10 Most Underrated Heavy Metal Guitarists
4. Geordie Walker - Killing Joke
Fun fact: the band Killing Joke predate the famous Batman comic The Killing Joke by almost a decade!
Not the other way around!
The more you know.
Anyway, Killing Joke: Band Edition got their start on the UK punk scene at the start of the 1980s. They kept to the post-punk conventions most of the time, but quickly gained attention for their use of heavier sounds.
In particular, it was guitarist Kevin "Geordie" Walker who was turning people's heads.
Walker made it his mission to stand out by tuning his guitar differently to everybody else. His use of an 152 hollow-bodied Gibson ES-295 (the guitar of choice back in the days of Elvis Presley) also gave him a style all of his own.
His unorthodox, darker playing strategy was influential to many a future legend. Metallica, Nirvana, and Soundgarden were all big fans, as was Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.
There's an argument to be made that Walker pretty much invented the entire industrial metal subgenre.
He might be a musician's musician, but Walker's public profile is still painfully non-existent.
Maybe if he had his own origin story comic book, people would change their minds.