the racks of reggae imports at Bomp!, the record store…he said, “You should be in a band with me.”... We went into the club. Pere Ubu blew our minds to smithereens. My brain was whirling with all the possibilities open to me, having taken the decision to form a band with my new friend... the way it had been proposed, so matter-of-factly, and Jeffrey’s confidence in me, even though we were total strangers, made it seem entirely possible."("Some New Kind of Kick: A Memoir", Kid Congo Powers; 2022).^[7][8][9]

Kid Congo commented on the "influences (of) freeform jazz, literature, Lowry, Burroughs. We (were) intellectual, narcissistic," and that the early Gun Club incarnation were "too arty for rock people, far too rock for arty people, too cuckoo for the blues crowd and too American for punk".^[10]

In New York Night Train fanzine, Congo Powers relates that “I remember the first songs we tried to learn was a version of (the) Winston Rodney Burning Spear (track), “People Get Ready”…We played "My Brand of Blues" by Marvin Rainwater, "Bo Diddley is a Gunslinger” - those were the first songs we learned...and some original songs because Jeffrey was already writing songs. And so we hammered out some kind of weird sounds that kind of was a pre-Gun Club…Jeffrey was quite obnoxious - already at the time. He was already “l’enfant terrible.”^[11]

Further commenting on the early days of the band, Congo Powers stated that it was his “first dealings with improvisation…(b)ecause it always was improvised songs with The Gun Club from the early days until the last days. We didn’t know when the parts (of the songs) were going to come or how long Jeffery (sic) might draw it out or if we were going to freak out or if we were going to stay cool. That was a huge turning point in sound and showed us what we could do. It shocked and surprised us…We were super irreverent, super nihilistic…We were out to destroy music as much as we were out to create it".^[12]

In July 1980 The Gun Club play Club 88 in central Los Angeles, a gig which is memorialised in Brendan Mullen’s book, "We Got the Neutron Bomb",^[13] where he describes “Jeffrey dressed in a black suit with a white shirt and a black string tie and a black hat, looking like something out of a Flannery O'Connor short story”, while Gun Club drummer Terry Graham, in his book “Punk Like Me,” reminisces, "(w)e land our first show…at Club 88 ( which ) earned us a lifetime ban…One thing is for sure: Gun Club doesn't sound like any other band in town…Our show at Club 88 confirms our status as the only blues band that plays punk and the only punk band that plays blues." By October 1980, L.A. Weekly writes, "The Gun Club are resurfacing again with their organized rhythm & blues with an undercurrent of psychosis." The Cramps are recorded as having attended these shows.^[14]

Snowden and Dunning departed in June 1980, replaced by two ex-members of the Bags, Rob Ritter and Terry Graham, respectively.^[5] Ritter was temporarily replaced on bass by Anna Statman for two months in the fall of 1980. Kid Congo Powers then left, on amicable terms, to join the Cramps in November 1980 and was replaced by lead and slide guitarist Ward Dotson (ex-Der Stab) who had initially hoped to join the Cramps.

Writing of the recruitment of Ward Dotson, Jeffrey Lee Pierce wrote in his autobiography "Go Tell The Mountain”, "I had met a guitarist in a parking lot named Ward Dotson. He was kind of shy and a big Cramps fan. We gave him a tape of earlier gigs from 1980 and asked him to tune to open E, like Kid Congo, and play some slide on the solos. Rob, Terry and I already knew most of the songs and we soon did our first [sic] reformed gig at the Country Club in Reseda, opening for X in front of about a thousand people. It must have seemed as unreal to Ward as it did to me, neither of us having played to an audience that large. I was a bit afraid, since the only other large audience I had sung for was during the filming of [Penelope Spheeris'] "The Decline Of Western Civilization" at the Fleetwood in Redondo Beach [on 10-May-80], where we were booed and spat on" (During this period, the Gun Club often opened for X, the Bags, Circle Jerks and the Blasters).^[15]

