John Murphy, Australian drummer, Died at 56

  Dead Famous

John Russell Murphy, born on July 11, 1959 and died October 11, 2015, sometimes credited as Jonh Murphy, he was an Australian drummer, percussionist and multi-instrumental session musician who played in Australian and British post-punk, ambient and industrial music groups.

He was the son of an Australian jazz drummer Russ Murphy, who played for many years with the Graeme Bell All Stars, stalwarts of the early Australian music scene.

John Russell Murphy was born in 1959 and raised in Melbourne.

He started learning drums and percussion from the age of 4. For secondary schooling he attended Scotch College, where he played in the school orchestra and in military and Scottish pipe bands.

John Murphy, as John Smith from the Suburbs, was the founding drummer in 1977 of punk band, News, with Adam Punk (real name Gavin Quinn) on vocals, Jarryl Circus (real name Jarryl Wirth) on guitar and Joy Relentless (real name Julie Jordan) on bass guitar.

Jordan, Quinn and Wirth were all former members of Babeez. News’ debut single, “Dirty Lies”, was released in May 1978.

In the following year they issued “Dowanna Love” and then “Sweet Dancer”.

By May 1979 John had left News and joined Whirlywirld alongside Ollie Olsen on lead vocals.

In 1980 John and Olsen travelled to London and formed Hugo Klang, which issued a single, “Grand Life for Fools and Idiots”, in 1982.

They followed with “The Wheel of Fat”. John returned to Australia in 1984 where he continued to work with Olsen until the early 1990s in various post-punk bands: Orchestra of Skin and Bone (1984–86), NO (1987–89), and Max Q (1989–90).

John has worked with the following acts: The Associates (1980–81), Dumb and the Ugly, Sooterkin Flesh, The Slub, SPK, Lustmord, Our Father of Serpents, Stress, Jaundiced Eye, The Wreckery (1988), Box the Jesuit (1990), Bushpig (1992), Whitehouse, Death in June, Der Blutharsch, Sword Volcano Complex, Browning Mummery, Current 93, Blood Axis, Kraang, Sleeping Pictures, Scorpion Wind, Naevus, Nikolas Schreck, NON and Of the Wand & the Moon, in addition to playing on sessions for Nico, Zeena Schreck, The, Gene Loves Jezebel and Shriekback.

He has recorded solo under the name Shining Vril, and as part of the industrial electronic trio Knifeladder, and as a member of the folk-noise group Foresta Di Ferro, and as part of the industrial music trio Last Dominion Lost.

John Murphy died at age 56 in October 2015.