Bad Gays is a podcast (and book, published by Verso) about evil and complicated queers in history, hosted by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller. This special episode focuses on Coil, charting the biography of the esoteric electronica band’s two frontmen and only constant members: Geoff Rushton, aka John Balance, and Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson.
The discussion revisits their two-decade career, exploring Coil’s haunting music, extraordinary artistic oeuvre, collaborations with filmmaker Derek Jarman, and embrace of occultist Aleister Crowley. It is a story of synthesisers, magic, and alchemy, but also of England at the height of the AIDS pandemic, of regressive laws policing sexuality that persist to this day, and of the trauma that left an indelible mark on the band’s sound and sonic imaginary.
Research images:
• 1 & 5: The Abrahadabra Letters by John Balance & Anthony Blokdijk (2023)
• 3: Art Sex Music by Cosey Fanni Tutti (2017)
• 2 & 4: Everything Keeps Dissolving: Conversations with Coil by Nick Soulsby (2023)
• 6: England’s Hidden Reverse: A Secret History of the Esoteric Underground (revised and expanded edition) by David Keenan (2023)