Their early concerts were remembered as wild affairs, with Screamin' Sirens chanteuse Pleasant Gehman writing in her column,On The Streets from LA Weekly in 1981 that "The Gun Club opened and literally tore the place apart. Jeff pulled down pieces of the decorations as he slammed around, muttering…"(p)eace and eternal love — just don't try to steal my drink…"^[16]

Fire of Love and Miami (1981–1982)

Securing a record deal with Ruby Records,^[17] a division of Slash, notable as one of the first and most successful independent record labels in alternative music,^[18]the group released their debut album, Fire of Love, on August 31, 1981.^[5] The album was produced by Tito Larriva (of the Plugz) and Chris D. (frontman of the Flesh Eaters). Recounting how they met, Tito Larriva -- who also played violin on the track "Promise Me"-- enthused , “I found Jeffrey Lee Pierce after he threw a tape in the back of my amp, a tape of his band jamming with Kid Congo. I said, “What is this?...Where is this band from?” I’d never heard anything like that in L.A. And I played it for everybody and Exene [Cervenka, of X] said, “Oh, that’s Jeffrey.” And I said, “Where can I find him? I wanna do a record with him.” She told me he was working at Slash, so I called over there where he was boxing records and said, “I wanna do this record with you. I’ll put up the money.”… (W)e broke it down. I tore that whole thing apart.” ^[19][20]

Critic Stevo Olende wrote that the "album's lyrical imagery is plundered from voodoo, '50s EC Comics and the blues", while Thom Jurek of AllMusic noted that "nobody has heard music like this before or since...The songs become rock & roll ciphers, erasing themselves as soon as they speak, heading off into the whirlwind of a storm that is so big, so black, and so awful one cannot meditate on anything but its power."^[21]

Fire of Love sold well and received strong reviews upon release. Billy Persons of the Weirdos temporarily replaced Ritter for several shows in late 1981. Writing in the fanzine Perfect Sound Forever Stevo Olende notes that “(a)round this time, Pierce started saying in interviews that he harboured a dream of working in the Smithsonian Institute's music department ( the Smithsonian Institution) researching early American recordings both blues and country. Jim Duckworth, who would later frequently stay at Pierce's home, talks of his (Pierce's) room as almost a blues shrine”.^[22]

Reviewing the album, Trouser Press fanzine commented that “Jeffrey Lee Pierce…seemed convinced he could channel the spirit of Robert Johnson…present(ing) a highly individual…vision of a soul in torment…For Pierce, the blues was a highly personal medium to broadcast/exorcise demons. On Gun Club’s cathartic debut, Fire of Love, his unschooled, high-lonesome howl often evokes the hellhound-on-his-tail imagery he’s trying to project. This is bona fide mutant blues, with Pierce using the musical structures and lyrical imagery for his own ends. Exciting, intense — even cathartic.”^[23]

In April 1982, the Gun Club signed to Blondie guitarist Chris Stein's Animal Records, a subsidiary of Chrysalis Records.^[5] The band temporarily relocated to New York City to record their follow-up album, 1982's Miami. This album featured not only Stein as producer, but Blondie's Debbie Harry singing backup vocals on several tracks. Upon the release of Miami on September 20, 1982, the album received good reviews but has been criticized for Stein's thin production. Trouser Press' review of the album -- whilst reticent about the mix -- praises "Pierce’s generally strong Jim Morrison-styled vocals."^[23]

The album features cover versions of Creedence Clear Water Revival’s “Run Through the Jungle”, a commentary on the proliferation of guns in America,^[24]and Jody Reynolds’^[25]1958 rockabilly garage band composition, “The Fire of Love,”^[23][26] a track which had earlier been revived by proto-punk Detroit band, The MC5 in 1970.^[27]

Perfect Sound Forever’s Stevo Olende comments in his piece The Gun Club Story that on Miami, "Pierce's vocals were getting stronger and he is still using the blues moan he picked up from Tommy Johnson (guitarist)”, further noting that “Pierce's lyricism was becoming progressively mystical on tracks like "Like Calling up Thunder" and "Brother And Sister" but a rock and roll pulse still underlies everything…this is beautiful. Mark Tomco of Rubber Rodeo adds pedal steel guitar to both this and "Texas Serenade" adding a further psychedelic swirl.”^[28]

