John McKay - Interview

by Richard Lewis

published: 8 / 7 / 2025

Resurfacing with his debut solo album ‘Sixes And Sevens’, legendary former Siouxsie and the Banshees guitarist John McKay chats about his time with the post-punk outfit and his current projects

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One of the most groundbreaking guitarists of all time, innovator seems somewhat lacking as a term to describe former Siouxsie and the Banshees guitarist John McKay. Singlehandedly responsible for creating the post-punk guitar sound, architect or inventor feels nearer the mark. First heard on the band’s landmark 1978 debut album, ‘The Scream’, McKay’s serrated, jagged, guitar work had never been encountered by listeners before. Cited as an influence by staggering number of guitarists: Robert Smith (who later played guitar for the Banshees), Steve Albini, The Edge, Johnny Marr, Bernard Sumner and Kevin Shields, McKay’s sonic influence is present in virtually every alternative rock band from 1978 onwards. Chatting to the guitarist as he prepares re-enter music for the first time in decades with new album ‘Sixes And Sevens’, the London denizen is an unassuming, highly modest sort whose principal reaction to such effusive recognition is benign puzzlement mixed with pleasant surprise. Ahead of discussing his time with the Banshees and beyond, we’ll start at the very beginning. As a player who inspired countless others, who were your earliest musical influences? “When I was a kid, my stepfather had many different records when he turned up, including Django Reinhart” John states. “A lot of folk, jazz, bluegrass, all sorts of stuff, but Django Reinhart really stuck out to me and The Dubliners as well, I really liked them as a kid. As a teenager I progressed into T-Rex, the first single I ever bought was ‘Hot Love’. I was a big fan of Bolan for a few singles and ‘Electric Warrior’ was a great album, I loved ‘Slider’ too. But once I’d seen Bowie on ‘Top of the Pops’ like a lot of my generation, it all changed. Bowie just had something else to offer”. John’s first foray into becoming a guitarist met with a few hurdles to begin with however. “I started lessons at school on a nylon-strung classical guitar, and I think I lasted two lessons, it was just terrible. I just couldn’t get on with guitar, I hated the look of it, hated the smell of it, hated the nylon strings. I borrowed money from my mum to buy it, so I took it back to the shop for a refund and gave her the money back and thought, “That’s it, I’m not destined to become a guitar player””. “I went to stay with my Grandparents and one of my uncles had moved to Australia and left a guitar. My nan got it down from the loft for me knowing I was interested in guitars. I turned out it was a Hofner President, an arch top, f-hole, jazz guitar. It just looked gorgeous. As I said, the visual thing is partially what I’m into. I could hardly play it though as it had really thick, bronze strings on it. they let me take it home with me and it really went from there. Without that guitar, none of this would have happened”. “Putting steel strings on it inspired me, and my friend Gerard teaching me some chords. I took a few chords out of a Bowie songbook that I had, the basics. And I just amused myself with it for a while”. Did learning on that particular guitar inform your playing style? “It definitely did, yeah. By the time I was playing I was thinking about writing songs and playing rhythm guitar, which is kind of what I ended up doing. Because I was the only guitar player in the Banshees, I was doing a bit more than that, so that kind of shaped my style a bit more”. A unique part of McKay’s playing is his approach to chords, reaching far beyond the standard configurations preferred by the nascent punk movement. Are some of the shapes jazz chords? “Some of them are, partially through ignorance” John says. “Some of them as my friend Gerard has often said, when he saw me playing at Leeds Poly in the Banshees, he was looking at what I was playing and he said to himself “He’s using disco chords!” “Another friend of mine was really into soul and funk and he taught me diminished chords and suspended sevenths. I really love strings; I like the look of shapes on them visually and of course I love the sounds. So, I did bring that sort of jazz chord into things. The guy in the Isley Brothers, Ernie was an incredible guitar player. A lot of us were influenced by the music in the late seventies, there was an incredible amount of really good music around and it didn’t all come from rock n’ roll”. The initial approach for John to join the Banshees came via sticksman Kenny Morris. “I was introduced to the band through Kenny because he was a friend of John Maybury (later a Banshees cover designer and music video director) who I went to college with. It was John who told me they needed a guitar player cos they were fed