Brian James, founding guitarist with The Damned, has died aged 70.
The information was damaged yesterday (March 6, 2025) through Jones’ official Fb web page.
Jones’ wrote the UK’s first punk single, “New Rose“, for The Damned, happening to be most important songwriter on their debut album Damned Damned Damned and its observe up, Music for Pleasure.
After leaving The Damned, Jones shaped the short-lived Tanz Der Youth, earlier than teaming up with Stiv Bators from The Useless Boys for The Lords Of The New Church.
Following three studio albums with Lords Of The New Church, Jones went on to kind The Dripping Lips and the Brian James Gang. He additionally performed with Iggy Pop, the Saints and in the Racketeers alongside Wayne Kramer, Clem Burke, Stewart Copeland and Duff McKagen.
James returned to his Damned materials in 2013, touring the UK with former bandmate Rat Scabies and re-recording Damned songs for his album, Damned If I Do.
In 2022, James reunited with Scabies, Captain Smart and Dave Vanian for stay dates within the UK.
Talking to Uncut in January this 12 months, Captain Smart and Rat Scabies mirrored on James’ time with the Damned.
“It was evident that the geezer [Brian] had a complete imaginative and prescient, and he might see one thing wonderful coming,” stated Smart. “He didn’t use the P phrase. No person thought we had been placing a punk group collectively, no matter that was.
“He performed me two or three songs, together with ‘New Rose’ on acoustic guitar. Even then, it sounded radically completely different to what was happening on the time – all that shit that used to drive me nuts on the Whistle Check. Whispering Bob, Emmylou Harris, Little Feat. I couldn’t stand nation music. After which what? Glam had run its course, and all you had left was that turgid stadium prog, Genesis and Sure. What Brian had, I needed to go for. It was radical.”
“Brian would run his hand alongside all of the controls on the amp, flip all the things up full and, you realize, it’s in his fingers,” stated Scabies. “It doesn’t matter what guitar you give him, he’ll nonetheless sound like Brian. Most of my sound is about utilizing an inexpensive, nasty drum equipment, as a result of that was all I might afford.”
“We had been the final technology of guitarist/drummer combos. The whole lot we’d been listening to had been about that. It’d been Keith Moon and Pete Townshend, Mitch Mitchell and Jimi Hendrix, John Bonham and Led Zeppelin. They had been all drummer/guitarist combos. Don’t know who the bass participant is. These are the fellows which might be actually locked in and dealing collectively and making this thrilling sound. That’s the way it needs to be. That’s what it turned. It was solely afterward, folks would say, ‘You’re out of time with the bass, aren’t you?’’