Reflecting on the compositions on the Miami album, Pierce commented, "(e)ven though we idolized an older style of music, none of us were good enough to play it! What we came up with is our own version. I find myself writing about the feeling of being lost."^[29]

Ritter left in June 1982 to concentrate on his other band, 45 Grave, and changed his name to Rob Graves. Before leaving, Ritter taught the bass parts to his former Bags bandmate Patricia Morrison (also ex-Legal Weapon)^[30][31]and trained her as his replacement. For their West Coast shows in August 1982, Annie Ungar was added as a second guitarist.Due to increasingly frequent arguments, Pierce dismissed Graham and Dotson in December 1982.

Speaking of joining the group in Stomp and Stammer fanzine Patricia Morrison remembers that “Jeffrey…was really difficult to get along with. He was one of those people that talks at you, like you are not really there. It doesn’t go back and forth. He was just one of those odd people that have an odd personality. I just didn’t want to deal with that. But I heard the tape for Miami and I thought the songs were amazing. So I said, ‘I’ll give it a try.’ So I had three days to learn 30 songs, and one ten-minute rehearsal… he was a wonderful songwriter…I loved…playing with him. The last lineup that I was in had Kid Congo on guitar and Terry on drums…we all looked at each other one day and said, ‘This is it. This is the perfect Gun Club. This is exactly the way it should be.’ Jeffrey, up until the end, was a fabulous songwriter.”^[32]

Commenting on Pierce’s journalistic skills, Morrison states that “his writings (for Slash fanzine )…were very good, very strong, powerful, positive pieces on what he had seen. Very entertaining, colorful, as his lyrics were. He wasn’t someone to rip people apart, that wasn’t what Jeffrey was about…He was a very good writer. It made you want to go see the person. It made you wonder who is this that wrote this?”^[32]

The Las Vegas Story and first breakup (1983–1985)

In January 1983, Graham and Dotson were replaced by guitarist Jim Duckworth (formerly of Tav Falco's Panther Burns) and drummer Dee Pop (formerly of the New York band Bush Tetras). A spare recording session, originally booked for another band, led to the impromptu recording of the Death Party EP with bassist Jimmy Joe Uliana quickly filling in for Morrison and Linda "Texacala" Jones of Tex & the Horseheads^[33] on backing vocals. Richard Metzger of Dangerous Minds fanzine views it as a ‘holy grail’ record whilst AllMusic describes the EP as a “powerful, dark rock of disillusionment”.^[34]Writing in The Gun Club Story , Steve Olende of Perfect Sound Forever fanzine comments that producer Chris Stein was not happy with Jim Duckworth’s raw guitar pitch, whilst stating that “Duckworth regards the EP as a lost opportunity.”^[35]Released April 13, 1983, by Animal, it was the only recording of the short-lived lineup featuring Duckworth and Pop. During this time Pierce refrained from playing guitar, focusing solely on singing. After eight months Graham returned, replacing Pop, and on the eve of the October 1983 Australian tour, both Duckworth and Graham quit, refusing to board the plane. Arriving minus half the band, Pierce recruited drummer Billy Pommer Jr. and guitarist Spencer P. Jones from support act the Johnnys to fill in on the tour, while former member Powers also flew over to play guitar. When they returned to the US in November, Graham resumed his place on drums.^[36]

Pierce returned to guitar playing during this lineup, and both he and Powers are credited with guitar on their third album, The Las Vegas Story (the Blasters' Dave Alvin also played lead guitar on a handful of tracks). Released on June 25, 1984, this album marked a significant change for the band; it represented a shift away from the punk rock of Fire of Love and Miami and a step towards a more polished alternative rock sound. After US gigs supporting Siouxsie and the Banshees, in September the band embarked on a European tour in support of the album, but after five weeks Graham again departed after a gig in Paris. The band carried on and he was replaced with former roadie Peter Kablean, known as Desi Desperate, despite having no rehearsal. The Gun Club broke up in January 1985, Pierce remaining in London with then-girlfriend Romi Mori, who he had met during the final December 10–11 shows at Dingwalls, London.^[5]

