Peter Murphy

"Well I was like the bookbinder printer-skilled chap, and Danny (Ash) had left school and he went to Art School four years or five years later and I got onto a course there with just one week’s worth of work that I’d just scraped together, but I didn’t want to go I felt very introverted and didn’t want that, it was more about going into that environment. So I internalised and listened to my music. After school everyone had split and gone their own ways, all the friends I had were artists but I was a kid who was interested in a multitude of things, I loved literature, all kinds of things, anything I turned my hand to, but there was no outlet for it. Which is typical because in that fertile earth of Britain where nothing happens a lot comes out you know. So I’d really been listening to music from being a baby, from 1st World War and 2nd World War songs through to Doris Day, then Simon and Garfunkel, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, to all the early Reggae stuff. It was a very musical family in terms of listening and singing, there was lots of music in the house and then in 1966 The Beatles explode and the radio is everywhere. Everywhere you go there’s music but on reflection now what’s happening is that there’s just this generic mush everywhere, you know what I mean? ...But I love to listen to vocal harmonies so there’s The Beatles and the Everly Brothers, and voices… Plus there was a very strong influence from Mass, you know the Catholic Mass at school where hymns were always really choral, and that was inspiring even from the first day when I was five. School itself was in this lovely little old building with this high ambient ceiling, a very ‘reverb’ place a where we sang ‘Ave Maria’ with this Spanish Teacher who was so inspired to get us to sing. So all this was going on in my head and I didn’t have any other context other than loving it, and I would sing all the time."

In June 2015, Murphy released Remixes From Lion– a companion piece to last year's tenth solo album Lion that was produced by Killing Joke bassist Martin Glover who is listed as "Youth" on the Lion album. This release includes "Youth" remixes of songs from Lion as well as four bonus songs from the Lion recording sessions. Murphy describes the Lion material as "a mixture of stuff, almost like operas for the dispossessed. It's very romantic and very deep and emotional, quite symphonic in places, but then becomes, like, a rabble-rousing pirate sea shanty."

In June 2014, Murphy released his tenth studio album Lion.

Starting in April 2013, Murphy toured Europe and the US on the Mr Moonlight Tour, celebrating 35 years of Bauhaus, with longtime guitarist Mark Thwaite, drummer Nick Lucero and bassist Emilio DiZefalo-China. He later replaced guitarist Mark Thwaite (who left the band in September 2013) with Andee Blacksugar in October, who finished out the remaining tour dates in China, Russia, Australia and New Zealand.

In August 2010, on a video blog on his MySpace page Murphy announced that he was once again going to be working with Mick Karn on a second Dalis Car album, adding this would be the first time they had seen each other since 1983. Several months prior to this announcement, Karn had been diagnosed with stage-four cancer. The recording session took place in September 2010; however, because of Karn's increasingly severe illness, they only managed to record four songs during the session. Karn died on 4 January 2011. According to the biography on Karn's website, the four songs the duo recorded will be released as an EP later in 2011.

In February 2011, Murphy announced a 29-date tour across North America to support his upcoming album Ninth, released in June 2011. Murphy released the song "I Spit Roses" as a digital single through online retailers in March 2011, as well as single "Seesaw Sway" that May.

In 2010, Murphy made a cameo appearance in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse as "The Cold One". In the summer of 2010, Murphy began his "Dirty Dirt Tour" in promotion of his studio album Ninth.

In 2009, Murphy appeared at shows across the United States with Reznor, and the band members Reznor had for the 'Lights in the Sky Over North America 2008' tour. He also appeared with Nine Inch Nails on in August 2009 at Terminal 5 as special guest musician. Additionally, he appeared with Nine Inch Nails on 28 and 29 August at the Aragon Ballroom.

Throughout 2009, Murphy released a series of cover songs exclusively through iTunes. The released songs are "Instant Karma!" (originally by John Lennon), "Space Oddity" (originally by David Bowie), "Transmission" (originally by Joy Division), and "Hurt" (originally by Nine Inch Nails). In support of these releases, Murphy underwent an international tour entitled "The Secret Covers Tour". During this time, an additional cover song, Soul of the World, was released through his official website.

Murphy undertook extensive tours of Europe and the US to promote Unshattered in 2005, with a live band featuring guitarist Mark Thwaite, (The Mission , Tricky) on guitar, Jeff Schartoff of Human Waste Project and Professional Murder Music on bass and Justin Bennett of Skinny Puppy on drums. Murphy and the band reconvened in November 2007 for shows in Portugal and Spain, with Nick Lucero replacing Bennett on drums. In May 2008 Murphy recorded a cover of the song "Warm Leatherette" with Trent Reznor and Jeordie White from Nine Inch Nails. This was played live at an intimate studio performance, and the video recording was released on both the official Nine Inch Nails website and on YouTube.

