10 incredible musicians inspired by Scott Walker
Born in America, Scott Walker began his career as a child actor and performer, leading him to become something of a teen idol for a period of time. However, it wasn’t long until Walker – real name Noel Scott Engel – expressed an interest in the realm of jazz, describing himself as a “continental suit-wearing natural enemy of the Californian surfer”.
Soon enough, the musician had formed the Walker Brothers with John Maus, known professionally as John Walker, and Gary Leeds, who also adopted the Walker moniker. At a time where British bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were dominating the United States, The Walker Brothers found much greater success across the pond in the United Kingdom.
However, by the late 1960s, Walker had moved on to a solo career, releasing seminal baroque pop records such as Scott 4. He later reunited with the Walker Brothers for a short period in the following decade before returning to a solo career, which became increasingly concerned with the avant-garde.
Walker’s pioneering and fearless approach to experimentation made him a true visionary. His writing was poetically beautiful, and his love for movies bled into his music, which was distinctively cinematic. He has inspired countless artists over the decades, from David Bowie to Jarvis Cocker. With that, here are ten musicians that wouldn’t be the artists they are today without Scott Walker.
10 musicians inspired by Scott Walker:
Alison Goldfrapp
Alison Goldfrapp rose to prominence as one half of the electronic music duo Goldfrapp, alongside Will Gregory. She once told The Guardian that Walker inspired her to commit to music. “When I was young, I was playing with this terrible band, getting stoned a lot and trying to make music in a really feeble way. Then I heard ‘Boy Child’ and it totally changed my perception of life.”
She continued: “I decided right then that I must never see or work with the people in that band ever again. The string arrangements, the atmosphere, and the emotion of ‘Boy Child’ made me think: what am I doing with these plebs? Scott Walker’s songs are huge but intimate, unashamedly big, lush, decadent and personal. I’ve certainly never heard an American make music like that before.”
Brian Eno
Brian Eno is one of music’s most influential figures, known for his ‘non-music’ approach and pioneering involvement in the ambient genre. His producing credits are prolific, working with artists such as David Bowie and Talking Heads. Eno was lucky enough to work with Walker at one point, although the singer decided to discard the tapes, which were reportedly thrown in the Thames – a claim Eno has since disputed.
Discussing the brilliance of Walker, Eno said: “[He] was a real and serious artist, a conscious artist, who really thought about the medium he worked in. He took music to a place where it hasn’t been since.”
Damon Albarn
As the leading member of Blur and Gorillaz, Damon Albarn has experimented with various genres, from Britpop to hip-hop. Tracks like Blur’s ‘Boys and Girls’ or Gorillaz’s ‘Feel Good Inc.’ don’t exactly evoke the sounds of Walker, yet Albarn asserts that he feels a powerful connection to the singer.
Albarn once stated: “Listening to Scott Walker, and his adopted Englishness – I made a very strong connection with his music and our lives, and our sense of displacement and melancholy. Pop music wasn’t what it seemed to be prior to listening to him. It was very much a year zero listening to Scott Walker.”
David Bowie
Because David Bowie was one of the most influential musicians to ever live, it’s easy to forget that he looked up to many artists himself. The rockstar was starstruck when Walker sent him a 50th birthday message in 1997 on BBC Radio One. He exclaimed: “That’s amazing. I see God in the window. He really got to me there, I’m afraid. I think he’s probably been my idol since I was a kid. That’s really moved me. I want a copy of that! Thank you very much.”
Walker explained to Jarvis Cocker on his BBC 6 Music show Sunday Service: “Every time I spoke to [Bowie] he was very nice to me. He always was on my side. He would recommend people to listen to my records. He was really generous when it came to me and always was interested in what I was doing.”
Holly Herndon
American experimental composer and musician Holly Herndon has spent her career making music that pushes boundaries and asks questions about the future of the medium. On first listen, Herndon’s technologically-infused music couldn’t be more different to Walker’s, which prioritises classical instruments. Yet, in an interview with Women in Sound, she explained his influence over her 2012 piece, CAR.
