Peter Murphy (musician)
Peter John Joseph Murphy (born 11 July 1957) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. He was the vocalist of the post-punk goth rock band Bauhaus. After Bauhaus disbanded, Murphy formed Dali's Car with Japan's member Mick Karn and released one album The Waking Hour. He later went on to release a number of solo albums, including "Should the World Fail to Fall Apart" and "Love Hysteria". In 1990, he achieved mainstream success with his hit single "Cuts You Up", which topped the American Modern Rock Tracks for 7 weeks. His album "Deep" also  reached #44 on the Billboard 200. In 1992, Murphy released Holy Smoke which reached #108 in the Billboard 200 chart along with his lead single The Sweetest Drop, which peaked #2 in the American Modern Rock Tracks. In 2002, Murphy released "Dust" with Turkish-Canadian composer and producer Mercan Dede, which utilizes traditional Turkish instrumentation and songwriting, abandoning Murphy's previous pop and rock incarnations, and juxtaposing elements from progressive rock, trance, classical music, and Middle Eastern music, coupled with Dede's trademark atmospheric electronics. In 2014, he released "Lion", produced by Killing Joke's Youth, which reached #173 in  the Billboard 200. Thin with prominent cheekbones, a baritone voice, and a penchant for gloomy poetics, he is often called the "Godfather of Goth". Early life. Peter John Joseph Murphy was born on 11 July 1957 in Northampton, Northamptonshire. He is of Irish descent. Murphy was raised in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, where he had a strict Catholic upbringing, and was a school friend of Daniel Ash. Murphy's first interest in music was due to his mother's habit of constantly humming tunes. He also grew into an artistically inclined teenager. He was regarded as introverted and somewhat anti-social and  due to that, Murphy turned down the chance to go to art college, and instead worked as printer’s assistant, while pursuing his interests in painting, writing, and singing in his free time. Career. Bauhaus. Daniel Ash convinced Murphy to join Bauhaus, one of the establishing acts of the goth movement. Their use of spacey recording effects and theatrical aesthetics was evocative of glam rock; they became an influential group in the early days of gothic rock. In 1983, Bauhaus appeared during the opening sequences of the horror film "The Hunger", performing one of their most popular songs, "Bela Lugosi 's Dead". The camera focused almost exclusively on Murphy during most of the scene, panning only briefly to the stars David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve. Bauhaus reformed in 1998 for a tour, and later reunited again in late 2019 for three reunion shows. Solo career. 1980s. By 1983, Bauhaus had broken up and Murphy went on to new projects not involving Bauhaus members Kevin Haskins, David J or Daniel Ash. After some brief dabbling with acting and dance – including a television performance to Bauhaus's "Hollow Hills" – he formed Dalis Car with Mick Karn, the bass player from Japan. The  group recorded only one album. After Dalis Car's lack of commercial success, Murphy's first solo album, "Should the World Fail to Fall Apart", was similarly overlooked. "Should the World Fail to Fall Apart" did spawn several singles, including a cover of Pere Ubu's "Final Solution" that made a minor splash on the club scene. The followup, "Love Hysteria", was not successful in the UK although in the US it performed better than his previous solo releases. The album also marked the beginning of a long-term collaboration with songwriter Paul Statham from B-Movie, who co-wrote  songs with Murphy until 1995. The resulting singles "All Night Long" and "Indigo Eyes" helped garner a wider following, and the black-and-white video for "All Night Long" entered rotation on MTV. The pinnacle of Murphy's solo popularity in the US came with the release of "Deep". For this album Murphy sported hair dyed platinum blonde and returned to the more aggressive alt-rock sound that was a trademark of early Bauhaus. The single "Cuts You Up" from "Deep" held on to the top spot on the "Billboard" Modern Rock Tracks chart for seven weeks. "Cuts You Up  remains Murphy's most popular song to date, which has led many critics to refer to him as a one hit wonder artist. 1990s. Murphy moved to Turkey with his wife, and a Middle Eastern influence can be heard in his later albums. 