In 2004, Murphy signed to yet another new label, Viastar, which was home to several other 1980s pop artists who had moved into more eclectic areas. Despite numerous problems with the label, the album Unshattered was released, showcasing Murphy returning to a more pop sound.

In 2000, Murphy performed his international Just for Love tour, which resulted in the album aLive Just for Love. It is a live recording of the fully uninterrupted set from the El Rey show in Los Angeles on 30 November 2000. During the tour, Murphy chose to perform with only two back-up musicians, Canadian electric violinist Hugh Marsh and Peter DiStefano from Porno for Pyros on guitar, although former Bauhaus bassist David J sometimes joined the trio for an encore. At this point he also contributed to works by film composer Harry Gregson-Williams.

Also in 2000, Murphy gave a nod to the North American goth scene, where his solo works and his works with Bauhaus are still popular, by making a surprise guest appearance at the sixth annual Convergence festival in Seattle, to perform a low-key, acoustic solo set.

The followup, Love Hysteria, was not successful in the UK although in the US it performed better than his previous solo releases. The album also marked the beginning of a long-term collaboration with songwriter Paul Statham from B-Movie, who co-wrote songs with Murphy until 1995. The resulting singles "All Night Long" and "Indigo Eyes" helped garner a wider following, and the black-and-white video for "All Night Long" entered rotation on MTV.

In 1995, Murphy embraced a lower-key, ambient pop sound for Cascade, featuring producer Pascal Gabriel, guest work from "infinite guitarist" Michael Brook, and overall a much stronger incorporation of electronics. This album was also to be his last major collaboration with Paul Statham, who departed to form Peach with Pascal Gabriel and eventually write songs for Dido and Kylie Minogue. Cascade was also Murphy's last original release for Beggar's Banquet records, which had been his label since Bauhaus. Shortly after this departure, Murphy recorded the Recall EP for the newly formed Red Ant records, featuring a few new songs and some new, heavily electronic versions of older material, reworked in conjunction with Sascha Konietzko, Bill Rieflin and Tim Skold of the band KMFDM. Once again, he became label-mates with former Bauhaus alums Love and Rockets, who had also signed to Red Ant. This generated a significant number of rumours regarding a possible reformation of Bauhaus. While Red Ant quickly folded, Bauhaus did reform in 1998 for the Resurrection tour, one performance of which (at the Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City) was recorded and released on DVD by Metropolis Records as Gotham. The tour was a success.

Peter Murphy moved to Turkey with his wife, and a Middle Eastern influence can be heard in his later albums. 1992's Holy Smoke mixed some traditional Turkish influences into the music while continuing the sound pioneered on Deep.

In 1992, Murphy moved to Istanbul with his Turkish wife, Beyhan, who is the head choreographer of the Turkish National Modern Dance group. He is a Sufi Muslim. In 2013, Murphy received a 3 year probation sentence for a California hit and run accident. In August 2019, Murphy was hospitalized for a heart attack at the Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

Daniel Ash convinced Murphy to join Bauhaus, one of the establishing acts of the goth movement. Their use of spacey recording effects and theatrical aesthetics was evocative of glam rock; they became an influential group in the early days of gothic rock. In 1983, Bauhaus appeared during the opening sequences of the horror film The Hunger, performing one of their most popular songs, "Bela Lugosi's Dead". The camera focused almost exclusively on Murphy during most of the scene, panning only briefly to the stars David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve. Bauhaus reformed in 1998 for a tour, and later reunited again in late 2019 for three reunion shows.

By 1983, Bauhaus had broken up and Murphy went on to new projects not involving Bauhaus members Kevin Haskins, David J or Daniel Ash. After some brief dabbling with acting and dance – including a television performance to Bauhaus's "Hollow Hills" – he formed Dalis Car with Mick Karn, the bass player from Japan. The group recorded only one album.

Peter John Joseph Murphy (born 11 July 1957) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. He was the vocalist of the goth rock band Bauhaus and later went on to release a number of solo albums, such as Love Hysteria, Deep, and Holy Smoke. Thin with prominent cheekbones, a baritone voice, and a penchant for gloomy poetics, he is often called the "Godfather of Goth".

Peter John Joseph Murphy was born on 11 July 1957 in Northampton, Northamptonshire. He is of Irish descent. He was raised in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, where he was a school friend of Daniel Ash. Murphy's first interest in music was due to his mother's habit of constantly humming tunes. He also grew into an artistically inclined teenager. He was regarded as introverted and somewhat anti-social and due to that, Murphy turned down the chance to go to art college, and instead worked as printer’s assistant, while pursuing his interests in painting, writing, and singing in his free time.