up with the one they had (Peter Fenton) and why didn’t I go for it? And I said, “You’re joking!” but he wasn’t, so he got Kenny to send me a tape, I learnt the set, I went to a rehearsal and I was in, immediately. To say events then moved at lightspeed is a massive understatement. Joining the band on 2nd July 1977, the new Banshees line up made their live debut seven days later on the 9th. “The first gig was a party at Butler’s Wharf (London Docklands area) hosted by what’s his name, the artist… Andrew Logan! We played, The Rich Kids did their first gig, Gloria Mundi and us. I think somebody put speed in the punch, luckily, I didn’t have any. I only did speed once onstage and that was a big mistake, the set lasted about twenty minutes instead of forty!” The newly minted quartet’s second full-on gig at punk wellspring The Vortex on Wardour St (support came from Adam and the Ants and The Slits) saw the debut of a McKay co-composition, classic cut, ‘Mirage’. “After that it went straight from The Vortex to (legendary punk mecca) The Roxy, so it was in at the deep end. I was eighteen when I learnt their set and 19 by the time I joined and did those first two gigs. We didn’t really stop playing, early on we did as many gigs as we could, all over the place. Then there’s more structure when the record company comes along”. An unbelievably obvious question about the period, did it feel as though everything was happening so fast? “It did, but it was what I’d been waiting for in a way” John responds. “I’d been at art college and that really wasn’t happening. I did go for a couple of interviews for degree courses, but I did feel like, “I don’t really belong here”. I’m not a great artist, I only went there cos I didn’t know what the hell else to do, and I hoped I’d find like-minded people, which I did”. The rapport between the four players was instantaneous. “Kenny and Steve (Severin) were pretty unusual drummers and bass players, I was an unusual guitar player and Siouxsie was a pretty unusual vocalist as well. We were all coming from a similar place, and we all had similar influences. They varied obviously, but enough to bond on that level. Roxy Music, Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop. Roxy Music were inspirational in that they didn’t seem to follow the regular line, either musically, visually or anything else, they had their own style”. With the group’s popularity skyrocketing, ‘Sign the Banshees’ graffiti began to appear on the walls of London record companies. Did it feel like it was taking longer than it should have done to ink a deal? “Yeah, it did. People around us were getting deals quicker than us, but in terms of what people in the past had to do, travelling round the country for three, four, five years before they even got looked at, it was quick”. Bootleg recordings and the outfit’s earliest radio and TV appearances showcase their elemental live power. A blast through landmark debut single ‘Hong Kong Garden’ on ‘Revolver’, presented by Peter Cook was followed several months later by a startling appearance on the ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’. The clearest footage of the original line up available, the quartet turned in visceral, nerve shredding performances of post-punk touchstones, ‘Metal Postcard’ and ‘Jigsaw Feeling’. As these early recordings attest to, John’s signature guitar sound was in place as soon as the Banshees played their first gig with him. Astoundingly, his razorwire approach was achieved by simply plugging in and playing. Even though the question is tantamount to asking the head of a well-known beverage company what the recipe for Coca-Cola is, how does he achieve his sound? “There weren’t any pedals to start with” John states. “I think by the time of ‘The Scream’ I’d got a flanger. I didn’t have one to start with, it was just the amp. People say I used a distortion pedal; I never did, I just whacked the amp up! I couldn’t afford any of that stuff”. Abrasive sounding even at this remove, brutal on its initial impact in the late Seventies, did you realise how different you sounded to other players back then? “It seemed perfectly natural to me” John says with an audible shrug. “It was only when other people reacted to it than I thought I had something”. With the Banshees becoming influential almost instantly, did you start to notice an echo of your sound in other bands? “I think the first time I remember it happening, we went to a gig on Tottenham Court Road, I think it was the YMCA and Joy Division were playing (2nd August 1979 – Post-Punk History Ed). I was just walking into to see them and Steve said “Oh, they’re just like us!” I kind of saw what he meant, but I thought “They’re not just like us”. They’re one I could put my finger on and say there’s a certain influence there, but most of the time no, I didn’t really see it”. “When (music journalist) Dave Simpson read out a list