Tickets are now available for Sisters Of Mercy at Rock City!
Our lead singer had a ridiculous Five Year Plan which went horribly wrong…. in the current era of reduced band shelf-life? A band can mean a lot. We like to mean a lot. It’s not been easy.
What do you think the secret of your continued success is?
1. We have many great songs.
2. We know about rock music.
3. We like rock music.
4. We have fucked every opinion-forming member of your family.
5. We rock.
At your first gig in York in 1981, did any part of you think that you might still be in the business thirty years time?
At our first gig in York, we were amazed to find ourselves still in the business after thirty minutes. We’re more confident now. We have taught ourselves some stuff, and we have walked it like we talked it. It’s not been easy.
What do you have in mind for the run of birthday gigs in 2011? Any plans for new songs, old songs, covers?
All that. And the People’s Republic Of West Yorkshire should get ready for cupcakes.
Do you think there’s still a place for The Sisters Of Mercy in 2011 and beyond?
There was no place for us then, and there’s no place for us now. It didn’t stop us then, and it doesn’t stop us now. We’re everywhere. It’s what we do.
SISTERS XXX
Sisters of Mercy Biography
One of England’s leading goth bands of the 1980s, the Sisters of Mercy play a slow, gloomy, ponderous hybrid of metal and psychedelia, often incorporating dance beats; the one constant in the band’s career has been deep-voiced singer Andrew Eldritch. (There is some disagreement as to whether the group took its name from an order of Catholic nuns or from the Leonard Cohen song of the same name.)
Eldritch originally formed the band in 1980 with guitarist Gary Marx and recorded its first single with a drum machine dubbed Doktor Avalanche. Guitarist Ben Gunn and bassist Craig Adams were added to make live gigs feasible, and the Sisters built a reputation through several singles and EPs. Gunn left the band in 1983 and was replaced by Wayne Hussey. The Sisters of Mercy recorded their first full-length album, First and Last and Always, in 1985, but two years later, internal dissent had split them apart; Marx left to form Ghost Dance, and Adams and Hussey departed shortly thereafter.
A legal dispute ensued over the rights to the name Sisters of Mercy; Adams and Hussey attempted to use the name Sisterhood, but Eldritch released an EP under the name to prevent its usage, and the two finally settled on the Mission. Eldritch chiefly utilized a corps of temporary sidemen from this point on (although former Gun Club bassist Patricia Morrison was an official member of the group for a short time) and rebounded with his two biggest-selling American LPs, Floodland and Vision Thing. Despite ceasing studio recordings, Eldritch kept the band active as a performing entity through the first decade of the 2000s and beyond.
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