“I thought it would be interesting to experiment with the car as a space. […] The sounds of the windows opening. How sound bled from one car to another. I also threw in some announcements to blend into the driving experience. In a sense, the piece was really inspired by Scott Walker, or at least how when listening to his music you feel like you are inside a narrative. I wanted to transform the driving experience and confuse the listener as to what was recorded and what was happening in real time.”
Jarvis Cocker
Pulp’s enigmatic frontman Jarvis Cocker once staged a whole concert dedicated to Walker, employing his pals Richard Hawley, John Grant and Susanne Sundfør to perform covers of his songs. Walker gave Cocker some advice before the performance – “Make it as new as you can”. During an interview on Channel 4, Cocker explained how his love for Walker was born from a bout of flu, leaving him bedridden with only Walker’s tapes to keep him entertained.
He cited ‘Plastic Palace People’ as making a major impression on him, explaining: “The thing I latched onto was the precision in the words. It was elevating everyday things to almost like an epic scale. That was the first time I’d heard anybody combine something that was quite lush and orchestral with quite down-to-earth, almost mundane words.”
Marc Almond
Soft Cell’s vocalist Marc Almond is a massive fan of Walker and wrote a touching tribute for the singer on Instagram when he passed. “Absolutely saddened and shocked by the death of Scott Walker. He gave me so much inspiration, so much I owe to him and modelled on him even down to my early S C haircut and dark glasses. He cemented my love for Brel,” he said.
Almond continued: “He was enigmatic, mysterious and with some of his latter recordings, to me, infuriating. An absolute Musical genius, existential and intellectual and a star right from the days of the Walker Brothers. So many of his songs will go round in my head forever. And that Voice. We lost Bowie now we’ve lost him. There is surely a crack in the Universe. Thank you Scott.”
Panda Bear
Noah Lennox, better known as Panda Bear, is most famous for his part in the experimental pop band Animal Collective, who emerged as highly influential figures of the genre in the late 2000s. As Panda Bear, Lennox has released a handful of solo albums, including Tomboy, which he cites as significantly influenced by Scott Walker.
Speaking to Pitchfork, he said: “On the vocal side of things, I would say there’s a more clear kind of inspiration. And to generalize about it, it’s more like crooners really like Frank Sinatra or Scott Walker, guys like that. Guys that emote with their voices and it’s like this clear defined part of the sound. I can’t really sing like a guy like Scott Walker but I guess Tomboy was my version of that.”
The Last Shadow Puppets
Arctic Monkeys’ frontman Alex Turner and his best pal Miles Kane teamed up to form The Last Shadow Puppets in 2008, a project that drew heavily from vintage baroque pop and John Barry-esque film scores. The band have released two albums together, alongside a handful of EPs, which all bear the significant influence of Scott Walker.
In an interview with Pitchfork, Turner explained how he got into Walker’s music when he was around 20 years old. “Around this time is also when I started spending a lot of time with Miles Kane, who I made the Last Shadow Puppets album with, and we got into Scott Walker’s Scott 4, which really blew my mind. That’s when I started to want to sing.”
Thom Yorke/Radiohead
Thom Yorke possesses a powerful singing voice that adds another layer of brilliance to Radiohead’s music. When discussing the artists that inspired him to push his voice to new limits, he has cited the likes of Jeff Buckley and Scott Walker. On hearing of Walker’s passing in 2019, Yorke took to Twitter to pay his respects and explain his influence over Radiohead. “So very sad to hear that Scott Walker has passed away, he was a huge influence on Radiohead and myself, showing me how I could use my voice and words.”
Radiohead’s frequent collaborator, producer Nigel Godrich, also shared on Twitter: “On my way to work on the first day of recording OK Computer I passed [Walker] riding his bike on Chiswick High Street.. and when I got to the studio Thom was holding a copy of Scott 4. I took that as a good omen.”
