Bauhaus: A Biography of the First Gothic-Rock Band

Bauhaus are a lovely foursome from Northampton, England, and are surely rock music's first official goth band.

Bauhaus were formed in 1978 by singer Peter Murphy, guitarist Daniel Ash, bassist David J. and drummer Kevin Haskins and their name, as implied, was taken from the German Bauhaus movement. They had originally decided to call themselves Bauhaus 1919, but decided later to revert to the easier to remember name Bauhaus instead. David J. liked the name for its "stylistic implications and associations."

The gothic image of Bauhaus didn't come just from their songs alone, but because they had adopted stage acts like rising from coffins and dressing as what some might consider to be vampires (although it could be argued that Dave Vanian of rock band The Damned first perfected the vampire look). Still, it's hard to argue that Bauhaus were amongst the first of the theatrical goth bands to take to the stage in a way that would make Antonin Artaud a proud, proud man.

Bauhaus combined so many different sounds that it's impossible to pinpoint exactly what type of music that they made, or to stick them in any specific genre. Their musical style ranged from dance-ably dark and delicious songs like Kick in the Eye, which combined a funky and foot-tapping bass rhythm, to a sort of post-punk edge lined with a bit of Krautrock for good measure.

Daniel Ash, Bauhaus's guitarist and saxophonist decided after attending a large number of gigs as a teenager that the stage beckoned, and that he would one day have a band of his own, even if that only meant banging on a tambourine. He took up the guitar when he was 15 and said that he only learned to play three chords in roughly three years. While this may not have boded well for others, it didn't stop Daniel. Later on he worked very hard indeed to make a guitar not sound like a guitar and became an expert in the art of using an E-bow.