Watch Killing Joke perform ‘Love Like Blood’ on German TV in 1985
Formed in 1979 in Notting Hill, London, Killing Joke rose to fame as one of the most inflammatory bands in the capital. After their debut EP, Turn To Red, received extensive airplay by cultural gatekeeper John Peel, the UK music press did their utmost to define the group’s gothic, nihilistic and yet oddly sentimental sound. By 1985, when this footage was taken, they’d become associated with the booming post-punk scene despite boasting a much heavier sound.
Here, we see members Jaz Coleman, Geordie Walker, Paul Raven and Paul Ferguson giving a suspiciously effortless rendition of their Night Time single ‘Love Like Blood’.
Discussing the 1985 single during a conversation with Songfacts, frontman Jaz Coleman said: “The song itself was a distillation of everything that we hold dear, and one must aspire to walk and talk what you write about in your songs – actually live it.”
The books of Japanese author Yukio Mishima were an important influence, especially the 1967 tome The Samurai Ethic and Modern Japan, which gave birth to such nonsequiturs as: “We must play our lives like soldiers in the field” and “strength and beauty destined to decay”. “I loved the warrior principal,” Coleman said. “To freedom with blood, if you like.”
On release, the track became Killing Joke’s biggest hit to date, soaring to number 16 in the UK charts, number six in New Zealand, number five in Holland and number 24 in Germany, hence the band’s appearance on the itinerant German music programme Musik convoy, which also hosted outdoor performances by the likes of Bily Idol, Orchestral Manoeuvres in The Dark, and New Order.
Killing Joke were known as a band with lofty principles, refusing to bend the knee to the UK press, do traditional promotion or follow trends. They were also unafraid of causing offence. Take the cover of their compilation album Laugh? I Nearly Bought One!, which featured a picture of German abbot Alban Schachleiter walking between ranks of Seig Hail-ing Nazi brownshirts with his hand aloft.
That’s to say nothing of Coleman and Walker’s dabblings with the occult, specifically the teachings of Aleister Crowley, which eventually led to both band members relocating to Iceland to survive the Apocolypse.
In this footage, however, they look like a pretty ordinary rock band, with Coleman doing his best French mime artist impression to disguise the fact that nobody’s instruments are plugged in. Make sure you check out the performance above.
