We are sorry to report the passing of the legendary Siouxsie and the Banshees drummer Kenny Morris at the age of 68.
Kenny was a friend of ours, and it was always a pleasure to see and hang out with him when visiting Cork in Ireland, where he had been living. He was sweet, articulate, artistic and fascinating company and his beautiful eccentricity was adorable. He would turn up in a suit and a dress with open handcuffs on one hand and the next time in a totally different yet perfectly created bricolage of style, whilst still dressing in the artful confrontation of the 1976 punk era that he was such a key part of.
In recent years, he had turned his life back around and was establishing himself as a respected artist, and his paintings had been exhibited in Dublin at a major art show. He also had started drumming again for Dublin post-punk goth band Shrine Of The Vampyre.
The last time I saw him was in Cork in early December when came to see my band the Membranes play. He stood at the front with his intense face, taking it all in with his eyes, staring intently. Afterwards we spoke for a couple of house and he was as full of tangents and plans as ever delivered in his quiet voice.
The London born drummer had been at the heart and soul of the early punk scene.
He grew up in Waltham Abbey in Essex with his Irish parents. He went to St Ignatius’ College in Enfield, where he became a friend of future collaborator and film director John Maybury and then studied fine art and film-making at North East London Polytechnic and Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts when punk broke in 1976 and he briefly joined his friend Sid Vicious’s band the Flowers of Romance. He then saw the Banshees’ first gig with Sid on the drums at the legendary 100 club punk festival in Sept 1976 and asked to join the band when Sid left after his one and only gig with the band.
Kenny learnt to drum as he went along and his distinctive and lyrical style was a key and profound influence on punk and post punk and can be heard all across goth or in the drumming of Joy Division and new Order drummer Stephen Morris, who quotes him as a key influence. He not only reinvented drums but looked cool as fuck, like in this clip , where the feline cat like drummer delivers one of the most iconic drum parts of the period and beyond (later sampled by Massive Attack for their 1997 track “Superpredators” )
He famously quit the Banshees with guitar player John Mckay at the start of the band’s second album tour, leaving endless ‘what ifs’ and causing a major fallout with the iconic Siouxsie that they patched up years later.
After that, his life had its ups and downs, but his journey eventually took him to Ireland in 1993 and then to Cork where he found a support network of close friends and space to be Kenny Morris and establish himself as an artist.
It was great to know you, Kenny and we will miss your sweet eccentricity and long WhatsApp messages and your art and your gentle presence in a cruel world.
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