The Absence: The Memoirs of a Banshee Drummer - Budgie in conversation

As a member of Big in Japan, The Slits and, most famously, Siouxsie and The Banshees and The Creatures, Budgie became one of the era-defining drummers in the much-mythologised post punk scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Growing up in working class St Helens in the 1960s, Peter Clarke lost his mum as a young boy and it’s her ‘absence’ that haunts the pages of this book. Disenchanted with art school in Liverpool, Peter became Budgie and befriended the likes of Jayne Casey, Holly Johnson, Pete Burns, Bill Drummond and other luminaries of the legendary Eric’s’ Club, before taking off for London and the big city heat of punk. Budgie’s unique technique and musical sensitivity endeared him to the all-female group The Slits, who asked him to play on their debut album Cut. Subsequent touring with former members of the Sex Pistols and others from the post punk aristocracy firmly established Budgie’s reputation for innovation.

But the beating heart of this painfully honest and frank account of a life often sabotaged by substance abuse and alcohol is, of course, his long-term position as Siouxsie and The Banshees’ drummer and co-writer alongside ex-lover, and ex-wife, Siouxsie Sioux. In the Banshees and seminal side project The Creatures, their creative partnership produced some of the most seductive and celebrated pop music of the decade, from Juju, through A Kiss in the Dreamhouse to the valedictory album, Peepshow. Eventually, their personal relationship started to fall apart, with inevitable consequences for both bands. The Absence is brave and unflinching in its dissection of how and why this happened. Angels emerged, many of them female, to show Budgie that a mother’s lost love can be replaced.

A man and musician whose creativity and singular style came to define the goth-pop 1980s as much as any other individual, Budgie’s life is both fabulously glamorous and a tawdry cautionary tale. For the first time the story of this most exalted and mysterious of bands has been told by one who survived inside the belly of the beast.

About the Author

Peter Edward Clarke aka Budgie was born in 1957 in St. Helens in the Northwest of England. He studied Fine Art at the Gamble Institute and at Liverpool College of Art, before taking a sabbatical in1977 to join a band... or two.

As Budgie, he is known internationally for his unique style of drumming on The Slits debut album, ‘Cut’ (1979), and as writer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist, with both Siouxsie And The Banshees(1979 - 1996) and The Creatures (1981 - 2004). Self-taught, his influences range from Ringo to Rothko(via Ravel). Budgie was described by John Cale of The Velvet Underground as a ‘musician’s musician’.

He lives in Berlin, Germany with his wife, two children, three cats, and a Giant Schnauzer.

Event Venue

INNSIDE Manchester, 1 First Street, Manchester, United Kingdom