Killing Joke: Irish dates + new album

Expect doom and gloom of the highest order when ‘80s post-punk group Killing Joke play gigs in Dublin and Belfast next week. The comeback will see the band’s original line-up – Youth, Jaz Coleman and Geordie - with the *rumoured* addition of Dave Grohl, for gigs at the Temple Bar Music Centre (October 14) and The Limelight (October 15).

Having just released their new single 'Seeing Red', Killing Joke will previewing songs from their upcoming album, The Death and Resurrection Show, their first record in seven years. Produced by Andy Gill (Gang Of Four, Red Hot Chilli Peppers) is due for release in summer 2004.

The new record notably features the drumwork of Mr Dave Grohl, a fact which is not lost on irony, since it was only twelve years ago that Nirvana, em, ‘borrowed heavily’ from a Killing Joke song. Indeed the albeit slowed-down guitar riff in ‘Come As You Are’ is lifted from Killing Joke’s 1985 song ‘Eighties’.

For reasons financial and otherwise the U.K. punk elders never took up a copyright infringement lawsuit, but there are obviously no hard feelings harboured between musicians.

Killing Joke bassist Paul Raven told Rolling Stone, "Dave and I had a few laughs about that over the past year or so. He mentioned it to me when I met him backstage at Pantera a couple of years back."

Grohl, who is a long-term fan of Killing Joke, met with Jaz Coleman for the first time earlier this year during the Big Day Out tour in New Zealand. Coleman joined the Foo Fighters for an onstage performance of the Killing Joke classic, ‘Requiem’, and the rest, as they say, is music history.

Tickets for the gigs are on sale now from venue box offices and Ticketmaster outlets.