John McGeoch: The underappreciated master of punk guitar
You’ve undoubtedly heard his iconic riffs and progressions, but you may be less familiar with the name John McGeoch. Although he was never regarded as such, like a session musician, McGeoch contributed handsomely to some of the finest punk and post-punk material of the late 1970s and ’80s but sadly doesn’t hold a legacy of apt grandeur. Performing as an active member of several popular bands of the era, the Scottish guitarist’s career was bolstered by variety.
Born in Renfrewshire, Scotland, in 1955, McGeoch began playing the guitar at age 12. He became fascinated with the contemporary blues-rock music of the British Invasion era and idolised the salient talent of Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. Seven years later, he ventured south to study Fine Art at Manchester Polytechnic, where he would fall under the spell of punk and meet the legendary vocalist Howard Devoto.
The first notable band to benefit from McGeoch’s innovative guitar stylings was Magazine. The band was formed by Devoto, a founding member of Buzzcocks, in 1977, with the ambition of bringing a more artistically explorative edge to the burgeoning punk scene. Introduced through McGeoch’s housemate, Malcolm Garrett, Devoto and McGeoch co-founded Magazine as a five-piece with Barry Adamson, Bob Dickinson and Martin Jackson.
For their debut single, Devoto asked Pete Shelley if he’d allow them to use the structure of the Buzzcocks’ track ‘Lipstick’ for a new lyrical idea. With Shelley’s blessing, Magazine crafted ‘Shot by Both Sides’, the band’s biggest hit and a staple of the early post-punk era. Although McGeoch didn’t write the riff himself, he imprinted the lead riff with his distinctive tone, unlocking the song’s full potential.
McGeoch would show his full compositional prowess in Magazine’s seminal debut album Real Life and excel over two further albums with the band. Following the release of The Correct Use of Soap in 1980, McGeoch decided to leave Magazine in search of a more commercially rewarding career.
Just before this departure, in 1979, McGeoch joined Steve Strange’s new wave band Visage alongside Magazine bandmates Adamson and Dave Formula, contributing guitar and saxophone tracks in the studio for the project’s eponymous debut album.
Although his spells with Magazine and Visage had garnered critical acclaim, McGeoch entered his career’s most creatively and commercially rewarding period in 1980 when he joined Siouxsie and the Banshees. Although he recorded guitar parts on 1980’s Kaleidoscope, McGeoch became an official band member in 1981 after receiving writing credits on the single ‘Israel’.
“I was going through a picky phase, as opposed to strumming,” McGeoch later commented on this part of his career via The Independent. “‘Happy House’ was lighter and had more musicality in it. They invited me to join. I was sad leaving Magazine, but the Banshees were so interesting, and it felt like a good move.”
The Banshees’ 1981 masterpiece, Juju, heard McGeoch at the height of his powers. The lead single, ‘Spellbound’, arguably housed the guitarist’s most influential contribution of all, but stand-out tracks like ‘Into the Light’, ‘Monitor’ and ‘Arabian Knights’ also owe McGeoch substantial debt.
“John McGeoch was my favourite guitarist of all time,” Siouxsie Sioux told The Independent in 2004. “He was into sound in an almost abstract way. I loved the fact that I could say, ‘I want this to sound like a horse falling off a cliff,’ and he would know exactly what I meant. He was easily, without a shadow of a doubt, the most creative guitarist the Banshees ever had.”
Concurring with Sioux’s remarks, the Banshees’ drummer Budgie wrote in his tribute: “Without any disrespect to all the other guitarists we have worked with, none had the relaxed mastery and such a depth of expression as John McGeoch. No amount of scrutiny of filmed ‘Live’ performance tapes could reveal the subtle economy of technique that made an apparently complex phrase look so deceptively simple. Exasperated guitarists would often comment, ‘But his hands don’t even move!'”
Struggling with personal demons, McGeoch battled alcoholism through his most prolific years, which occasionally affected his ability to perform. Ultimately, an associated nervous breakdown in 1982 necessitated McGeoch’s withdrawal from Siouxsie and the Banshees following his contributions to A Kiss in the Dreamhouse.
Although his career never returned to the same peaks, McGeoch overcame his mental health decline and embarked on several fruitful collaborations, including those with Bauhaus’ Peter Murphy and The Sugarcubes. He also enjoyed a term performing with The Armoury Show and John Lydon’s Public Image Ltd before stepping back from music in 1993.
Throughout the 1990s, McGeoch trained as a nurse/carer, devoting his time to helping those in need. He would eventually return his focus to music in the early 2000s, creating several musical scores for television productions. However, this chapter was cut tragically short when, on March 4th, 2004, McGeoch passed away in his sleep, aged 48. The guitarist had suffered an acute illness called Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP).
McGeoch’s legacy may have suffered blows through lack of commercial exposure, the perils of mental health instability and the dilution incurred by such a chaptered career, but fortunately, his unique talent lives on in the hands of those he inspired. With Johnny Marr, Jonny Greenwood, Dave Navarro, John Frusciante, The Edge, William Reid, Steve Albini, and Stuart Braithwaite among those to have cited McGeoch as a vital influence, his impact today conjures images of the larger, unseen portion of an iceberg.
Marr, the former guitarist of The Smiths, is one of McGeoch’s most direct and apparent disciples. “When I was in my teens, there weren’t many new guitar players who were interesting and of their time.[…] John McGeoch,” Marr said in Mozipedia: The Encyclopaedia of Morrissey and the Smiths. “[His contribution] was really innovative guitar music, which was pretty hard to find back then. To a young guitar player like myself, those early Banshees singles were just class.”
“Really, my generation was all about a guy called John McGeoch, from Siouxsie and the Banshees,” Marr added in a 2018 interview with the Houston Chronicle.
Today, as we reflect on the evolution of punk, it’s impossible to overlook John McGeoch’s profound impact. His ability to fuse punk’s rebellious spirit with intricate, melodic composition redefined the genre, opening the door to the post-punk wave. While his name might not be as widely recognised as some of his contemporaries, McGeoch’s contributions remain vital and enduring across rock’s many modern genres.
Watch John McGeoch perform ‘Spellbound’ with Siouxsie and the Banshees live in 1981 below.
