I know this could get controversial, but we all know there's musicians out there nowadays who would like to deny their underground past after reaching superstar status, and even a few cocky assholes who try to act ashamed of being once a fellow blackclad, even when they were some of the most creative years of their lives......

Therefore, I've been inspired to create a thread to expose those who once played in goth bands.

First up: the rather interesting Icelandic gothic rock/art rock band Kukl, who made some rather strange and challenging atmospheric soundscapes in the 80s, and sported a little-known female vocalist known as Bjork: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vf-vkYMUmk

Who are some others? I know Cathedral 13 has been playing a lot of Billy Idol's old post-punk band, Generation X, in recent weeks.....

First person that comes to my mind is Nick Cave and the Birthday Party.
I like what he did after them, but would it kill him to play Release the bats or something once in a while?

Ministry. Al keeps denying that he actually had any artistic input in their early records, but I think he lies.

My real question is about Robert Smith. though he is open about wanting the Cure to an "alternative" experience, he claims to hate the label 'goth'. i can understand this, but he also claims that the only reason they played at the Batcave was because it was cheap and the Banshees played there. he says he hated the "Romanticism of death" that was present there, and yet i find death to be refenced in Robert's lyrics all the time, often in a romantic setting. just look at the trak "Charlotte Sometimes".

Fatbob is a liar.

That sorta reminds me of Billy Duffy (Theatre of Hate/Death Cult/Cult), who is one guy who thoroughly pisses me off.
There's one fucker who constantly goes out of his way to bash the goth scene and fans that made him....... Eldrich and he have a lot in common!

I especially hate how he describes The Cult as being "finally free of negative goth influences". Negative???
WTF, asshole??

I've no problem with them, I have a problem when they become so commercial that a so called gothic band can't play together with them any more, because the people are too shocked.

So And One had to abandoned the tour with Unheilig this year. I mean both are questionable:

Unheilig - Geboren um zu Leben Place one for months in the German charts.

And One - Steine sind Steine The lyrics are a nationalistic, political provocation. Which can not be understood without the goth context as a provocation. (from a Guy with an Iranian father, who decided to live in Germany. Maybe it explains his antiamericanism.)

My goth, where have we gone ... it's time for a new name, to divide the old scene from that.

That's why I like the idea of the German Schwarze Szene. It seems to not be divided like Goth is in the rest of the world.

I can understand Cure and others when they say they don't be gothics, because this term didn't exist in the eighties. Gothic is a label that was given the scene from outside. It is overloaded with sterotypes and prematures. The connotation is changing permanently like the scene itself. We can't even find a definition for Gothic in Germany, we could agree to. So perhaps it is indifferent, whether someone is gothic or not.

I guess this thread was originally meant as a discussion on well-known pop-rock superstars that, little known to the public, used to be part of the dark underground, such as Billy Idol, Bjork, and I suppose U2 and The Cult could be on that list......

I think And One and Unheilig were pretty clearly schwarze szene participants at one point.

Whenever I watch a Within Temptation video that says "They are not Goth, they don't stick to one style" but isn't exactly that being Goth? Being unconventional? Conventional bands stick to one style.

I don't know if these count but here goes:


I know some have already mentioned The Cure and I have to agree. A lot of people my age I talk to who like them have no idea that The Cure are even connected to Goths at all. Maybe it's because most of them have Slipknot on their mind when they hear the word 'Gothic' used to describe music, or it could be for another reason; namely that they haven't actually heard any of The Cure's more 'underground' albums. I know it probably could be somewhat difficult to connect The Cure with the stereotypical image of what 'Goth' is when the only songs you've heard by them are 'Why Can't I Be You?' and 'The Lovecats'. When talking to such people I might point out songs like 'Plainsong', 'A Forest', 'Cold', or 'Disintegration', to which they will usually reply that they've never even heard of those songs. So that would be one band that are well-known now but were once very much part of the whole 'Batcave' scene.

I would also have to say Depeche Mode. Another well-known band that despite not being as connected to Goth as Robert Smith once was, are still a very popular band in the scene. Also, one can't deny the whole 'dark' feeling one gets from songs like 'Black Celebration'- very different from their more pop-oriented songs. A lot of people have no idea that they (or even a lot of New Wave in general) could ever have been connected to Goth at any point.

That's really all I can think of for now. I may be able to come up with more later.

A complete 180 when I saw them earlier this year. Gotta love those hypocrites!

I would have thought of Depeche Mode as opposite, as they've really only gotten DARKER with age....... Listening to their new material as opposed to Speak & Spell for example.

The one Cure song I always play for people who have no clue of their goth roots is "Pornography"..... That also happens to be my favorite Cure song. Always I love the looks of shock on peoples' faces to know that this song was written by the same band who wrote "Friday I'm in Love".

New Order could be mentioned, although they got a reason after Ian Curtis death.
But was it "gothic" This term doesn't exist for a subculture in the late 70's, early 80's
Another example would be Wolfsheim with their frontman Schiller. Wolfsheim called themselves gothic, but they made cash were they can a few years later.

Schiller feat. Colby Caleigh You