Peter John Joseph Murphy (born 11 July 1957) is an English singer and songwriter. He is the vocalist for the post-punk band Bauhaus, which he co-founded with Daniel Ash in 1978. After Bauhaus disbanded, Murphy formed Dalis Car with Japan's bassist Mick Karn and released one album, The Waking Hour (1984). He went on to release a number of solo albums, including Should the World Fail to Fall Apart (1986) and Love Hysteria (1988).
In 1990, Murphy achieved commercial success with his album Deep which reached No. 44 on the Billboard 200. It was accompanied by the single "Cuts You Up", which reached No. 55 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1992, Murphy released Holy Smoke, which reached No. 108 on the Billboard 200 chart, featuring lead single "The Sweetest Drop". After the release of Holy Smoke, he moved from London to Turkey with his family and from there he released Cascade in 1995. Bauhaus then reunited briefly for the well-received Gotham tour in 1998.
In 2002, Murphy released Dust with Turkish-Canadian composer and producer Mercan Dede, which largely abandoned rock music for traditional Turkish instrumentation and eclectic genre influences. He followed this up two years later with Unshattered (2004), a return to alternative rock. The next several years would see a second reunion of Bauhaus from 2005-2007 during which they recorded their fifth and final album Go Away White, released in 2008 after they had broken up again. Murphy then returned to his solo efforts, releasing Ninth in 2011. In 2014, he released Lion, produced by Youth, which reached No. 173 on the Billboard 200. On 9 May 2025 Murphy released Silver Shade, again produced by Youth. Three singles from the album preceded its release, "Let the Flowers Grow" - a song with Boy George, "Swoon" - which had Trent Reznor contributing vocals, and "The Artroom Wonder."
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, the seventh child of a large rural working-class family of Irish descent. He has an older sister Shirley and two elder brothers, Daniel, and Christopher, after whom Murphy so soon followed that their family called them twins. He was raised in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, where he had a strict Catholic upbringing in the town's Kingsway area. He described having a happy childhood with a close family which had a "great emphasis on Catholicism in a very sincere, deep, profound way. Always aware of the mysteries of life, mortality, Heaven, Hell, angels, saints and purgatory: all these images. What is allowed and what is not allowed." Murphy's first interest in music was inspired by his mother, who would frequently hum songs. As a teenager, he was introverted but attracted to the arts.
At school, Murphy became friends with Daniel Ash, describing their first meeting: "The first moment I saw him, literally, I really loved him. It was not sexual; I was attracted to him in a fateful sense. Something told me that this guy was important. I remember being enamoured by him. I felt very close to him. Extremely. It was almost like a bonding that was immediate and whole. I think I recognised a lot of my own faults in him. I felt there was someone who could understand me. I saw him as the mirror of myself. He was always the person who would be positive and practical and not be lazy and always wanted to be in a band. And so I would have done anything for him in that sense because I wanted to be around him."
Murphy and Ash's musical tastes were shared by their fondness of the glam movement and its artists such as David Bowie and T. Rex. When Ash received his first electric guitar, he would bring Murphy during the lunch hour to hear him play it. Ash was interested in being in a band and told Murphy that he could be in one too, because of his looks. Despite this comment, Murphy was not interested. According to Ash, "Pete didn't think about it at all, it wasn't on his mind as such."
When Murphy was sixteen, he left school to work at a local family printing business, while Ash enrolled in an art college. Murphy worked for his family's printing business for five years, first as a bookbinder and then as a printer. When Murphy came into contact with Ash after two years, Ash suggested that he should apply to art college. Due to his introversion, he subsequently eschewed an opportunity to attend art college, opting instead to work as a printer's assistant while working on painting, writing and singing on the side.
