John Murphy (musician)

John Murphy (born 1959), sometimes credited as Jonh Murphy, is an Australian drummer, percussionist and multi-instrumental session musician who has played in Australian and British post-punk, ambient and industrial music groups. He is the son of an Australian jazz drummer Russ Murphy who played for many years with the Graeme Bell All Stars, stalwarts of the early Australian music scene.

Early life

He was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne, Australia, where he played in the school orchestra as well as Scottish pipe bands.^[1]

Career

Murphy's first major band was NEWS the Melbourne punk band in which he performed as "John Smith from the Suburbs".^[2] From the late 1970s until the mid-1980s he collaborated with vocalist Ollie Olsen in the post-punk bands Whirlywirld, Hugo Klang, Orchestra of Skin and Bone, NO, and Max Q.^[3]

He formed, joined, or collaborated with the following acts: The Associates, Dumb and the Ugly, Sooterkin Flesh, The Slub, SPK, Lustmord, Our Father of Serpents, Stress, Jaundiced Eye, The Wreckery, Whitehouse, Death in June, Der Blutharsch, Sword Volcano Complex, Browning Mummery, Current 93, Blood Axis, Kraang, Sleeping Pictures, Scorpion Wind, Naevus, NON and Of the Wand & the Moon, in addition to playing on sessions for Nico, The The, Gene Loves Jezebel and Shriekback.

Today, he records solo under the name Shining Vril, as part of the industrial electronic trio Knifeladder, and as a member of the folk-noise group Foresta Di Ferro with Marco Deplano and Ostara's Richard Leviathan.

External links

• IKONEN magazine interview January 2005
• Compulsion magazine interview 2004, listing many recordings

References