of people who’d said I’d influenced them (in a recent interview), because I hadn’t looked at Wikipedia, I just couldn’t believe it. Especially the guy from the Chili Peppers (their finest axe player, John Frusciante), that really knocked me back. Somebody sent me Geordie from Killing Joke’s obituary recently and it mentioned me in it as one of his major influences. It also said he’d started a course on architecture, which was one of the few things I was attracted to as a teenager. When I heard that I actually felt a little bit sad for him, I thought “Oh God, what have I done? I’ve influenced him to become a bloody guitarist, when he could have had a nice living as an architect and probably still been alive!” While the Banshees musical chemistry was apparent from the get-go, the band had a false start when it came to their first producer. “We’d had the unfortunate experience of working in Olympic Studios with Bruce Albertine from Muscle Shoals” John recalls. “Nice enough guy, but he had absolutely no clue what to do with us. We recorded ‘Hong Kong Garden’ and ‘Voices’ for the B-side. We kept ‘Voices’ because the big studio at Olympic really suited that, but we really needed to re-record ‘Hong Kong Garden’”. Nils (Stevenson, Banshees manager) knew Johnny Thunders who was working with Steve Lillywhite and he’d been down there and he thought, “Well, if he can handle Johnny, he can handle the Banshees”. And it was a much nicer, smaller studio, which suited us a lot better”. Not much older than the group themselves, the group and the producer hit it off straight away. “’Hong Kong Garden’ was a good experience cos Steve was very lively at the desk and very enthusiastic, so we moved to RAK Studios, to do ‘The Scream’ a little bit later and that was the same experience” John states. A track which encapsulates the post-punk ethos in under three minutes, instantly recognisable from John’s opening riff, ‘Hong Kong Garden’ remains the band’s calling card and biggest hit. “Hong Kong Garden’ I’d already recorded for myself, as a song called ‘People Phobia’, which is actually being released as an extra on the new album. I wrote lyrics to that which, which is unusual, because Siouxsie and Steve were both lyric writers, they didn’t need another one, so I didn’t bother with lyrics. Even if I had an idea, I kept it to myself. I presented them with the music. Song titles? Again, no, they were way ahead of me on that. Siouxsie had an exercise book with lyrics in it and Steve had the same. She would stand at the microphone looking through the book as I played through the song and she’d find something that suited the music that I had written and match them up. Luckily, we were on more or less the same wavelength, so it worked! I was just they needed, and they were just what I needed”. “In hindsight, ‘Hong Kong Garden’, like it was in the States, should have been on ‘The Scream’ to sell it. ‘The Scream’ should have sold much more. In the US they used it as the opening track, we were a bit annoyed when we found out, but it makes sense to promote an album though. ‘Hong Kong Garden’ should have been on ‘Top of the Pops’, we should’ve gone on there to promote it because it got to number 7. It would’ve got a hell of a lot higher with us going on there. It always guaranteed you a big jump”. With some residual wariness around putting punk bands on prime time television, had the band received an invitation to appear? “I think with the single going that high they definitely would have had us on. We refused it though out of some sort of principal”. “We did a video (for the track) which was a bit of a mistake, cos it was such a dark video. It was in the days before video was really a thing” John says. “We went to some little studio in Carnaby Street I think it was and it (the clip) was kind of boring to look at, so we said “Is there anything else you can do that’s a bit more interesting? I think it was a German guy who was producer and he said, “I’ve got this” and put this effect on it, and it made it a bit more interesting, so we said, “Yeah, OK, we’ll go with that”. But when you actually saw it on a regular TV, it was pretty dark! You couldn’t see much!” The successor to ‘Hong Kong Garden’ was ‘The Staircase (Mystery)’, a superb showcase for John’s bravura guitar work. Another standalone single, there were disagreements behind the scenes about what should have been released. “Mirage should have been the second single” John notes today. Making their ‘Top of the Pops’ debut, the Banshees aired the first fruits of their second album ‘Join Hands’ with ‘Playground Twist’, a churning melodrama guided by John’s saxophone lines. ‘The Scream’ had much the same effect for Steve Lillywhite as it did for the Banshees, establishing him as one the definitive producers of the era leading directly to a string of credits with groups – U2, XTC, The Psychedelic Furs, Simple Minds – enthralled