David J

David J is an English musician best known as the bassist/vocalist for seminal gothic and alternative rock bands Bauhaus and Love and Rockets. Since the mid-'80s, he's enjoyed a prolific solo career with highlights like 1990's Songs from Another Season, 2003's Estranged, and 2011's Not Long for This World. Also a composer and playwright, J staged his first play, Anarchy in the Gold Street Wimpy, in 2004, and has composed music for both theater and film. While working as a solo artist and collaborating with artists like Jane's Addiction and Amanda Palmer, he also participated in various Bauhaus and Love and Rockets revivals, the former of which yielded the 2006 reunion album Go Away White. A 2016 collaboration with Theatre Bizarre Orchestra saw J working under the pseudonym M.C. Nightshade and in 2022 he partnered with Mexican label No Devotion for the archival compilation What the Patrons Heard. In 2024, he issued an extensive collection of unreleased demos, Tracks from the Attic, and two years later, he delivered new, re-imagined version of ten of those songs on Tracks from the Attic Revisited. Born David J. Haskins, David J first launched his solo career in 1983, just as Bauhaus folded. His first solo album, Etiquette of Violence, didn't gather much attention, and he began working with the Jazz Butcher. After releasing two albums (Sex and Travel and A Scandal in Bohemia) with the cult musician, David J recorded his second solo album, Crocodile Tears and the Velvet Cosh (1985). Soon afterwards, J and his Bauhaus cohorts Daniel Ash and Kevin Haskins attempted to re-form their old band; although it never blossomed into a full-fledged reunion, the trio formed Love and Rockets, releasing their first album in 1985. Love and Rockets found success in the early days of alternative rock with albums like Express (1986) and the more acoustic-oriented Earth, Sun, Moon, which yielded the J-penned college rock hit "No New Tale to Tell." Following Love and Rockets' surprise hit single "So Alive" in 1989, J released Songs from Another Season, finding success on the newly minted Modern Rock Tracks chart with the album's lead single "I'll Be Your Chauffeur." As his band's success dimmed in the mid-'90s, J remained active as a solo artist with 1992's Urban Urbane and in collaboration with Alan Moore and Tim Perkins on a pair of 1996 releases, The Birth Caul and The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theater of Marvels. Following a 1998 Bauhaus reunion, Love and Rockets released their final album, Lift, before dissolving the band a year later. J became active again in the early 2000s, releasing a pair of EPs, a singles collection titled Embrace Your Dysfunction, and his sixth solo LP, Estranged, in 2003. That same year he co-wrote and played on the title track of Jane's Addiction's third album, Strays. In addition to music, J began showing his art at a variety of different galleries and, in 2004, debuted his first play, Anarchy in the Gold Street Wimpy. A second Bauhaus reunion in 2005 led to an album, 2006's Go Away White, their first LP of new material since 1983. For the remainder of the decade, J remained largely dedicated to his theater work, writing and directing two more plays. He returned to the studio in 2011 to record the dark cabaret solo album Not Long for This World, followed in 2014 by the acoustic-based An Eclipse of Ships. He also remained busy as a collaborator, working with Amanda Palmer and the Dandy Warhols, and he produced Darwin's 2012 album Starfishing. In 2015, he published a memoir titled Who Killed Mister Moonlight? (Bauhaus, Black Magick and Benediction). Under the pseudonym M.C. Nightshade, he recorded a 2016 collaborative album with Detroit's Theatre Bizarre Orchestra called Carpe Noctem, then teamed up with Murphy for a 2018 reunion tour celebrating Bauhaus' 40th anniversary. In the early 2020s, J began working with Mexican indie label No Devotion, contributing a song, "(I Walk Away) From the Girl in Yellow," to thje compilation We Are Not Safe: A Compilation of Hope, Freedom and a Reminder of Unity against Fascism, issued in 2021, and in 2022 he brought out a career-spanning collection of rarities and cover songs initially shared on his crowdfunding account, titled What the Patrons Heard. 2025 brought The Mother Tree, a six-song EP of spoken-word performances with J accompanied by pianist Jon Bernstein, violinist Gregory Allison, guitarist Tad Piecka, and percussionist Brad Dutz. In 2023, in cooperation with Independent Project Records, J released Tracks from the Attic, a three-disc collection of previously unheard demos. While compiling the set -- which included material the artist couldn't even remember recording -- J decided to approach some of the songs with fresh ears and new arrangements. The result was Tracks from the Attic Revisited, featuring ten reimagined and re-recorded tracks from the set; it was also issued by Independent Project. David J joined a handful of prog rock legends -- Rick Wakeman, Jan Akkerman, Arthur Brown, and Carmine Appice -- to record a cover of Pink Floyd's "Sheep" for the multi-artist album Animals Against the Wall: A Tribute to Pink Floyd, Vol. 2. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi