Title:        Tribute:  Jeffrey Lee Pierce 1958-1996
Author:       Mark Kemp
Source:       Rolling Stone issue 734
Date:         May 16, 1996


AS THE GUITARIST and singer for the Gun Club, Jeffrey Lee Pierce unleashed
the primal passion of the blues onto Los Angeles' thriving early '80s punk
scene. The bands 1981 debut, Fire of Love, yielded two of the era's classic
songs, "Sex Beat" and "She's Like Heroin to Me." Pierce died of a brain
hemorrhage on March 31 after being found unconscious at his father's home
in Salt Lake City six days earlier; he had spent much of the past decade
fighting alcoholism, drug addiction and general failing health. He was
37.

Born on June 27, 1958, Pierce grew up in El Monte, Calif An avid record
collector, he wrote a column on black music for the late-'70s punk fanzine
Slash and founded a Blondie fan club and newsletter. With little musical
experience he formed the Gun Club in 1980 with the guitarist Kid Congo
Powers (later of the Cramps and Nick Cave's Bad Seeds). Although they never
enjoyed the success their debut album promised, the Gun Club later worked
with Blondie members Deborah Harry and Chris Stein, and were among the
earliest bands to be described as grunge.

Pierce kept various forms of the Gun Club together until his death, and
the band had a strong following in France, Holland and Germany. During
the past decade, Pierce divided his time among the United States, England
and the Far East. He also put out three solo releases, including a collection
of raw blues, Ramblin' Jeffrey Lee and Cypress Grove With Willie Love (1992).
Pierce's final album with the Gun Club, Lucky Jim, came out in 1994.

In one of his last major interviews, with Option magazine in 1994, Pierce
said that "addiction is really terrible; it's always there. .. I have a
disposition toward opiates, and it triggers that mechanism." -MARK KEMP


© Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc. May 16, 1996


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