English musician Kevin “Geordie” Walker, guitarist for the band Killing Joke, died at the age of 64 after a stroke on November 26 in the city of Prague, Czech Republic.
The musician founded Killing Joke with singer Jeremy “Jaz” Coleman during England’s post-punk boom in 1978. The trajectory began when he responded to an ad from Jaz Coleman to join a band. Like every punk story of the era, he had never played before in his life, making his mastery of the guitar and his notable influence on rock even more extraordinary. Walker and Coleman formed the basis of Killing Joke, whose enduring collaboration has become legendary for its consistency.
The group was known since their first EP, “Turn To Red” (1979), for their atmospheric, but heavier than other post-punk bands, guitars and tribal rhythms – influenced by Siouxie and the Sioux’s first album.
Influencer guitarist
In total, Killing Joke released 15 albums, reaching their peak in 1985, with the unexpected commercial success of the album “Night Time”, which produced the hits “Love Like Blood” and “Eighties”. The latter ended up inspiring fans to report plagiarism against Kurt Cobain, who years later would use Walker’s guitar melody as the template for the song “Come As You Are.”
Other famous admirers of Geordie Walker included Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, who praised his guitar sound as “really cool”, and Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine, who was inspired by him to learn to “play effortlessly” while producing a sound monstrous. His dissonant and unconventional guitar playing was used to create sonic atmospheres rather than chords in the traditional sense.
Walker was the one who determined the sonic direction of Killing Joke, which quickly evolved to incorporate elements of synth-pop and gothic rock, despite always sounding heavier than its contemporaries, so much so that it also inspired Nine Inch Nails.
Last year
Despite its importance, the band ended up losing ground in the face of the arrival of new musical styles and ended up taking a long break in the mid-90s. It was on this occasion that Walker decided to move to the Czech Republic.
In addition to the post-punk band, he also played guitar in the bands Murder Inc., The Damage Manual and Pigface. His latest album with Killing Joke is also the band’s latest, “Pylon”, released in 2015.
Remember below some of the most memorable songs of the English group.
Source: Terra
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