1992's Holy Smoke" mixed some traditional Turkish influences into the music while continuing the sound pioneered on "Deep". In 1995, Murphy embraced a lower-key, ambient pop sound for "Cascade", featuring producer Pascal Gabriel, guest work from "infinite guitarist" Michael Brook, and overall a much stronger incorporation of electronics. This album was also to be his  last major collaboration with Paul Statham, who departed to form Peach with Pascal Gabriel and eventually write songs for Dido and Kylie Minogue. "Cascade" was also Murphy's last original release for Beggar's Banquet records, which had been his label since Bauhaus. Shortly after this departure, Murphy recorded the "Recall" EP for the newly formed Red Ant records, featuring a few new songs and some new, heavily electronic versions of older material, reworked in conjunction with Sascha Konietzko, Bill Rieflin and Tim Skold of the band KMFDM. Once again, he became label-mates with former Bauhaus alums Love and  Rockets, who had also signed to Red Ant. This generated a significant number of rumours regarding a possible reformation of Bauhaus. While Red Ant quickly folded, Bauhaus did reform in 1998 for the "Resurrection" tour, one performance of which (at the Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City) was recorded and released on DVD by Metropolis Records as "Gotham". The tour was a success. 2000s. In 2000, Murphy performed his international "Just for Love" tour, which resulted in the album "aLive Just for Love". It is a live recording of the fully uninterrupted set from the El Rey show in Los Angeles  on 30 November 2000. During the tour, Murphy chose to perform with only two back-up musicians, Canadian electric violinist Hugh Marsh and Peter DiStefano from Porno for Pyros on guitar, although former Bauhaus bassist David J sometimes joined the trio for an encore. At this point he also contributed to works by film composer Harry Gregson-Williams. Also in 2000, Murphy gave a nod to the North American goth scene, where his solo works and his works with Bauhaus are still popular, by making a surprise guest appearance at the sixth annual Convergence festival in Seattle, to perform a  low-key, acoustic solo set. Shortly thereafter, Murphy collaborated with the Turkish artist Mercan Dede on the album "Dust". Heavily steeped in traditional Turkish instrumentation and songwriting, coupled with Dede's trademark atmospheric electronics, the album showed Murphy all but abandoning his previous pop and rock incarnations. "Dust", released on goth/industrial stalwart label Metropolis Records, alienated many fans who had expected a more uptempo Murphy album (especially post-"Recall"), but it garnered some critical praise. Peter Murphy considers it his most unusual work to date and is most proud of the song "Your Face" from the album. In 2004, Murphy  signed to yet another new label, Viastar, which was home to several other 1980s pop artists who had moved into more eclectic areas. Despite numerous problems with the label, the album "Unshattered" was released, showcasing Murphy returning to a more pop sound. Murphy undertook extensive tours of Europe and the US to promote "Unshattered" in 2005, with a live band featuring guitarist Mark Thwaite, (The Mission, Tricky) on guitar, Jeff Schartoff of Human Waste Project and Professional Murder Music on bass and Justin Bennett of Skinny Puppy on drums. Murphy and the band reconvened in November 2007 for shows in  Portugal and Spain, with Nick Lucero replacing Bennett on drums. In May 2008 Murphy recorded a cover of the song "Warm Leatherette" with Trent Reznor and Jeordie White from Nine Inch Nails. This was played live at an intimate studio performance, and the video recording was released on both the official Nine Inch Nails website and on YouTube. In 2009, Murphy appeared at shows across the United States with Reznor, and the band members Reznor had for the 'Lights in the Sky Over North America 2008' tour. He also appeared with Nine Inch Nails in August 2009 at Terminal 5  as a special guest musician. Additionally, he appeared with Nine Inch Nails on 28 and 29 August at the Aragon Ballroom. Throughout 2009, Murphy released a series of cover songs exclusively through iTunes. The released songs are "Instant Karma!" (originally by John Lennon), "Space Oddity" (originally by David Bowie), "Transmission" (originally by Joy Division), and "Hurt" (originally by Nine Inch Nails). In support of these releases, Murphy underwent an international tour entitled "The Secret Covers Tour". During this time, an additional cover song, Soul of the World, was released through his official website. 