After the breakup, Powers, Morrison and Desperate formed a band called Fur Bible (Morrison later joined the Sisters of Mercy and the Damned), while Pierce embarked on a solo career. Pierce assembled a band, the Jeffrey Lee Pierce Quartet, consisting of former members of the Cure and Roxy Music, and released Wildweed in 1985. He organized a new band to tour in support of the album, including Mori on guitar and Nick Sanderson of Clock DVA on drums.

Reformation (1986–1994)

After a short stint doing spoken word performances, Pierce decided to reform a new version of the band in October 1986.^[37] Powers, who had also been recruited into Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at this time, resumed his place at guitar, with Mori switching to bass and Sanderson retaining his spot on drums. This lineup of the Gun Club recorded a handful of albums, including Mother Juno, released October 19, 1987, on Red Rhino Records. This album, produced by Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins, was a successful comeback, garnering a positive critical reception.^[5] After the release of Nick Cave's album The Good Son, Powers departed from the Bad Seeds in May 1990 to focus more on the Gun Club.

The band's fifth studio effort, Pastoral Hide and Seek, which Pierce produced himself, was released October 1, 1990, on the Fire label. Sanderson departed in December 1990 to focus on his other project, World of Twist. Desperate rejoined to record the Divinity album, released in August 1991 on New Rose Records, but the band were inactive during the remainder of that year as Pierce was hospitalized during his travels in India and Vietnam. Pierce also recorded with Cypress Grove.

Simon Fish, who had previously played with Pierce on one of his solo albums, joined the band in March 1992. At the conclusion of a European tour in May 1992, Powers left the band to focus on his other project, Congo Norvell. In February 1993, the band reconvened as a trio of Pierce, Mori and the returning Sanderson, to record the Lucky Jim album. For their spring 1993 European tour, they were joined by guitarist Rainer Lingk of Die Haut. Lucky Jim was released September 20, 1993, by Triple X Records, and Robert Marche (formerly of Subway Sect and JoBoxers) joined on guitar in October.

In May 1994, Mori and Pierce split up, and she and Sanderson left the Gun Club (Mori and Sanderson formed Freeheat in 1999 with Jim Reid and Ben Lurie of the Jesus and Mary Chain). Sanderson and Marche formed Earl Brutus. In the fall of 1994, Pierce put together a new lineup featuring Marche, bassist Efe and the returning Fish, lasting until November.

Final days (1995–1996)

An increasingly ill Pierce put together a penultimate Gun Club lineup for two shows in Los Angeles in August and September 1995, including guitarists Powers and Mike Martt (ex-Tex & the Horseheads), and the Wayne Kramer rhythm section of bassist Randy Bradbury and drummer Brock Avery. The final lineup of the Gun Club, with bassist Elizabeth Montague replacing Bradbury (who was touring with Pennywise), played only one show, the band's last, at The Palace in Hollywood on December 18, 1995.

On March 25, 1996, Pierce was found unconscious at his father's home in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was hospitalized and remained in a coma until his death from a brain hemorrhage on March 31, effectively ending the Gun Club.^[5]

