Photo: Press
John Lever, the drummer for the influential post-punk Manchester band The Chameleons, has died.
The band's co-founder, singer and bassist Mark Burgess, made the announcement on his Facebook page Monday (March 13), saying Lever's passing came "following a short period of illness."
Burgess continued: ”We want to offer our sincere and deepest sympathy to John's mother, his sister and his two children at this terrible time. Obviously I'm shocked at the news and consequently I'll be offline for a while."
Lever joined The Chameleons after the group formed in 1981 and played on the band's three albums - Script From The Bridge, What Does Anything Mean? Basically, and Strange Times until their split in 1987. He went on to play with Sun And The Moon and the Red-Sided Garter Snakes. He also joined Burgess to play the band’s back catalogue in ChameleonsVox.
Though The Chameleons failed to break through to a wider audience, the band nonetheless attracted a fanatical following. Contemporaries of Joy Division, their echo-laden sound was music that was directly influenced by life in the suburbs while infusing it with a shot of psychedelia. By the time they’d released their third album, Strange Times, The Chameleons had widened their sound as they chronicled the alienation that came in the wake of harsh economic policies and the erosion of social unity and close-knit communities.
The Chameleons reunited in 2000 and released three more albums - Strip, Why Call It Anything, and This Never Ending Now before disbanding again in 2003. Burgess and Lever reformed as ChameleonsVox in 2009 to play Chameleons back catalog material and issued an EP called M+D=1(8) in November 2013.
Echoes of their influential music was heard in bands such as Editors and Interpol.
