How Debbie Harry dabbled as The Gun Club’s backing vocalist
The Gun Club were not the most successful band you’ve ever laid eyes on in your life. But at the very least, they did have the backing of Debbie Harry.
There was no doubt that they were pioneers of their own design, being one of the first bands to merge the wrath of punk with the depths of the blues, country, and rockabilly. All under the deft hand of band leader Jeffrey Lee Pierce, The Gun Club truly could have been the next big revolution of the late 1970s and early ‘80s.
But it seemed that they managed to squander their potential at almost every available turn, between a variety of musical missteps and petty in-fights within the dynamic of the band. What could have been a great thing eventually transpired into very little, and all because they just persistently seemed to appear in the wrong places at the wrong times.
Nothing better proved to be a case in point for that conundrum than the fact that in 1982, The Gun Club were signed to Chris Stein’s label, Animal Records, to create their second album. Their first, Fire of Love, had been a success, and so the power to follow that up with the help of a big-name backer was completely in their hands.
The trouble was, Animal Records was a label based in New York. The Gun Club were from Los Angeles. It meant that relocations could only ever be temporary, and the band were often split apart across the vast swathes of the country, so their efforts struggled to gain much cohesive ground. And, just to throw even more geographical confusion into the mix, the album was called Miami.
To be clear, it wasn’t that the record was bad – it was that the circumstances of creating it caused too much tension for the band to ultimately overcome. That didn’t mean there weren’t high points: by virtue of being on Stein’s label, Harry got involved in a slice of the action and sang backing vocals for various tracks, billed under the pseudonym of DH Lawrence Jr.
Her influence was far from just a celebrity coup for The Gun Club. For their original drummer, Brad Dunning, being in Harry’s orbit brought on an allure he could not resist. He slept at her house while his parents went through a divorce. He was also the head of the LA division of her fan club. But she was always too ethereal, and permanently remained just out of grasp.
Yet even still, Harry’s short-lived time mingling with The Gun Club clearly had an effect on her in one way or another, whether or not that was through romantic pretensions or just musical respect. Look closely at the tracklist for Blondie’s 1999 album No Exit, and you will find an aptly-titled song named ‘Under the Gun’.
The future of The Gun Club was peppered after Miami, with no particular thanks to Stein since his production efforts were criticised upon the album’s release, flitting around for a few years, breaking up, and reforming, but when Pierce died in 1996, the story was done, and while it would be harsh to say that potential was wasted, it was clear that this band could have been so much more.