by the album. “I’d have liked Steve to have done ‘Join Hands’, but Nils (who co-produced with engineer Mike Stavrou) had other ideas” John states ruefully. “Another regret was that line up of the Banshees never toured America due to management”. Proto-goth blueprint ‘Join Hands’ featuring ‘Icon’ and the hugely influential’ Placebo Effect’ might have been only the Banshees’ second LP, but it was to be John (and Kenny’s) last. The seeds for the split had been sown early on. “Nils had a very close relationship with Siouxsie and Steve, firstly because he believed in them and helped them out for the first however many months, they’d been together. He had a thing for Siouxsie which I didn’t know at the time – well, no-one did – so they became a trio. Kenny was there but he was a little bit outside that and when I came along, we kind of clubbed together and became two against three, which is never a healthy thing”. “It’s a shame it had to happen that way, but that’s human beings for you. Me and Kenny had things in common, but it set an uncomfortable balance. Or lack of balance”. The triumvirate was to be short-lived however as Stevenson was fired in Spring 1982 due to his obsessive behaviour towards the singer and a worsening drug habit which saw his untimely demise in 2002, aged only 49. On 7th September midway through the tour for ‘Join Hands’, an infamous – and much chronicled – bust up in an Aberdeen record shop was the final straw for John and Kenny. A row prompted by a minor misunderstanding over selling promo copies of the album, resulted in Siouxsie punching John who resigned from the band with immediate effect. “We were told we’d ‘planned’ leaving the Banshees at the beginning of the tour, which was ridiculous” John states today, after false stories had circulated that the duo had deliberately sabotaged the dates. A further altercation with Nils – who grabbed Kenny by the neck in an attempt to make his point – concluded with the window of the taxi the pair were departing in being wound up on his arm. When the duo didn’t turn up to soundcheck later that day for a gig at the Capitol Theatre – or ever again – it became apparent that their departure was permanent. “I left all my equipment behind, a record contract, everything when I left. That guitar (the aforementioned Hofner) I’d taken on tour to write songs, that’s how much I was thinking about leaving. I was thinking about writing songs for them! Unfortunately I’d left it. Nils literally chucked it out of the van at a few fans, one of whom caught it. Eventually through my lawyer I put a thing in ‘Melody Maker’ saying if anyone had seen it could they get it back to me. And eventually it did. That guitar’s been around!” he laughs. John’s departure from the band left him not only unemployed and without the tools of his trade, but near destitute. “Most of my equipment was out on tour with them. I think I took my Hagstrom, the first electric I ever had and that was it. I got that back which was important because I didn’t have an electric guitar or any money”. The first gig I did two years ago, was a solo gig and that’s what I played. I sold the amp I had, a Marshall combo, so I could afford to go up and down into town. Sometimes I wish I still had that, it was a nice little amp”. John’s whirlwind tenure with the Banshees was completed by the age of 21. Did it feel like it all happened within the blink of an eye? “No, it seemed much longer” he says. “It felt like a lifetime, it really did, it was so intense. Although it was where I wanted to be, it did leave me feeling a little bit divorced from reality!” Regrouping with former Slits tubthumper Budgie on drums and Magazine guitarist John McGeoch, who was effusive in his admiration for McKay’s work, the Banshees next line up endured for three albums until 1982. The years immediately after the Banshees split provides the origins for John’s debut album ‘Sixes And Sevens’. Bearing all of his sonic hallmarks and featuring Kenny on drums for several tracks, it provides a fascinating insight into where the Banshees might have headed next. “At ‘Sixes And Sevens’ refers to exactly how I felt when I left” McKay states. “It starts in 1980 in the session Polydor paid for in Polygram Studios, which was to either for me to give them such a brilliant, commercial thing they couldn’t turn me down, or get rid of me. And they got rid of me! It wasn’t commercial enough for them”. Heading into the session, did you feel under pressure? “You kinda felt it, yeah. Unless it was something they couldn’t possibly refuse, having the Banshees and me on the same label was not gonna work. Especially when Siouxsie had gone through the entire place crossing out Kenny and I’s name on ‘Join Hands’ posters, it’s not going to happen. I wasn’t surprised and I didn’t really want to be there either”. Departing Polydor, John established Zor Gabor in 1982 which featured his wife Linda