Killing Joke guitarist Geordie Walker has died, aged 64 By Jonathan Horsley
Nov 27, 2023 18:12:44 #
https://www.guitarworld.com/news/kevin-geordie-walker-killing-joke-guitarist-has-died-aged-64?
“Geordie was a true inventor of a massive sound that has influenced so damn many of us”
Tributes pour in for the post-punk trailblazer whose influence was felt far and wide across rock and metal, with the likes of Metallica and Nirvana indebted to his vision for guitar
(Image credit: Jim Dyson/Getty Images)
Post-punk, rock and metal has lost one of its most influential guitarists of all time, as Kevin ‘Geordie’ Walker of Killing Joke has died, aged 64.
His death was announced by his bandmates, who said they were “devastated”. Walker had suffered a stroke, and passed away in the company of his family on November 26, in Prague, where he had lived for a number of years.
Few players were as capable of transposing societal tensions to a riff, or capturing a mood with an electric guitar tone. Jimmy Page counted himself as a fan.
So profound was Walker’s influence that some bands, most famously Nirvana, would appropriate his sound wholesale. Kurt Cobain took both Walker’s seasick riff and guitar tone on Eighties and reinterpreted them on grunge anthem Come As You Are. In 1987, Metallica covered The Wait on their $5.98 EP Garage Days Re-Revisited EP.
“Geordie was a true inventor of a massive sound that has influenced so damn many of us”
Tributes pour in for the post-punk trailblazer whose influence was felt far and wide across rock and metal, with the likes of Metallica and Nirvana indebted to his vision for guitar
(Image credit: Jim Dyson/Getty Images)
Post-punk, rock and metal has lost one of its most influential guitarists of all time, as Kevin ‘Geordie’ Walker of Killing Joke has died, aged 64.
His death was announced by his bandmates, who said they were “devastated”. Walker had suffered a stroke, and passed away in the company of his family on November 26, in Prague, where he had lived for a number of years.
Few players were as capable of transposing societal tensions to a riff, or capturing a mood with an electric guitar tone. Jimmy Page counted himself as a fan.
So profound was Walker’s influence that some bands, most famously Nirvana, would appropriate his sound wholesale. Kurt Cobain took both Walker’s seasick riff and guitar tone on Eighties and reinterpreted them on grunge anthem Come As You Are. In 1987, Metallica covered The Wait on their $5.98 EP Garage Days Re-Revisited EP.
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