2010s. In 2010, Murphy made a cameo  appearance in "" as "The Cold One". In the summer of 2010, Murphy began his "Dirty Dirt Tour" in promotion of his studio album "Ninth". In August 2010, on a video blog on his MySpace page, Murphy announced that he was once again going to be working with Mick Karn on a second "Dalis Car" album, adding this would be the first time they had seen each other since 1983. Several months prior to this announcement, Karn had been diagnosed with stage-four cancer. The recording session took place in September 2010; however, because of Karn's increasingly severe illness, they  only managed to record four songs during the session. Karn died on 4 January 2011. According to the biography on Karn's website, the four songs the duo recorded will be released as an EP later in 2011. In February 2011, Murphy announced a 29-date tour across North America to support his upcoming album "Ninth", released in June 2011. Murphy released the song "I Spit Roses" as a digital single through online retailers in March 2011, as well as single "Seesaw Sway" that May. Starting in April 2013, Murphy toured Europe and the US on the Mr Moonlight Tour , celebrating 35 years of Bauhaus, with longtime guitarist Mark Thwaite, drummer Nick Lucero and bassist Emilio DiZefalo-China. He later replaced guitarist Mark Thwaite (who left the band in September 2013) with Andee Blacksugar in October, who finished out the remaining tour dates in China, Russia, Australia and New Zealand. In June 2014, Murphy released his tenth studio album, "Lion". In June 2015, he released "Remixes from Lion", featuring remixes by Youth along with four bonus songs from the "Lion" recording sessions. Influences. According to Peter regarding his musical beginnings: "Well I was like the bookbinder printer-skilled chap, and  Danny (Ash) had left school and he went to Art School four years or five years later and I got onto a course there with just one week’s worth of work that I’d just scraped together, but I didn’t want to go I felt very introverted and didn’t want that, it was more about going into that environment. So I internalised and listened to my music. After school everyone had split and gone their own ways, all the friends I had were artists but I was a kid who was interested in a multitude of things , I loved literature, all kinds of things, anything I turned my hand to, but there was no outlet for it. Which is typical because in that fertile earth of Britain where nothing happens a lot comes out you know. So I’d really been listening to music from being a baby, from 1st World War and 2nd World War songs through to Doris Day, then Simon and Garfunkel, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, to all the early Reggae stuff. It was a very musical family in terms of listening and singing, there was lots of music in the house and then  in 1966 The Beatles explode and the radio is everywhere. Everywhere you go there’s music but on reflection now what’s happening is that there’s just this generic mush everywhere, you know what I mean? ...But I love to listen to vocal harmonies so there’s The Beatles and the Everly Brothers, and voices… Plus there was a very strong influence from Mass, you know the Catholic Mass at school where hymns were always really choral, and that was inspiring even from the first day when I was five. School itself was in this lovely little old building  with this high ambient ceiling, a very ‘reverb’ place a where we sang ‘Ave Maria’ with this Spanish Teacher who was so inspired to get us to sing. So all this was going on in my head and I didn’t have any other context other than loving it, and I would sing all the time." He also mentioned that the first vinyl he bought was "A Hard Day's Night" by the Beatles. Personal life. Murphy has two brothers, older brother Daniel and twin Christoper. In 1992, Murphy moved to Istanbul with his Turkish wife, Beyhan, who is the  head choreographer of the Turkish National Modern Dance group. They have two children, daughter Hurihan Murphy and son Adem Murphy. In adulthood, Murphy converted from Roman Catholicism to Sufism. In 2013, Murphy received a three-year probation sentence for a California hit-and-run accident. In August 2019, on the eighth night of a two-week residency in New York City, Murphy was hospitalized for a heart attack at Lenox Hill Hospital. Murphy underwent heart surgery. He released a statement ten days later that thanked his medical team for saving his life. He stated that he had made a "full  recovery" and "was up and running again," sufficiently enough to perform the remaining rescheduled dates in January 2020.