Jeffrey Lee Pierce, the long deceased leader of the Gun Club, has been variously described as brilliant, tortured, visionary, even lovable, but mostly he seems to be recalled as an utterly contemptible asshole and colossally detestable fucked up junkie and drunk. This doesn’t mean he’s not one of the finest and most important musicians of the post-punk era—because he most certainly is that, too—just that it’s difficult to find anyone, anyone at all, willing to say something nice about him. Exhibit A would be Ghost on the Highway, Kurt Voss’s 2006 Gun Club documentary. You’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but what if that’s all there is to say about someone?
To be honest, knowing that Jeffrey Lee Pierce was a major jerk does absolutely nothing to change my opinion of the man. It’s got nothing to do with appreciating Pierce’s art. Anyone who has ever explored the recorded output of the Gun Club finds there, if not a criminally overlooked musical and lyrical genius, then a savant who channeled his own authentic, mutant strain of the Blues. I once read that the Texas-born Pierce had an epiphany about marrying punk rock with Marty Robbins’ cowboy songs and that this is what animated the unique sound of the Gun Club. That is an extremely inspired idea if you ask me and that musical vehicle became Pierce’s lifetime muse. You can always tell a Gun Club song from the first few bars. Even if the band’s personnel changed over the years, the signature sound that Pierce and company generated under the Gun Club moniker always remained remarkably consistent.
The Gun Club (read: Jeffrey Lee) was well known for being magic or tragic live, but when I saw them perform at the Electric Ballroom in London in 1984, it was one of the very best, most memorable concerts that I have ever attended. The group was touring in support of The Las Vegas Story, an especially strong album. It was my 19th birthday and I was extremely stoned and as drunk as a skunk before I even got there. I reckon the only person in the venue drunker than me that night was Jeffrey Lee himself, who sat drinking alone at the upstairs bar while the opening act—the Scientists—played their set. I stood directly at the front and at one point Pierce drunkenly fell off the stage and right on top of me, but neither one of us felt any pain. Kid Congo Powers and Patricia Morrison were in the band then and visually those two, plus Pierce looked really amazing onstage together. Terry Graham’s drumming was ferocious. The noise they made was HUGE, and fearsome. They opened with “Walking With the Beast” and it was awe-inspiring. Considering the heroically inebriated state of their frontman, they were incredibly tight, and notably so. His unintentional stage dive on my head notwithstanding, musically Pierce hit all of his marks and was in fine voice. It didn’t last. Within a few short months, this iconic Gun Club line-up would fall apart.
It’s been a quarter century since Pierce’s death, but in recent years, it’s become easier for the Gun Club to gain new fans than it ever was during the band’s lifespan. Whether they’re stumbling across them in record stores, via streaming, or through big ups from Nick Cave, Jack White, Debbie Harry and many others, of late there seems to have been a significant uptick of awareness of the profound and combustible talents of America’s premiere Mexican-American post punk Southern Gothic voodoo bluesman. There’s even an official Jeffrey Lee Pierce feature documentary, Elvis from Hell, that’s been in production since 2019. I think he’s an artist who’ll be “rediscovered” every few years.
And if you aren’t already a Gun Club fan, dear reader, what are you waiting for? Every canonical Gun Club album is either a masterpiece, a near masterpiece or at least really, really fucking good and although there exists an over generous surfeit of legit, quasi-legit and just flat out bootlegged Gun Club live albums, many of these outings are also fantastic. A new Gun Club box set, Preaching the Blues (Flood Gallery) examines six of the group’s best 7” 45rpm singles issued between 1981 and 1993 along with an extensive booklet, a bonus single from the Miami sessions, there’s even a “Fire of Love” fanzine and a Gun Club badge (for that authentic 80s touch?)
Preaching the Blues is released on January 21st. Preorder here.
1983 TV appearance with a blistering performance of “The Lie.”