Liverpool, UK · post-punk · new-wave

Echo & The Bunnymen

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Liverpool's grandest post-punks — 'The Killing Moon' remains the most beautiful song of its era, and Ian McCulloch will tell you so.

Echo & The Bunnymen came together in Liverpool in 1978, when singer Ian McCulloch and guitarist Will Sergeant began writing songs with bassist Les Pattinson. Pete de Freitas joined as drummer in 1980, having previously played to a drum machine live. The group made its debut at Liverpool's Eric's Club, and its first single, "The Pictures on My Wall," appeared on Zoo Records in 1979.

Their records combined post-punk's spare, driving rhythms with neo-psychedelic guitar textures and McCulloch's declamatory baritone. The 1980 debut Crocodiles reached the UK top twenty, and the sound filled out further across Heaven Up Here, Porcupine, which reached number two in the UK, and Ocean Rain.

"The Killing Moon," "The Cutter," and "Bring On the Dancing Horses" remain the best-known songs: "The Cutter" reached the UK top ten from Porcupine in 1983, and "The Killing Moon" did the same as the lead single from Ocean Rain the following year. The band's imagery of overcoats, dry ice, and cinematic string arrangements helped define a strand of British guitar music that later acts drew on heavily.

The band's original run ended after de Freitas died in a motorcycle accident in 1989; the group split soon after. McCulloch and Sergeant worked together as Electrafixion before reforming Echo & The Bunnymen with Pattinson in 1997; Pattinson left in 1998, and McCulloch and Sergeant have led the group since.

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post-punknew-wave