Our brother Douglas McCarthy 🙏 has died 😢

Houses of Heaven: the end of me 

 Nitzer Ebb - Body Of Work (2006) CD1 full album

YouTube · Rock'n Roll

https://youtu.be/VVvPosPN8CU?si=WvtXF-nKa1xBgiJz

Nitzer Ebb - Body Of Work (2006) CD2 full album

YouTube · 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=mrdc74qVhfc&si=dtWjiYCKAqcB9yF1


Douglas John McCarthy (1 September 1966 – 11 June 2025) was an English vocalist whose work covers a range of electronic music genres.

Nitzer Ebb live in Stockholm, Kraken 7 Dec 2018 - full show
YouTube · Kompakt Mode 2.0

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-jH-dfRq2nc&si=f6b4FAP-Qtt6RAGd



Nitzer Ebb vocalist and founding member Douglas McCarthy has died. The English EBM and industrial band shared the news today via social media. No cause of death has been revealed, but he was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver last year. He was 58.

McCarthy was the lead vocalist of the EBM band Nitzer Ebb from its formation in 1982. He released the solo album, Kill Your Friends in 2012.

He worked in collaboration with DJ and producer Terence Fixmer as Fixmer/McCarthy, and with musician Cyrusrex as DJM/REX. McCarthy, Cyrusrex, and Nitzer Ebb bandmate Bon Harris formed the music collective Blackline along with such musicians as Paul Barker of Ministry, Mark Walk of Skinny Puppy, and DepecheMode touring musician Christian Eigner.

McCarthy contributed as a guest vocalist on multiple tracks by Recoil, as well as recordings by Die KruppsKLOQClientAdult and Kenneth James Gibson's Reverse Commuter project.

Born in BarkingEast London in September 1966,[1][additional citation(s) needed] McCarthy grew up in the county of Essex, the son of a sheet metal worker.[2][3] His father exposed him to classical artists such as ElgarBach and Strauss, as well as contemporary artists such as Tony BennettElla FitzgeraldSarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra.[3]

McCarthy met future Nitzer Ebb drummer, David Gooday at ten years of age while skateboarding in Chelmsford and met the band's keyboardist, Bon Harris, through Gooday.[1] Harris and Gooday attended the same school as McCarthy, although they were a year older.[2] The young men would attend disco and funk nightclubs, such as Goldmine on Canvey Island, at times sneaking in while underage.[1]


Rare unseen footage of Nitzer Ebb founding members Bon Harris, Douglas McCarthy & David Gooday skateboarding somewhere in Chelmsford, Essex. Uk circa 1984. Video shot by band manager Chris Piper. Nitzer Ebb - Fun To Be Had (Unseen Skateboard Video) 1983/84
YouTube · Pylon Records

https://youtube.com/watch?v=zPh3fb6vPcs&feature=shared

As he got older, McCarthy listened to such artists as ShowaddywaddySlade and Roxy Music.[3] He also cited Brian EnoTalking HeadsDeutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft as early musical influences, and Fad GadgetSiouxie Sioux and Nick Cave as influences on his performance style as Nitzer Ebb's frontman.[3]


McCarthy, Harris and Gooday founded Nitzer Ebb in 1982 and held their first musical performance at the Chelmsford YMCA.[1][2]

The band was signed to Mute Records in the UK, and Geffen Records in the US, and released their first studio album That Total Age in 1987.[4] They opened for Depeche Mode during the European leg of their Music For The Masses tour and joined the European and North American legs of their World Violation Tour, further exposing Nitzer Ebb to an international audience.[5][6][7]

McCarthy was responsible for most of the band's lyrics.[8] His performance style, particularly in the early years of Nitzer Ebb, frequently involved repetitive chants and energetic live performances.

Mike Boehm of the Los Angeles Times described a 1989 Nitzer Ebb performance as an "interesting show, thanks largely to McCarthy's athletic, pumped-up performing style and the punk-influenced fervor of his yowling. With short, tousled hair, angular looks and jerk-to-the-beat movements, he resembled Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, minus Mothersbaugh's way of sweetening technological music with pop hooks."[9]

In a review of a 1992 Nitzer Ebb performance, New York Times journalist Jon Pareles wrote: "[Nitzer Ebb's] songs rant about hopelessness or explore dark impulses, with chants that are just barely melodic above dank grids of electronic sound," and added, "when Mr. McCarthy sings a melodic line, he dips into a baritone register that echoes Jim Morrison. But more than most of Morrison's descendants, he seems immune to pretensions of Romantic poetry; he stares at brutal, murderous impulses without the buffer of flowery metaphor. And as he rants, he offers catharsis to an audience eager to slam its frustrations away."[10]

In a 2018 PopMatters article, Hans Rollman wrote: "To watch one of Nitzer Ebb's early videos -- "Murderous", say, or "Join in the Chant" -- is to be left breathless at the angry passion and sheer physicality of the energy expressed on the camera. Ironically, McCarthy explains, the frenzied body movements and violent passion expressed by the band, and especially by McCarthy himself, was a reaction against the stage fright he felt when they first began performing. He was only 15 at the time."[11]

Subsequent to the band's 1995 album, Big Hit, Nitzer Ebb disbanded.[12] They reformed in 2006, released two more albums, and continued to tour into the 2024, before McCarthy had to take a break due to health reasons.[13][14]

On June 11, 2025, the band announced that McCarthy had died. [15]


Douglas John McCarthy (1 September 1966 – 11 June 2025) #funtobehad
https://youtube.com/shorts/-iTgA953qGE?feature=share

For those who didn't experience the 1988/1990 shows where Nitzer Ebb opened for DM - this edited clip gives you some sense of how perfectly Doug McCarthy and bandmates ramped up the energy level of the audience prior to those epic DM shows


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