The Gun Club

Led by eccentric frontman Jeffrey Lee Pierce, The Gun Club created a gothic punk take on rockabilly and blues that made them one of the great underground bands of the 1980s and inspired the likes of Nick Cave, Kurt Cobain, the White Stripes and The Horrors. Pierce was head of the Los Angeles branch of the Blondie fan club, before forming the band in 1979 with lead guitarist Brian Tristan (later renamed as Kid Congo Powers) and started out gigging around Los Angeles, initially under the name The Cyclones. Raw, dangerous, sexy and primitive, their ragged mix of twanging country riffs and The Ramones' raging energy led to early albums Fire Of Love (1981), Miami (1982) and The Las Vegas Story (1984) being dubbed cow punk and psychobilly. Always sneering, antagonistic outsiders, their influence and cult status far outstripped their meagre record sales, but comeback album Mother Juno (1987), produced by the Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie, earned the band a taste of critical and commercial success. The band split after final album Lucky Jim (1993), when bass player and Pierce's long term girlfriend Romi Mori eloped with drummer Nick Sanderson (later of Earl Brutus). Pierce occasionally appeared with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, but became increasingly reclusive before his death in 1996 from a brain haemorrhage.