Gavin Baddeley, author of "Goth Chic" (Plexus, London, 2002), a book about gothic culture, was recently asked by Metal Hammer magazine to write an article about goth and goth history to accompany an interview with Andrew Eldritch. However, for various reasons the interview with Eldritch never appeared and so the goth article was never used either.

So he kindly donated the article to me to use on my site (I'd guess the article remains his intellectual property or whatever, but it's up here, anyway).

Points of especial interest, apart from my ramblings, are the quotes from Andi Sex Gang and Wayne Hussey.

GOTH BOTHERING

Andrew Eldritch is the King of the Goths – just ask anybody. Anybody, that is except Andrew Eldritch. His reluctant claim to the throne comes courtesy of his band, the Sisters of Mercy, but according to Eldritch they are ‘a rock ‘n ‘roll band. And a pop band. And an industrial groove machine. And intellectual love gods in our spare time’ – pretty much anything, in fact, aside from a Goth band. But just why is the infamously petulant vocalist so determined to dodge the Goth tag?

He certainly isn’t the only one – the subculture’s endured 25 years of rejection by pretty much all of its musical idols, from punk princess Siouxsie Sioux onwards. But just what is ‘Goth’? Is it a musical expression of the Gothic aesthetic – that evocative world of the sinister and sinful, where sex and death entwine as a graveyard feast of ghoulishness and exotica? According to British DJ Pete Scathe, who’s written an on-line history of the movement, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, a ‘term applied by the media to the subculture in the early 80s which stuck, appropriately or otherwise, so newcomers wanting to "become" Goths increasingly adopted Gothic trappings. The whole scene soon became untouchable as far as the press were concerned, as things got silly and alternative clubs began to fill with "4000 year-old vampires" in homemade cloaks, clutching pints of snakebite and black, spouting Poe at each other.’

Modern Gothic lore identifies the Sex Gang Children vocalist Andi SexGang as the first Goth, nicknamed ‘Count Visigoth’ because of his flamboyantly dark dress sense, the band’s early-80s fans being styled ‘Goths’ by association. ‘It was all unbeknownst to me – they called my place Visigoth Towers behind my back as it were’ laughed Andi. ‘A couple of musicians I knew who lived round the corner – Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy [both in early Goth faves Southern Death Cult] coined the nickname I think, who mentioned it to a music journo called Dave Dorrell who then started bandying the "Goth" tag around. But "Gothic" had already been around for a while to describe various styles of music, especially Joy Division. For me personally the term Gothic refers to something a little more cultivated and classical than the commercial Goth you see about.’

At the dawn of the decade most seminal Goth acts like Bauhaus and the Sex Gang Children were as much gloomy performance artists as they were conventional rock bands, but by the mid-80s most of the art-punk mob had largely given up the ghost, leaving the field open for the trio of guitar-based Goth rock bands – the Sisters of Mercy, the Mission, the Fields of the Nephilim – who dominated the British alternative scene for a few brief years.

Wayne Hussey played guitar with the Sisters on their 1985 debut, before an acrimonious split with Eldritch led him to form the Mission. He remains somewhat perplexed at just where the Goth tag came from. ‘With The Sisters it was a preoccupation with the darker side of life and the fact that we wore a lot of black I guess’ said Hussey. ‘As for the Mission, with my history, it was obvious we were going to be seen as Gothic. Looking back on it now some of the early song titles – "Sacrilege" "Love Me To Death", "Serpent’s Kiss" – were pretty incriminating.’

‘There wasn’t a negative reaction to Goth initially’ he added. ‘But trends come and go. When Goth became trendy for a few years it almost became mainstream. There were bands like us, the Sisters, the Banshees, the [Fields of the] Nephilim – all supposed Goths – all sort of mainstream inasmuch as we were in the charts, in the papers, on the radio. But like any other trend, once it begins to pass, the media – especially in Britain – are quick to damn anything they see associated with it.’

Pete Scathe has another theory as to just why the British music press became so dismissive of Goth so quickly. ‘Essentially, Goth was perceived to be Middle Class, particularly by trendy London music journalists who, though thoroughly Middle Class themselves, were desperate to claim the street cred of being "Working Class heroes" and had a habit of imposing their self-loathing onto the Goth scene. Maybe if Goth had been a little more violent and stupid it would’ve fared better in their estimation.’

In the early-90s, the major Goth rock acts largely lapsed into hibernation, leaving only a fragile underground of Sisters and Nephilim-influenced bands to carry the Goth torch. Catching many by surprise, the scene began to embrace club culture, dressing in day-glo PVC and dancing to techno, and by the end of the decade many Goth clubs were spiritually closer to Ibiza than Transylvania. According to Scathe, the new dance-friendly ‘cybergoth’ style ‘stomped all over the UK Goth scene in platform New Rocks. People were reacting against the "sad Goth in black" stereotype. I never thought I’d see platform boots and flares come back into fashion though!’

Meanwhile among Goth’s embattled traditionalists, Andrew Eldritch continued his ongoing futile feud with his fanbase, things reaching a head in 1997 when the Sisters were booked to headline the Dark Harvest festival in Philadelphia. At the last minute Eldritch’s outfit threatened to cancel unless two of the support acts were removed from the bill, according to festival organizers because the singer said they looked ‘too Goth’. One of these bands was the New Creatures. Understandably angry, vocalist Mark Walsh was stung into issuing an open letter to his opposite number in The Sisters of Mercy which began ‘Andrew, I believe you to be a turd who should step aside if you’re too afraid of the competition. How dare you insist that you not be classified and then turn around and classify two excellent bands based on their look, and potentially hurt their careers.’

‘We were a Goth band’ Caroline Blind, lead singer with the other ‘unacceptably Gothic’ act Sunshine Blind told me, describing Goth as a ‘black velvet’ aesthetic. ‘We had the sound, we had the look, and I, for one, loved it. That’s what I like, and I make no apologies.’ The music media quickly picked up on what quickly became known as ‘the Sisters of Mercy incident’, having fun at the expense of both Eldritch and the aggrieved Goths, one MTV commentator equating being called ‘too Goth’ by the Sisters vocalist with ‘Lou Reed telling you that you are too sarcastic!’ In her mischievous missive to Eldritch, Blind observed that ‘By being shallow and pretentious, you reinforce the prima donna Goth stereotype’. Certainly, his reputation for melodramatic self-importance, combined with his tendency to posture and sulk (after a disagreement with their label, the Sisters haven’t recorded any new material to speak of for over a decade), the singer looked ironically close to the negative stereotype of the classic Goth.

‘I’ve a certain amount of sympathy with Eldritch’ says Pete Scathe, ‘as I’m fully aware that being labelled "Goth" can be a big commercial impediment – the cultural equivalent of a leper’s bell in the British music press. I can see why he rejects the label – a lot of earlier bands did just the same – but perhaps he should just ignore it. He’s in severe danger of finally pissing off the only fans the Sisters have left.’ ‘A large part of why we denied being Goths in the early days is because we did want to be pop stars, to perform on Top of the Pops’ reflects ex-Sister Wayne Hussey. ‘By its very nature, if you define yourself by a label, you limit your audience. It’s like typecasting with actors. A struggling actor would give his back teeth to be typecast. But as soon as you’ve achieved fame, and want to try your hand at something else, "the public" won’t let you. But you should really thank your lucky stars you’ve had a career and been allowed to do something you love.’