Clark on vocals. The group issued debut single ‘Tightrope’ through future BBC 6 Music DJ Marc Riley’s record label In Tape in July 1987 to warm reception from the music press. Recording throughout the decade, the group focused on creating singles. “I didn’t have an LP in mind, if I had every demo would have been different, instead of which I tended to re-record tracks if I wasn’t happy with the previous version. I’d have had a few more tracks recorded otherwise. It was trying to get a record deal and recording songs, there’s enough now to make an album out of. We went from that through various demos with other companies right through to ’89 when we recorded what would have been another 12” but was never put out”. In tandem with music, the couple ran a vintage fashion stall on Camden Lock for several decades. With Linda’s increasing ill-health however, John switched to becoming an interior decorator. “Linda and I went through the Eighties with no-one to help us and it really showed, we couldn’t get anywhere. A manager can promote you in a way you can’t yourself. You can’t sit in front of someone and say, “I’m great”. Well, I can’t. You need a third party. I’ve got a manager now, I couldn’t cope with all this stuff on my own. After being round God knows how many record labels in the 1980s and getting the elbow from all of them basically, luckily, John was the man at (cult indie label) Tiny Global who said Yes!” While archive releases usually involve a specialist / reissue label obtaining the master tapes from the original record company and giving them the remastering treatment, the process for ‘Sixes And Sevens’ was far more protracted. The recordings actually still being intact was a stroke of colossal good fortune. “In Tape have disappeared anyway, I would say those masters were long gone! If they’d have asked Polydor I think they would’ve got a short answer to that!” John laughs. “All I had were cassette tapes that you’re given when you leave the session” he explains. “They’re surprisingly good considering. I did get a friend to put them on CD about twenty years ago. When I said that to John he said he was happy to hear them, but he said for vinyl in particular, it has to be WAV files, not MP3 cos they’re bigger and more detailed”. “We got somebody who’s really good at doing that to take them back off the cassettes again which luckily are still in one piece” McKay explains. “I thought they were going to degrade badly, therefore I had them all put onto CD cos I didn’t want to lose it all. I’ve got a few more of those cassettes with other things. I’m really bad at recording though, I just don’t do it. I did buy a Portastudio, a tape version, I don’t use that anymore either. I record on my phone occasionally so I don’t forget things”. “Now I’m getting back into music cos I haven’t done anything for so long, I am writing again. I started five years ago after my wife Linda died, I wrote songs about that. Later on I wrote songs about getting together with Laurie (Vanian, fashion designer) who I’m now married to. And also, I had ideas that I’d been kicking around in books and on the guitar that now I’ve resolved into songs. I didn’t do a lot in the past cos I had nowhere to put them and it’s kind of a waste to write things when there’s nowhere for them to go”. “Working as a decorator for so long, it takes your mind off important things like music, you’re just too tired to think about it” John says. “The most I do is play. Things have ramped up recently of course and if they do, I’ll probably get a bit more into recording. But at the moment I’m still just playing basically, we’re trying to get a set together”. With the album in the racks, a new live group dubbed John McKay’s Reactor have club and festival dates confirmed for June. “It’s your basic drums, bass, guitar and vocals” he says of the band set up. “I do have a female vocalist, Jen Brown from The Priscillas, because there’s Banshees (songs in the set) I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do, because they weren’t designed for me to play and sing. My songs from the 80s, me and my wife Linda sang in unison. Some of the earlier tracks like ‘Blessed West’ are just me. Jola, from The Priscillas (and Adam & The Ants) is on drums and Billy King is on bass. He’s actually a guitar player but he’s come down to bass. (Quickly) I shouldn’t say that! Ha ha ha! Bass players will kill me!” “We’ve done some rehearsals, we need to ramp it up now though. At the time I just kept teaching them songs, but we didn’t have a set to organise, and when I did organise a set it lasted about an hour and a half! We’ve had to cut it down a lot, which is painful”. On which note the conversation wraps up. Album released, rehearsals ongoing and soon back onstage as part of a band for the first time in decades, the chance to see one of the greatest guitarists to emerge from these Isles shouldn’t be missed.