Kenny Morris obit

Siouxsie And the Banshees Drummer Kenny Morris Has Died

 He was not on the list.

Siouxsie and the Banshees drummer Kenny Morris has died.

The news has been confirmed through multiple sources, including a note from Morris’ friend and journalist John Robb on Louder Than War.

Initially an early punk face on the London Underground scene, Kenny Morris joined Siouxsie and the Banshees after witnessing one of their first live shows. A largely self-taught drummer, he opted to focus on the toms, giving him a tribal sound that unlocked something unearthly in the group’s music.

A key component of their live sound, Kenny Morris went into the studio for the band’s debut single ‘Hong Kong Garden’ with producer Steve Lillywhite, who invited him to record the drums separately. The two recorded the cymbals first, and them the tom-toms; with a dash of echo, the enormous drum sound came to influence swathes of post-punk groups, both past and present.

Cited as an influence by Stephen Morris of Joy Division and Kevin Haskins of Bauhaus, Kenny Morris played on Siouxsie and the Banshees’ seminal first two albums ‘The Scream’ and ‘Join Hands’.

The band’s famously combustible creative processes couldn’t withstand such forces, with Kenny Morris and guitarist John McKay exciting the line-up a few hours prior to a concert in Aberdeen in 1979.

After this, Kenny Morris was drawn to visual art, eventually moving to Cork in the early 90s. Sampled by Massive Attack on their eerie 1997 song ‘Superpredators’, he had recently drumming again for Dublin post-punk goth band Shrine Of The Vampyre.

Kenny Morris was 68 years old; no cause of death has been given.