The Journey Is Long

The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project follows 2009\\’s acclaimed We Are Only Riders collection with a second volume of the late Gun Club leader\\’s pre­viously-unreleased work-in-progress, brought to life by old friends, collaborators and acolytes.

This time, the Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project includes Nick Cave (who also takes part in a return duet with Debbie Harry on \\’The Breaking Hands\\’), Mick Harvey, Debbie Harry & Chris Stein, Lydia Lunch, The Jim Jones Revue, Kid Congo Powers, Tav Falco\\’s Panther Burns, Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell, Youth\\’s Vertical Smile, Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate), Warren Ellis, Barry Adamson, Bertrand Cantat & Pascal Humbert, Thalia Zedek & Chris Brokaw, Hugo Race, Dom Beken and Kris & Michelle Needs, sometimes in different combinations.

Pierce and his ever-changing Gun Club lineups poured America\\’s roots music forms into a blender of hard drugs and liquor, wrenching the udders of America\\’s bloated cow to spew out toxic, low-life hollers and swamped-up songs of love and desperation. He seemed to have located the dark main artery of the blues, loaded up an overblown hypo and set the plunger to permanent stun as first the group released seminal eighties classic albums including Fire Of Love, Miami and The Las Vegas Story, then later solo works such as Wildweed and Ramblin\\’ Jeffrey Lee & Cypress Grove. Jeffrey was infamous for his hard-drinking, drugging and hell-raising, dying from a brain haemorrhage in March, 1996. Since then, his influence has been increasingly acknowledged on musical forms like blues-punk and Americana. Those who knew him all have a tale to tell, seeing the Jeffrey Lee Pierce Project as one way of marking their affection and memories.
The album is released on Glitterhouse on both CD and double vinyl, with 20 page booklet featuring memorabilia and extensive liner notes by Kris Needs.

Proceeds from the first volume went to Amnesty International, but Pierce\\’s sister Jacqui is setting up The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Foundation to help fulfil her brother\\’s long-standing desire to provide musical instruments for under-privileged kids in LA. A third and final volume called The Task Has Overwhelmed Us is already in production for release later in the year.