While still working at the printing firm, Murphy maintained an interest in music. He explained: "I was very interested in figures like Bowie, Bolan and Iggy. I related to their psyches more than their music." He loved Iggy Pop's albums such as The Idiot and Lust for Life, and went to see artists and bands such as David Bowie (during his Thin White Duke tour) and Judas Priest. He then went to a local pub and saw Ash's latest band at the time, "Jackplug and The Sockets". The band consists of Ash on guitar, David J on bass and Kevin Haskins on drums and played mainly cover songs from the Rolling Stones. After the concert, Ash caught sight of Murphy and continued to mentioned to him that "You must be in a band". However, nothing came about it. After some months later, Ash's latest band split up which caused him to become depressed. However, Ash was still determined to form another band. He needed a singer and remembered his old friend from the pub with his old band, months ago. Ash explained how he approached Murphy for this offer: "I didn't ring him up or anything. I just arrived at his door and he was just arriving back home from work on his little motorcycle. I got out the car, knocked on the door and was surprised to see me. I just played him this tape (a demo of Jackplug songs) and I asked him if he wanted to get something going."
Murphy finally accepted Ash's offer and explained about his decision: "I thought, Yes, I don't mind. Yes. If you're doing it, I'll do it because you fascinate me." After Murphy accepted Ash's offer, they got together over a weekend in a mobile classroom at the Northampton's Teacher Training College and used that room as a rehearsal room. Ash explained this meeting: "Just Pete and myself went in. I drove him from Wellingborough to Northampton. He didn't have any lyrics or anything, he didn't know if he could sing or anything as such, but he had a newspaper and I just put loads of echo on the mike to give him confidence, make him sound good and I just started playing a riff - anything that came into head and he just started singing from the newspaper. As soon as I heard him sing I knew within five minutes - I honestly thought it was just a matter of time. He had the voice, the charisma, the good looks - the whole thing."
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 2005, culminating in a tour with the band Nine Inch Nails in 2007, and a final album, Go Away White, released in 2008 shortly before disbanding again. They reunited once more in late 2019 for three reunion shows in Los Angeles, California, and launched a reunion tour post pandemic which ended in 2022.
Break from music and Dalis Car: 1983–1984
By 1983, Bauhaus had broken up and Murphy went on to new projects not involving Bauhaus members Kevin Haskins, David J or Daniel Ash. He received an offer to play Fletcher Christian in a remake of Mutiny on the Bounty. He also auditioned for a role of Tarzan in Greystoke. The British director Derek Jarman was interested in using him in his film Caravaggio. Murphy turned many of these offers down due to his insecurity of his slight stammer as he was very self-conscious about it. This speech impediment made Murphy anxious about branching out to film, TV and radio work despite the encouragement of his ex-manager Harry Isles to accept some of these roles. He even refused a follow-up ad for Maxell since in his words, "they wanted me to go through space with this dolly bird." However, Murphy did focus a significant amount of time to dance and his interest in this activity strengthened with his new girlfriend and future wife, Beyhan Foulkes, who was a choreographer. As Murphy explained: "She’s introduced me to new aspects of movement and dance that I’d like to try. I’ve always liked the modern Ballet Rambert style of dance and I’d like to co-ordinate that with my music…writing the music and dance together." Murphy made an appearance on the TV arts programme Riverside, one month after Bauhaus split up, where he performed a dance routine in a sandpit in a "locationally obscure" beach with a female dance partner, Annie Cox. The background music for this routine was the Bauhaus track "Hollow Hills". It was not received well by the public and even Murphy admitted that, "it didn’t work. It looked rather silly really." Despite his interest in the subject, Murphy did not want to be a serious dancer. He found dance to be useful skill for his repertoire. As Murphy explained: "I’ve learnt things and I’m storing them for whenever the need comes to use them." He also made an appearance to take part of Nicholas Treadwell's Superhumanist Exhibition at an old manor house that was converted into a studio and gallery in Canterbury. Murphy explained this experience: "I appeared as the Father of Time in one dance. It was an environmental Dance installation which people would experience as they walked through the gallery." After some brief dabbling with acting and dance – including a television performance to Bauhaus's "Hollow Hills". In the aftermath of Bauhaus splitting up, Beggars Banquet had offered him a recording contact as a solo artist but Murphy declined. Murphy showed no interest in making music for one year after the band's break up.