Former members

• Jeffrey Lee Pierce – vocals, guitar (1979–1996; his death)
• Kid Congo Powers – guitar (1979–1980, 1983–1996)
• Don Snowden – bass guitar
• Brad Dunning – drums (1979–1980)
• Terry Graham – drums
• Rob Ritter – bass guitar (1980–1982; died 1990)
• Anna Statman – bass guitar
• Ward Dotson – guitar (1980–1982)
• Billy Persons – drums
• Anny Unger – guitar
• Patricia Morrison – bass guitar (1982–1984)
• Jim Duckworth – guitar (1983)
• Dee Pop – drums (1983)
• Jimmy Joe Uliana – bass guitar (1983)
• Desi Desperate – drums
• Romi Mori – bass guitar (1987–1994)
• Derek Thompson – drums
• Nick Sanderson – drums (1987–1996; died 2008)
• Simon Fish – drums (1994)
• Rainer Lingk – guitar
• Robert Marche – guitar
• Efe – bass guitar (1994)
• Mike Martt – guitar; died 2023
• Randy Bradbury – bass guitar (1995)
• Brock Avery – drums (1995)
• Elizabeth Montague – bass guitar
• Nigel Preston – drums (1991; died 1992)

Studio albums

• Fire of Love (1981, Ruby Records/Slash Records)
• Miami (1982, Animal Records)
• The Las Vegas Story (1984, Animal Records/Chrysalis Records)
• Mother Juno (1987, Red Rhino Records)
• Pastoral Hide and Seek (1990, Fire Records (UK), The Orchard Music (on behalf of Blixa Sounds); BMI – Broadcast Music Inc.)
• Divinity (1991, New Rose Records)
• Lucky Jim (1993, Triple X Records)

Singles and EPs

• "Ghost on the Highway"/"Sex Beat" 7-inch single (1982, Beggars Banquet Records)
• "Fire of Love" 7-inch single (1982, Animal Records)
• Death Party 12-inch EP (1983, Animal Records)
• Sex Beat 81 7-inch single (1986, Lolita)
• "Breaking Hands" 7-inch/12-inch single (1988, Red Rhino Records)
• "Sex Beat" CD single (1989, New Rose Records)
• "The Great Divide" 7-inch/12-inch single (1990, New Rose Records)
• "Pastoral, Hide & Seek (The Lost Song)" 7-inch/CD single (1991, New Rose Records)
• "Cry to Me" 7-inch single (1993, Sympathy for the Record Industry)
• "Walkin' With the Beast" 7-inch single (2004, Sympathy for the Record Industry)

Live albums

• The Birth the Death the Ghost (1983, ABC Records; recorded 1980)
• Sex Beat 81 (1984, Lolita; recorded 1981)
• Love Supreme (1985, Offense Records; recorded 1982)
• Danse Kalinda Boom – Live in Pandora's Box (1985, Megadisc; recorded 1984)
• Death Party (1987, Revenge Records; recorded 1981–1982)
• Ahmed's Wild Dream (1992, Solid Records; recorded 1992)
• Live in Europe (1993, Triple X Records; recorded 1992)
• Larger Than Live! (2008, Last Call Records; recorded 1990)
• Destroy the Country (2014, Cleopatra Records; recorded 1983)
• Moonlight Motel (2014, Cleopatra Records; recorded 1983–1984)

Compilation albums

• Two Sides of the Beast (1985, Dojo Records)
• In Exile (1992, Triple X Records)
• Early Warning (1997, Sympathy for the Record Industry)
• Pastoral Hide & Seek/Divinity (1997, 2.13.61 Records)
• Da Blood Done Signed My Name (2007, Castle Communications)
• The Life and Times of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Gun Club box set (2008, Retro Deluxe)
• Mother Berlin (2014, Bang! Records)
• In My Room (2017, Bang! Records)

Compilation appearances

• "Devil in the Woods" on Keats Rides a Harley (1981, Happy Squid Records)
• "Jack on Fire" on Rockabilly Psychosis and the Garage Disease (1984, Big Beat Records)
• "Sex Beat" on Slash: The Early Sessions (1984, Slash Records)

Live videos

• Live at the Hacienda VHS (1994, Visionary Communications/Jettisoundz; recorded 1983)
• Preaching the Blues VHS (1995, Visionary Communications/Jettisoundz; recorded 1984)
• Live at the Hacienda 1983/84 DVD (2006, Cherry Red Films; recorded 1983–1984)
• Fire of Love DVD (2007, Cherry Red Films; recorded 1983/1985)