Budgie: Memoirs of a Banshee Drummer

The Absence: Memoirs of a Banshee Drummer, a memoir by the legendary musician and drummer Budgie,

In conversation with music journalist, Dave Simpson of the Guardian.

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.